Resolve

TITLE: Resolve
AUTHOR: cHeWtOy with encouragement from Cecil the monochrome duck.
DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere that wants it - if you're that sick I'm not gonna
stop you...
DISCLAIMER: Joss' stuff is Joss', the rest of it is mine.
NOTES: This story is the next step for the character introduced in Rebirth.
Seeing as some of you liked the first installment I'm in the early stages
of planning a series - this is kind of a prologue... It will be a while
before you see the rest of it I'm afraid. I'm quite quick with dialogue,
but it takes me ages to plot...
SPOILERS: To Grad2
DEDICATION: Soul, Stryx, Nightbird, DuskDog and Eliz for liking Rebirth
and saying so :)
FEEDBACK: If you don't like it then tell me and I'll stop.

My name is Black. I am a Dhampire. I never knew my true father. I
don't mean the father of my genes, he was nothing to me, he is nothing to
anyone now he that he is dead, now that I have killed him. No, not him but
the father of my blood. I never knew him, never got a chance to learn from
him, but I always knew deep down that I was something different. It was
clear from an early age that I just didn't think the same way as others.
They called me morbid. Some of them even called me crazy. But I did not
let them interrupt my studies. The lore is all there if you are willing to
see it - it is amazing the human's ability to ignore the things in front of
their faces. In time the direction of my studies was noticed.

My time with the watchers was most enlightening - I found out what I was,
and how to become something greater. I was their star pupil. In point of
fact I shone too brightly for my own good, I was almost chosen as the
Slayer's watcher, but that would have interfered with my plans so I arranged
for that bungler Wesley to get the position. He made even more of a pig's
ear of it than even I expected, news of a corrupt Slayer was music to my
ears. She would have found her way back to the path of good eventually had
the other Slayer not put her into a coma, the Slayer is a tool of the Powers
and for all their talk of free will the Powers never let their puppets stray
far before calling them home. The puppets even think that it is their own
decision to return. I wonder whether they will call her back from the coma
or if they will let her pass and call another...

I think back to my encounter with the other Slayer. Buffy. How easy it was
to goad her into striking, such fire in her eyes when she thought I had
dismissed her because of her sex. And such terror in her companion's eyes.
I wonder if her watcher will work out the truth. Ripper Giles. Such a
sharp intellect, but the council never appreciated him. Never truly trusted
him due to his checkered past. It is good that he is no longer able to use
their resources - with those resources he could conceivably pose a threat to
my plan. But even if he does work out what I am, the lore that has been
passed down about the Dhampire is corrupt - the translations say that a
Dhampire must be struck down by an innocent hand to rise again. I went back
to older writings. The original writings say a righteous hand. And what
hand could be more righteous than that of the Slayer? There has not been a
Dhampire of power on this earth for centuries, even if they see me coming
they will underestimate me.

But I digress. For years I had access to the greatest sources of written
occult knowledge on the face of the planet. My curiosity in the ways of
vampires and daemons was taken as a benefit, the more I wanted to know the
more I was shown. But now I have seen all that the living can show me.
Now I need to learn from greater masters. To learn the words that are not
written, that cannot be written. The wisdom of the ancients.

The path to greater power is clear. That path leads me here. To this small
citadel in Romania. This ancient place where the same council has held
court
for millenia. A dark reflection of the Watcher's council, one that they
have never even suspected the existence of. The signs are there for those
who look - the way this area was untouched by the recent bloodshed that
scoured the entire country should have rung alarm bells, but such is the
strength of the spell on this place that even that was not noticed. The
power that they must have to hold this whole region under such a spell!
I still have so much to learn.

I stand here before the threshold and prepare to meet the future.