The first time I saw...
Jul. 9th, 2005 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abetterlienot locked anymore; I'm just sick of pretending, okay?
The first time I saw the sea, it horrified me. Which hadn't been the intention of the people who brought me there; they wanted to show me something beautiful. They also wanted to distract me. You could say there is a context. Anyway, the sea, at night. I thought it was utterly empty and smelled wrong and sounded wrong with its waves, and in between I heard Fred and Gunn, who were strangers to me then, whisper about how Angel wanted me out of the way so he could "deal" with Holtz. I started to run then, but it was too late. A day and a night later, I had seen one of my fathers being eaten by flames and the other drown in the sea, and in both cases it was because of me.
The first time I saw a woman, she was getting attacked by drug dealers, though I didn't know what they were then. A few hours later, she had kissed me and killed herself. I wondered whether there was a context as well, because, well. The first time I saw Justine, she held the dead body of my father in her arms, and it wasn't until much later that I found out she had been the instrument of his death, at his request. The first time I saw Cordelia, she told me she was part-demon and I tried to kill her, and she calmed me down by going all glowy on me. (Which probably means this was the first time Jasmine used that power of hers through Cordy.) The first time I sawmy mother Darla, I was busy preparing a murder which I thought was a sacrifice, and that's when she decided to talk to me, and it ended with me dragging a girl to her death who had Darla's face. The first time I saw Jasmine was soon after, with the blood of that girl still on my hands.
You know, I didn't realize people saw Jasmine different from me until Fred - no, that's not true. I didn't get it then, either, not until Fred infected Angel with Jasmine's blood, and I looked at him looking at her and saw his face change. Not the way it had done the first time we both saw her, when we both knelt down. That's when I knew he had originally seen something different, and so had everyone else, and that the truth horrified and disgusted them. And it made me incredibly angry. Still does. I mean, yes, I get now that what Jasmine did was wrong, well, the eating people part anyway, and I wish that girl was still alive, and the ones Jasmine killed later. But why did it matter so much to people what she looked like? Why did that make a difference?
So, the first time I saw Jasmine, and all the other times after, what did I see? I saw my daughter, and a miracle. I saw a reason for me to exist that wasn't because the dead were screwing each other, or because there needed to be vengeance on them. She took the emptiness of the sea and filled it, and the blood on my hands and made it into something different, and when I saw him kneeling down in front of her, I thought it was finally okay not to hate him anymore. Because all the vengeance was over, and there was peace now, for everyone. She really wanted that, I could see it gliding from her in waves like the green light that was her first form.
It was a lie, of course. Not that she wanted peace, but that the blood was truly changed, or the sea. It all came back, when he looked at her in the bookstore, and saw her as I had always seen her, and hated the sight of her.
The first time I saw the sea, it horrified me. Which hadn't been the intention of the people who brought me there; they wanted to show me something beautiful. They also wanted to distract me. You could say there is a context. Anyway, the sea, at night. I thought it was utterly empty and smelled wrong and sounded wrong with its waves, and in between I heard Fred and Gunn, who were strangers to me then, whisper about how Angel wanted me out of the way so he could "deal" with Holtz. I started to run then, but it was too late. A day and a night later, I had seen one of my fathers being eaten by flames and the other drown in the sea, and in both cases it was because of me.
The first time I saw a woman, she was getting attacked by drug dealers, though I didn't know what they were then. A few hours later, she had kissed me and killed herself. I wondered whether there was a context as well, because, well. The first time I saw Justine, she held the dead body of my father in her arms, and it wasn't until much later that I found out she had been the instrument of his death, at his request. The first time I saw Cordelia, she told me she was part-demon and I tried to kill her, and she calmed me down by going all glowy on me. (Which probably means this was the first time Jasmine used that power of hers through Cordy.) The first time I saw
You know, I didn't realize people saw Jasmine different from me until Fred - no, that's not true. I didn't get it then, either, not until Fred infected Angel with Jasmine's blood, and I looked at him looking at her and saw his face change. Not the way it had done the first time we both saw her, when we both knelt down. That's when I knew he had originally seen something different, and so had everyone else, and that the truth horrified and disgusted them. And it made me incredibly angry. Still does. I mean, yes, I get now that what Jasmine did was wrong, well, the eating people part anyway, and I wish that girl was still alive, and the ones Jasmine killed later. But why did it matter so much to people what she looked like? Why did that make a difference?
So, the first time I saw Jasmine, and all the other times after, what did I see? I saw my daughter, and a miracle. I saw a reason for me to exist that wasn't because the dead were screwing each other, or because there needed to be vengeance on them. She took the emptiness of the sea and filled it, and the blood on my hands and made it into something different, and when I saw him kneeling down in front of her, I thought it was finally okay not to hate him anymore. Because all the vengeance was over, and there was peace now, for everyone. She really wanted that, I could see it gliding from her in waves like the green light that was her first form.
It was a lie, of course. Not that she wanted peace, but that the blood was truly changed, or the sea. It all came back, when he looked at her in the bookstore, and saw her as I had always seen her, and hated the sight of her.
