Title: The Worthy Judge?
Author: Miss Kitty, aka, E.A.Gray
Website: www.volcanogirls.co.uk
Rating: I don't believe in ratings.
Thanks: My long standing editor who didn't edit this, but deserves a mention to make up for the years of reading my other stuff. I'd say she was a star but it's more truthful to say she's a pain in the ass with a slight twinkle.
Timeline: I didn't watch after she went to jail so…I dunno and frankly I don't want to :)
 

EchoBelly - Natural Animal

I'm a natural animal,
Bent by the rules,
You know what I've done,
It's in everyone,
Lurking in the cold,
And you taught me all that I've ever known,

Why let me go?

 

The Worthy Judge - Chapter 1, Natural Animal

I pace.

Why? Because it's free and easy at the moment, and so much of my life isn't. I go back and forth in my shitty little cell, like an insane animal in a zoo driven crazy by the fact it got slam dunked into a Hell hole of twenty feet of dirt that's meant to make amends for the lack of: space, air, natural light, the world around them…simply feeling alive.

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for three o'clock. That's when this place gets the banners out, because that's when I get to go…I was gonna say home, but as I never had one, it'd be a bit hard.

No, it's when I get my freedom back. It's when I get to shower alone, eat something else than cardboard food. It's when I can go out in the sunshine and feel warmth on my skin.

I glance at my cell window - loose term for what it really is. A window is an opening that lets light in not something to constantly show what you can't have.

On mine the plexi-glass is so scratched it doesn't even let the sun through anymore; torture devices come in all shapes and sizes - I catch my reflection in the cracked mirror on the wall, and I blow me a kiss. Yes we do.

I go back to pacing. Time knows when you need it to speed up and mine always slows down. It's contrary, like I am sometimes.

Twenty to three. The doors slide open and two guards come in. I know what happens now. This is a private, 'thank you,' for me and my smart mouth. Nice to see I made an impact. Not nice to see I'm going to be getting that impact back with interest.

I don't struggle. I've learnt a very important lesson in here. It's that there's a time and place for everything - and this isn't the time or place for getting back at two people who are just as imprisoned as… I was. I smile as the last boot cracks one of my ribs.

No pain, no gain, right? That's right. Take comfort in what you know, because that comfort will carry you through the tough times and kick you out the other end. So I cherish the feeling of cracked bone and bruised skin as I do everything needed to get me out of here. I sign papers as I taste my own blood in my own mouth.

And suddenly I'm the Queen of Contrition as the formalities drag. I give my audience what it wants to make it feel like prison is a good thing. It's not. It never helps. It just teaches a person to hate a world that failed them. Except me, of course. I already hated the world before I came in here, because when you live in the dirt of peoples' nightmares, no amount of sugar coating or TV ads promising a better life works anymore.

Prison doors rattle and clank open. I grin and plant my boot down on the dusty orange earth outside.

And the world is my candy store again.

######

The next few days are uneventful. My cracked rib makes a speedy recovery. I still have my bruises, but then I like to take comfort in those types of things. They make me feel like I'm really here, especially since I've been forgotten so well. Let's say my visitors were as scanty as the guards' use of deodorant.

With no cash, no where to stay, no-one who gives a shit, I go back to what I do best: hanging out in local cemeteries.

I sit on top of a gravestone wondering what I used to do to pass the time. Slay, fuck, eat, slay, fuck, eat. Sometimes I'd invert them: eat, fuck, slay. Variety is the spice of life.

I examine my nails: short, functional, always very clean. Personal hygiene is a very important thing to consider when… I get yanked backwards onto the hard floor, knocking no air out of me because I'm used to physical violence. Not something to brag about but it has its moments.

I grab the hand holding my collar and dig my short - but functional - nails in, sinking through the flesh, hitting bone pretty quick. A scream is accompanied by a letting go of this now not hygienically perfect Slayer. I get up and turn to face a skank of a Vamp who… well, looks like he just climbed out of six feet of dirt.

I point as he bares his fangs at me.

"You got some leaves in your hair."

He stops growling, trying to pick the offending items out, but missing most.

"No, to the left. Big one there."

"Are they gone?"

I nod and we stand here, staring at each other. I raise my eyebrows as I remind him.

"You were trying to kill me."

He nods as he remembers, showing his fangs unconvincingly. They sure don't make 'em like they used to.

Low growling and a really bad interpretation of a Kung Fu stance are his next tricks. Even from here I can see his fingernails are dirty. I know, he clawed his way out of a coffin, but still, I clawed my way out of jail and my nails are clean.

"Yeah, I'm gonna suck your blood! You better be scared because it's gonna hurt!"

I stare at him and sigh. It's the sigh of a girl who would've enjoyed kicking his ass a long time ago but is now just really tired.

"D'you know how many times I hear that line? Is it in the Vamp book of introductions?"

"What? I said I'm going to kill you."

"See, that might work if it weren't for one thing. I'm a Slayer and I'm gonna be killing you. You got any cash? I don't like picking it out the dust."

He laughs. As in, busts up laughing, stopping me in my tracks. I've been away, sure, but pulling the Slayer trump card never failed me yet. Maybe it's how I'm using it - being out of practice, and all. They say it's all in the delivery, the timing. But it's not that. His next sentences bring everything into sharp focus.

"You're not the Slayer. She lived on the Hellmouth - that is in the introduction book. Oh, and so is this. She's dead. So like I said, I'm going to kill you."

He grins as if that ingrained knowledge has won him six crystal glasses and a George Forman grill. My whole world starts to form nasty little cracks that spider out from where I'm standing.

Breath steams out of my mouth, forming clouds. Slow, hovering clouds. Slower hovering clouds. They stop hovering. My throat constricts as I lose the ability to process oxygen. My body wants to shake but my mind tells it to grow the fuck up. That's the secret to us survivors, you know. The ability to, even in the most shit covered situation, keep our heads while all around you everyone else is going crazy as Hell.

But emotions walk a thin line. It's easy to snap from one to the other.

I stare at him. At this walking corpse who thinks he can deliver that kind of news to me. Suddenly keeping my nails clean doesn't seem all that important.

And I don't know exactly what happened, but it involved questions like, "Who killed her?", "When?", "Where?" as I kneeled over him and smashed my fists down, making his cheekbones give way with cracks loud enough to wake the neighbours - if the neighbours were alive.

I stop. As his blood bubbles up through split lips I take a moment. Sitting on his chest, listening to him rasping out air, I concentrate and search his pockets for cash. I take the last of what he has.

I put a hand over his mouth, tightly, feeling him struggle. Fighting. Fighting. Fighting. It's always about fighting for everything. Life's a struggle, even for those of us who are dead.

My cold stake over his cold heart. I lock both elbows out, pushing down quickly. His face implodes and my other hand hits the ground covered in… *poof*…dust.

I sit in the dirt and dust, suddenly not feeling very much of anything, staring at my nails. Dirty, dirty nails.