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Title: Madness Within Reason.
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fenderlove
Character: Original Slayer
Setting: Paris, France. December 1793.
Summary: Élisabeth-Martine is the Slayer, and she's about to become the Revolution's latest victim.
Notes: The prompt was "Original Slayer, French Revolution, Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination." I have always adored Benjamin Disraeli, so I kind of worked my way out from the quote and the text of Coningsby.
Written for...
"There was a long line of girls before Buffy. They were once the Chosen Ones of their generation. Let's tell their stories."
Madness Within Reason
There was not an ounce of reason to be found in the streets of Paris, nor was there empathy or compassion or any love a human being could feel simply towards another. The people of France had become mad to Reason, drunkenly reveling in their so-called righteousness.
Élisabeth-Martine found the slurs and insults that pelted her stung far more deeply than any of the rocks that were flung by rough hands as the cart carried her and several other captives to the Place de la Révolution.
They called her a spy.
Élisabeth was not.
They called her the "Comptroller-General's whore."
She was not. She was the sister of one of his many young clerks.
Worst yet, they called her an enemy of France.
This she was most adamantly not.
For nearly two years, Élisabeth had ventured from the comfort and safety of her home every night to protect Paris from creatures that the average person could scarcely comprehend. She pursued this path with vigor and dignity, and now that had all been stripped away. The mobs had brought her lower than tramping through any cesspit after a vampire ever did. They had taken her brother, her Observateur, and, with Madame Guillotine's help, they would have her.
The cart halted at the stairs to the scaffold, and the prisoners shivered as the chill wind blew snow into their faces along with the rank stench of blood and excrement. The first to go on the long walk to the Nation's Razor was a Marquis, picked to raise the crowd's fervor and ire. Death appeared to be quick, and Élisabeth prayed that it was. The thump of blade against bone and wood made her heart seize up in her chest. The throngs of radicals cheered as the Marquis's severed head was held aloft.
Next was a tax collector. His end, too, came swiftly. The blood that had gushed from the body upon dismemberment had splashed on those that had gone in close for a better view. It got in their mouths, their eyes, bathing in it. They feasted on the spectacle, on the fear, and the anticipation.
Élisabeth had seen the pain of the people. The creatures she fought against lurked both in the poorest districts as well as the wealthiest corners of society. She was witness to the hunger, the crushing poverty, and the illness that had a stranglehold on the city. It seemed the only thing that united high and low was the ignorance of the real dangers to be found around every corner, by fangs or by claws. She did not know who was to blame for the pitiful destitution, but she was certain that she personally had nothing to do with it, not that anyone cared to hear her pleas. Her continued patrols even as the unrest in Paris grew had been construed as spying, and she was carried off like the rest. After all, what was a pretty middle-class girl doing near the taverns of the sans-culottes and the other radicals in the middle of the night, but spying?
When her time finally came, Élisabeth stared up at the gore-covered blade that awaited her. This is what the minds of France had conjured with their newfound ideals, a mechanism to turn the whole world into vampires, awash in a sea of innocent blood, immune to the suffering of others. Perhaps that is what started the whole ordeal. Oppression, propaganda, scandal, deceit, and foolishness on all sides, she supposed though she was not completely sure of the fact.
The fear Élisabeth had earlier felt was gone, and all that remained was a profound sadness. She was le Tueur, and she had failed. She could not save France from the other-worldly scourge anymore than she could save the people from themselves. Lifting her chin slightly as she was manhandled about the platform, Élisabeth found a quiet resignation. If the people of her beloved France wanted her blood, they could choke on it, and the vampires could come in the night and lap the remains from the street with the dogs.
Fin.
Author:
fenderloveCharacter: Original Slayer
Setting: Paris, France. December 1793.
Summary: Élisabeth-Martine is the Slayer, and she's about to become the Revolution's latest victim.
Notes: The prompt was "Original Slayer, French Revolution, Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination." I have always adored Benjamin Disraeli, so I kind of worked my way out from the quote and the text of Coningsby.
Written for...
"There was a long line of girls before Buffy. They were once the Chosen Ones of their generation. Let's tell their stories."
Madness Within Reason
There was not an ounce of reason to be found in the streets of Paris, nor was there empathy or compassion or any love a human being could feel simply towards another. The people of France had become mad to Reason, drunkenly reveling in their so-called righteousness.
Élisabeth-Martine found the slurs and insults that pelted her stung far more deeply than any of the rocks that were flung by rough hands as the cart carried her and several other captives to the Place de la Révolution.
They called her a spy.
Élisabeth was not.
They called her the "Comptroller-General's whore."
She was not. She was the sister of one of his many young clerks.
Worst yet, they called her an enemy of France.
This she was most adamantly not.
For nearly two years, Élisabeth had ventured from the comfort and safety of her home every night to protect Paris from creatures that the average person could scarcely comprehend. She pursued this path with vigor and dignity, and now that had all been stripped away. The mobs had brought her lower than tramping through any cesspit after a vampire ever did. They had taken her brother, her Observateur, and, with Madame Guillotine's help, they would have her.
The cart halted at the stairs to the scaffold, and the prisoners shivered as the chill wind blew snow into their faces along with the rank stench of blood and excrement. The first to go on the long walk to the Nation's Razor was a Marquis, picked to raise the crowd's fervor and ire. Death appeared to be quick, and Élisabeth prayed that it was. The thump of blade against bone and wood made her heart seize up in her chest. The throngs of radicals cheered as the Marquis's severed head was held aloft.
Next was a tax collector. His end, too, came swiftly. The blood that had gushed from the body upon dismemberment had splashed on those that had gone in close for a better view. It got in their mouths, their eyes, bathing in it. They feasted on the spectacle, on the fear, and the anticipation.
Élisabeth had seen the pain of the people. The creatures she fought against lurked both in the poorest districts as well as the wealthiest corners of society. She was witness to the hunger, the crushing poverty, and the illness that had a stranglehold on the city. It seemed the only thing that united high and low was the ignorance of the real dangers to be found around every corner, by fangs or by claws. She did not know who was to blame for the pitiful destitution, but she was certain that she personally had nothing to do with it, not that anyone cared to hear her pleas. Her continued patrols even as the unrest in Paris grew had been construed as spying, and she was carried off like the rest. After all, what was a pretty middle-class girl doing near the taverns of the sans-culottes and the other radicals in the middle of the night, but spying?
When her time finally came, Élisabeth stared up at the gore-covered blade that awaited her. This is what the minds of France had conjured with their newfound ideals, a mechanism to turn the whole world into vampires, awash in a sea of innocent blood, immune to the suffering of others. Perhaps that is what started the whole ordeal. Oppression, propaganda, scandal, deceit, and foolishness on all sides, she supposed though she was not completely sure of the fact.
The fear Élisabeth had earlier felt was gone, and all that remained was a profound sadness. She was le Tueur, and she had failed. She could not save France from the other-worldly scourge anymore than she could save the people from themselves. Lifting her chin slightly as she was manhandled about the platform, Élisabeth found a quiet resignation. If the people of her beloved France wanted her blood, they could choke on it, and the vampires could come in the night and lap the remains from the street with the dogs.
Fin.
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And you have been very busy!!
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ps-would you say this is PG-13?
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Probably PG-13ish, yes, I think so.
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Yes, the evil of men unmoored is terrifying indeed. Beautifully captured.
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