"Over the Edge"
By Jen the Seafarer
gobailey@accessweb.com
Completed July 21st, 1997

   
	DISCLAIMER: The characters herein are owned by a tyrannical entertainment giant are are used exclusively without their permission. Please don't sue me, I'm a just a lowly student.

	Hello kids! Thanks for venturing where no one, with common
sense, has gone before. First things first:
     This is not "Tales of the Phoenix: Part II". I'm sorry and
I'm still very flattered that so many people liked it. But that
flattery can't convince my boss that I need time off or my dumb
computer from eating my files. Hey, don't worry: I assure you,
it's coming, or at least Part II is. Maybe September, I dunno, but it'll come.
     Secondly, please forgive me for my tradition of sombre and
depressing stories. I'm really not so morbid but there's always a
ying to a yang, whatever that means. This tale came upon me as I
was strolling through the "Ask Greg" page at Station Eight. There
is no real plot to this tale. In fact, it's kinda pointless. No,
I've been off my medication for a week, why do you ask? :)
     Okay, okay. So be a little nice when you read this, I know
it's not much, but when something bites me, man, it bites. And
you guys get to deal with it!! Happy now, aren't you!?! BWHAHAHA! *Jen gets smacked with a frying pan*
     Sorry. Any ways, my thanks go to Chief Web Guru and all
others that carry fanfic on their sites, for the huge support of
Gargoyles fanfic. Without them . . .well, we won't think about
that. Inspirations? Well, there's the usual (Diana R. Flynn,
Christine Morgan) but go read  "Beneath Your Lonely Sky"  and for
the much more adult set   "A Capable and Wide Revenge"   which
are two of my more recent favourites (anyone smell some pretty
blatent plugs around here?:) Of course, comments, flames, essays
on the comedy of Monty Python, etc., are to be sent to the e-mail
above.
     Well, I should stop yammering, as they often say "a quick
death is a better death."

                   "To Give All for Nothing"
     ***************************************************
     
     Demona sat in the wallowing darkness, completely silent. It
was unusual for her to be out on a beautiful day like this, with
the sun gently dappling the outside patio of the cafe she was at,
the soft trilling of a bird nearby, and the quiet nature of the
people eating near her; she still wanted to kill each and
everyone of them, thrilled to imagine their death struggles as
they choked on their own blood.
     So she chose to eat inside, in a tiny alcove with the lights
resolutely off. When the waiter had asked why madam had requested
the lights off, she had nearly growled, but instead opted for the
*don't argue with me* look, which she had honed with her time as
her true self. The waiter hadn't yet returned, and she didn't mind. Eating was _so_ overrated, but seeing as that damning little sprite, Puck, had made it a requisite of hers now, she had to indulge. Mostly though, she would hunt and eat in her true form, stalking some sleepy cattle in a field, some times a sheep, and on the odd occasion, a horse (one time it was even one of those nags that pulled those pathetic little coaches around Central Park). The thrill of the hunt always put a smile on her face.
     But you could not hunt the same way for a mochaccino or a
chicken ceasar, so she made due in the best cafe she could find.
Besides, she had much to think about, with her plans finally
coming together as quickly as they were. Why, if she wanted to
push it, she could have done it a year ago, but that would be
hasty, and besides, she had time. That made her laugh. Time. To
an immortal.
     Ha! Well, come what may, she had decided to wait. Three more
days, according to her lunar calendar, and all would be hers.
Everything. And she could be out, watching her dream come true.
     "Here is madam's chicken ceasar," the waiter announced
cautiously, placing the plate before her as if it was poison.
"Enjoy your--"
     "Leave," she uttered flatly, reaching for her steak knife.
The waiter paled and slunk off quickly. She replaced the steak
knife with the more appropriate fork, muttering about the
imbecility of the Romans and their stupid idea of eating with
utensils. 
     While munching on some lettuce, an odd thought entered her
head.~Why was she doing this?~
     Well, to get rid of all those stupid humans, she answered
back scornfully. Dumb question. What else would she want more
than . . .well, that didn't have to be answered, not yet any
ways. She had learned not to be presumptuous, and Goliath was
known to be stubborn. Of course, the death of that annoying
Detective might, as Demona made an especially disgusted face,
_might_ make him all the more disagreeable, but . . . soon, he
would turn around, she was sure of it.
     ~But why this?~ The voice in her head persisted as she slurped down some her scalding mochaccino.
     To get rid of-- but she stopped abruptly, with a familiar
tightening of her gut. The answer almost always came automatically and with ease, but know that her plans were actually clicking into place . . . She had waited over 500 years for this event, thinking it through almost every single day since-- 
	 She set the caffeine down roughly. Disturbed, she pushed herself away from the table and curled up into her chair. She was uneasy.
     ~Why? Why? Why?~ The voice insisted. Could it be her
conscience had somehow crawled back from its grave of denial and
was back with a vengeance?    
     ~Why are you killing yourself???~ It asked roundly.
     "I'm not." She stated aloud, astonished at how squeaky her voice was in her *ugly* form.
     ~YOU ARE~ the voice replied forcefully.~If Macbeth dies from
your plague, then so do you.~
     "I won't," she snapped, drawing stares from some of the
soon-to-be dead corpses at other tables.
     ~The terms of the spell are that in order for both to die,
one must kill the other~ the voice reminded savagely.
     "I'm casting this indirectly," Demona argued. "He won't
die!"
     ~Children of Oberon do not cast their spells indirectly~ the
voice stated, ~and he will die, by your hand.~
     Demona thought about this, not for the first time. True, if
she worked it out from a logical point of view, Macbeth, and
therefore herself, would die. But _she_ could not accept it. She,
being denied true happiness for a millennia, denied again?
Unthinkable.
     ~You had true happiness once, with Goliath, before . . .~
     "SHUT UP!!" She roared, silencing the restaurant. Slamming a
twenty on the table, shattering a glass and knocking over her
chair, she stormed out of the cafe, shoulder-checking a glass-laden busier, whom crashed to the ground amid broken shards. Bursting outside, she continued stomping until she made it to Central Park, roughly shouldering everyone in her path and going so far as to knock over an elderly human who was obviously too incompetent to get out of her way. Never mind the fact that
before she had checked him, she had seen the human's signalling
white cane.
     "Fools!" She screamed, startling the jogger next to her. He
was wearing an _I love NY_ baseball cap. "You won't be loving it
anymore!!" 
     "What the hell?" The jogger stopped, staring at her. Ten
centuries' worth of rage fuelling her, she decked him in the gut
and then shoved him over. She cursed as he was grunting because
she had _only_ knocked the wind out of him; had she been
_herself_, he would have been coughing up his spleen.
     "Stupid humans!" She yelled again, abandoning the jogger as
startled people started to crowd around. Whipping off her high
heels, she charged into the foliage of the park, losing herself
in the concealment of the trees. As the sounds of humans
gradually dwindled to a dull, aching roar, she sat down on the
grass, and put her head between her weak human knees.
     ~Why do you throw it all away?~ The voice asked with
desperation.
     "I didn't throw it away. I wanted more for my kind." She said calmly, the fury vented out of her. "They. Have. To. Pay."
     ~You are going to kill yourself~
     "If that's what it takes--"
     ~But what about Angela?~
     "THEN IT WILL BE DONE!" Demona swore, clenching a fist. "If
not for my happiness, then hers. She will not know a world
dominated by mindless humans."
     ~She will not have a world to know~ the voice said simply,
echoing in her ears. ~She will hate you beyond measure, and in
that way, she will follow your path. Do you want her to know such
unrelenting bitterness? Such pain?~
     "She will have no pain, not with humans around. She may be
angry, but she'll adjust. And she'll have the others, and
countless more, within _our_ new world. If my life is for nought,
then it will be for this."
     Demona said this with an eerily calm understanding. It
filtered through her like water. If she had to die, ending ten
lifetimes of wonder and disappointment, of joy and more
predominantly, pain, then so be it. She wasn't scared, maybe
curious; she knew how it was to physically die, enough so to
write a book about it, but to _die_?
     ~This what you have wanted since 994~
     " S'cuse me mam, but do you know where Belvedere Castle is? These trees . . .I got myself lost," a man explainly hesistantly, startling her slightly. She looked into his face. A tourist.
     "No," she snapped, but she had the oddest idea that she _did_ indeed.
     "Sorry," the man apologized and was on his bumbling way. She listened as he left, until everything was silent save for the soft breeze of wind in the trees. The light around her had taken a deeper golden colour, and she knew sunset was approaching. She hadn't known the sun until she was human; it's rays were so warm, and the world had become so much more colourful than her eyes had ever known. Would it indeed by so after she . . . Would Angela ever know? Would she become like . . .
	She gathered herself up, rubbed her temples, and left, barefoot. As she was exiting the park, she overheard one of the coach drivers angrily complaining to another about his favourite horse, which had beaten to death and partially devoured, with the brutality of something inhuman  
     "Kids these days," he growled, chalking it up to the youth
of today. "They know nothing of shame!"
     "I do," Demona whispered softly, as she flagged a taxi. She
was silent for the ride to her building and tipped the cabbie
with uncommon generousity. She made her way to her office
unimpeded, as all of her employees had been gone (by rule) at
6pm, and once inside, looked out to the fading city, alight with
the crimson and yellow colours of sunset. To her east, the moon
had just risen: a waxing moon that was almost swollen to its
fullest, which would be in three short days.
     Hunter's Moon.
     As the sun kissed the horizon, Demona murmured, without the
tears that would have come had they not been spent all of that
night, ten centuries ago. "This is what I have wanted. Be it for my desire to see humans pay, or my death, I will. It will be done."
     And the transformation began.
   ************************************************

Kinda stupid, eh?  Well, it was a little thing, so no harm done.