A Sheep Among Wolves

"Run and catch. Run and catch. The lamb is caught in the blackberry patch."

Her slender white hands ran lazily over the tops of bushes as she walked through the park, humming tunelessly, occasionally breaking into snatches of song. It was a long time since she had ventured out by herself for what she still thought of as hunting, though that word suggested a purposefulness that she distinctly lacked. Yet there he was, as luck would have it. Her prey, young and sweet and all alone.

"Are you lost?"

The little lamb looked up at her, startled and wary of the pale, dark-haired stranger standing barefoot in a Victorian nightgown. She smiled, a gentle, sinister smile and drew closer.

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Angel. No fun. He'd come out of nowhere and sent her little lamb fleeing into the night! Ruining everything, stinking of slayer. A lady couldn't even drink a child in this town without hearing from one of them. And now here she was, still hungry and angry to boot! Angelus used to be a delight. Angel, on the other hand, was a bummer.

She saw his antlers first, and thought he was a stag. She wasn't hungry enough to drink animal blood, but thinking she might enjoy snapping a neck after the evening's fruitless hunt, she drew closer, the hem of her thin white dress rustling through the leaves behind her. As she neared, she could see that it was no stag. The creature stood on two legs, human-shaped but taller by several feet. Antlers crowned his head, large and regal and dripping with slime. For some time, they regarded each other in the moonlight, then the horned creature stepped forward, offering Drusilla a cloven hoof of a hand.

"Hi there! I'm Scagdac the Nightbreaker! But you can call me Scagdac, or Dac for short. I'm a chaos demon. Hence the horns. And you must be Drusilla! I've heard all about you, you're widely respected in the chaos field. So nutty and unpredictable! How long have you been in Sunnydale?"

Drusilla eyed him appraisingly. Lesser demons usually bored her but she found him oddly charming. Vampires were so image conscious. There was something refreshing about a guileless commitment to sewing discord.

"Not so long I suppose but it feels like ages and ages. I get so bored sometimes you know, can't go out and play, Daddy says stay home, be good, rest up."

"Aww well that sounds like a real shame. What's the point of life if you're not living, right? I'm sorry, was that insensitive? I know you're technically dead and all."

"Dead, alive, it's all different and all the same. Miss Edith isn't alive but she's very wise and lives her life to the fullest, or so she claims. But you're not from here, are you? You're from someplace warm and lovely and full of blood and dancing."

"You're as good as they say! And yes it's a bit chillier here than what I'm used to but every hellmouth has its charms! I figured it was worth a pilgrimage. And boy was I right! Running into THE Drusilla!"

"It's boring here. Spike promised me lots of pretty girls and boys to play with. He promised that the air would be all screams... but the slayer ruins everything. She's even ruined my Angel. He's useless now."

Scagdac nodded gravely. "That sounds pretty rough." He paused, thinking. "You know," he began again, almost tentatively. "If you wanted, I could make it so none of it had ever happened."

Drusilla's eyes narrowed. "How?"

Scagdac shrugged. "I'm a chaos demon. Our powers are pretty fluid as long as we're consistently hastening the universe's descent into entropy. And nothing does that better than messing with timelines, boy howdy!"

"You would do that for me?"

"Sure! I love a little dip into the timestream. Besides, you're cute. If our paths cross again maybe you'll remember your old pal Scagdac the Nightbreaker. So what do you say? You up for a little do-over?"