Now I know how Joan of Arc felt.

Her mother wanted to call her Joan. Her mother is slim and petite, kind and shy.

She went to church every Sunday, and actually believed in what they were preaching.

Your name is a self-fulfilling prophecy, history is written since your first smile, your first cry. If she were Joan, she would be a saint, a martyr, a witch, a sacriledge, a blasphemy.

Her name is Lilah Morgan.

Not many paths to choose from, for someone with a name like that, but, after a while, all doors are open for her.

*

Everything is a game. And it doesn't matter, that the cards are marked, the dice are weighted down, and the gun in the rulette is always fully loaded.

She gets this task because they don't really know what to do with her. Her skills would be wasted in hell. And besides, she has experience in dealing with Watchers, to whatever end.

Everything is a game. Sometimes, the pawns do enjoy themselves.

*

"Just think, what you could do with resources we're offering," she will say, weeks later, perched up on his desk, legs crossed in a way that makes her skirt rise up high.

"I did think," Rupert will say, not even looking up from a death report of one of the Slayers. "That's exactly why I declined. Again and again."

Lilah thought about it too. And she thinks the Senior Partners are out of their minds. But hey, not here to judge. She's on this show as the Seductress.

Although, it's difficult to corrupt someone who could easily do worse things than anything the her bosses might have planned for him.

*

The most honest declaration of love she ever got, was an axe stroke, last stand in the game already lost, a trial by fire.

Whether you're a saint or witch, death is always the same.

*

The new Watchers' Council has financial difficulties. One shouldn't wonder, as it's run by heroes and do-gooders. Tragic. Evil is always better organised.

For the first meeting with Rupert Giles, Lilah puts on her smart business suit. For now, it's just business, nothing more.

She doesn't put on the scarf. Someone called Ripper would not be wary of a little scar, quite the opposite.

*

There's really no difference between pain and pleasure. Everything is a matter of the point of view.

She didn't feel the axe blow, but she thinks it was just like when his nails dug into her skin, and pain was pleasure and pleasure was pain.

She felt the hell's fires. When flesh burns, it smells sweet.

*

After the sixth refusal, it's getting annoying.

"They will write 'he did the right thing' on your grave," she tells him. "Pity it won't help you, but hey, nice epitaph."

Giles smiles for the first time since she met him. "What did they write on yours?" he asks. Asshole.

*

After the thirteenth, she starts to wonder, whether the Greeks didn't know more about hell than people give them credit for.

She's trying again and again.

Because sometimes, after he gets the news of one more death, when a call to his Buffy goes unanswered and unreturned, after the third glass of whisky, she sees fire in his eyes.

Hell flames are the easy option. Not many are that lucky.