aadler | “Parting Shot” [Buffyverse drabble]

Parting Shot
Copyright March 2006

Setting: Buffy, Season 2
Spoiler(s): “the Dark Age”
Requirements: Ethan Rayne. Literary Allusion.

Ethan normally scorns petty revenge, preferring to think more grandly. You want payback, ladle it on with relish, that’s his style. Make a splash, and be sure to sign your work. Still, proportion is a valuable artistic tool, and le mot juste can be as satisfying — and effective — as a rapier thrust.

Fleeing Sunnydale, post-Eyghon, he pauses to drop Ripper a postcard: Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan”. Alarmingly apt.

Cryptic, to be sure, but Ripper will understand the reference. The work cited contains Hobbes’ famous characterization of human existence, popularly abbreviated to “nasty, brutish, and short”.

Very much like Ripper’s Slayer.

– end –

And there you are. Don’t hesitate to offer commentary.