Fic - The Reflecting Pool
Feb. 5th, 2007 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookI've finally finished the epilogue to this story, but only just realized I'd never posted the original, which was a ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
seasonal_spuffy entry, here and continued here. So, here's the first part - I'll post the epilogue in another moment.
Post-series, Buffy revisits the Slayer guide figure from "Intervention," only in the Brave New World of multiple Slayers, the spiritual forces have... changed.
She walks, she talks, she shops, she sneezes. Her whole life's been nothing but floods.
But she still wants to be a fireman. Someday.
___________
For the first couple of years after the Sunnydale Hellmouth fell in, Buffy could honestly say she was happy. Not perfectly happy, of course, but that would've been something else altogether, and she doesn't even dare to think about those kinds of questions anymore. Doubts and misgivings, might-have-beens, and should-have-dones.
She's never been short on courage, but trying to imagine alternate futures? No. She hasn't got enough courage for that.
She tells herself that this means she's grown up.
__________
"Spirit Guide?" Giles looks up from his desk.
"Sure, you remember, don't you, Giles? Shake a gourd, do the hokey-pokey, turn yourself around?"
"Of course I remember, but--Buffy, what brought this on?"
"Do I need to have a reason? I thought that the new order of things was more of the 'Slayer need, Slayer get' variety."
He sighs. Takes off his glasses, tosses them aside. "Buffy."
"Don't 'Buffy' me, Giles. I need to do this. I need answers."
"Answers about what?"
"About things to do with being a Slayer. About--" She looks down for the first time, and then out of the window. The new Council offices were in the new developments on the London docklands, with a nice view of the Thames. "About... dreams."
"Slayer dreams?"
She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Giles, Slayer dreams. Bigtime Slayer dreams. And no, before you ask, not prophetic." She pauses, unsure how much she wants to reveal.
"Lives of other Slayers." Giles draws the conclusion for her. He retrieves his glasses, returns his attention back to his desk. "Some of the other girls have mentioned... intense experiences."
Intense. "Yeah, I guess you could call it that."
He purses his lips. He's probably guessed anyway. Her first Watcher, the one before Giles, had told her that it was common for new Slayers to relive certain experiences from the lives that came before theirs. Sort of like psychic preparation.
But these dreams... the ones she began having not long after the new Slayers were chosen... they weren't just certain experiences. They were specific.
"Traumatic?" he asks delicately.
__________
Smelly subway car, flashing lights and screaming metal, and her back is pressed into the dirt and steel. Leather of her coat slithering against the rolling cigarette butts and sticky gum spatters, and she's kicking out her legs, trying to break free, but she can already feel the strength draining out of her. Leaching away into those two cold hands, tight around her throat, and he's--
He's going to win.
__________
"Nothing I can't handle." Buffy's face gives nothing away. "I want that spell, Giles."
"Have you tried talking to the other girls?"
"I really don't think that would help."
"Because you believe they've been having the same dreams."
"Maybe." She fidgets with the pen cup on his desk. "Probably."
"And you believe that means--"
"Giles! I don't want to guess what it means, I want to find out. Ergo, quest."
Realizing defeat, he sighs, sits back. "All right, then. I'll clear my schedule, and perhaps this weekend we can--"
"I want to do this alone."
He's momentarily speechless. "Buffy... the spell requires a transfer of guardianship from Watcher to--"
"Earth to Giles? Slayer spell, lots more new Slayers, not all of them have Watchers. You really think all those old rules still apply?"
He takes his glasses off again, begins to polish them. "Actually, magic, unlike many things in life, is rather insistent on rules."
"Things change."
"I'm quite aware."
"No, you're not aware. All these new Slayers, they're--" She stares off into the distance. "They're my responsiblity. If anyone's their guardian now, it's me." She pauses, for effect. She's more aware of such things, now. "I have to do this. Alone."
He studies her, glasses hanging from one hand. Then he stands up, fetches a battered book from a locked case, and flips through it, searching for the right page.
"You'll need some supplies." Still standing, he draws a pad of paper toward him from the desk, makes notes. "Various herbs, a gourd..."
"Can I use the maracas I bought in Spain?" Relief can't help but lighten her mood.
"No." He tears off a sheet and hands it to her, along with the book. "You do realize that the spell may not work."
"I have to try."
"Yes. Of course. Still, the spirit world isn't exactly famous for making... allowances." She winces. She knows he's just restating his point, but it feels like a jab. Like he's setting her up for failure before she's even begun.
"I'll keep that in mind," she mutters, and gathers in the book and paper, her purse.
"Buffy?" She turns back, halfway out the door, at the sound of his voice. He looks very small to her, somehow, behind the cluttered desk. Older and more fragile. She wonders when she started thinking of Giles not just as old, but old, as in someone she might not see that many more times. Someone whose life might not intersect with hers much more.
"I hope you find what you're looking for," he says.
She draws a deep breath, holds it in.
What she's looking for is one of those questions she doesn't really want to ask.
"Yeah," she says quietly, letting the air out of her lungs in a long sigh. "Me too."
__________
At first, she worries that she'll have to journey all the way back to California to do the spell. The orginal quest, back in her sophmore year of college, had involved a visit to the desert, to what Giles called a "sacred space," but the actual spell turned out to be a little more vague. "A consecrated place, all of nature and none of man." And then another wrinkle, one she'd actually sort of guessed at the time: "desolate, so if the quest be unsuccessful, the Slayer's fate should not be known."
She had to give Giles credit, in hindsight, for not overtly reacting to her joke about bleached bones. Then she stops thinking about it, because she doesn't want to consider what else she should give Giles credit for.
She rents a car and drives north.
__________
Sharp smell of gunpowder and flickering gold candlelight. The sound of screams. Her muscles are trembling and her fingers are numb, stinging as if she's had a weapon knocked out of them, and she's shaking because although she was faster and more skilled than the demon she faced, she is in his arms now because she made a mistake. And there is sweat rolling down her face and her back and her legs, staining her silks, and his breath is cold...
__________
She spends a few days on the drive. A few nights spent in small towns with names ending in "-bury" and "-ham." A few dinners of bad Chinese food and surprisingly good Indian, and hotel rooms that all look different and yet somehow still the same. Tea services and packets of biscuits and tiny wall-mounted TVs that she leaves blaring in the night, anything to distract her from the dreams.
She reads the spellbook cover to cover.
Another surprise. The quest turns out to be an invocation. To summon the dead.
__________
His grip shifts then, and the heel of his hand is suddenly hard under her jaw. She can't stop looking at him, up at the ceiling of the car with the electric lights a bright halo around his head, and she notices everything. Sticky gum and greasy soot and screaming sound of metal-on-metal, and the feel of his dirty jeans pressing diamond patterns into her thighs (god, she's gonna die in her cutout slacks, the ones she'd found in that cheap shop, she'd been so jazzed at that find), and the safety pins and torn cotton and no smell of sweat except for hers. Tobacco and chlorine, like he's been swimmming in a pool.
His eyes. Black eyeliner. His eyes are blue. Blue and dead.
__________
The dead.
It made sense, now that she was thinking about it. Given that Slayers would be, after all, dead by default, whenever a new girl was around. Really, who else but the dead would have answers to her questions?
Death is your gift.
She shivers, puts the memories out her head, and puts the book aside.
She'd gone on the quest the first time because she'd been worried about losing her ability to love.
She'd asked the dead to explain her heart.
Death is your art.
Not that she hadn't done it before.
__________
His teeth dig into her then, and there's pain, so much pain, but even more, she feels a scream in her soul. Feels his arm like iron around her breasts, and the press of his body into her back, and her whole life is escaping from her, heat seeping out of her body along with her blood.
But when he pulls back to look at her, she speaks. To the demon eyes, to the face that has killed her.
His breath is no longer cold.
They are as one, now.
__________
She returns the car in some northern town so old that it still has castle walls and proceeds out into the surrounding wilderness on foot. Onto rolling hills that might actually be moors, nothing but grass and wildflowers, hills heaving up and down like waves in the ocean. Close enough to sand dunes, maybe, to fill the requirements for the spell. Certainly desolate enough. She walks for miles without seeing anything manmade, just the occasional fragments of an old stone wall. No animals either, except for a few birds, and once or twice, possibly, a fox.
The "consecrated" requirement in the spellbook, she decides not to worry about. England had been inhabited for a long time. Probably any part of it she could stand on had been consecrated at some time by someone.
She heaves her pack off her shoulder just before the sun dips below the horizon. Begins to arrange the materials for the spell.
And it's as stupid as she remembers. She scatters the herbs and the other trinkets, shakes the gourd and jumps around. Chants, and jumps some more.
Apparently, the dead get off on seeing people perform tricks. Like a job interview.
She doesn't even know how long she's been shaking and jumping when a voice finally interrupts. "Alright, alright, I get it, we haven't got all night. Are you ready to go?"
Buffy gasps, the gourd falling out of her hand. On the ridge top above her, a human figure. Suddenly. Backlit by shifting clouds and a newly risen moon.
She makes the indentification almost before she has a chance to digest it. "Anya?"
The apparition waves a hand. "Hi, Buffy."
__________
"Anya?" She says it again, stupidly. Her heart is in her throat. Summoning the dead. "Are you a--"
"Ghost?" The figure smiles. Its hair color and style refuse to solidify for a few seconds, but finally resolve into blonde curls. "No, although I can see why you'd have that reaction. Given the reading you've been doing." Stepping primly, as if she were sashaying across a well-polished floor, she begins to pick her way down the grassy incline. Her dress only comes into focus when she reaches the bottom of the hill.
"You're not a ghost." The apparition is wearing the white wedding dress. Frothy lace spilling into the wildflowers and tall grass as if it grew there. "How do you know what I've been reading?"
"Oh, my image is probably drawn from you. I'm just a projection," Anya says aimiably, and then before she has a chance to ask: "I always liked this dress."
"But you're... not a ghost."
Anya frowns. "I thought you read the instructions."
"I did."
"Well, what were you expecting? Another mountain lion? Seriously, Buffy, you are a few years older. You can't expect to still have the same self-image."
"Self-image?" Buffy's confusion found a way to catch up to her surprise. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Oh, everything. I fit your current needs. Unlike the last time you did this spell, you actually want answers for once. So you needed an Avatar that you knew would be honest with you. Not to mention verbal."
"What?"
Anya turns, begins to walk along the length of the grassy gully, a soft dip between hills. "Aren't you going to follow me?"
"To where?"
"To the Guide."
"But I thought--" Buffy shifts on her feet. "I thought you were the Guide."
"No, I'm your Avatar. I'm the guide that leads you to the Guide." Anya flaps a hand. "Redundant, I know, but... tradition." She presents Buffy with another smile, then begins to climb back to the top of the hill.
"Wait!" This time, Buffy follows her. "What did you mean? That part about how I actually want answers for once?"
"Well, you didn't need them before. All you wanted was reassurance. You wanted to know that your role as a Slayer had higher meaning."
"I--what?"
"Seriously, Buffy. The images the summoning produced for you prove it. A powerful animal? The primal source of your powers? And surely you noticed that the advice you received was vague and didn't require you to change your behavior."
"I--" Buffy swallows. She hadn't thought of it that way before.
"Don't worry." Anya waves. "It's not your fault. Vagueness is a major problem with oracles. They're required to leave in ambiguity." She shrugs. "Free will."
Buffy tries to reconcile this with Anya's behavior. "You're not being very ambiguous."
"Oh, I don't have to be. I'm not an oracle. Like I said, I'm your Avatar."
"Wait a minute." Buffy climbs up beside Anya at the top of the hill and eyes her, warily. "What are you talking about?
"Are you sure you read through all the materials?"
"Yes! What is this, a spiritual quiz?"
"Oh, well... maybe they called it something else. A totem, or a guardian spirit--"
"You're my guardian spirit?"
"Yes." Anya preens. "I'm a projection of the qualities you most admire. You admire me."
"I--what?"
"Well, not me personally, maybe, but you admire my bluntless and ability to articulate my feelings. Those are your current goals." She registers Buffy's distress, and tries to soften it. "Look at it this way--if you'd tried this spell when you were twelve, you probably would've visualized yourself as a pony."
She could swear that shock has turned her into a human parrot. "I--what?"
"Never mind." Anya flaps her hands in another carefree gesture. La-di-dah. "Although I do find it terribly flattering. But the real point is, your desire, now, is for direct answers. You want the truth."
"I want--" She stops. Swallows. "Yes."
"So the spell produced me. Or at least your reflected image of me. Because you trust me to be honest with you." The conversation has begun to seem dreamlike. The logic thick and sludgy. Yet somehow, inescapable. "Probably your image of the Guide will be something similar."
"Something..." Her heart is beginning to race. "Someone I... trust."
"Yes. I mean, for your first visit, all you really needed was reassurance that your powers weren't totally malevolent and toxic, so the First Slayer made sense as a mouthpiece, but if you want real answers, then it follows that the Guide would be visualized someone you trust to tell you things you may not want to hear. More than even me--Hey!" Anya brightens, clearly having belatedly arrived on the same wavelength as Buffy. "You should be happy! Well, unless it turns out to be your mother, or some other person from your past that I can't predict. Not that you wouldn't be happy to see them--"
"Are you sure?" Buffy can barely speak. "Anya... are you sure? About... who the Guide will--?"
"No, of course not, I'm just guessing. Are you ready?"
"N-No. I--" Panic grips her. "Not yet. I-I don't--"
"Oh, you'll be fine. After all, it's what you came here for." Abruptly, Anya shoves out both hands, and pushes Buffy down the hill.
__________
Head over heels, Buffy tumbles. She rolls for what seems like a long time more than it would take to reach the bottom of the small gully.
And long before she arrives, her vision goes black.
___________
She wakes beside a fire. Her head hurts.
"Hello?" The flames dance, but she can't see anything else. Just the waving grass, the rolling hills. Bright moon overhead.
She sits up. Then sucks in a breath.
There's an indistinct, black shape, just beyond the reach of the firelight.
She can barely form the word. "Spike?"
The figure doesn't immediately speak. It moves, though, slowly, closer to the light.
When she finally sees him, she draws in another breath. She feels oxygen-deprived. The environment is... frozen. Airless.
It's him. Dressed exactly as he had been then, the way she remembers him--black clothes, black coat. Nearly swallowed by the darkness.
His hair is the same color as the flames.
She can't breathe.
"Just a form." His voice is subtly different. Quiet, but resonant. The accent sounds wrong. "I am the Guide."
"I know." Not him, she reminds herself. Rubs her arms in a cold shiver. "I guess you're... probably drawn from my memories too, huh?"
No answer.
She swallows past a dry throat.
He begins circling around the fire. Pacing, in that predatory walk. She sits up straighter, feeling the need for alertness.
"You are disturbed by dreams."
"Slayer dreams." She clears her throat. "I need to know what they mean."
He leans forward, closer to the fire. "Ask the right questions."
She shuts her eyes. Too many times recently, she's seen that face. Leaning forward. Menacing. "Why do I keep seeing you?" she whispers.
"This face."
"Yes." Why do I keep seeing you killing? Why do I keep feeling it?
"You are full of love."
Her eyes snap open. He's still there, leaning so close now that he might as well be standing in the flames.
"It is brighter than the fire. Blinding."
Her mouth opens. No sound comes out.
"Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain."
Recognition dawns. "Me." It rolls over her, a feeling of utter horror. "The dreams are from me."
__________
He's touching her.
In her mind, he's touching her.
...snap-punch-kick. Spin, twirl, and a whiplash of his boot to her face, and they're dancing, dancing like they've always done...
...arm around her breasts, holding her tight against his chest, and oh, the feel of it. Fangs digging in, and she's never felt that, never...
...look, that look in his eyes, dead and deadly, murderous, and she never saw that before, he was right, she'd never seen the real him...
...shifting back and forth on his feet, like a boxer, since when did he ever fight like that? Barely getting out of the way in time to avoid losing an eye--so that's how he got the scar. Quick snap of his head to dislodge a lock of floppy hair, and oh god, was that a ponytail?
In her head, he's immortal. In the Slayer memories.
She doesn't even have a photograph.
Memories are all she has.
__________
"Tell me how to stop it." I'm to blame for this whole thing. Her eyes drink in the face in front of her, lit by flames. Just because I wanted to see you. "If it was just me, it would be different, but those girls... I can't keep putting them through this."
"They are one with you now. One heart."
The energy of the demon. "I know, but..." Its spirit. Its heart. She wet her lips. "I need you to tell me how to stop this."
"No you don't." The face withdrew. Back through the flames, into the darkness. A last whisper of a voice, like a hiss.
"Your question has been answered."
The fire goes out.
__________
For a long while, Buffy just sits in the gully. The spell has left nothing behind, not even cold cinders. Eventually, she gets up from the ground, wincing at the stiffness, and gathers up the last few spell ingredients. She doesn't want to pollute. Leave clutter on the hills.
It's nearly morning. A thin layer of frost covers her clothes.
She makes her way back to the town. It's slow going. Her muscles are painful, tight and sore as if she'd waged a hard battle.
The Tourist Information Center gets her into a B&B. She collapses into the bed on arrival, but quickly realizes she won't sleep. Takes a shower instead, leans into the hot water with her forehead against the tiles, streams flowing over her face like hot tears.
Then she does something she hasn't let herself do in over two years.
Love is pain. And the Slayer forges strength from pain.
Two years of creating a new life. Of shopping for apartments, for new wardrobes, for experiences and normalcy and casual boyfriends.
Happy and numb and painless.
Risk the pain. It is your nature.
Buffy cries.
[end]
everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way
no, well o.k. then
don't cry
--Ani Difranco, "Joyful Girl"
seasonal_spuffy entry, here and continued here. So, here's the first part - I'll post the epilogue in another moment.Post-series, Buffy revisits the Slayer guide figure from "Intervention," only in the Brave New World of multiple Slayers, the spiritual forces have... changed.
She walks, she talks, she shops, she sneezes. Her whole life's been nothing but floods.
But she still wants to be a fireman. Someday.
___________
For the first couple of years after the Sunnydale Hellmouth fell in, Buffy could honestly say she was happy. Not perfectly happy, of course, but that would've been something else altogether, and she doesn't even dare to think about those kinds of questions anymore. Doubts and misgivings, might-have-beens, and should-have-dones.
She's never been short on courage, but trying to imagine alternate futures? No. She hasn't got enough courage for that.
She tells herself that this means she's grown up.
__________
"Spirit Guide?" Giles looks up from his desk.
"Sure, you remember, don't you, Giles? Shake a gourd, do the hokey-pokey, turn yourself around?"
"Of course I remember, but--Buffy, what brought this on?"
"Do I need to have a reason? I thought that the new order of things was more of the 'Slayer need, Slayer get' variety."
He sighs. Takes off his glasses, tosses them aside. "Buffy."
"Don't 'Buffy' me, Giles. I need to do this. I need answers."
"Answers about what?"
"About things to do with being a Slayer. About--" She looks down for the first time, and then out of the window. The new Council offices were in the new developments on the London docklands, with a nice view of the Thames. "About... dreams."
"Slayer dreams?"
She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Giles, Slayer dreams. Bigtime Slayer dreams. And no, before you ask, not prophetic." She pauses, unsure how much she wants to reveal.
"Lives of other Slayers." Giles draws the conclusion for her. He retrieves his glasses, returns his attention back to his desk. "Some of the other girls have mentioned... intense experiences."
Intense. "Yeah, I guess you could call it that."
He purses his lips. He's probably guessed anyway. Her first Watcher, the one before Giles, had told her that it was common for new Slayers to relive certain experiences from the lives that came before theirs. Sort of like psychic preparation.
But these dreams... the ones she began having not long after the new Slayers were chosen... they weren't just certain experiences. They were specific.
"Traumatic?" he asks delicately.
__________
Smelly subway car, flashing lights and screaming metal, and her back is pressed into the dirt and steel. Leather of her coat slithering against the rolling cigarette butts and sticky gum spatters, and she's kicking out her legs, trying to break free, but she can already feel the strength draining out of her. Leaching away into those two cold hands, tight around her throat, and he's--
He's going to win.
__________
"Nothing I can't handle." Buffy's face gives nothing away. "I want that spell, Giles."
"Have you tried talking to the other girls?"
"I really don't think that would help."
"Because you believe they've been having the same dreams."
"Maybe." She fidgets with the pen cup on his desk. "Probably."
"And you believe that means--"
"Giles! I don't want to guess what it means, I want to find out. Ergo, quest."
Realizing defeat, he sighs, sits back. "All right, then. I'll clear my schedule, and perhaps this weekend we can--"
"I want to do this alone."
He's momentarily speechless. "Buffy... the spell requires a transfer of guardianship from Watcher to--"
"Earth to Giles? Slayer spell, lots more new Slayers, not all of them have Watchers. You really think all those old rules still apply?"
He takes his glasses off again, begins to polish them. "Actually, magic, unlike many things in life, is rather insistent on rules."
"Things change."
"I'm quite aware."
"No, you're not aware. All these new Slayers, they're--" She stares off into the distance. "They're my responsiblity. If anyone's their guardian now, it's me." She pauses, for effect. She's more aware of such things, now. "I have to do this. Alone."
He studies her, glasses hanging from one hand. Then he stands up, fetches a battered book from a locked case, and flips through it, searching for the right page.
"You'll need some supplies." Still standing, he draws a pad of paper toward him from the desk, makes notes. "Various herbs, a gourd..."
"Can I use the maracas I bought in Spain?" Relief can't help but lighten her mood.
"No." He tears off a sheet and hands it to her, along with the book. "You do realize that the spell may not work."
"I have to try."
"Yes. Of course. Still, the spirit world isn't exactly famous for making... allowances." She winces. She knows he's just restating his point, but it feels like a jab. Like he's setting her up for failure before she's even begun.
"I'll keep that in mind," she mutters, and gathers in the book and paper, her purse.
"Buffy?" She turns back, halfway out the door, at the sound of his voice. He looks very small to her, somehow, behind the cluttered desk. Older and more fragile. She wonders when she started thinking of Giles not just as old, but old, as in someone she might not see that many more times. Someone whose life might not intersect with hers much more.
"I hope you find what you're looking for," he says.
She draws a deep breath, holds it in.
What she's looking for is one of those questions she doesn't really want to ask.
"Yeah," she says quietly, letting the air out of her lungs in a long sigh. "Me too."
__________
At first, she worries that she'll have to journey all the way back to California to do the spell. The orginal quest, back in her sophmore year of college, had involved a visit to the desert, to what Giles called a "sacred space," but the actual spell turned out to be a little more vague. "A consecrated place, all of nature and none of man." And then another wrinkle, one she'd actually sort of guessed at the time: "desolate, so if the quest be unsuccessful, the Slayer's fate should not be known."
She had to give Giles credit, in hindsight, for not overtly reacting to her joke about bleached bones. Then she stops thinking about it, because she doesn't want to consider what else she should give Giles credit for.
She rents a car and drives north.
__________
Sharp smell of gunpowder and flickering gold candlelight. The sound of screams. Her muscles are trembling and her fingers are numb, stinging as if she's had a weapon knocked out of them, and she's shaking because although she was faster and more skilled than the demon she faced, she is in his arms now because she made a mistake. And there is sweat rolling down her face and her back and her legs, staining her silks, and his breath is cold...
__________
She spends a few days on the drive. A few nights spent in small towns with names ending in "-bury" and "-ham." A few dinners of bad Chinese food and surprisingly good Indian, and hotel rooms that all look different and yet somehow still the same. Tea services and packets of biscuits and tiny wall-mounted TVs that she leaves blaring in the night, anything to distract her from the dreams.
She reads the spellbook cover to cover.
Another surprise. The quest turns out to be an invocation. To summon the dead.
__________
His grip shifts then, and the heel of his hand is suddenly hard under her jaw. She can't stop looking at him, up at the ceiling of the car with the electric lights a bright halo around his head, and she notices everything. Sticky gum and greasy soot and screaming sound of metal-on-metal, and the feel of his dirty jeans pressing diamond patterns into her thighs (god, she's gonna die in her cutout slacks, the ones she'd found in that cheap shop, she'd been so jazzed at that find), and the safety pins and torn cotton and no smell of sweat except for hers. Tobacco and chlorine, like he's been swimmming in a pool.
His eyes. Black eyeliner. His eyes are blue. Blue and dead.
__________
The dead.
It made sense, now that she was thinking about it. Given that Slayers would be, after all, dead by default, whenever a new girl was around. Really, who else but the dead would have answers to her questions?
Death is your gift.
She shivers, puts the memories out her head, and puts the book aside.
She'd gone on the quest the first time because she'd been worried about losing her ability to love.
She'd asked the dead to explain her heart.
Death is your art.
Not that she hadn't done it before.
__________
His teeth dig into her then, and there's pain, so much pain, but even more, she feels a scream in her soul. Feels his arm like iron around her breasts, and the press of his body into her back, and her whole life is escaping from her, heat seeping out of her body along with her blood.
But when he pulls back to look at her, she speaks. To the demon eyes, to the face that has killed her.
His breath is no longer cold.
They are as one, now.
__________
She returns the car in some northern town so old that it still has castle walls and proceeds out into the surrounding wilderness on foot. Onto rolling hills that might actually be moors, nothing but grass and wildflowers, hills heaving up and down like waves in the ocean. Close enough to sand dunes, maybe, to fill the requirements for the spell. Certainly desolate enough. She walks for miles without seeing anything manmade, just the occasional fragments of an old stone wall. No animals either, except for a few birds, and once or twice, possibly, a fox.
The "consecrated" requirement in the spellbook, she decides not to worry about. England had been inhabited for a long time. Probably any part of it she could stand on had been consecrated at some time by someone.
She heaves her pack off her shoulder just before the sun dips below the horizon. Begins to arrange the materials for the spell.
And it's as stupid as she remembers. She scatters the herbs and the other trinkets, shakes the gourd and jumps around. Chants, and jumps some more.
Apparently, the dead get off on seeing people perform tricks. Like a job interview.
She doesn't even know how long she's been shaking and jumping when a voice finally interrupts. "Alright, alright, I get it, we haven't got all night. Are you ready to go?"
Buffy gasps, the gourd falling out of her hand. On the ridge top above her, a human figure. Suddenly. Backlit by shifting clouds and a newly risen moon.
She makes the indentification almost before she has a chance to digest it. "Anya?"
The apparition waves a hand. "Hi, Buffy."
__________
"Anya?" She says it again, stupidly. Her heart is in her throat. Summoning the dead. "Are you a--"
"Ghost?" The figure smiles. Its hair color and style refuse to solidify for a few seconds, but finally resolve into blonde curls. "No, although I can see why you'd have that reaction. Given the reading you've been doing." Stepping primly, as if she were sashaying across a well-polished floor, she begins to pick her way down the grassy incline. Her dress only comes into focus when she reaches the bottom of the hill.
"You're not a ghost." The apparition is wearing the white wedding dress. Frothy lace spilling into the wildflowers and tall grass as if it grew there. "How do you know what I've been reading?"
"Oh, my image is probably drawn from you. I'm just a projection," Anya says aimiably, and then before she has a chance to ask: "I always liked this dress."
"But you're... not a ghost."
Anya frowns. "I thought you read the instructions."
"I did."
"Well, what were you expecting? Another mountain lion? Seriously, Buffy, you are a few years older. You can't expect to still have the same self-image."
"Self-image?" Buffy's confusion found a way to catch up to her surprise. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Oh, everything. I fit your current needs. Unlike the last time you did this spell, you actually want answers for once. So you needed an Avatar that you knew would be honest with you. Not to mention verbal."
"What?"
Anya turns, begins to walk along the length of the grassy gully, a soft dip between hills. "Aren't you going to follow me?"
"To where?"
"To the Guide."
"But I thought--" Buffy shifts on her feet. "I thought you were the Guide."
"No, I'm your Avatar. I'm the guide that leads you to the Guide." Anya flaps a hand. "Redundant, I know, but... tradition." She presents Buffy with another smile, then begins to climb back to the top of the hill.
"Wait!" This time, Buffy follows her. "What did you mean? That part about how I actually want answers for once?"
"Well, you didn't need them before. All you wanted was reassurance. You wanted to know that your role as a Slayer had higher meaning."
"I--what?"
"Seriously, Buffy. The images the summoning produced for you prove it. A powerful animal? The primal source of your powers? And surely you noticed that the advice you received was vague and didn't require you to change your behavior."
"I--" Buffy swallows. She hadn't thought of it that way before.
"Don't worry." Anya waves. "It's not your fault. Vagueness is a major problem with oracles. They're required to leave in ambiguity." She shrugs. "Free will."
Buffy tries to reconcile this with Anya's behavior. "You're not being very ambiguous."
"Oh, I don't have to be. I'm not an oracle. Like I said, I'm your Avatar."
"Wait a minute." Buffy climbs up beside Anya at the top of the hill and eyes her, warily. "What are you talking about?
"Are you sure you read through all the materials?"
"Yes! What is this, a spiritual quiz?"
"Oh, well... maybe they called it something else. A totem, or a guardian spirit--"
"You're my guardian spirit?"
"Yes." Anya preens. "I'm a projection of the qualities you most admire. You admire me."
"I--what?"
"Well, not me personally, maybe, but you admire my bluntless and ability to articulate my feelings. Those are your current goals." She registers Buffy's distress, and tries to soften it. "Look at it this way--if you'd tried this spell when you were twelve, you probably would've visualized yourself as a pony."
She could swear that shock has turned her into a human parrot. "I--what?"
"Never mind." Anya flaps her hands in another carefree gesture. La-di-dah. "Although I do find it terribly flattering. But the real point is, your desire, now, is for direct answers. You want the truth."
"I want--" She stops. Swallows. "Yes."
"So the spell produced me. Or at least your reflected image of me. Because you trust me to be honest with you." The conversation has begun to seem dreamlike. The logic thick and sludgy. Yet somehow, inescapable. "Probably your image of the Guide will be something similar."
"Something..." Her heart is beginning to race. "Someone I... trust."
"Yes. I mean, for your first visit, all you really needed was reassurance that your powers weren't totally malevolent and toxic, so the First Slayer made sense as a mouthpiece, but if you want real answers, then it follows that the Guide would be visualized someone you trust to tell you things you may not want to hear. More than even me--Hey!" Anya brightens, clearly having belatedly arrived on the same wavelength as Buffy. "You should be happy! Well, unless it turns out to be your mother, or some other person from your past that I can't predict. Not that you wouldn't be happy to see them--"
"Are you sure?" Buffy can barely speak. "Anya... are you sure? About... who the Guide will--?"
"No, of course not, I'm just guessing. Are you ready?"
"N-No. I--" Panic grips her. "Not yet. I-I don't--"
"Oh, you'll be fine. After all, it's what you came here for." Abruptly, Anya shoves out both hands, and pushes Buffy down the hill.
__________
Head over heels, Buffy tumbles. She rolls for what seems like a long time more than it would take to reach the bottom of the small gully.
And long before she arrives, her vision goes black.
___________
She wakes beside a fire. Her head hurts.
"Hello?" The flames dance, but she can't see anything else. Just the waving grass, the rolling hills. Bright moon overhead.
She sits up. Then sucks in a breath.
There's an indistinct, black shape, just beyond the reach of the firelight.
She can barely form the word. "Spike?"
The figure doesn't immediately speak. It moves, though, slowly, closer to the light.
When she finally sees him, she draws in another breath. She feels oxygen-deprived. The environment is... frozen. Airless.
It's him. Dressed exactly as he had been then, the way she remembers him--black clothes, black coat. Nearly swallowed by the darkness.
His hair is the same color as the flames.
She can't breathe.
"Just a form." His voice is subtly different. Quiet, but resonant. The accent sounds wrong. "I am the Guide."
"I know." Not him, she reminds herself. Rubs her arms in a cold shiver. "I guess you're... probably drawn from my memories too, huh?"
No answer.
She swallows past a dry throat.
He begins circling around the fire. Pacing, in that predatory walk. She sits up straighter, feeling the need for alertness.
"You are disturbed by dreams."
"Slayer dreams." She clears her throat. "I need to know what they mean."
He leans forward, closer to the fire. "Ask the right questions."
She shuts her eyes. Too many times recently, she's seen that face. Leaning forward. Menacing. "Why do I keep seeing you?" she whispers.
"This face."
"Yes." Why do I keep seeing you killing? Why do I keep feeling it?
"You are full of love."
Her eyes snap open. He's still there, leaning so close now that he might as well be standing in the flames.
"It is brighter than the fire. Blinding."
Her mouth opens. No sound comes out.
"Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain."
Recognition dawns. "Me." It rolls over her, a feeling of utter horror. "The dreams are from me."
__________
He's touching her.
In her mind, he's touching her.
...snap-punch-kick. Spin, twirl, and a whiplash of his boot to her face, and they're dancing, dancing like they've always done...
...arm around her breasts, holding her tight against his chest, and oh, the feel of it. Fangs digging in, and she's never felt that, never...
...look, that look in his eyes, dead and deadly, murderous, and she never saw that before, he was right, she'd never seen the real him...
...shifting back and forth on his feet, like a boxer, since when did he ever fight like that? Barely getting out of the way in time to avoid losing an eye--so that's how he got the scar. Quick snap of his head to dislodge a lock of floppy hair, and oh god, was that a ponytail?
In her head, he's immortal. In the Slayer memories.
She doesn't even have a photograph.
Memories are all she has.
__________
"Tell me how to stop it." I'm to blame for this whole thing. Her eyes drink in the face in front of her, lit by flames. Just because I wanted to see you. "If it was just me, it would be different, but those girls... I can't keep putting them through this."
"They are one with you now. One heart."
The energy of the demon. "I know, but..." Its spirit. Its heart. She wet her lips. "I need you to tell me how to stop this."
"No you don't." The face withdrew. Back through the flames, into the darkness. A last whisper of a voice, like a hiss.
"Your question has been answered."
The fire goes out.
__________
For a long while, Buffy just sits in the gully. The spell has left nothing behind, not even cold cinders. Eventually, she gets up from the ground, wincing at the stiffness, and gathers up the last few spell ingredients. She doesn't want to pollute. Leave clutter on the hills.
It's nearly morning. A thin layer of frost covers her clothes.
She makes her way back to the town. It's slow going. Her muscles are painful, tight and sore as if she'd waged a hard battle.
The Tourist Information Center gets her into a B&B. She collapses into the bed on arrival, but quickly realizes she won't sleep. Takes a shower instead, leans into the hot water with her forehead against the tiles, streams flowing over her face like hot tears.
Then she does something she hasn't let herself do in over two years.
Love is pain. And the Slayer forges strength from pain.
Two years of creating a new life. Of shopping for apartments, for new wardrobes, for experiences and normalcy and casual boyfriends.
Happy and numb and painless.
Risk the pain. It is your nature.
Buffy cries.
[end]
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way
no, well o.k. then
don't cry
--Ani Difranco, "Joyful Girl"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 12:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 07:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 06:01 pm (UTC)you're writing has such purity, and it's so engaging. but what gets me even more are the actual stories, your plots, which have such solidity but also such subtlty, and i feel so drawn in and trusted as a reader. so much delivered intent in your work. thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 06:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 06:24 pm (UTC)either way, my response is authentic, triggered specifically by this story. i hope you'll forgive the mix up!
(and yes,
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 09:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 07:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-06 09:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 12:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 12:12 am (UTC)