Pro Patria Mori by Barrier
Buffy's yawn resonated through the wall of her room, her pencil tapping monotonously against the notebook over which she was hunched. It was due tomorrow and all she could show was a sketch of her mother's face. Her curls and the headscarf she had worn for a time. She hoisted herself upright and sighed, she lent across and turn on the radio by her bed and bounced back into place. A mellow guitar based riff flowed from the speaker, she bit her lip and lay on her front, she couldn't settle. She augmented her mother's curls and smiled at the childlike image on the page, her face creased a little as a tear rolled down her cheek. She stood and walked for the door without turning off the radio, grabbed her coat from the floor and hurried down toward the door.
'Buffy!' Called Dawn. She was gone.
* * *
A slay is what she'd needed, and easy slay she had got, so the satisfaction really wasn't there. She walked slowly through the graves, brushing past one, tapping another, glancing at a few. She stopped; Jacob Hockney, Daniel Greene, and Christopher Reynolds. All in a row all the same age. She frowned sympathetically and walked away, craning her neck to see them as she retreated. Scuffing her feet she made large marks in the grass, and her heels made the occasional scratch on the asphalt of the pathway, she was walking eyes closed, tears rolling. She couldn't help it as she crumbled to the floor, she was bent like paper, like a puppet with strings snapped, she couldn't hold herself up. She lay, face to the floor, looking sideways at the tombstones. Danielle Webster's stone face glared at her, he facial features worn and distorted, she'd had her eyes burnt out, her cheeks were rough and fingers broken. Buffy pulled herself to a seated position, and tilted her head a little. Face to face with death, Buffy stood, and stared death in the face. With a swift turn and lift she effortlessly kicked Danielle's head off her rigid shoulders, it rumbled across the path and stopped, the tired eyes still looked at her, she retrieved it from the dewy floor. She threw it at the base of the statue, and read the plaque.
'She always had said 'Pro Patria Mori'
'Die for your country' She whispered. She began to feel guilt rise inside her so she left, and started back for home, it was now 3 am however and Dawn would have been worried, so Buffy ran home, so be home by 3.12am.
She arrived at 3.11am. Dawn was up at the dining table as Buffy crept in the back door to the kitchen, with her mothers eyes Dawn turn to glare at Buffy like a parent to a teenager. They never said a word, just communicated by eyes alone, Buffy sat next to Dawn and ate a grape from the bowl in the middle of the table. Dawn merely looked for ward into the glass of the vase next to the fruit bowl, white lilies filled the neck, like swans in a pond, she pulled one out to smell and a drop of water fell to the table. Buffy wiped it with her sleeve.
'Sorry' Buffy muttered, as Dawn lay the lily on the table. 'I shouldn't of left so late, I was-well it was-you know, slayer stuff'
'No it wasn't' Dawn proclaimed without meeting Buffy's gaze. 'You were sad, I totally get it, you should leave without telling me more often, gives our lives a little more spontaneity.' Sarcasm was one of Dawn's biggest flaws. 'You can't play the slayer card whenever you can't deal Buffy. You are supposed to be the mature one here, remember?' Dawn still hadn't looked at Buffy directly. If she had Buffy could have seen her crying, eyes reddened and nose sore. But she never saw this.
'I'm a vandal' Buffy broke the silence that followed their 'conversation'. That time Dawn looked up, she wasn't crying any longer, she looked puzzled though. ' I broke a statue in the graveyard'
'Well don't you always, when you fight' Dawn frowned and went back to string at her lily.
'Not this time, this was deliberate, its crazy really, I never meant to do it, well I kinda did but - nevermind. I thought she was looking at me, she reminded me of....death.' 'You can't kill death' Dawn said naively.
'You can cheat it, remember?' Buffy said smugly 'God knows I've done it enough. I don't know what I was thinking, I mean, I'm totally not like that usually.' There was a long pause. 'Who was it?' Dawn was merely making conversation.
'Danielle. Danielle Webster, I think' To this Dawn turned and looked at Buffy.
'THE Danielle Webster?!?!' Dawn was either irate or stoked, 'The nurse?!'
'Well, I dunno, Could be, never heard of her, why? What did she do?'
Dawn stood up and ran to her school bag, resting against the bottom of the stairs, she rummaged and finally pulled out some tattered papers that Buffy recognised as a 'book'. She sat on her feet back at the table and opened the book, there were lines, pages of notes, it looked kinda like history but Buffy couldn't tell. Until she turned the next page; where DANIELLE WEBSTER was the title. As she read down the page Buffy found that she had been a nurse during the Second World War, she was English and worked in France. She'd moved to sunnydale and set up a hospital near the Graveyard, later remembered s the old building on which Buffy could sit and see approaching Demon types. Apparently, according to Dawn, she was a modern day Florence Nightingale and had worked with hundreds of sick people many of them war veterans. In the late sixties she died of illnesses related to her injuries sustained during duties in France. Buffy felt even guiltier than before and closed the book as soon as she had seen her stony face look up at her form the page. 'How did she die exactly?' Dawn thought for a while.
'Oh, um, ok she had got like bad injured when her infirmary was bombed and she had hurt her eyes I think and her hands, her face was badly scarred too, she had real bad neck injuries too. Buffy's eyes widened as she remembered the face, the cheeks, the fingers, and the neck.
'Now do you see?!' Dawn demanded.
'No, no I don't see.Dawn!' Buffy couldn't see it was dark, she was blind.
* * *
Buffy's panicked breaths came shallow and fast as Dawn frantically called Giles at home. He was woken with as start as it was around 4 in the morning, he answered lethargically and rolled back over until he'd realised what Dawn had said. Giles knew a little about sudden blindness as he had suffered at one point when Willow had her will done. He called HER on the way to make sure she wasn't acting witchy in the night. Luckily she wasn't and she followed giles to buffy's house on hasty foot leaving Tara at home and feeling useless. Buffy was curled in the corner of the dining room rubbing her eyes and waving her hands in front of her now taught face. Giles and willow arrived at the same time both stunned to see some one so strong so weak.
'Buffy?'
'Will?' Willow rushed down to her and hugged her tight. Buffy exhaled as a tear ran down her cheek, 'Help me'
'I can try' Willow swirled to the table and spilled the contents of her flowered bag on the table, her flowing skirt took a second to catch up and she rearranged the books and inscence. She sat at the end of the table and began to read, Dawn accompanied her and Giles paced through the living room. He hadn't though to ask if she had any idea what was going on until he noticed the note book on the table next to the lily and a small puddle.
'Whats this?' he said dryly 'Homework at 4am?'
'No. No its the woman whose statue Buffy mangled' Dawn replied with relish, Buffy's head craned and tried to find Giles with her dark eyes 'read it' Dawn added and he did.
' Ah, Danielle Webster.' Giles spoke of her as if they didn't know who she was 'You know what they tell you in history class about her Dawn?'
'Yeah, she was, and i quote ' a modern day florence nightingale' Wasn't she?'
'Not exactly,' Giles sighed
'What? Whats the matter?' Buffy Lifted her nose in the air, as if to smell Giles' whereabouts.
'Well, people talked of her as a hero, a nusre who gave her life for others, but in truth she took ther lives for herself.'
'And whats that got to do woth us?' Dawn was genuinely clueless.
'You see, if my memory serves me correctly she WAS a nurse, and she did save some lives. But, she did a hell of a lot more to them then what was written in the books about her. She was said to be a witch. Not a good witch, like Willow, but a selfish witch who used these dying people as test subjects, to endure her every casting. She would get frustrated how the medicenal and medical didn't gel she wanted the glory of saving hundreds of lives, but with out the tremendous talent that went into it. the only reason why there is a staue of her is because that was her dying wish. To see herself cast in stone. And that i what she did, to finish her killings without getting caught, and to make sure she remained in the public eye she faked her death with a little wicca and cast herself in granite. The only problems with her with craft was that she couldn't do any thing to herself, she couldn't rid herself ofr her scars, restore her eye sight or fix her hands. And because she cast herself in to stone, these flaws were carried with her.'
'Then why this, why me?' Buffy was now staring a a fixed point somewhere on the rug.
'It is my belief that she wished to see herself marvelled a to see her self admired, to see through the eyes of the staue.'
'That would be awful' Willow took time to look up from her books.
'Maybe she just, you know, hung around it for a while.' Xander was stood in the door way. 'hey, Tara called me and told me about what had happened, Buffy, you ok?' She managed a nod, he smiled widely. Buffy could feel his smile, she always could.
'So you're sayin she's angry?'
'I don't think shes angry, I think she set up some kind of security device around the staue, to make sure the perso who devalued her was made subject to her own sufferings,' Willow said that with out even lifting her head from the book.'Us witches can do that kinda stuff'
'So what can we do?' xander added impatiently stuffing his hands into his pockets.
'My book says nothin', apparently you 'cannot undo the work of a deceased witch'
Dawn was rather insensitive about it all.
'There's nothing we can do?' Buffy's gaze remained upon the rug. The tears were coming steady now.
'Apprently not' Giles bit his glasses and slumped into the chair.
Buffy's yawn resonated through the wall of her room, her pencil tapping monotonously against the notebook over which she was hunched. It was due tomorrow and all she could show was a sketch of her mother's face. Her curls and the headscarf she had worn for a time. She hoisted herself upright and sighed, she lent across and turn on the radio by her bed and bounced back into place. A mellow guitar based riff flowed from the speaker, she bit her lip and lay on her front, she couldn't settle. She augmented her mother's curls and smiled at the childlike image on the page, her face creased a little as a tear rolled down her cheek. She stood and walked for the door without turning off the radio, grabbed her coat from the floor and hurried down toward the door.
'Buffy!' Called Dawn. She was gone.
* * *
A slay is what she'd needed, and easy slay she had got, so the satisfaction really wasn't there. She walked slowly through the graves, brushing past one, tapping another, glancing at a few. She stopped; Jacob Hockney, Daniel Greene, and Christopher Reynolds. All in a row all the same age. She frowned sympathetically and walked away, craning her neck to see them as she retreated. Scuffing her feet she made large marks in the grass, and her heels made the occasional scratch on the asphalt of the pathway, she was walking eyes closed, tears rolling. She couldn't help it as she crumbled to the floor, she was bent like paper, like a puppet with strings snapped, she couldn't hold herself up. She lay, face to the floor, looking sideways at the tombstones. Danielle Webster's stone face glared at her, he facial features worn and distorted, she'd had her eyes burnt out, her cheeks were rough and fingers broken. Buffy pulled herself to a seated position, and tilted her head a little. Face to face with death, Buffy stood, and stared death in the face. With a swift turn and lift she effortlessly kicked Danielle's head off her rigid shoulders, it rumbled across the path and stopped, the tired eyes still looked at her, she retrieved it from the dewy floor. She threw it at the base of the statue, and read the plaque.
'She always had said 'Pro Patria Mori'
'Die for your country' She whispered. She began to feel guilt rise inside her so she left, and started back for home, it was now 3 am however and Dawn would have been worried, so Buffy ran home, so be home by 3.12am.
She arrived at 3.11am. Dawn was up at the dining table as Buffy crept in the back door to the kitchen, with her mothers eyes Dawn turn to glare at Buffy like a parent to a teenager. They never said a word, just communicated by eyes alone, Buffy sat next to Dawn and ate a grape from the bowl in the middle of the table. Dawn merely looked for ward into the glass of the vase next to the fruit bowl, white lilies filled the neck, like swans in a pond, she pulled one out to smell and a drop of water fell to the table. Buffy wiped it with her sleeve.
'Sorry' Buffy muttered, as Dawn lay the lily on the table. 'I shouldn't of left so late, I was-well it was-you know, slayer stuff'
'No it wasn't' Dawn proclaimed without meeting Buffy's gaze. 'You were sad, I totally get it, you should leave without telling me more often, gives our lives a little more spontaneity.' Sarcasm was one of Dawn's biggest flaws. 'You can't play the slayer card whenever you can't deal Buffy. You are supposed to be the mature one here, remember?' Dawn still hadn't looked at Buffy directly. If she had Buffy could have seen her crying, eyes reddened and nose sore. But she never saw this.
'I'm a vandal' Buffy broke the silence that followed their 'conversation'. That time Dawn looked up, she wasn't crying any longer, she looked puzzled though. ' I broke a statue in the graveyard'
'Well don't you always, when you fight' Dawn frowned and went back to string at her lily.
'Not this time, this was deliberate, its crazy really, I never meant to do it, well I kinda did but - nevermind. I thought she was looking at me, she reminded me of....death.' 'You can't kill death' Dawn said naively.
'You can cheat it, remember?' Buffy said smugly 'God knows I've done it enough. I don't know what I was thinking, I mean, I'm totally not like that usually.' There was a long pause. 'Who was it?' Dawn was merely making conversation.
'Danielle. Danielle Webster, I think' To this Dawn turned and looked at Buffy.
'THE Danielle Webster?!?!' Dawn was either irate or stoked, 'The nurse?!'
'Well, I dunno, Could be, never heard of her, why? What did she do?'
Dawn stood up and ran to her school bag, resting against the bottom of the stairs, she rummaged and finally pulled out some tattered papers that Buffy recognised as a 'book'. She sat on her feet back at the table and opened the book, there were lines, pages of notes, it looked kinda like history but Buffy couldn't tell. Until she turned the next page; where DANIELLE WEBSTER was the title. As she read down the page Buffy found that she had been a nurse during the Second World War, she was English and worked in France. She'd moved to sunnydale and set up a hospital near the Graveyard, later remembered s the old building on which Buffy could sit and see approaching Demon types. Apparently, according to Dawn, she was a modern day Florence Nightingale and had worked with hundreds of sick people many of them war veterans. In the late sixties she died of illnesses related to her injuries sustained during duties in France. Buffy felt even guiltier than before and closed the book as soon as she had seen her stony face look up at her form the page. 'How did she die exactly?' Dawn thought for a while.
'Oh, um, ok she had got like bad injured when her infirmary was bombed and she had hurt her eyes I think and her hands, her face was badly scarred too, she had real bad neck injuries too. Buffy's eyes widened as she remembered the face, the cheeks, the fingers, and the neck.
'Now do you see?!' Dawn demanded.
'No, no I don't see.Dawn!' Buffy couldn't see it was dark, she was blind.
* * *
Buffy's panicked breaths came shallow and fast as Dawn frantically called Giles at home. He was woken with as start as it was around 4 in the morning, he answered lethargically and rolled back over until he'd realised what Dawn had said. Giles knew a little about sudden blindness as he had suffered at one point when Willow had her will done. He called HER on the way to make sure she wasn't acting witchy in the night. Luckily she wasn't and she followed giles to buffy's house on hasty foot leaving Tara at home and feeling useless. Buffy was curled in the corner of the dining room rubbing her eyes and waving her hands in front of her now taught face. Giles and willow arrived at the same time both stunned to see some one so strong so weak.
'Buffy?'
'Will?' Willow rushed down to her and hugged her tight. Buffy exhaled as a tear ran down her cheek, 'Help me'
'I can try' Willow swirled to the table and spilled the contents of her flowered bag on the table, her flowing skirt took a second to catch up and she rearranged the books and inscence. She sat at the end of the table and began to read, Dawn accompanied her and Giles paced through the living room. He hadn't though to ask if she had any idea what was going on until he noticed the note book on the table next to the lily and a small puddle.
'Whats this?' he said dryly 'Homework at 4am?'
'No. No its the woman whose statue Buffy mangled' Dawn replied with relish, Buffy's head craned and tried to find Giles with her dark eyes 'read it' Dawn added and he did.
' Ah, Danielle Webster.' Giles spoke of her as if they didn't know who she was 'You know what they tell you in history class about her Dawn?'
'Yeah, she was, and i quote ' a modern day florence nightingale' Wasn't she?'
'Not exactly,' Giles sighed
'What? Whats the matter?' Buffy Lifted her nose in the air, as if to smell Giles' whereabouts.
'Well, people talked of her as a hero, a nusre who gave her life for others, but in truth she took ther lives for herself.'
'And whats that got to do woth us?' Dawn was genuinely clueless.
'You see, if my memory serves me correctly she WAS a nurse, and she did save some lives. But, she did a hell of a lot more to them then what was written in the books about her. She was said to be a witch. Not a good witch, like Willow, but a selfish witch who used these dying people as test subjects, to endure her every casting. She would get frustrated how the medicenal and medical didn't gel she wanted the glory of saving hundreds of lives, but with out the tremendous talent that went into it. the only reason why there is a staue of her is because that was her dying wish. To see herself cast in stone. And that i what she did, to finish her killings without getting caught, and to make sure she remained in the public eye she faked her death with a little wicca and cast herself in granite. The only problems with her with craft was that she couldn't do any thing to herself, she couldn't rid herself ofr her scars, restore her eye sight or fix her hands. And because she cast herself in to stone, these flaws were carried with her.'
'Then why this, why me?' Buffy was now staring a a fixed point somewhere on the rug.
'It is my belief that she wished to see herself marvelled a to see her self admired, to see through the eyes of the staue.'
'That would be awful' Willow took time to look up from her books.
'Maybe she just, you know, hung around it for a while.' Xander was stood in the door way. 'hey, Tara called me and told me about what had happened, Buffy, you ok?' She managed a nod, he smiled widely. Buffy could feel his smile, she always could.
'So you're sayin she's angry?'
'I don't think shes angry, I think she set up some kind of security device around the staue, to make sure the perso who devalued her was made subject to her own sufferings,' Willow said that with out even lifting her head from the book.'Us witches can do that kinda stuff'
'So what can we do?' xander added impatiently stuffing his hands into his pockets.
'My book says nothin', apparently you 'cannot undo the work of a deceased witch'
Dawn was rather insensitive about it all.
'There's nothing we can do?' Buffy's gaze remained upon the rug. The tears were coming steady now.
'Apprently not' Giles bit his glasses and slumped into the chair.