Author's Note: Since my friend Emerald Demona asked so nicely, I'm posting the first chapter of the new story now instead of on Monday. Enjoy ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Except for the OCs, I guess...
Birds of Prey
"You know, Anya won't be happy if she hears about that", Pat smirked as she carefully stepped over a root, not wanting to end up embarrassing herself by stumbling and ending up flat on her face; a few steps ahead, Willow shrugged, her gaze focused on the forest ground, not even coming up when she replied.
"Then I'll have to trust you not to tell her", she gave back, bending down moments later and removing a bunch of green leaves from a bush, adding them to the various other plants and berries she already had collected, "because I won't, I know she won't like it…"
"Neither will I", the demon reassured her, watching how she picked yet another plant; thanks to her disinterest in all things concerning magic and spells before she had met her partner, most of them looked the same to her, and she only recognized a few of them, namely those she had seen the witch use in her various spells before.
"Thanks", the redhead smirked, briefly looking at her; the taller woman grinned back at her, then ended up tripping over a root after all thanks to briefly not paying attention where she going, managing to keep herself from falling the last second and cursing under her breath once she could be sure she wouldn't end up on the ground.
"Careful there", Willow told her, holding back giggling since she didn't want to laugh at her partner's little accident, "I didn't talk you into coming here with me so you can trip and break a leg."
"And if I do break a leg, nothing in the world will convince me to do that ever again", the taller woman smirked, making the witch giggle after all now; just as she opened her mouth to reply though, voices came up not too far away, startling them both as they called out for someone named "Jimmy", the couple exchanging a look before they started to move into the direction of the men and women calling out.
It didn't take long until they found at least two of the people they had heard yelling, two young men who kept calling out for Jimmy until they spotted them, one of them sounding slightly surprised when he asked them if they were part of the search party, as well, prompting them to exchange another look before they both declined.
"Search party for whom?" Willow then wanted to know, one of the two men glancing around to make sure they wouldn't lose sight of the other party members while the other one explained, glancing around the whole time, as well, showing that he was taking his task quite seriously.
"A five year old", he let the couple know, "he went to play at the forest's edge this morning and vanished. We formed a search party and are looking for him now, you're more than welcome to help if you want to, these woods are kinda big and we can need every extra pair of eyes…"
The moment he said the last word, he realized that perhaps, it hadn't been the most tactful thing to say in the presence of a one-eyed woman, his realization confirmed by the way she raised an eyebrow at him, and he flushed, looking as if he wanted to be swallowed by the earth on the spot.
"Oh my gosh", he mumbled, scuffing at the earth with one sneaker, "I mean… I didn't mean to… oh I'm sorry…"
"Dude", his friend admonished, shaking his head, "how often have I told you, think before you talk."
"It's okay", Pat finally decided that he had squirmed and stuttered enough, "it happens more often than one would think, really, despite the lack of a complete set of eyes in my case being quite obvious."
She almost expected them to ask why she wasn't using a glass eye, then, a question which came surprisingly often even from people she just had met; this time though, it didn't come up, both men too focused on their search to worry about why she might not want to use a fake eye.
"We'd be happy to help", Willow brought the talk back to said search, earning grateful looks from both young men, "just tell us where we should search."
"You should ask Randolph", the taller of the two gave back, gesturing vaguely south, "he's the one who organized the search, he'll tell you where you should go so you won't end up too close or too far to the rest of the party."
"Alright", the witch gave back, then grasped her partner's hand and together, they headed off into the direction the men had pointed out to them; they ran into a few more search party members until they found the guy who had organized the whole thing, and he was more than happy to hear that the couple was willing to help with the search.
"We formed a chain of people, walking in pairs", he explained, "from west to east. You can choose if you want to be at the southern or the northern end, the southern is closer to here, so it'd make sense for you to go there. Make sure you always can see the pair next to you, and give little Jimmy time to answer in between your calls for him, it'd be a shame if he was yelling back and no one would hear him because we all yell all the time."
"Alright", Willow nodded, "we'll keep that in mind… anything else we should know?"
"Not for now, no", Randolph shook his head, "some of the other party members have walkie-talkies, but we didn't have enough for the whole group, if we have to continue the search tomorrow, we'll have more, but we all hope it won't come to that."
"Hopefully, yeah", Pat replied tactfully, even though she had been in Sunnydale long enough now to fear that either it would come to that – or that they would find the little boy dead, the last thing she wanted to happen, but a possibility they had to face.
"I know what you're thinking", Willow told her the moment they were out of earshot, "but maybe we'll be lucky for once, and the poor kid just got lost…"
"Yeah, maybe", the demon gave back, letting out a small sigh; trying her best to be the optimistic one about the situation, the witch smiled at her, briefly touching her hand before she raised her voice and called out for Jimmy, to her dismay not surprised when no reply came.
Well, what did you expect? she asked herself, hearing the other searchers call out for the missing boy, that you just yell once and he pops up? That would have been a miracle, they've been searching for hours.
"Jimmy!" Pat now called out next to her, listening closely as well afterwards; again, no reply came though, both of them waiting until the people close to them had called out as well before they did so once more.
The only response they kept getting were the soft cries of the birds up in the sky, and the other noises of the forest all around them; holding back a sigh, asking herself if this was a waste of time, Pat dug out her cigarettes and lit one of them up, nodding immediately when Willow gave her a strict look and reminded her of the fact that forest was very flammable and that she had to take the cigarette butt along instead of just dropping it somewhere.
"You'd ban me to the couch if I set the forest on fire", she then told the smaller woman, smirking, "so I won't risk—"
A shockingly loud growl from her right and the sounds of something big crashing through the woods interrupted her, and they both froze in mid-step, exchanging a look as the various demons and other supernatural creatures they knew about came up in their mind, trying to remember if any of them were active during the day and close to such big groups of people.
"What was that?" Willow whispered when the sounds of something big moving through the woods suddenly stopped; before Pat could reply though, a bird shrieked again, surprisingly close this time – before both women went wide-eyed as they saw one of the birds they had spotted circling the skies earlier came rushing down, and they realized how big it was, shocked to see that it easily rivalled the height of the redhead, the impressive wingspan of almost four meters making them both wonder how it could actually fly in the forest without crashing into trees.
"Holy shit", Pat breathed, watching how the bird descended a few feet away, shrieking again, "have you ever seen…?"
"No", Willow gave back, unable to take her eyes off the bird – until it vanished in the foliage not too far away, loud growls and whines following moments later, accompanied by the unmistakable noises of fighting.
Without missing a beat, Pat started to move, to the witch's surprise and worry – after all, if two demons of whatever kind were having a fight there, it wouldn't be smart to get involved, and from the sound of it, no human was part of the battle. On the other hand though, she had to admit that it might be smarter to try taking them both down while they were busy with each other before one of them might win and get the idea to attack one of the members of the search party.
Thus, she followed her partner after a moment, hoping that no one else had noticed anything about the commotion; so far, it seemed no one had, since she could still hear the people call out for Jimmy, even though the fighting noises were almost drowning out their yells.
For a moment, Willow was impressed by how fast and securely her partner was moving now, all worries about tripping and falling gone; she had slight troubles with keeping up, her own reflexes and body control not able to compete with the decades of training the taller woman had had during her previous line of work, making sure to stay close enough though so she wouldn't lose sight of her, worried about what they might find once they'd reach the two fighting creatures.