I started working on this series of drabbles about faith in the Buffyverse a while ago (snick's post about what she likes in fic and the accompanying recs were an inspiration), but just finished them up recently [posted LJ on 2/19]. They are kind of sad, just a warning!
My profound thanks to my sister of the heart, rileypolly. Without the night when, fortified by blackberry merlot Arbor Mist ("it's like Manischewitz with Sprite!"), we watched several of hours of Bat/Bar Mitvah footage, one of these drabbles could not have been written.
Our Gods by Verity
The first time, Tara said, "Mom?" sleepily, and rolled over in bed, except the bed was a meadow and everything around her was brilliant and green. She always came in dreams. Sometimes She was an eagle, once a fawn (dead and cold-eyed). Her touch — wing claw foot feather — was as light and warm as sunshine.
When Tara woke, she found that magic was everywhere around her; in her mother's breath, the ground beneath her, the water as it filled the creek and ebbed away.
The last time, Tara says, "Mom?" and it's green, then, too.
His grandmother was the one who took him to church on Sundays. Mom didn't like her living with them, said Grandma drove her crazy (and that drove his dad crazy), but Xander liked her. She didn't smile very much, but she made his lunch sometimes and on Sundays, they went to church.
Xander had never been anywhere so quiet. Sometimes he wanted to ask Grandma a question, but she put her finger on his lips and shushed him. The books they sang out of were old and smelled funny.
Anya wanted to get married there. It was one of those things she didn't understand.
Her mom is, was Catholic and her dad is Lutheran, so they weren't raised with very much religion. Dawn remembers going to Sunday School, but that wasn't real anyway, so it doesn't count. She wants to pray to somebody, but she can't figure out who. She hopes someone will come rescue her, but nobody rescued Mom, or Miss Calendar, and Buffy died once, so.
The only God she knows wants to kill her.
Maybe you have to be a person to have somebody to believe in. She wishes that she'd asked Buffy. She'll ask Buffy later. Yeah.
There'll be lots of time.
YOU'VE KEPT ME WAITING FOR A WHILE, says a familiar voice.
"Sorry," she says, not sorry at all. Huh. Her body looks so small, and all chopped-in-half-y. She's sad for Xander. Also, funerals are expensive, and she'll have to have a closed casket, and that's disappointing. She wanted to look pretty on her special day.
THERE WON'T BE A FUNERAL, the voice continues. IN FACT, THIS BUILDING WILL SHORTLY COLLAPSE INTO A LARGE CRATER.
She considers this for a moment. "So we win, then?"
Her companion nods.
"Well," she says. "That's all right." She gives her body one last look before she smiles and turns away.
When Willow counts up the worst moments of her life, the chair dance at her Bat Mitvah is not actually in the top five. Aside from Xander and Jesse, no one from Wilkins Memorial Middle School had seen her cringe and cling desperately to the seat beneath her. Zayde hadn't even managed to get it on videotape.
She isn't sure if this is in the top five, either, but she can't help wondering why a well-placed mezuzah wouldn't work as well. Her hands are steady as she pulls back the curtain and lifts the cross to the wall.