Faith's vision goes funny, when B stabs her. (She stabs her. Her. Faith. Buffy stabs her.)
Things happen, but it's like a movie with all the bits in between missing.
An impact, softer than a punch, thinner. Standing on the ledge. Falling. Sound coming back. Hitting the ground. The sky fading.
Movies hurt less. Even when they're being thrown at you.
The sky doesn't go dark, not completely. After a while, the edges come into focus. There are a lot of stars.
Moving hurts too much to contemplate. The thought of staying here to die is worse. One armed, she uses a tree to get upright. Manages a step. Doesn't make two before her leg gives out from under her. The impact is softer than the first. Maybe.
She doesn't black out, which is as good as she's going to get at this point.
It's probably the leaves she's crouched over.
...Leaves?
...Now that she's taking a breather, where did the tree come from?
There's light, when she can look up without falling over again. It's orange -ish, like Halloween candy. Maybe that's her eyes again. Light means people. Or demons. Or fireflies.
It could mean Buffy, but why would Buffy leave her out here?
It isn't too far to crawl. She settles against a tree to observe
There's a woman sitting outside the cave. Looking at the fire. Rookie mistake. Fire destroys night vision. If she were able to do anything useful, like walk, she could take advantage of that. Campers always have food, right, so how is she going to play this?
"Boo."
She jackknifes around,swipes out with the hand holding her stomach together curled in what could be laughingly called a back-fist – she still hasn't stopped bleeding, and she can feel her skin peeling off the fabric of the shirt – at the shadow looming over her, and stupid, stupid, you have to look at a fire to see who's sitting at it, don't you you bloody idiot, and lands flat on her back with a rock doing interesting things to her spine.
The shadow appears above her. Like Buffy. Above everything, while Faith's left to suck it up. Isn't that a laugh. The firelight hits it's face.
It's always reassuring when things have faces.
It – she, is human. Ish. Looks similar to your average Homo Stupidians, and she ain't getting any tingles off her, so that's good enough for something she can't do anything about.
Her eyes are cold. Blue like ice. Colder. Glacial.
She's seen scarier.
Buffy is a tough act to follow, especially with a knife.
She drifts off as she is lifted up out of the dirt marked by her blood.
She takes some with her.
...
"Do you know her? She even looks slightly like you. Are you related? Xena?"
"Gabrielle."
"You are?"
"No. You're burning the food. Pass me the … need to ..."
…
Tugging. At her. Her skin.
… whoever it is must be insatiable. She's trying to sleep. .. She doesn't sleep with people. Sex, yes, sleep, no. What...?
The glint of light off metal snaps her back to a full alert.
Her arm is caught and restrained halfway through it's arc, and the blade is lowered to her stomach -
Slowly.
Not slowly. Please not slow. Quick was bad enough, she can't -
- and slices open her shirt.
Oh. Okay then.
She sleeps, pushed under by the probing of what, normally, she'd call her insides. None of this could hope to qualify as normal, even by Hellmouth standards.