Chapter 1: Manhattan

She huddled against the spring rain, her coat wrapped tightly around herself. She had been on the move constantly for a few weeks now. Though she'd been smart enough to bring a decent chunk of money with her, she knew it wouldn't last forever. She avoided staying in nice motels, though she knew that she was running the risk of something bad happening to her. She wasn't an idiot after all.

Just a masochist, apparently.

It was as much a surprise to her as it would have been to another. She'd thought that she'd been lying to the Scoobies when she'd claimed to be called on a quest of some kind. It was true, she had a vague idea, she wanted to grow stronger, wanted to find some meaning in Buffy's death. The specifics had just never materialized. Yet as she'd worked her way further away from Sunnydale, the ringing in her ears and the echo in her power had grown greater. Something was calling her. The force that had been compelling her, moving her forward had only grown stronger as she had blinked her way across America. It hounded at her dreams; a beacon of light. When she closed her eyes she could feel it within herself, like a compass needle pointing northwards. It was maddening, like an unscratched itch crawling down her spine.

She counted it as pure luck that she hadn't really run into any real trouble. It helped that she could probably just leave if anything got too bad, but after Glory, she really didn't care much anymore. Any two bit thug or rapist would be in for a surprise if they tried to jump her. She'd been working on extending her awareness. She doubted anyone could really surprise her anymore unless they were in a giant crowd.

When she'd been the Key for all those ages she'd been able to sense all those around her. Each presence in the world left a distinct feeling, an imprint on the world around it. Even though she could not see things behind her, she could feel them in a way that most others simply couldn't. The space around her sang to her, telling her of all who passed through it's web. Though she was a sucky poet, the analogy fit. It felt much like hearing and feeling at the same time, like the deep thrum of the bass that would cause her mother to yell at her when she turned her music up too loud.

Joyce, Dawn corrected herself. Joyce had been a good woman, and treated her with love that she didn't deserve; but Joyce was not truly her mother. She had to remember that, had to push through.

So here she was. Times Square. Yippee. She stood out in the open, still while the New York night whirled around her in a dance of light and noise. She didn't care. She wasn't here for the people. She looked up at the great glowing billboards and sat, listening. For what she wasn't entirely sure.

"Excuse me miss," a voice queried. Dawn looked away from the light to look at the hunched woman sitting next to her. "Are you lost?"

"That's an affirmative," Dawn replied. "I... I felt like I needed to come here you know? And now that I'm here I have no idea where to go."

"Ooh," the old woman crooned and Dawn's forehead crinkled a little. She felt something... something about this woman was off. The green fire in Dawn's veins began to sing slightly in sympathy as the old woman looked at her in a judging way. "You don't want to be out here. Come with me dearie. I've got a notion I know where you're supposed to be."

She allowed the old woman to lead her along, her slender hand in the grip of the old woman's stubby paw. They wove around the back streets of Manhattan for almost fifteen minutes, and Dawn was beginning to grow even more concerned. Yet they still walked until they were facing what looked like a back entrance to some kind of industrial shop of some kind.

"You see, it is here," the old woman hissed through her gaped teeth. Dawn paused and looked at the woman as she reached up and twisted something. The doorway slid apart, pale blue light spilling out of it. It was the back of some kind of machine shop. The old woman beamed and jumped up. Bemused, Dawn followed on her heels carefully. She would have yelled at the crazy woman if the door hadn't just opened from some mechanism that Dawn couldn't understand. The first door led to another and yet another. They crossed down an ancient looking stone staircase, accompanied by the dripping of water down her back. Wearing her raincoat, she was spared the worst of it, but it was still cold and stale water.

Then they were in a tunnel, long and lit only at intervals with lights that looked far too old to be year 2000 halogens. The dim orange glow they gave off cast everything in an eerie orange and black monochrome. Dawn wasn't sure how far they walked, but the walk ended when they found themselves before a large hallway with an enormous door. It was huge, three times her height in diameter, easily. The oak tree emblazoned upon it was a beautiful brass, glittering in the golden sodium light of the lamps. Her hand reached out to trace the symbols while the old woman hobbled to a brass panel that folded aside to reveal a drum engraved with symbols that she hazily recognized.

This... this wasn't a place for normal people, Dawn realized.

"What you were looking for, yes?" The old woman prompted. Dawn blinked at her as the old woman gestured towards the the drum. "The code for entrance, know it do you?"

"Yes," Dawn said with a slow smile. Yes, she knew all the codes. No door could bar her way. She was the Key. She walked over to the drum and placed her hand between it and the door. Her eyes cinched closed and she concentrated. She heard the old woman hiss in surprise, and maybe fear, as the dials on the drum began to spin at an incredible rate through her focus. One after another they locked into place until the sequence was completed.

She opened her eyes as she heard the door cycle open, panels and locks folding away as the great metal plate rolled out of the way. She gave the terrified looking woman a smile. "Doors are usually no prob."

The hag nodded once and then hobbled away from her as fast as she could. Dawn felt bemused at the woman's antics, but stepped forward anyhow, into the lantern light. Despite having Buffy for a sister, despite having seen the full fury of a Hell God, despite her own powers, she had never, ever seen anything like this.

The arcane glory of the Brooklyn Bridge Troll Market spread out before her, a riot of sounds and colors that her senses reveled in. A pair of giant trolls argued with a beautiful nymph over something clutched between their hands. Sprites with fluttering wings and multiple heads swooped low over stalls that held everything from televisions to Persian rugs, to things that would be right at home in the 'Extremely Restricted' area of the Magic Box.

None of the passing patrons seemed to give her much more than a single look, but they hurried about their business. She saw several small creatures peer at her curiously before darting off in what looked like terror. Bemused, Dawn strolled down among the stalls listening to the riot of tongues and the whiff of strange musk and perfumes. It was sooo weird. And it was comforting too. For the first time since Buffy died, Dawn felt... right. This was where she needed to be.

Now, if she only knew why.

0oooo0oooo0

Mr. Wink was having a bad day.

Most days Mr. Wink had were bad days as a sane person would measure such things. If they didn't start out that way, he tended to make them end up that way. He liked bad days. They gave him ample excuse to pound annoying people into paste, and that was very satisfying.

This was a different sort of bad day.

It had begun innocently enough. Mr. Wink had decided to try his hand this month in the local arena matches. Now, unfortunately there were few fatalities in the pit among seasoned fighters. Healers were always on hand, for excellent warriors were not a commodity to be squandered when they could grease the wheels of commerce so effectively.

Technically ranked as an amateur, Mr. Wink was anything but. At nine feet tall and weighing almost a ton, he was a mountain troll of Nordic descent and proud of it. His skin was blue like frozen rocks and his teeth were sharp and numerous. He'd once hunted the fjords and later the Emerald Isle. He hadn't been alive during the Great War, but he understood why it had happened. The humans were simply insatiable. Mr. Wink could sympathize with that; he was a troll after all. But he figured it would be best really to just get all that aggression out. Why not just have a cage match and see who won? He didn't really have any sympathy for the politics, though he was far more aware of them than most of the Fae. After all, not many could boast to having the Exiled Prince as a regular drinking buddy.

He had been fighting so long that his stony hide was covered in scars and his knuckles had crushed the life out of more than a few dozen arrogant humans and even more Fae. This lower human headcount wasn't because Mr. Wink liked humans, far from it really. The average human really just wasn't much of a challenge. Particularly after the Slayer he'd once fought. No other human came close to that girl. She'd been a hair's breadth from winning that one, and only luck and four centuries of combat experience had kept Mr. Wink's head upon his considerable neck.

Though most at the arena knew him, Mr. Wink wasn't often listed. He was more of a ringer really. A clan of out-of-towners, some bunch of feather headed fools from the Great Plains or something, had placed a large bet against him, seeing him truthfully listed as a part time gladiator. He could hear their screams of rage when he put his opponent down after a long and mostly showy fight. After all, Mr. Wink if he'd wanted could have won that fight in the first thirty seconds.

The fight would have been entertaining enough in and of itself, but the cash purse prizes weren't exactly unwelcome either. And so, having been victorious in the arena he had made his way home to the part of the subway tunnel network that he shared with his old friend the prince Nuada. He'd just about reached the exit of the market when he'd hit upon a glitch; one of the kind of glitches that hits back.

His head smashed into the nearby wall of the market stall, further enraging him and causing the goblin merchant to start throwing a fit (as well as his broken merchandise) which wasn't really helping things any. Their first blow had been to his head. Mr. Wink counted it as a fortunate coincidence that his skull was quite thick. Thick enough that the blow itself did little more than make him stumble. However his foes were fast and very, very persistent. They were tall creatures, taller than Mr. Wink which was impressive, with gangly arms and the heads of coal feathered crows. Their long arms held notched clubs that they used to mercilessly beat upon his fallen form.

This state of affairs was one Mr. Wink was disinclined to allow to continue, and he informed his attackers of such with a roar that shook the cobbles beneath him. His arms flailed out, striking both of the native trolls. The first was disarmed as his studded club was knocked soundly aside by Mr. Wink's rather meaty forearm. The second was less lucky and lost a kneecap to a fortunate strike that laid the creature out with a thud.

Climbing to his feet, Mr. Wink was set upon by the first creature that he'd simply disarmed. It leaped at him and only by raising his left arm could he keep it's beak from chomping down on his neck. However the bugger's jaws were much stronger that Mr. Wink would ever have suspected from such a creature. He released a roar of pain as it almost completely severed his left arm, cutting deep into the bone. Mr. Wink's rage fueled counter blow stove in the skull of the crow headed troll, and it released it's grip.

Bloody native trolls. Strutting around like they owned the place.

But now he was in trouble, and Mr. Wink knew it. Blood was pouring from the wreckage of his left forearm and the other troll was getting to its knees, despite the damage he'd done it. Mr. Wink stumbled a little, but his charge was as effective as it had always been. His fist shattered the chest of the remaining troll and it fell backwards. Mr. Wink decided that the fellow had a rather bright idea, and decided to follow suit.

His arm cradled against his chest, he looked down at it and the blood flowing forth. This would be troublesome. The Exiled Prince would be extremely unhappy with him. No poker night this week. As his vision began to gray out, he watched as something small and almost edible looking seemed to sidle up to him. It smelled... almost like a human. But there was something that gave him pause. A scent of sharp pine and crackling ozone. Then Mr. Wink's vision faded to gray and he knew no more.

0oooo0oooo0

Dawn had wandered around the market with a deep seated sense of awe. Though she had seen more demons than she'd ever wanted to, and this place was just as freaksome in it's own way, there was a kind of wholeness here in the market's inhabitants that Demons lacked. The fairies who flitted around her on gossamer dragonfly wings didn't give off that sense of wrongness that the creatures of Sunnydale did. Her own senses had grown much stronger out here. It was as if the gray hues of the world had suddenly become Technicolor. She was only now beginning to realize just how suffocating the taint of the Hellmouth was and the realization scared her. If it was this bad for her, how was it for Buffy? For Tara? Or god, for Willow?

Dark thoughts of the powerful woman that Willow was becoming tainted by the power of Sunnydale were dancing through her head as she leaned over to examine a stack of texts in an open air stall. It was a magic book; one that she'd heard Anya complaining about the difficulty of finding. Well, buying it would certainly get Anya off her back. One was better than none. An accordion-necked creature sat in a folding chair, watching her carefully as she peered at his wares. Its four arms were crossed underneath its chest and its set of four glittering sapphire blue eyes regarded her with a hint of distrust.

"See something you like do you human?" it wheezed as it's long neck descended. There was a rush of air as it expanded outwards again, causing Dawn to flinch back with wide eyes.

"Oh, sorry," she muttered. "I uh was just looking at this copy of Deadalus' Codecies of Craftsmanship. An friend was looking for a copy of it."

"Ah," it replied as the neck descended once more. "A most enlightening book. But most expensive as well. There are few copies, rare it is."

"How much?" Dawn asked. The accordion faerie looked thoughtful.

"I care not for Man's currency," it said after a moment. Its gaze became speculative. "Perhaps there are other things of interest you may have? The blood of a unicorn? The sneeze of giant? The hair of an Outsider?"

Dawn stopped.

They had found her one day as she flitted through the sky on her way. The tallest of them, the Forest King, had rode into the sky to race beside her for a time and she beheld him. When he reached out to touch her power, she slid through his fingers as would sand.

Balor the Great was satisfied. In his tongue he named her.

Divish-nal. One of the Outsiders; not born of nature or artifice, but something more primal. Something from the times before forests and hills.

Slowly Dawn reached down into her belt and drew out the dagger that Buffy had given her when she'd first learned about Demons. Of course, that had never really happened, but the weapon was real enough and razor sharp. Carefully she gathered a small lock of her long hair and drew the knife across it. The brown hair slid into her hand and she looked right at the merchant. She held her index finger to her lips and green lightning danced for just a split second over the extended digit.

"The hair of an Outsider," she said quietly, placing it in the shaking paw of the distraught merchant across from her. "Book please."

"Y-y-yes Great One," the merchant said with a horrified expression. At least, Dawn thought it was a horrified expression. It was hard to tell with this guy. One of his long, thin arms held out the book and she snatched it from his grip with a bright smile.

"Thanks much," she said. "Have a nice day!"

She waved at him as she walked off into the crowd. She was pleased to see the strange fae wave back very slowly with its own hand. She placed the Daedelus Codex into her back-pack with a satisfied smirk. Dawn dusted her hands off and smiled.

"Well, am I awesome?" she asked the empty air. "Or am I awesome? Summers 1, strange fairlyand critter 0."

The roar of a creature in a great deal of pain shocked her out of her happy daze. Drawing the knife from her coat on instinct, she flipped it so that it was blade point down, just like Buffy had taught her. Very carefully she leaned around the corner to see a fight where a weapon like the one she had would have been completely useless.

She watched a tall and solid troll-ish creature in a death match with a pair of crow headed things that were even taller. Dawn probably would have fit in their socks without much trouble. The fight was intense and bloody, but the two attackers were handled, killed by the troll. She blinked as she watched the troll sag against a nearby wall even as an extremely angry goblin hurled insults she couldn't understand and broken pottery at the fallen giant.

Dawn felt a small stab of pity in her heart as she watched the troll's eyes begin to glaze over. Carefully, very, very, carefully, she picked her way over to where he had collapsed against the wall. She looked over at the pissed off goblin.

"Is there a hospital here?" she asked. "Or some kind of... I dunno, healer?"

The goblin stopped and looked at her. It hefted a piece of pottery in it's hands as it considered her. Dawn's eyes narrowed and she held out her hand. She'd just got the handle of this one but it was scary and effective. Green light played over the dagger in her hand and she threw it at the goblin only to have it disappear in mid air. The goblin's pale red skin blanched as the knife disappeared only to have it cut across his cheek from a completely different direction. A very small drop of red blood began to well up as it looked at her in shock. Dawn smiled her most saccharine smile.

"There, do I have your attention now? You can keep going if you want, that's okay."

It nodded mutely.

"Now, healer, hospital," she said in forceful monosyllables. "Where?"

"Nearrr the Atrrrium," it hissed. "The Grrreat Gates."

"The big one with the brass tree on it?" she asked. It nodded again.

"Thank you!" she said. She turned away from the goblin to pick up her dagger. Her face worked its way into a frown. She knelt down next to the fallen troll. "Never moved this much though. Could be tricky."

A clatter drew her attention and Dawn looked up from where she was kneeling to see another five of the crow headed guys come around the corner and look at her kneeling next to the fallen troll. It let out a hideous screech and pointed one long talon straight at Dawn. She gulped.

"Oh well," she said with a nervous laugh. "No time like the present."

She gathered her power up and touched her hand to the troll's forehead. The two of them vanished in a flash of green light. Their reappearance caused a great deal of commotion. A ton of troll landing on the stones with an echoing thud, being surfed by a fifteen year old girl was odd, even for the Brooklyn Troll Market. Dawn looked up and scanned the completely silent crowd that was staring at her with their undivided attention.

"Uh... heh," she laughed nervously. She shakily raised her hand. "Is there a doctor in the house, er, the plaza, thingy?"

0oooo0oooo0

"He will live," the healer said. It had been a somewhat nerve wracking hour as the fae doctors had attempted to save the troll's life. In the end it had come down to amputating his arm. The healer before her was somewhat drawn looking, but he looked confident. "Though he will need a new arm."

"That's a bum wrap," Dawn sighed. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It is a small price to pay for his life," another voice interjected. Dawn looked over her shoulder and her eyes widened in some surprise as a man walked in who couldn't be described as anything other than a Tolkien Elf dressed in thick black robes with a holster for something over his shoulder whose handle she could see. A Tolkien Elf who'd gotten into a fight with a batch of extremely inventive barbed wire.

The man's pale skin was covered in scars that she could see and more that she couldn't from a near immortal lifetime of combat. His eyes were the yellow slitted orbs of a prowling hunter cat, and his black lips were somehow caught in a perpetually sour expression. He appraised Dawn just as she did him and his posture and expression changed in an instant. There is nothing quite as disconcerting as an immortal and jaded being unaccustomed to any kind of shock being caught entirely off guard.

"Outsider," he whispered. Dawn narrowed her eyes at him.

One among their number rode his stallion faster and further than the rest, darting ahead and behind the Forest King. His laughter and fierce joy in the visceral thrill of the hunt were unmatched by any around him. He danced in her glittering wake as they rode across the heavens, daring to come closer than his father had, proud and strong in his youth, as impulsive as the other half of his soul was demure and riding reluctantly at the back of the Wyld Hunt.

She felt a sad smile flit across her face as the ancient memories tried to reconcile themselves with the girl she now was and the visage of the haunted man in front of her.

"Time hasn't been kind to you Nuada," she whispered. "Has it?"

"No," he said after a moment of collecting his calm. "I would say that it has not."

The doctor left then, realizing perhaps that anyone who could refer to the Prince in Exile in such a personal and disrespectful way and not die instantly for the affront was the kind of person he wanted to be quite far away from.

"This body," Nuada began, looking at her once more, his eagle eyes seeing what others could not. She sighed when he decided not to continue.

"It was to protect me," she said finally. She looked around. "Maybe we could talk somewhere with thicker walls. I don't want this to get back to someone who might use it to hurt my friends. Enough people have done that already."

Nuada slowly nodded. "Would my sanctum be sufficient?"

"I have your word on safe passage?" Dawn prompted. "I know your word is good."

"You do," Nuada said. "If only in gratitude for saving the life of a dear friend."

They left, winding through the market as it began to close for the break of dawn. Mr. Wink rested where he was, under the fog of potions and magics that bound his form to sleep.