Author's Notes: I was going to wait a couple days until I put this chapter up, but then I decided it was better to put it up now. Anyway, Chapter 2 should be up in a week or two.

Chapter 1

It started simply enough. Walking down a school hallway between math and art class, Dawn bumped into a pretty blonde with mean pink streaks in her hair. The blonde helped to steady Dawn, a wide eyed look upon her face.

"Your light is on," announced the girl, pitching her voice so that only Dawn would hear.

"Huh?" she said, wondering if this was a joke or another brand of Sunnydale craziness.

"Your light," said the blonde, as if Dawn were the crazy one. "So pure and good," was muttered, before she straightened up and explained, "It was off for a while-since last May, but it's on again. I thought you should know."

Dawn felt the blood drain from her face. No. It couldn't be. She wasn't the Key anymore. She was normal. She was human.

The blonde turned to leave, then paused and looked back. "He would have protected you from her, if he'd known. I think."

"What are you talking about?" asked Dawn, looking away at the sound of a book falling to the ground. By the time she looked back, the blonde was gone.

The conversation with the blonde from school had been all but forgotten. She still thought about it on rare occasion, but had come to the conclusion that the girl was probably just crazy or some sort of psychic that had seen her back when she was still the Key and had merely been mistaken. At least, she tried to make herself believe that. Of course, there was still a little voice in the back of her head that whispered that perhaps the Key had merely been drained of energy thanks to Glory's attempt to use her as a human sacrifice. That maybe the Key's power had recharged or something similar. That perhaps she'd never stopped being the Key. And maybe, just maybe her blood could still be used to open dimensional portals or whatever it was the Key did.

Dawn hissed in pain. She'd been sharpening a small knife stolen from Buffy years prior when her hand slipped. It was so small a cut, not more than a centimeter in length, but it was deep enough that Dawn considered whether or not it was worth it to get sutures from the massive first aid kit in the bathroom and stitch it shut.

She put down the knife and whet stone. Holding her hand at the same level as her head, she fished around in her bedside table drawer, searching for the small first aid kit she kept there. Once found, Dawn put it next to the knife.

Dabbing at the wound with a cotton ball soaked in peroxide, a drop of blood fell from her hand. Dawn ignored it in favor of cleaning the wound. Once clean she put a bit of homemade salve wound-she'd gotten the recipe from Tara, it worked better than Neosporin-and then a piece of gauze. Gauze in place, she tapped it down.

As she put the first aid supplies away she noticed something was wrong. Dawn felt faint.

The drop of blood hung in the air, glowing white. The moment Dawn took notice of the blood, the light began to expand in a somewhat circular manner.

This couldn't be happening. It had to stop! Stop!

The expansion halted as a purple and white mist began to form. Bolts of almost green light flowed from edge to edge.

It was happening. She couldn't deny it.

Would the portal start growing again? It began to expand the moment the thought crossed her mind.

Please let it stop. Please, please, let it stop.

It did. The portal, now the size of a grapefruit hovered before her.

Her eyes widened in realization. Was it controlled by her thoughts?

Unable to think of anything else to do, Dawn willed the portal to close. Willed it to disappear.

Dawn fought the urge to throw up as the portal shrank until it ceased to be.

This couldn't be happening. But it was. It was real. She was still the Key.

It was then that Dawn thought back to her conversation with the blonde. Obviously she wasn't a necromanced animal. So she had to be out of touch with reality in some way. Was she crazy? A seer?

Oh God. She was still the Key. Still a magical object turned human.

The nightmares began shortly thereafter. Fragments of half remembered terror and horror. Fragments that turned into dreams of what had been. Dreams that became memories of events long past.

By the end of the month, Dawn was completely exhausted. Not that anybody other than Tara seemed to notice. Tara had merely suggested that she go to bed earlier. And what was she to say in reply? That she was lucky to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time?

She'd taken to napping during the afternoon-between her return from school ad when either Buffy returned from work or she was expected at the Magic Box to be "babysat" by the Scoobies. The memories tended to be less graphic when the sun was out.

The dreams she had while the sun was out were faraway, like something that was happening to somebody else. She knew differently, but it permitted her to gain some much needed distance from these memories.

Dawn glanced up as a tray was placed on the table she had shared with Janice. Her friend had left to go to the bathroom and would be gone for at least fifteen minutes fixing her makeup. It took Dawn's sleep deprived mind several seconds to realize it was the blonde girl who may or may not be a seer. Or perhaps in need of a good psychiatrist.

"Hullo," said Dawn.

"Hi," smiled the blonde. "I just wanted to give you a gift for your birthday."

"Huh? It's not until the end of June," she protested.

"I know. But I won't see you on your birthday, so I thought I should give it to you now."

"Oh, thanks."

"Here," said the girl, sliding a large brightly wrapped package over to Dawn. "I've found it helps when dealing with things you can't talk about to others."

"What helps?"

"Writing, of course."

"I-of course," said Dawn, humoring the girl. She hadn't written anything other than class assignments since the day she'd burned a good portion of her diaries. If she was crazy, there was no reason to upset her, and if she was indeed a seer, Dawn had a feeling she might be following that advice sometime soon.

The blonde stood and turned to leave. "I'm Cassie, by the way. Cassie Newton."

"Dawn Summers."

"I know."

Cassie picked up her tray and walked to another table seconds before Janice sat back down at the table.

"What was that all about?" asked Janice.

Dawn did not open the heavy brightly wrapped package until well after school ended that day. Under the wrapping paper was a cardboard box. In the box were numerous books covered by a sheet of printer paper. She picked up the paper, reading the message:

Dawn,

I do hope you enjoy these works, or at least receive a bit of inspiration. The one thing these works have in common is that though supposedly works of fiction, they all have grains of truth hidden within them.

Cassie

Wondering exactly what Cassie was getting at, Dawn carefully removed the books from the box. There was a trade paperback containing the first fifteen issues of General Glory from the 1940s. An anthology of short stories titled "The Chronicles of Life." There were thirteen novels by Dian Belmont, with the name Cassandra Newton scrawled inside with a child's hand. Dawn later learned that Dian Belmont had only written seventeen novels. There was a book entitled "Lies My Brother Told Me," and a book of poetry by Doris Lee called "Golden Stars, Red Moon" which had been published posthumously in 1946 by some man named Theodore Knight. From what she read of the foreword, Ms. Lee had been murdered and her man, Mr. Knight had published her poetry in honor of her. Finally there were several cloth covered books with no title or author numbered with black permanent marker.

Dawn opened the book marked "I" and a slip of paper fell out. She picked it up and turned it over. There was writing she recognized as Cassie's on the back:

I wrote most of these poems years ago. You may do with them as you please. I only ask that you not use my full name.

She had no idea what the note meant. Did Cassie think she was going to have them published or some such?

Over the next two months Dawn read all of the books. Not only to keep herself awake at night-to avoid the nightmares for as long as possible-but also because she found them fascinating.

She read Cassie's poems last, not sure she wanted to see what the blonde had written. The poems were… indescribable. They confirmed, for Dawn, that Cassie was a seer. The helpless feeling… the hopelessness, the horror of knowing what will be but the inability to change what was going to happen.

These poems were good-amazing really. They followed their own style rather than one of the more traditional ones. Halfway through the book marked "IV" was forty pages made up of a single poem which seemed to be more an epic than anything else. It was the story of a seer who attempted, unsuccessfully, to stop several children from being murdered by a demon.

There were a couple other short stories, though none as long. Two of them dealt with death. More specifically, the author's death. The rest were more in keeping with the first story, with the author unsuccessfully trying to save people or watching as their own actions unknowingly fulfilled her prophecy.

Having understood Cassie's message quite clearly, Dawn sat down to write a little over a week after she finished reading Cassie's gifts. A clean notebook in front of her, Dawn spent the better part of a day staring at it.

She couldn't figure out what to write, where to start. At least until she thought back to the tower. The first portal created by her blood.

Dawn tried to write, then changed her mind. She pulled out a sketch pad used during art class. There was a reason art was her favorite class. It was the only class other than French where she always managed straight A's.

First she measured out the space she thought she needed for each image with a ruler, then she began to draw. The tower, the portal, Buffy's sacrifice were, Dawn decided, best written in the style of a comic book-no, a graphic novel. She started at the beginning with the monks of the Order of Dagon and the Knights of Byzantium. She knew now, remembered now how the key had come into the monk's possession and why the Knights so wanted its destruction.

She began with the prologue, with Sir Kay and Sir Gawain, giving the object known as the Key of Dimensions to the Monks of the Order of Dagon in what would one day become the Czech Republic. She'd just begun the seventh page-the second of the first chapter-where Glorificus, the war goddess of insanity, was thrown from her home dimension by her brothers when Buffy returned from patrol.

Dawn managed to sleep three hours that night-a record since the night she'd learned she was still the Key.

The next two days were spent writing the first chapter where the Key was turned into Hilde, the human sister of Brigitte, a powerful female demon hunter (she couldn't bring herself to write about the Slayer) and the last monk died, giving Brigitte the orb of Dagon. She set the story in what would one day be Finland and her characters were Norse, as Anya had always been willing to talk to her about her childhood home. The timeline had of course been changed, with maybe two hundred years instead of a millennia between when the Key came to the monastery and when it was changed into a human. It gave her the opportunity to write the story in a particularly rich period of history-one she was actually familiar with. She spent most of Monday editing the prologue and first chapter rather than bother taking more than cursory notes for class.

On the way to the Magic Shop that day she pawned everything she'd stolen that could actually be sold since Buffy had come back to life-she hadn't bothered stealing since she'd learned she was still the Key. There didn't seem to be much point in stealing to get the Scoobies's attention when she was trying not to draw attention to herself or her current problems; there was no way in hell she was going to let people know she was still the Key given a choice in the matter. With the money she got from pawning the jewelry, Dawn bought a set of very nice markers, a set of watercolor paints, a sketch pad, several watercolor brushes, and a new gum eraser.

That afternoon while Willow and Giles studied the newest demonic threat and Anya worked the till, Dawn carefully set about inking and coloring the comic she'd drawn. It took her no time at all to decide to color the comic with watercolors, rather than markers because of the wide range of colors she could get with them. It took quite a bit more time and she had to wait for the paint to dry, but it gave her the time to think that she needed. Admittedly, watercolor was a difficult medium to work in and required a great deal of skill to utilize it correctly, but the finished product, if done right, was absolutely amazing.

It took her most of the afternoon to paint the first two pages to her satisfaction and then use a very fine pointed black marker for the lines and letters. That evening, instead of doing her homework, she colored the next three pages, completing the prologue.

That evening she managed to sleep five hours, only to be woken up by a combination of the memories masquerading as dreams and the noise of Buffy coming upstairs after patrol.

Left with no other choice, Dawn had gotten up. For lack of anything better to do, Dawn began to search for Cassie's books of poetry. There was something in there, she was sure. Something important. Eventually she found the poem she was looking for.

She fought the urge to wince, to hide. Or to burn the book to ashes. Somehow, Cassie had known what she was. Had known about the Key and what had occurred. It was a little indirect in it's references to the Key and Buffy and Glory, but when you knew what had happened, it was obvious what the poem was about.

Once she had a chance to calm down, Dawn realized that the poem would go perfectly with her graphic novel. There were thirteen verses and if she wrote it right, paced the story correctly, she could put one at the beginning of each section; the prologue, eleven chapters, and the epilogue.

By the time the household woke up for breakfast, Dawn had managed to write an outline of the next ten chapters and the epilogue. The prologue had been by and far the easiest to write-and the only one she hadn't written a script for-as it had contained no dialogue, only images and sporadic narration. She'd written the script of the first chapter before drawing it, but it had all been very tentative with her drawing images and placing dialogue as she went until finally she was happy with it.

Once that was done, Dawn had carefully drawn the cover page of the prologue and the first chapter, deciding to do landscapes that had to do with each, with a painstakingly drawn borders using Norse imagery. Then she broke out an old fashioned fountain pen which had belonged to her mother and carefully wrote the first verse of the poem on the cover page for the prologue, using an old style which was meant to reflect the shape of Norse runes. She did the same for the cover page of the first chapter, using the second verse.

"Camp?" said Dawn, appalled at the very idea.

Three days had passed since Tara's death. Three days since Willow had gone off the deep end and attempted to destroy the world.

"It's near Opal City."

"It's in Pennsylvania. Opal is in Maryland."

Buffy ignored Dawn, continuing her attempt to sell the camp to her. "There's rock climbing, swimming, canoeing, hiking, horseback riding, rafting, and all sorts of fun stuff."

"But-" protested Dawn.

"Please, Dawnie. Do this for me."

"Alright," sighed Dawn. "When do I leave?"

"Two days. Giles is going to drive you to LAX and get you on a plane to Philadelphia. Once there, you're going to catch a bus to the camp. Giles will give you all the information."

"I'm going to go pack."

"Only a duffle bag and a backpack," ordered Buffy.

Dawn let out a sigh as she piled clothing on the bed. Then she paused, thinking. Once she got to camp, it would be simple enough to slip away. She had to learn how to control her abilities. If she didn't, it could be bad. Very bad.

Of course, if she lost control of her powers or made a mistake, she could destroy the entire dimension. At least she thought she might. Who knew what the real extent of her powers might be. It would be easy enough to arrange it so that the camp thought she'd gotten homesick and gone home or some such. Then she could leave and try to figure out what to do.

Right. That was what she was going to do.

She bit her lip, then began to decide what clothing to take with her. She picked out a pairs of tough corduroy trousers, two pairs of leggings, and a pair of capris-she'd be wearing jeans on the plane so there was no reason to pack an extra pair. There was a set of flannel pajamas, a flannel nightgown, and a simple set of an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. It took a bit, but Dawn managed to find a set of long underwear that had belonged to her mother. She found a thick fuzzy cardigan, a loose long sleeved plaid shirt, a t-shirt and a tank top. After a moment's thought, she grabbed a simple jersey dress with an a-line skirt that stopped at mid-calf. Then she went into the room Tara had shared with Willow and took an ankle length broomstick skirt and the outfit Tara had worn during the incident with that singing demon-just in case she ended up in a place more than a couple decades behind the times. She packed a ten pairs of underwear, six pairs of socks, two pairs of sheer pantyhose, and three bras. Finally, Dawn packed her mother's hiking boots as they were just slightly worn in and Joyce's feet were the same size as Dawn's and her mother's winter coat, scarf, hat, and gloves that hadn't been used since the time they went up to Yosemite. She'd also found a thin hooded rain jacket, an umbrella and a tarp. She packed a basic toiletry bag and a sewing kit with extra buttons, a few needles, pins, pieces of scrap material, and half a dozen spools of thread.

These items were packed with the knowledge that they had to fit into a fanny pack she'd stuffed into her backpack. The fanny pack was admittedly very much not in style, but with a spell Tara had called the "Marry Poppins-Carpet Bag Spell," she could fit quite a bit into it. And in all honesty, when wandering the multiverse, she'd rather carry a small fanny pack than a bulky backpack or an unwieldy duffle bag. Particularly since the spell tended to have odd side effects when used on something too large or with too many pockets. A sleeping bag rated for negative degree weather and a tent along with other basic camping supplies were already packed into the fanny pack. She'd spent the past two days discreetly buying cans of food, MREs from an army surplus store, and dried food, all of which were already in the fanny pack along with a canteen and two gallon plastic jugs of water.

After a moment's thought she put the paints, markers, pencils and sketchpad in a waterproof container and put them in the backpack. She packed a first aid kit with quite a bit stolen from the bathroom first aid kit, a bar of soap that had belonged to her mother, and the "basic" herbs required for any spell Dawn could think of that might come in use into the fanny pack. Tara had been teaching her to use magic since shortly after they'd first met, nearly two and a half years prior. Finally, she packed a sword, a battle axe and a set of knives in the duffle bag, hidden with magic so that they would not be detected by metal detectors, x-rays, or a physical search.

She had already hidden several knives on her body, using the same spell to keep them from being detected by anything short of a physical search, but it was less than she felt comfortable with. Likewise every bit of money she'd managed to save had been squirreled away in various pockets and bags.

"Dawn? Are you ready yet?" demanded Buffy. "You need to go if you want to catch your plane."

She let out a sigh and shouldered her bad. After a moment of thought, Dawn picked up the four Dian Belmont books that Cassie had not given her-she'd had to scour used book stores to find the rest of Belmont's books-and put them in her backpack. She would need something to do on the plane or what would most likely be boring times between moving from dimension to dimension-assuming she didn't spend the summer fighting for her life-and there was no way she'd manage to draw the entire time. Then she found a pleated mid-thigh lengths skirt, a wool knee length skirt, and grabbed a handful of shirts and stuffed them in her duffle bag on the way out.

Dawn let out a growl when she saw the pile all the duffle bags from the bus had been thrown in. Typical. No respect for them or their belongings. She attempted to pulled her duffle bag out, only to have her feet loose their purchase and her half slide, half fall to the ground.

"You alright?" said a deep male voice.

"I think so," said Dawn, desperately willing no portals to form as she tried to ascertain whether or not her skin had been broken.

Dawn let out a sigh of relief when she realized none of her visible skin was broken and there was no sign that anything under her clothing had been harmed. She gratefully accepted the hand the boy offered her and stood.

"Thank you," smiled Dawn.

He was rather handsome, with black hair, blue eyes and a healthy tan. He was healthily muscled from use, rather than because he'd specifically worked out to bulk up. The boy's clothing was nothing special, worn in jeans, a t-shirt and an unbuttoned plaid shirt. He wore work boots, rather than sneakers. He'd been on the same bus as she, Dawn realized. No wonder he was over here, he was probably looking for his own luggage.

"This your bag?"

"Yeah."

The boy reached in and pulled out her duffle bag with no sign of strain. "There you go." He reached in a pulled out another bag, presumably his own. "I'm Jason, Jason Todd."

"Dawn Summers." She shouldered her bag. "Nice meeting you."

"You as well," he said, obviously picking up on the fact that she wanted to leave.

Dawn smiled and walked away. This was, she knew, the best chance she'd have to slip away from the camp. The chaos of new arrivals and registration perfectly covered her escape. She walked like she knew what she was doing and where she was going. On her way into the forest, she happened upon a group of wildflowers. Perfect, she decided. They would take care of the camp nicely. She picked them and continued on until she could neither hear nor see any of the campers.

Dawn put down her bags and sat down on a convenient rock. She placed the flowers next to her and opened her backpack. As it was mostly books and her artwork which had been in the backpack, she put them into the inner pocket of the largest pocket and zipped the pocket closed. The clothing-save the hiking boots and the loose plaid shirt-was put into the largest pocket on top of the backpack and duffle bag. The magic herbs and the book of magic she'd take with her were placed in a small outer pocket for easy access. The bar of soap, the toiletries, first aid kit, and the sewing equipment were put into a small pocket inside of the medium sized pocket. Food was placed in the medium pocket. The water and the canteen were placed in the side pocket. The sword and battle axe in another side pocket. The knives were simply strapped onto her under her clothing-Buffy never seemed to realize that when Spike babysat her, and the summer when she was dead, he'd taught her useful skills, like knife fighting, self-defense, and how to use weaponry such as swords. The tent, sleeping bag, tarp, and camping equipment were placed in the only empty pocket left.

She reached down to pick up the flowers only to blow the hair out of her face. Dawn sighed and pulled her hair into a loose braid. She'd have left it at that, except then she started thinking about how easy a braid-or loose hair for that matter-would be to grab as a handhold in a fight. She pulled a couple bobby pins and hair pins from her bag and quickly wrapped her braid into a circular bun, hiding the hair tie and the end of the braid under the rest of the braid. It was quickly pinned into place. She used the two leftover bobby pins on either side of her head, just behind her ears to make sure that any hair which escaped the bun would not get in the way.

She picked up the flowers and whispered a spell, one that would make sure that nobody at the camp would remember that she'd been dropped off by that bus, or even that she'd been registered for the camp. The flowers caught fire and burned to ash.

Faintly, Dawn wondered if a portal could be opened without using blood.

Dawn flinched back in shock when the air split with a white light, expanding outward in a circular manner. The familiar white and purple mist formed as pale green bolts of energy jumped from one edge of the portal to the other.

Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself. She could do this.

She stood and waited until the portal was just slightly taller than she was, then she willed it to stop growing. Dawn tilted her head, wondering where the portal went to. Something, a feeling of some sort ran through over her, tickling the edge of her mind, but Dawn had no idea how to interpret it. She bit her lip and asked again, this time paying attention to the feeling, trying to figure out what this meant. If it meant the portal went somewhere dangerous or not. Although she supposed that all the portals went somewhere that could be dangerous, if a person didn't know how to survive there.

The only way to learn to control her powers seemed to be experience. It was time to get that experience.

"The hell?"

Dawn spun around. Her eyes widened as she realized the boy who'd helped her at the camp was staring at her. "Jason?"

"What are you, a witch?"

"Yes, actually. Although my kind prefer the term wicca," she answered smartly.

It was actually the truth. Tara had been a traditionally trained wicca; a wise woman and midwife trained in herb lore, traditional healing methods and medicines, and the traditional magic of her family's native Scotland. Over the course of two and a half years, she'd taught Dawn everything about these things that she knew. Her mind stuttered to a halt at that. She'd learned so much from Tara. She'd learned magic correctly from Tara.

But Willow… Willow had been so impatient, so powerful, caring more about learning big magics than the little rituals and knowledge which protected a magic user from being pulled either to chaos or order. Both chaos and order were addictive in their own rights, though in different ways, and nothing good came of serving either force. Willow had surely felt the pull of these addictive forces and first with that magic peddling demon, and later after Tara's death, Willow had given in to chaos.

"What are you doing with that thing?" Jason motioned toward the portal, his New Jersey accent getting heavier as he spoke.

"Me? I'm going to go through it. Then the portal is going to close." As Dawn spoke she fastened the fanny pack around her waist and tightened the belt until it felt secure. Then she put on the plaid shirt, tied the ends together just above the fanny pack and started to roll its sleeves up to just below her elbows. If he'd seen her do the memory spell, it wouldn't have affected him at all. "I'd appreciate it if you turned around and walked back to camp and forgot that this happened entirely."

"Where does this portal go?"

"I have no idea," she shrugged. "Not that it's any business of yours."

"You go through this portal, anybody going to get hurt?"

"I don't think so."

"Why did you come to the camp at all, if you were just going to leave?"

"That's none of your business, Jason. I'm leaving now."

With that, Dawn turned and walked through the portal. This might, she knew, kill her. For all she knew, if she stepped through that portal, she'd loose her human body and become a ball of magical energy again, but Dawn couldn't bring herself to care. Better this than a slow death waiting to accidentally open a portal and kill herself-and possibly everybody around her.

In the middle of stepping into the portal, she felt her stomach drop to her feet. Something-probably Jason-had grabbed her arm. As energy ran through her she could feel everything about the portal, she now knew what her powers had been trying to tell her earlier. She could feel the energy breaching the barrier between two dimensions which she now realized felt nothing alike and her own power forming a tunnel of sorts between the breaches.

They stumbled to the ground in this new world, this new dimension, and Dawn willed the portal closed. Somehow, she wasn't sure how, she knew that it would be bad for the portal to remain open much longer.