Bode glanced for the third time at the small creature that was happily giving her a tour of the house on the way to her room. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess as she followed along. "He seems too happy to be shadow spawn and he hasn't tried to kill me yet. Besides, Willow trusts him. I guess there are bound to be strange things from her world just as there are strange things in mine."

Dobby smiled brightly as he opened a door to one of the spare rooms, "This is your room miss. If there is anything you need please call."

Bode frowned as she looked over the sparsely furnished room. It was larger than her room back in Emond's Field had been. Looking around she saw a shelf with some books already stacked on the shelves. The bed was even neatly made. There was a large chest at the foot of the bed to store things in. She glanced at the writing desk which held a stack of papers and an ink well as well as a quill. A wooden chair was tucked neatly under the desk.

She smiled, "It's more than I expected. What am I going to do with the extra space?"

Dobby nodded, "I know I found that having more than a cupboard to sleep in was strange at first but you get used to it."

Bode wrinkled her nose, "A cupboard?"

Dobby frowned and wrung his hands, "One shouldn't talk bad about past masters but they weren't as kind as Mister Potter."

Bode frowned, "Thank you."

Dobby nodded enthusiastically and vanished with a snap of his fingers.

Bode frowned around the room at the bare white walls. "I guess this is home for a while. I should probably try to get some sleep though." She walked over and pushed at the mattress on the bed. "It's strange but it doesn't feel like straw or even stuffed wool. I wonder what it is. Alright Bode just get some sleep. You can always ask Willow in the morning." She changed into one of her nightgowns and slipped under the covers.

Bode walked into the kitchen the next morning to see a heavily tattooed girl in revealing clothing sitting at the kitchen table. "Ah greetings, I'm sort of new here am I in the wrong place?"

Violet smiled, "You must be Bodewhin. I'm Violet. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Bode smiled, "Same, so can anyone have food or…"

Violet chuckled, "Help yourself; we only really have a sit down meal at dinner or supper time. Mostly that's so Dobby doesn't go insane and cry because he thinks we don't like his cooking."

"Is something wrong with his cooking?"

"No it's very good. It's just that he worries about doing his job well. So did you sleep well?"

Bode nodded, "Yes, it was a very comfortable bed. I did not expect to have a noble's bed though."

Violet chuckled again, "It is sure fit for a noble isn't it?"

Bode found herself relaxing slightly. "So if I can ask how long have you been here?"

Violet smiled, "A bit over a year. I've been training a lot so the time just seemed to fly by."

"So what do you think of Willow?"

"She is an interesting mix of power and humanity. She has more power than anyone I've ever met and yet she is still very nice and sweet."

Bode blushed, "I am not quite sure what to think of her."

Violet grinned as she got up to get Bode a bowl, "Well I'm sure you will have the chance to get to know everyone here better in the coming weeks and months." She handed Bode the extra bowl of oatmeal. "It's not the best breakfast but the real cooks in the house weren't up yet."

Bode tasted the oatmeal and grinned brightly, "It's not rancid."

"Why would we give you rancid food?"

"It's just that where I came from all of the food was being turned rancid."

"That's rather gross."

"Yes it was."

Bode looked up as Dawn walked in. "So how long before I have to start studying?"

Dawn shrugged, "I figured we would give you a day or so to get used to the place before we started on the combat training. It's going to take Willow a while to get your portrait teachers set up anyways. Hopefully it will go well. If not we are going to have to figure out something to do about Lexie."

Bode blushed slightly as she thought back to their first meeting, "If nothing else I should be able to teach her enough to control her power."

Dawn grinned, "Oh I'm sure you will be practicing with her a lot. So how do you like your room?"

"It's bigger than I thought."

"We still have a couple of rooms in the house before we have to start putting people in the inn next door."

"I'm just happy to not have someone poking me awake or having to share a cot with someone."

Dawn chuckled, "Nothing says you can't share your bed with someone but we aren't going to make you."

Bode blushed, "That's good to hear."

"Violet would you take Bode here to visit the gym to watch the sparing practice after she finishes eating?"

Violet nodded, "Of course. It should be fun seeing what she can do."

Dawn chuckled as she left to go spend some time working on her own schoolwork.

Bode sat watching Faith sparring with Wolverine in the gym. "Does she ever stop? She has been fighting with him for a while. She even hit him with her feet a few times."

Violet chuckled, "We practice a great deal without weapons so we know what to do when we can't use them or they don't work."

"What do you mean not work?"

"Well some demons have such a hard skin that a sword would just bounce off."

"So what are you supposed to do in that case?"

"Maybe toss it into a pit of lava or break its neck or something. Knowing how to kill the demons we cannot smash apart is the job of the watchers. Your watcher is your helper; he or she is the person you go to for extra supplies or materials in order to take out the demons we have to fight. They are also typically the ones that file out the paper work, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned."

"So they expect me to learn to fight with a sword?"

"That and a stake for the vampires. But wouldn't you rather have a sword than fight the demons with your bare hands."

Bode nodded, "I think I would."

Willow smiled as Hermione put the finishing touches on the portraits that would be Lexie and Bodewhin's teachers. Willow glanced down at the portrait of Siuan Sanche and frowned. "I'm sure Lexie is going to hate me for picking her."

Siuan Sanche glanced around the small workroom she found herself in. The walls were bare stone. The room was bare other than a filled bookshelf on one wall near a narrow bed and a simple desk and wooden chair. She glanced at the other wall only to find a strange doorway without a door. Looking out of the doorway, she spotted the redhead from the other night. She leapt at the open doorway with a snarl and slammed into a field of force where the doorway was. She bounced back to land painfully on her behind. "What did you do to me?"

Willow sighed, "I didn't do anything to you. You aren't really Siuan Sanche you are a portrait of her. The other Siuan is safely back in camp. I need your help."

"Why would I help the girl that took me prisoner?" Siuan filled herself with the power and tried to grab Willow with a tendril of air. She frowned when the tendril stopped at the doorway. "What have you done? How did you do that?"

Willow sighed, "If I can convince you that you're a portrait, will you listen to me about needing help and why you are here?"

Siuan snarled, "Fine."

Hermione waved her wand at a mirror causing it to float up and hang in the air. Siuan frowned as she saw what looked like a portrait frame reflected back at her. She collapsed on the bed when she felt the whole room lurch as Willow picked up the portrait with one hand and gave it a slight shake. "I know you aren't going to believe me at first but you really are a portrait. I'm hoping that when you notice that you don't need food anymore you will start believing me. I need your help training Lexie in your power. I don't have your type of magic so I can't help her. I'm hoping that you can help her learn what she needs. I'll leave you to think about things for a while."

Siuan scowled as Willow left the room.

Hermione frowned at Willow once they were outside and after the door was shut, "What's the matter?"

"The real her is a bit stubborn, I'm just hoping we are doing the right thing using a portrait of her."

Hermione frowned, "Well we have the other five portraits to help flesh out her education in the power as well. If it's not enough we can always make other portraits to help her."

Willow sighed, "I guess that's all we can do. It's just frustrating that I cannot help you with your magic that much, other than looking up spells for you. I can't even do that for Lexie. The most I could do would be to sneak around and take pictures of more of the magic users in that world."

Hermione hugged Willow, "Don't let it eat you up. We are probably going to have to have a great number of portraits for the different magical slayers."

Willow nodded, "I know it's just frustrating."

Bode glanced over the titles on her bookshelf. Most of them were fantasy novels but a few seemed to be technical books on various different subjects. She smiled as she picked up a book on blacksmithing. "I guess that might be something I could learn to do. They always said I had talent at working with earth. The slayers don't have anyone that can make decent blades. I think found out something that I could help with." She curled up on her bed with the book on blacksmithing.

Lexie frowned as she sat in front of the portrait of Siuan.

Siuan looked out at her new student and sighed. "You must work harder, you have been coming here for several weeks now and you still have trouble concentrating on what you're doing. With your strength if you don't learn control you are going to destroy something important, like this house."

Lexie sighed, "I'm trying it's not as easy as you make it sound."

"Just concentrate on a rose flower opening."

Lexie sighed and focused on opening herself to her power and moving the small stone on the table. She sighed when the rock burst into flame after the fifth attempt to move it. She reached out with her magic, pulled the flames from the rock into herself and dispersed them harmlessly into the stone table.

Siuan gasped in shock, "You idiot you can't do that. Wool headed fool. Are you trying to burn yourself to a cinder?"

Lexie frowned over at Siuan's portrait, "What are you talking about?"

Siuan frowned as she noticed that Lexie didn't appear to be in any pain. "How, that's impossible."

Lexie frowned, "What's impossible?"

"You should be burned all over from doing that. No female can pull the fire into themselves without getting burned."

Lexie scowled, "So it's not enough that you insult my intelligence all day but now you are saying I'm not a girl? What the hell is wrong with you, you fucked up portrait from hell!" She stormed from the room.

Siuan was left looking at the charred and partially melted stone as her thoughts ran around in circles, "What she did was impossible, but I saw it. It's just not possible but she used Saidar. I could see her use the power, it was no different from how some other idiots have burned themselves in the past. Yet she did not have a mark on her. Such power outside the tower makes me afraid but to not train her would be worse. Maybe I can still convince her to join the tower. I just wish I knew how she could do the impossible."

Faith watched Wolverine stagger into the kitchen. His various bruises were fading fast as he collapsed into a chair and reached for a beer. Faith grinned at him, "Tough workout?"

He scowled, "I'm done sparing her after she works on her magic. If her hitting me hard enough to break concrete wasn't enough, she then broke every punching bag we had.

Bode knocked on Lexie's door, "Can I come in?"

Lexie sighed, "Fine come in if you want."

Bode stepped into the room and looked around briefly before focusing on Lexie sitting on her bed crunched up. "So I heard that you had some issues with Siuan today."

"Stupid old hag said I wasn't a girl."

Bode sighed, "What exactly happened?"

Lexie sniffled, "I was trying to move a stupid rock when I got angry and it burst into flames. So I put the stupid flame out and she freaked out."

Bode frowned and sat on the edge of the bed, "Why did that frighten her?"

"How the hell should I know? I just reached out and pulled the fire in and put it into the stone table to disperse the heat."

Bode winced, "So she freaked out because you got burned?"

"Why would I get burned from doing that?"

Bode blinked in shock, "Because that's what normally happens when a girl uses magic to draw in flame."

Lexie sighed, "So I'm a freak now?"

Bode frowned, "A what?"

"Odd, strange, or different."

"I guess, but hey it's a neat talent. So how is the learning going with the other portraits?"

"Better than dealing with the grouchy old hag."

"Just give it a little time; I think at some point she will realize that it's just a talent or something of that nature and stop pressing you about it."

Lexie nodded, "It's just so frustrating. I've never had issues learning things before."

Bode frowned, "You're joking right you get most things in half the time it normally takes and you consider yourself slow just because you don't have a good reference point?"

"So can you help me?"

"I guess I can try."

"Thank you."