Red
Chapter Eight
Anchor

Tara's voice wafts over me, whispering a breeze through the room. When I open my eyes, I feel heavy but rested, that sense of falling back into your body after a much needed sleep. Drowsiness lingers in my limbs, a comfortable anchor.

"How's it going?" I smile, turning over on the bed to look at Tara. She traces a calligraphy brush against a thick sheet of paper, leaving blue-black letters in Sanskrit. Tides of ancient words wash through the room, imbued with energy of water and deserts, sand and wind. Forces older than life, alive in their own way.

Tara's eyes meet mine, and she smiles back. "Hi sleepyhead."

"Was I out for long?"

"A couple hours. How are you feeling?"

"Like I got some much-needed rest. And some much-needed Tara time."

"You don't think we've been spending enough time together?"

"No, I didn't mean that. But more is always better." I emerge from the sheets and sit beside her on the floor, brushing a hand against her neck and kissing her cheek. She turns and kisses me back, on the mouth. We both grin.

"And besides," I say, "working on things with Buffy, and helping Dawn with her homework… it's a little different than when it's just us."

She laughs. "I have to agree with you. Everything's been crazy lately. It's nice to have a chance to just be… us."

"Just wonderfully us." I crane my neck to see what she's been writing. "Temporal alteration?"

"You recognized that fast."

"Yeah, I was kind of looking into it, back when Buffy… anyway. It turned out to be a dead end." I flinch at the bad choice of words. I add quickly, "But, good for M'Fashniks! Slowing down the homicidal maniacs, can't go wrong there."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And if we want information from them, I was thinking we could trap one and cordon it off, let Buffy take out the others - since we're running on limited resources, it sounds like a safer bet than offensive magic."

That hurts a bit - I mean, no one wants to be referred to as "limited resources," do they? - but I make myself nod. "Sounds like it would work. Hey, um, since I am feeling a bit better, mind if I help out?"

"Are you sure you're up to it? You were pretty zonked there."

"I know, but - I'm much more alive now. Tara smooches are pretty effective medicine."

I want her to laugh, but she doesn't. She writes a few more letters, and I scan over the pages. "Made a typo there," I say, pointing to the third column of intricate letters. "Although, the Goddess of Lettuce -"

She quickly adds another stroke to the letter. "We won't distract her from her lettuce-y ongoings," she says. "Though the element of confusion could be pretty interesting." She continues to write, and I wonder if she's just going to ignore my question. But a few seconds later, she says, "I guess it wouldn't hurt if you helped, as long as you were careful -"

"Hey, when have I not been careful?

She doesn't dignify that with an answer. Okay, fair point.

"Well, this time I will be. Careful as a… a very cautious and responsible Willow."

This time she does laugh. "Okay. We'll work on this last part together."

She passes me the ink and brush, returning to find her place in the spellbook. I'm relieved to see there's no sparks around her anymore, not even from close up. We both say the words to open the spell, and our energy pools together and encircles us. Annoyingly, that grinding sense comes to my head again. I grit my teeth and force myself to focus through it.

At first it's like having a migraine and trying to kick down a brick wall all at once. A jolting soreness spreads through my body and jerks blank spaces between my thoughts.

But finally, as though through sheer frustration, the wall comes down and a burst of power floods through me. It's like an iced soda in the middle of a desert. The discomfort washes away in one ecstatic sweep.

Writing the letters doesn't feel so much like creating them as uncovering something that was already in the page. Smoothing away the dust of time to get down to what used to be there. The magical syllables flow through Tara to me, empty through my hands - and it does feel like emptying. With every stroke of the brush, I feel myself hollow out a bit. I think of spinning pottery, pressing your hand into the center to create a hole. The spell swirls around my insides and leaves me a little less than before.

And okay, I see Tara's point about me being too tired for this. But there's a kind of satisfaction in pushing yourself to the limit, knowing you've put all you can into the fight. Like when you stay up late to study for a test, and you're worn out but also happy with how much you've learned and are capable of learning. Only this is more important, because it's not just for my own interests.

What I do in this spell, it really matters. I'm helping my friends. We're saving Sunnydale. I am going to put everything I have into this.