Author's Note: Probably like many who saw the Keeper of Traken, I assumed that the Melkur was just another name for the Master. Turns out... it's not! According to Guardians of Prophecy, a never produced episode remade by Big Finish, the Melkur are moving statues that are basically impossible to take down.
They are in the power of Malador, whom the Doctor traps in some dimensional something-or-other trap thing.
They were super destructive, in Guardians of Prophecy, and I just thought... Buffy should fight those!
"You don't understand," Seo pleaded with Xander, a few days later, when he stopped her just before she could escape. "I have to leave."
"And I can't come with you," Xander clarified.
"Yes."
"You see the problem with this, Seo?" Xander asked. "You leave, and don't allow anyone to see what you're doing, and then everyone goes all suspicious. And we don't know what you're doing when you're gone."
"I could be doing something good," Seo proposed. "I could be planting flowers, or teaching kids to read, or trudging through a tundra so I can save arctic seals…"
"Yeah, but if you were, then you'd probably let one of us tag along," said Xander. He crossed his arms. "You know what I think? I think you're out causing trouble, so you can convince Buffy to come home."
"I liked the arctic seals reason better," Seo replied. "It made more sense."
"Well, Willow and Giles are pretty much convinced that you're doing archaeological digs to try to find pieces from some ancient destroyed artifact called the Seed of Wonder," said Xander. "And if you're doing that, then it means you're probably going to wind up destroying the Earth's soul. So…"
"I don't want the Earth's soul," said Seo. "It's full of baby spiders."
Xander blinked. Then blinked again. Then nodded, slowly. "Right…"
"I just have to leave," Seo told him. "Please."
"Seo, just… tell me what you're doing," said Xander. "I promise, I can help. But I can't do anything, if you don't—"
"You can't help," said Seo. "Not unless you're a really, really good swimmer."
"I meant in the sense that I'll help convince Giles and Willow not to call up Torchwood and turn you in," said Xander.
Seo grinned. "They won't," she assured him. "If they turned me in, they'd generate a lot of suspicion towards Buffy. They wouldn't risk doing that to her."
Xander frowned. He hated it when Seo got all manipulative on him, like this.
"It's not the Sphere," Seo told him.
"What?"
"The Seed of Wonder," Seo explained. "I thought it was. But it turns out, it's not. And I don't think it's anything to do with the baby spiders, either."
"So… you are looking for this… Seed of Wonder thing," Xander said. "Or the pieces of it, anyways."
"Of course I am," said Seo, with a grin. "Someone's shipping its shards to London. I'm intercepting the shipments, and borrowing them."
"'Borrowing'," Xander said. "You mean 'stealing'."
"Let's go with the middle ground, and call it 'strategic sabotage'," Seo replied. Her eyes danced with excitement. "I want to know about the Seed of Wonder. It's something that doesn't make sense. Like the Sphere. That didn't make sense, either. I hate things that don't make sense."
Xander remembered what Buffy had told them, when Seo first arrived. That she was purposely trying to steal Giles' really powerful magical items. And then she'd flown that kite, and found out about Archangel — but decided it was useless. And now, with this Seed of Wonder thing…
Whatever Seo was trying to do, Xander was guessing she needed power to do it. A lot of power.
"Look, Seo," said Xander, "give me a break, here. You have… to…"
But he stopped. Because that was the exact moment he noticed a swarm of lizard-like black creatures, moving across the street towards them.
Seo spun around, and noticed the swarm, herself. She thrust Xander away, and slammed the front door in his face.
Xander scrambled back to his feet, and raced to the front door, flinging it open just in time to see Seo turning a corner up ahead.
Xander didn't waste any time, as he rushed out after her. Trying to do his best to keep up, even though he was just barely managing to keep the lizardy swarm in sight. He spent perhaps five minutes, trying to keep up with them, before he found himself tackled to the ground, and the lizards all burst into flame on the asphalt.
Xander looked back at the burning lizards. Then at the person who'd knocked him out of the way of whatever had been put on the asphalt to make them burn. Who was now lying right on top of him.
(Don't think about how close she is. Don't think about how close she is…)
"See?" shouted Seo, pointing at the smoldering lizard swarm things. "If you'd let me go, they'd never have known where I was staying, and I wouldn't have had to kill them!"
Xander was a little stunned. "You… knew… those things were coming?"
Seo rolled off him, crouching down beside the wall of a brick building. Eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. Arms on her knees.
She said nothing.
The moment Xander no longer had great-big-attractive-female-distraction right on top of him, his brain started working, again. And he remembered something else. That… Seo had been sneaking out a lot. And if this was the real reason she was sneaking out…
"Seo, these… jailers you ran away from…" said Xander, "do they want to kill you?"
"Torchwood?" asked Seo. "Yes."
"No, before that," said Xander. "Whoever… you escaped from before."
Seo said nothing for a long time. A very long time.
Then she stood up, and offered Xander a hand, getting him to his feet. She led him across the asphalt with the fried lizards, and… back towards Giles' house, it looked like.
Xander stopped in his tracks.
Oh, no. He wasn't letting it go at that.
"You've got to tell me what's going on," Xander demanded. "We figured you were being chased by Torchwood and your jailers before them — but I'm starting to think you're in way more trouble than just that."
Seo didn't answer.
"The moment Buffy leaves, you're getting swarmed with monsters," Xander continued. "I've seen that happen before, you know. I get what that means. You specifically sought out Buffy, because the monsters that are chasing you are all scared of her."
Still, nothing.
"So come on," said Xander. "Who are you? Where are you from? What did you do? And why are you trying to make us think you're evil, when you're obviously not?"
"It… was nice," Seo said, in a very quiet voice.
Xander paused. Frowned. "Huh?"
"My… prison," said Seo. "Before Torchwood. It was nice. It didn't even really feel like prison, sometimes. It kept… me in. And it kept other things out."
Oh. Okay, then. So Xander was right.
"I thought that was what prisons were all like," said Seo. "Until… Torchwood…" She shuddered. "I was an animal to them."
Xander came closer to her, put his arm around her shoulder, led her to a bench and sat her down. The street was empty, beneath the moonlight. Empty, save for them.
"But in this good prison," said Xander, "you were safe. From… lizards and things."
"And they were safe from me."
"Why?" asked Xander. "What did you do? Why were you in there?"
Seo didn't answer.
Xander sighed. He was starting to feel like a parrot. If he demanded Seo tell him what was really going on one more time, he thought he might as well call himself Polly and sit on a pirate's shoulder.
"Okay, fine," he said. "You don't want to tell me." He shook his head. "You know, way back, when I first met you, you told me you trusted me. And like a sap, I believed you."
Seo didn't answer.
"But I guess it was just another lie," said Xander, getting up from the bench.
He took a few steps forwards, trying to stop himself from looking back at Seo. Trying to leave her and all her lies behind.
"I do," said Seo, in a voice barely above a whisper.
Xander turned around, to find her slumped down on the bench, her eyes on the asphalt, her skin almost glowing beneath the moonlight.
"In prison, I used to… break out, from time to time," Seo confessed. "Whenever he was busy with something else, and I could sneak past. Make it outside. And… just… find someone. Anyone. Anyone else to talk to. I was so… lonely, I just wanted…" Seo shook her head. "But… everyone else, in the world, they were busy. Running around. Doing things. They never wanted to talk to me. They never cared. And then, one day, I found you."
Xander stared at her.
"I've been talking to you for 52 years," said Seo. "Any time I could get out. Just for a few minutes. You were always… so nice. You always made time to listen to me. It was like you… understood." Her cheeks flushed a little, as she scuffed the sole of her shoe against the ground. "And I knew you wouldn't remember. Because Dad…" Seo sighed. "But every time, I just thought, maybe, this time, he'll remember. Just because it's… me."
Xander swallowed, hard.
"But you never did," said Seo, looking back up at him. "You never, ever remembered me."
"I… I'm sorry," Xander offered. "But I don't…"
"Please," said Seo. "Please. Xander. I don't want to go back there. Not after this — after seeing everything! Meeting everyone! I can't do it."
Xander wasn't sure what to say.
"I don't want to live like that anymore," Seo said. "Day after day after day — filled with nothing, with no one. Only ever allowed to talk to one other person. The boredom and… the loneliness. So, so much loneliness. I mean, I'm almost a century old, now, and I haven't even had my first kiss, yet! I'd never even set foot on..."
Seo stopped herself. As she realized what she'd just said.
Xander caught it, too. Caught all of them. The numbers of years she was talking about, the numbers of years that were piling up, bit by bit.
"Seo," he ventured. "How… old are you?"
"98," Seo confessed.
Buffy had arrived back in town a short time ago, to discover Xander and Seo missing. Which didn't surprise or worry her all that much. Not nearly as much as it seemed to worry Willow and Giles.
They'd come back, eventually.
They couldn't possibly be facing anything as weird as what Buffy had faced down in Ireland.
Then Willow started bringing up the usual about Seo, and Buffy was — so — not in the mood for that, right now. She thought it might break down into another full on argument-fight-type thing. But, fortunately for Buffy, Dawn called.
Thank you, Dawn!
"Still feeling ignored?" Buffy asked her.
"Huh?" said Dawn. "Oh, that! No, I've worked out how to deal with it."
"Really?"
"Yeah," said Dawn. "Every single time I enter a room, I just have to jump up and down, flap my arms, and scream at the top of my lungs, 'Hello! It's me! Dawn Summers! Everybody pay attention to me!' And then they do!"
Buffy tried her hardest to stifle a laugh. She could just imagine Dawn doing this all across the Slayer Institution. And she could also imagine the weird looks Faith, Ria, Kennedy, and the others were giving her, as she did.
"So, go on!" said Dawn. "The UNIT liaison said you were up against something I totally wouldn't believe, in Ireland. Keep me in the loop!"
"Okay, okay," said Buffy. "I just got back, you know. Let me catch my breath."
"Come on," whined Dawn. "It's been, like, dullsville around here. Aside from the ghosts, we're getting, like, no good monsters. Just a bunch of death threats. All the good monsters keep going to Europe."
Buffy sat down on the living room chair, getting settled. "You ready for this?"
"Uh-huh."
Buffy paused for dramatic effect. Then: "Moving statues."
For a few moments, Dawn said nothing. Then, a disappointed, "Oh."
"What?" said Buffy. "Do you know how hard it is to beat up moving statues?"
"About as hard as it is to use a sledgehammer?" Dawn guessed.
Buffy sagged. "Well, yeah. But only someone with super Slayer strength could actually make the sledgehammer work against statues like these!"
Dawn didn't seem impressed.
"Oh, come on," said Buffy. "It's interesting!"
"Do you know how many ancient records there are of evil scary Weeping Angel statues?" asked Dawn. "I thought you'd be up against something new."
"They weren't Weeping Angels!" said Buffy. "They were all moderny and stylized and stuff. We went into this really ancient library to try to find records, and I met the Irish version of Giles, and he dug out this book that explained what they were. Turns out, they're something called the 'Melkur'."
"Melkur."
"Yeah, according to the book, they're creatures of pure evil," said Buffy. She shrugged. "Okay, I guess that goes without saying. But they also serve this guy called Malador, who's a super powerful, immortal creature with no soul."
"So… like always, then," said Dawn.
"Well, kind of," Buffy admitted. "Malador is from another planet, though. Before he got stuck in a dimensional thingamabob. That makes it kind of different."
The door opened, and in walked Seo and Xander. Both looked relieved to see Buffy.
Buffy waved at them. But continued her conversation.
"I thought you said you read about this in an ancient book," said Dawn. "So… dimensional thingamabob? Alien whatever? Other planets? Not really a medieval ancient kind of thing to write."
"Well, I'm pretty sure whoever wrote the entry on the Melkur was an alien," said Buffy. "Like, 95 percent positive. And based on how much it came up, I'm guessing the alien's home planet was called 'Traken'."
"Uh-huh."
"It's possible, you know," said Buffy. "Not all aliens are bad. Some are nice. Nice enough to write books warning us normal people about serious evil."
From across the room, Seo, a little confused, asked Xander who Buffy was talking to.
"I'm guessing it's just her sister," said Xander.
Seo furrowed her brow. And looked back over at Buffy.
Over the phone, Dawn was still going strong.
"So, these Melkur things were invading," said Dawn, "probably because they wanted to find some ancient artifact, buried on Earth — by this Traken Alien whatever who wrote the article — so they could open the dimension thingamabob and get Malador out?"
Buffy shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I was pretty preoccupied with the sledgehammer."
"At least, during this whole adventure, you managed to keep your cell phone intact," said Dawn. "This is like, what? Your fifth cell phone this year?"
"Seventh."
Dawn cracked up, and tried to hide it.
"What?" asked Buffy.
"Nothing," said Dawn, "it's just… you know, after what you told me, last time I called… I was thinking… 'breaking' — like mother, like daughter."
"Don't you start," Buffy grumbled.
"You break cell phones," said Dawn, still laughing, "she breaks cell phone networks!"
"Dawn!" Buffy shouted. "Seriously. Ix-nay on the ell-phone-network-say!"
Across the room, Seo had turned very, very pale. She faltered, and for a moment, Buffy thought she was going to fall over.
Buffy swore.
"Got to go, something came up," she told her sister, then slammed down the phone on an end table, and ran over to Seo.
Seo didn't fall over. But she didn't look very well, either. She just stared at the phone, where it still lay on the end table, her eyes wide, and her breathing shallow.
"Sister," she whispered. She looked up at Buffy. "Your… your sister… is…"
"Very well defended," said Buffy. "Just so you don't get any ideas."
Xander, looking between Buffy and Seo, cringed. "Buff," he warned.
But Seo had run out of the room before he could finish his statement.
Everyone looked after her, for a moment, saying nothing.
"Well, we knew she was after a super-powerful energy source that was close to Buffy," said Willow. "I just didn't expect it to be that one."
