Never Run from Anything Immortal
Chapter Three: Prophecies, Poetry, and Petty Theft
by Troll Princess



Willow wanted to take notes in the worst way.

She did. Her hand itched and her blue pencil was just sitting there on her desk, all sharpened and unused, waiting for someone to pick it up and write something.

But she couldn't, because Miss Fleming didn't give notes.

She didn't have books. She didn't have workbooks. She didn't even have something remotely resembling a syllabus. It was all talk about emotions and the way words played off one another, and after a few weeks of it, it was really starting to give Willow the wiggins.

This was just ... wrong. It was unconventional teaching. Classes required notes. Actual notes. And research. What was that thing the teacher had said on the first day? "Write whatever you want and are willing to present to the class." That's what this teacher had said.

Whatever you want? Whatever you want? There had to be a least a little more to it, right? A little more structure to the assignments? If there even were assignments. Willow had been terrified that Miss Fleming really did expect you to hand in whatever you wanted and would end up accepting grocery lists and resumes at the end of the semester. And what was going on with the due dates? Were there even due dates? Please?

Willow just couldn't help it. She knew she'd been dying to try out this creative writing class at first, but it was so ... random. She liked a little organization in her school stuff. 'Cause she went home and rejoined the Scoobies and suddenly it was randomness all over the place. School -- organized, structured school -- was the one solid thing in her life. Well, aside from Tara.

That pencil was still staring at her.

She had to write something. It was driving her nuts. Edgy, she reached out and wrote, Give me the child. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me.

There. She felt better. She had written something with that stupid pencil. And she'd had to get that out of her head anyways. The gang had gathered at Xander's on Saturday night for popcorn and a movie, and it had been someone's genius idea to watch "Labyrinth," one of the few movies she knew by heart. That whole speech had been running over and over through her head for the past two days.

"Come on, gang, any takers?" Miss Fleming walked up the aisle, her flowing black skirt and overpowering sandalwood perfume drifting past Willow as the professor passed her desk. "I know you lot. Some of you show up on Mondays cuddling every piece of prose you ever wrote to your breast as if it were made out of silver and gold."

There were a few laughs at that, from the non-English majors, obviously. The ones who showed up in a lot of Willow's lit classes arguing that a story was just a story, and that trying to explain how "The Wizard of Oz" was an essay on the Depression-era Dust Bowl farmer was like trying to explain the political significance of a rutabega.

"Anyone? Anyone?" Miss Fleming droned. More laughs. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" had been on TNT all weekend long.

There was a slight pause, and Willow fully expected Miss Fleming to send them on their merry way. But an instant later, a voice tinged with a British accent, delicate and melodious, said, "I have something I could read."

"Thank God," Miss Fleming said, sitting on a desk not far behind Willow. "Go on."

Willow thought about turning around in her seat, but something told her not to. Just to listen, and let the words flow over her like a gentle, healing spell. So she did.

I saw you last night,
although I know it's impossible.
Your image was hidden in shadow,
so much so that
I almost didn't recognize you.
But you laughed when you saw me,
and then I knew you.
You wrapped your arms around me,
and I forgot my troubles,
and only remembered you.
We played for a while,
thought about our fun,
and you faded.
You started to disappear,
like a ghost,
leaving slowly enough to drag out the pain.
And then you were gone.
Now I want you back,
because I saw you last night,
although I know it's impossible.

Willow could barely bring herself to open her eyes again. It was a beautiful poem, or at least she thought so. And just hearing it had raised visions of Oz in her head.

She glanced quickly around the room, and noticed that a few of the other students had reacted to the poem as she had, their memories drifting back to someone they'd lost that they wouldn't mind getting back. A couple of students exchanged embarassed smiles as they wiped away tears.

It wasn't the words, so much as it was the voice of the woman who'd been reading them. Her voice was music, warm and sweet, fresh honey set to song that poured over their souls and set their emotions humming.

It was ... magick.

Willow slowly turned to stare at the young woman who'd been reading, a transfer student presumably, at this point in the semester. Something told Willow even before she saw the girl that there was magick in her. Power resonated from the girl like a heat wave off her pale flesh. Her white-blond waves hung loose around her face, a curtain of off-white barely hiding a pair of tilted lavender eyes. Several silver rings and a horseshoe-shaped bit on a choker accented her light green tank top and tan pants. Draped across her desk was a brown suede duster, a patchwork design evident even from this far away.

But even as Willow took in every aspect of this strange girl's world, her gaze never left the girl's. Even as she felt the girl reining in the power that Willow could feel emanating from her.

"Well, that took some courage," Miss Fleming finally said, after she had managed, like the rest of the class, to return to reality. "You read beautifully, my dear."

The girl nodded, a little embarassed, and quickly sat down before the rest of the class started adding their own agreement to the professor's. She glanced up and her odd, violet gaze connected with Willow's. The girl started and quickly glanced away.

Huh. That was weird.

Willow merely stared. Something really strange was going on with that girl, and Willow was dying to find out what.

She was so curious for a little gossip on the new girl that she didn't notice the poem that suddenly appeared, as if from invisible ink, in her notebook. I saw you last night, although I know it's impossible ... popped up in vivid blue-silver lettering.

The girl grinned to herself, a soft, gentle smile, and Willow watched her leave as Miss Fleming dismissed the class.

Yup ... definitely strangeness afoot.

What a bleeding nightmare.

Aidan, for lack of a better phrase, despised magick shops with an unholy passion. Magick was what had gotten him and everyone he loved into this situation in the first place, and he'd spent nearly eight hundred years wishing magick had gone out of fashion with the Canterbury Tales and the plague.

So, enter Sunnydale. Which apparently had turned witchcraft into the official town hobby.

The place had been packed not long ago, but after a few minutes, the customers had started to file out until Aidan was the only one left in the shop. And he meant that literally -- there wasn't even a counterperson in the place.

Well, there had to be someone here. Clearing his throat, he yelled, "Excuse me? Is there someone in this joint who could help me?"

A feminine voice called out from the back room. "I'll be with you in a minute! Please don't steal anything!"

Aidan thought on that for a second, then frowned. "Bugger," he muttered, then slipped a pewter statue of Mab back where he'd found it on one of the nearby shelves. Damn. The old bird probably would have liked that.

Hey, wait a minute ... that voice had sounded awfully familiar ...

A moment later, a stack of boxes with an amazing set of legs and a pair of hands sporting an expensive manicure walked out of the back room and promptly plopped itself down behind the main counter. Another moment later, a petite blond woman rose up from behind the boxes and scowled at them as if they'd committed an egregious faux pas and would immediately be put to a bloody, painful death.

"This is all wrong," she muttered, wiping her dusty hands on her skirt. "Men are supposed to carry boxes. I've seen it in movies. I don't care what Xander says ... if it happens in movies, it has to be --"

This was followed immediately by her shrill scream at the very sight of him, and the shatter of something glass and probably dangerous as she backed up against the shelves behind her and knocked off several knickknacks.

"Please don't set me on fire!" she yelped.

Oh, how bloody wonderful. She must have recognized the eyes.

Aidan squinted and took a good look at her. Then moved closer and took an even better look.

Aw, hell. It couldn't be.

"Anyanka?"

After a rather confused moment, she nodded her head weakly. Then, she also moved forward and squinted. "Aidan?"

He nodded, completely flustered. He had not expected a vengeance demon to be working in ... ugh ... retail.

Aidan also didn't expect it when Anyanka squealed and raced around the counter to give him a good, tight hug. Uh-oh. What was he supposed to do? His mind went blank as he rather stupidly patted her on the back. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been putting the whammy on some stupid git who'd cheated on his wife with a barmaid.

The wife's wish was that her husband would be eaten by a dragon. The fact that a dragon might not want to eat her bloody husband had apparently slipped past her.

But Aidan certainly couldn't hold that against Anyanka. Even if that sod had given him indigestion.

"What are you doing working in a magick shop?" Aidan asked, for a lack of anything better to say.

Anyanka released him and looked a little sheepish about the whole retail thing, then gave him a friendly punch in the arm. "What are you doing wearing that thing, huh?"

It took a moment to realize that she was asking him what he was doing in human form. He feigned shock as he held out his arms. "What? Human bodies are the latest fad, or so I'm told." He laughed before he could recognize the strange scent wafting into his general direction.

It wasn't vengeance demon. It was good, old-fashioned human girl. Good, old-fashioned aroused human girl.

Ooo ... that might come in handy.

He leaned forward and tucked an errant lock of blond hair behind her ear, and she shivered, thought she tried not to. "Looks like you follow the trends yourself."

"Not reluctantly," she said, although it was with a friendly smile. "Although now I'm in a very happy relationship with a mortal. He's got a job. And an apartment. And he's a stallion in the bedroom."

Aidan tried not to tense at the mention of the Second, but he doubted he'd covered very well.

"So, what are you doing on the Hellmouth?" she asked.

He wandered over to a nearby shelf and filtered through a stack of well-worn scrolls. Oh, these wouldn't do. They were all in Greek. "Would you believe joining a convent?"

Anyanka ignored his teasing and kept talking. As usual, for her. "So, where's Gwen? Isn't she supposed to be following you around and telling you what to do?"

He rolled his eyes at that. "Give her an hour. She'll have me on a leash again in no time," he said, sifting through the scrolls at the bottom of the pile. Greek, Roman, Greek ... Aramaic? "Don't you lot have a faery scroll?"

Without missing a beat, Anyanka reached forward and yanked open the drawer under the shelf he'd been perusing, shocking the hell out of him. A rainbow of small, thick scrolls greeted his eyes. Anyanka presented them to him with a dramatic flourish. "We have six. Do you want it in lavender, chartreuse, mango, blueberry, mint or eggshell?"

They had them in bloody colors now? Aidan sighed. This was going to take a while.

Another postcard from that monastery in the Alps. What was it with Oz and isolated cold mountain ranges?

Willow flipped it over and read the message on the back. Like everything Oz usually said, it was short and sweet. Miss you, wish you were here, give my love to Tara, yadda yadda. Willow couldn't help but smile gratefully at that last bit. Oz had been sending her postcards ever since he'd left for the last time, knowing she'd worry if she didn't hear from him. And he always ended his postcards with, "Give my love to Tara."

A more gracious loser in the Significant Other Games had never been born.

Willow tucked the postcard back into her purse and sighed happily. Oz might not be her boyfriend anymore, but he was definitely one of her best friends. That shy little sixteen-year-old she'd been in high school who'd spent so much time drooling over Xander would have been shocked to learn she'd have a werewolf love her so much, even after the hell she'd put him through.

She probably would have been even more shocked to find out the future Willow would sort of, kind of, throw over a cute guitarist for a girl. A sweet, wonderful, loving girl beyond all belief, but a girl just the same.

As Willow walked towards her dorm, thinking about Tara and the quiet night in "studying" they were supposed to have tonight, a fleeting memory of meeting her doppleganger drifted through her head. She vaguely remembered saying something along the lines of, That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil, and skanky... and I think I'm kinda gay.

She laughed softly to herself. Oh, honey, you have no idea.

Willow's gaze absently drifted to the thick patch of bushes that had been planted around the circumference of Stevenson Dorm as she headed towards the front door.

It was then that Willow tripped.

She tripped because of the face of the man she was sure she'd seen in those bushes. Her books fell from her arms as she glanced quickly around, a little embarrassed but not quite as embarrassed as she would be if that were really ...

"Oz?"

It was him.

It was really him.

But he'd said he'd be in Tibet for months. He'd made sure she'd know. He'd even given her a phone number he could be reached at in case of a really big, Sunnydale-sized emergency.

He smiled at her, and seemed to drift out of the bushes like a specter. This was too strange. It couldn't be happening. It was all wrong.

"Oz? Is that really you?" she asked, her voice quiet. She was crying, and she hadn't even meant to. What the hell was she doing?

Oz said nothing, as usual. He just moved closer and closer until his body was mere inches away. Willow ignored the passersby walking around her, the pounding sound of Jimmy Buffett coming from a fourth floor room, the UC Sunnydale marching band practicing badly on the other side of the campus.

She only felt the heat of him, so near, so close she could hardly bear it.

But she didn't love him. Not like that.

Even as he bent to kiss her, his lips mere inches away, Willow ducked away and stared at the sidewalk. "Oz, I-I can't. I'm in love with Tara. I can't kiss you like that."

Oz smiled at that, drifted away from her, then lifted her hand to his lips and gently kissed her as gentleman. She couldn't contain how she felt about the sweet gesture, and tears streaked down her cheeks.

It was right then and there that he vanished.

Willow froze. Oh, Goddess, what was wrong with her? Was she going looney now? Glory hadn't done the brain-sucking thing when she hadn't been looking, had she?

She was going crazy. In public, no less.

Terrified, she looked around like a deer in headlights. No one was staring at her, laughing or gaping in her general direction. In fact, unless she really was going nuts, no one had witnessed the scene she'd just enacted for their benefit.

What was going on?

Willow scrambled to pick up the books and notepads she'd dropped, and paused as a strange, tinkling sound came from the bushes. Laughter. Light, playful laughter. Oh, no, someone had seen it.

She ran into her dorm faster than she'd ever moved in her entire life.

She didn't notice the sparkling pinpricks of lights that danced in the bushes, and they faded after she made a run for it. But their giggles, maniacal and wicked if one could hear them, still rang out even after they'd gone.

Mortals, as every faery knew, were such fun to play with.