**DISCLAIMER: Buffy the
Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon, UPN (doesn't it feel weird to think that
it's no longer the WB but UPN?), and all those other brilliant people who
aren't me. So please don't sue me. You wouldn't get enough to make the lawyer's
fee worthwhile.**
Author's Notes: FINALLY!
I felt I was going to go insane! I get back from traveling and I'm all ready to
post new this new installment, but lo and behold, ff.net is not working! And
then, proving to me that Murphy's Law is still in force today, the only
computer in the house with internet connection decides to catch a virus and
crash completely. So off it went to be repaired. Luckily, after a few days it's
back at home, and I've pulled myself back from the brink of madness (bandanna,
snarfblat, Tarzan, fuchsia) Well, sort of. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy reading!
Rating: PG
*******************
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen,
not touched, but are felt in the heart."
~ Helen Keller ~
Her Gift is Life
by: The Silver Princess
The concussion ripped through the Magic box, shattering glass and flinging merchandise, and the shards flew about as though winged, clear jagged splinters that quested for tender skin. Clouds of dust billowed upwards, casting an obscuring haze over the destruction like a veil drawn up over her eyes, surreally blurring everything.
Buffy's dark hair flapped in the wind of the dying blast as she coughed violently in the choking dust. Her cough was echoed, and she realized with a strange lack of surprise that her body had reacted before her mind and that Dawn was unhurt beneath the shelter of Buffy's body.
Buffy picked herself up, shaking out her clothes. Glass fell with a meek tinkle as though ashamed that it thought to hurt her, and then she helped the dazed younger girl to her feet. Dawn shook herself similarly, and her bemused expression cleared. The gazes of two sets of brown eyes collided. A wrinkle creased Buffy's forehead as they stared at each other. That protectiveness that she felt for Dawn…
"Dawn, listen to me," Buffy said urgently. Her voice was somehow stern and tender at the same time. She stared at Dawn intently. Those chestnut eyes were like glass, gleaming with tears. "Listen," Buffy repeated. Dawn had to listen. She had to know what her older sister was feeling. Not everyone had the chance to say goodbye before death. Buffy couldn't waste this.
Pain at the coming separation tore at her heart. Funny how much it felt like grief when she was the one who was going to die. Dawn sobbed as though she had heard her thoughts of death. "I love you," Buffy said warmly. "I will always love you…"
A distraction broke through the strange memory, and it vanished like a scrap of a dream, leaving only a curious, unsettled disquiet. Buffy blinked rapidly to reorient herself.
"Bloody hell," came a familiar swearing voice.
"Oh dear," came another British voice. "It appears they feel they can take revenge now that Buffy is gone," he said calmly, his propensity for understatement obvious as always.
The dust swirled weakly around the figures, and then there was a flurry of movements: they fought.
Vampires poured in like an infestation of oversized rodents. Teeth were bared and eager with fangs gleaming through the last wisps of dust like steel. They were a blur of ridged foreheads and greedy jaws. The bloodlust ran through their dead veins so thick and hot that she imagined that she could smell the fetid stench emanating from them in putrid waves.
She stood frozen as a miniature battle warred inside her. It only took a second for her to decide, for her to push aside her doubts. The conclusion had been inevitable.
"Dawn, stay out of the way and scream if any come close. Don't try any heroics." Her iron voice brooked no argument.
Then she moved into the fray.
She yanked a nearby vampire from an endangered Anya and sent him sprawling to the floor. He snarled bestially and flipped to his feet.
Buffy grinned at the simplicity of it and punched him in the jaw following through with another blow to his abdomen. He doubled over as she swung her leg to the back catching another in the chest. She spun in the same movement and kicked the first in the head. She stamped on a fallen chair and knelt to grab the splintered leg.
A vampire leapt onto her back, clumsy mouth scrambling for her neck. She swore mildly and tossed it over her shoulders, and then she lunged forward, staking the stunned demon before it could move.
Dust poofed beneath her hand, and she tightened her grip around her makeshift stake as she rolled forward and swiped with her leg. Another vampire toppled and died at her hand. Her world became filled with punches, kicks, and jabs. She flipped, she spun, she killed.
She watched events unfold behind her eyes as though she were watching a movie. She hardly needed to concentrate; the vampires had not expected real resistance now that Buffy Summers was gone. She felt so skillfully practiced that it was practically easy. Adrenaline thrummed through her supernaturally strong muscles like crackling electricity. Punch. Stake. Kick. Stake. Flip. Stake. Kick. Kick. Stake.
The crowd of vampires thinned around her, and she paused to brush the hair out of her face.
An urgent scream cut through the air like knife blade.
Buffy whipped around in sudden panic, and her heart sprinted against her ribcage as though it were trying to break free from her chest.
"DAWN!" she yelled.
She moved so quickly she scarcely remembered somersaulting over the counter to where Dawn had taken cover.
Buffy tore the vampire from her sister with all the strength of her Slayer capabilities and her rage. The bumpy-faced woman thudded against the wall, her head smacking especially hard. Buffy's fist was ready when she raised her head, and the stake followed quickly.
"Are you okay, Dawnie?" she asked immediately, kneeling by the girl.
Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to say something, but something smashed over the crown of Buffy's head, and Buffy toppled into yawning blackness. She struggled to move her limbs and maintain consciousness.
"Gotcha," Xander said in satisfaction a moment later as a strangled cry suddenly cut off nearby. Greasy, filthy dust sprinkled over her cheeks and clung to her eyelashes. "That's last of them."
The darkness rushed into her ears and fixed its hooks into her mind, dragging her away, and then she was unconscious.
*****
Buffy was surrounded with white, a pale fuzziness as though she were encased in the world's largest cotton ball. She frowned and concentrated, and the image crystallized into focus. Columns and stairs wavered into being. It was a temple, she realized in confusion. What the hell was she doing in neo-Greek temple? She turned slowly, searching for something to break the white monotony, a clue as to why she was there.
"She wasn't supposed to do that," a female voice said behind her as though in the midst of an already begun conversation.
Buffy turned so quickly that hair flew into her eyes, tresses black and gold all at once.
"I know," the brother agreed in an irritated tone.
"She was supposed to let the Key fulfill its destiny," the sister continued. She frowned and shook her head, curls stiff and unmoving. "Why did she have to mess things up?" she added severely. The sister paced, and her blue and gold skin, veined like marble, shone in the pervasive light.
Buffy gaped and moved closer. They paid her no heed, did not react at all, as though she were a ghost. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and then watched the scene unfold from her strange vantage.
"She always was messing things up, doing unexpected, different things. That was her strength. She didn't play by the rules," the brother reminded her chidingly.
"What a mess," she muttered, ignoring his words.
"We'll simply Choose another," he said flippantly.
"No. That won't fix it. We need her. The coming challenges require her to meet them. You said yourself that she was different." She stopped pacing and crossed her arms.
"I did not," he retorted indignantly. "I said that she did things—"
"You implied it," she interrupted dismissively. "Anyway," she said, waving her hand, "what shall we do about this problem?"
Silence fell inside the temple, a hush pregnant with thoughts and currents of power. The two beings gazed into emptiness, communing somehow with something. Buffy frowned in irritated confusion as the strangeness grew in the chamber.
Their eyes cleared, and as they looked at each other, they smiled in synchronization. "We'll Switch instead of Choose," they chorused together, their voices harmonizing into one.
Buffy was climbing stairs suddenly. She didn't recall ever starting to climb; she only knew that she had been climbing for a very long time. Her feet beat rhythm against the stone. She could see her goal ahead of her. It was a small rectangle of light carved into the wall, but it never grew larger though she was certain she was drawing closer. Sometimes the stairs spiraled or were steep. At other times, they went straight, and the steps were low. Windows blinked around her. Tiny suns blazed through tiny skies in the tiny worlds in each one. And still she climbed untiringly. Forever.
Sometimes voices would talk around her, static memories like tape recordings. Sometimes she would talk to herself, asking herself questions that she would only sometimes know the answer.
"What color is my hair?" she asked, and her voice was swallowed in the curve of the spiral steps.
"That depends," she would respond.
"And my eyes?"
"Same for them."
"Who am I?"
"You can't put a lifetime of identity into a sentence." Her voice echoed over the steps shaped like an escalator at a mall.
Then the voices would return to spark her mind into finding more answers.
"Do you have a
plan?" His voice was inquisitive concern masking heartfelt worry.
"I am the plan." Her voice was calm confidence, hard and fierce.
They were fragments spinning around her head, whispering into her ears.
"Hi, I'm Willow."
The voice evoked an image of a young, longhaired redhead. High-school Willow. The first introduction.
"It's Summers blood."
The need to comfort Dawn for something she couldn't recall welled up inside her
"It's the Buffster," Xander's voice greeted her lightheartedly.
The thoughts came faster now, tumbling over each other in their flooding rush to be recognized.
"I will kill any of you who tries to hurt her."
"I love you, Buffy."
"One day, you're going to want a normal life that I can't give you."
Angel. She
remembered Angel.
"Hey, Bee!"
And Faith.
"I'm so sorry,
Giles."
"Why can't I
just have a normal life?"
"He's Angelus now. Not Angel."
"We gave the
Key human form."
They piled on faster and faster, and she began to sprint up the stairway, running full out, impatient to reach her destination. She had to know. Her subconscious was straining at its bonds like a caged creature, struggling to break free and finally solve the mysteries that plagued her. Images and emotions flickered through with the voices. Shards of memories falling together like puzzle pieces. Faster. Faster.
"I'll get him
Slayer blood."
"The Slayer is
destined to be killed by the Master."
"Hey,
Flower-getting lady…Mom…What are you doing? Mom? Mommy?"
"It's a Cladagh
ring."
"I'm telling
Mom you slayed in front of me."
"I'll take care
of little sis for you."
"Death is your
gift."
And then the rectangle of light was there, bursting with brightness. She shaded her eyes and the blinding brilliance dimmed. It was a tiny door made of rounded logs of sanded wood, etched with darkness, and beyond was dry, lonely desert and a waiting warrioress in prehistoric skins.
As Buffy ducked
and stepped through the doorway, her voice—her last words—chimed after her. "Be
brave. Live. For me."
The sand was hot and gritty in her sandals, and hot wind tousled her hair. The dark-limbed woman stared at her, waiting. Buffy raised her chin in determination and met her gaze.
Biceps flexed, and Buffy blocked the imminent blow swiftly, and then she twisted her hips and jerked her knee up. They fought silently for several minutes, the only sound coming from the scuffle of feet on sand and the sound of clothing cushioning glancing blows. She gritted her teeth, summoning every dredge of strength, instinct, and knowledge to fight this opponent who was an equal match in every regard, whom she knew like a long-lost twin.
They spun away from each other, each panting faintly and positioning herself for the next clash. Buffy blinked in surprised realization. It was like staring at a strange mirror. Each strand of hair, each finger: exactly the same pose. She straightened up, and the warrioress opposite her moved at the same time in the same way.
The sun blazed overhead with sudden brightness that lit the pale-gold sand like fire.
Buffy knew her.
Buffy knew herself.
Then she answered her own question, this time speaking from certain knowledge, not subconscious instinct. "I am Buffy, the Slayer."
She opened her eyes into the waking world and stared into the face of the family she now remembered.
**Feedback, must have feedback. Slumps over keyboard, weak at lack of feedback.
I'll be wrapping this up soon, so I'll see you then!**