A/N: right now, I have block, which I'm attempting to get rid of by writing a whole bunch of challenge answers. This is, as many, one of gidgetgirl's challenges on the chocolate covered strawberry archive site, specifically, 'Beyond Death'. Whether I continue or not is based on response – I'll finish those that people want continued.

The power, hot, rich, coursed through the universe. It had only known such power as this, coloured like fire, seeping through it, burning into it the desire of the conduit, once before. The power ran wild, pouring into the corners, and crevices of the world, filling a host of girls with the actuality of their potential- and more. Chaos seized it, clasped it close, laughed deeply at the folly of its release.

Awareness woke upon them. They had not been aware, they had lain, asleep, awaiting those who were left behind. Now they stirred, their potential woken by the same spell. Memories flooded their minds; they must now finish what lay before so long ago. Enemy and ally woke alike, filled with the power, running like hot blood through their veins, bearing them alive until the power stopped, remained without the conduit. And they knew nothing, only that they were once more who they had been, all that once had been forgotten by the living.


She lay sleeping in the bed her head pillowed on crisp linen, fresh and white, and faceless, the scent of hotels bland and mindless. The dreams filled her head, visions of rose-red mist, running with blood, faces running, those familiar and looked upon in death, those she didn't know, and those whose visage sent ice down her spine, even as she lay slumbering, without a trace of the violence that scurried through her mind showing on her face, restful, peaceful in the slim shard of moonlight falling across the bed.

The doorknob turned, and a slim figure stepped inside the room, quietly closing the door behind her, strands of gleaming hair picked out by the moon as she bent over the girl-woman in the bed, and kissed her cheek lightly, stroked her forehead, and then shucked off her clothes, dropped into the other bed, and fell asleep.

Dawn Summers would never be a Slayer. The blood ran through her veins, dormant, never awoken by the wicca's spell, but the power still claimed her, found her green and glowing, and sent a jolt through her lighting her as a beacon.

As she lay there sleeping, her light was brighter than the one shining mistily outside the hotel window, silhouetting the Eiffel Tower against her curtains.

A/N: It is lyrical this first chapter, it won't be so again – it's high-worded for the purpose. If you want to see more, review!