Sands of Time
By Lily Martin
Rated R
Category: Romance/Adventure/Supernatural/and a bunch of other things…oh music too
Spoilers: Buffy--the episode before the last one; Lord of the Rings--everything's cannon, but it starts in the Fellowship of the Ring when they're on the watch tower and the Ringwraiths come. For Lord of the Rings, I'm working solely off the movie now, the book has lost my interest, I've moved on.
Summary: Buffy is summoned to Middle-Earth by Gandalf, by some fluke the rest of the Scooby Gang transported also. Then the third slayer Madeline Naur comes after them with Giles, now all we're missing is Faith...wait...nope...she'll be there too...all there just in time to join the Fellowship. Throw in a prophecy and a really messed up plot...
Disclaimer: um…we had a nice little story here that told how I DON'T own LOTR or BTVS, I don't think I need to go on, if I do I'll be sad, so go read that story again.
Pairings: Arwen/Aragorn in the beginning, Buffy/Aragorn later on, Faith/Boromir while he's alive, Dawn/Frodo very subtle more of a friendship than a pairing, it's definitely going to be Legolas/Mady (my character) that's the only way the future I have for this story will work out, but not right away that would be too easy.
A/N: wow…real life backed down for a while…I got into that boarding school I've been trying to get into, sadly this means if I haven't finished by next September, I won't have that much time to write, and unfortunately I don't think I will
Feedback: Thank you so much Catlimere for being a regular reviewer, your reviews always make me smile and know someone's still reading. You deserve a whole pack of cookies. ^-^
Chapter 15: Training? Did we plan for that?
"So, when are we starting training," Dawn asked over breakfast a week after the council.
She immediately had the attention of Buff, Willow, Faith, and Tári, none of whom were making any moves to be happy and start saying right away.
"You know, training," Dawn prodded, between bites.
"Soon," Buffy said simply.
"Soon?" Dawn asked.
"Yea, soon," Willow nodded.
"You guys haven't even been thinking about raining, have you?" Dawn asked.
"Of course we have," Faith said in her all too sure way.
"Really?" Dawn asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course," Buffy said as though questioning her were the most unthought-of of thing in the world.
"We've even found a place to train," Tári said, mimicking Faith's all too sure of herself tone.
"Really?" Dawn asked again, dragging the word out in disbelief. "Where?"
"One of the gazebos in the gardens," Tári answered. "There are only a few of them that are regularly in use, leaving us quite a few of them that aren't to chose from to choose from. You have seen how many gazebos there are in the garden haven't you?"
"Um…yeah," Dawn replied, in the most valley-girl tone she could muster. "Of course I have."
"Then why are you so surprised we have a training place out there?" Buffy asked as though everything should be solved by then.
"It's just, you guys never said anything about us starting up a training schedule," Dawn pointed out.
"At least not around you, pipsqueak," Faith continued for her, sharing a look with the other three girls over their all out lie.
"Yeah, you're always complaining about training, we thought we'd spare you the pointless arguments," Willow added.
"Uh-huh," Tári nodded between bites of her apple.
"Oh," Dawn said, disappointed that they hadn't brought something like that to her.
"Think we should get the others in on the training?" Buffy asked. "It would be good for the whole fellowship to get some training in."
"I'm glad to hear you see it that way," Elrond said, suddenly appearing behind Tári, looking directly at Buffy across the table. "I was going to suggest that you give the others a display of each of your powers so that they have an idea of what you can do so that you may properly rely on one another."
"You just turned that into something we have to do, didn't you?" Dawn asked with a sigh.
"You're very astute, Miss Summers," Elrond said before walking away.
"He just snarked on me, didn't he?" Dawn asked the four snickering girls rhetorically.
"Yep," Tári laughed, holding back a snort that threatened to come out with her laughter.
Dawn's only response was to hit the laughing she-elf beside her, which only served to make them laugh more.
"You guys haven't thought about training at all have you?" Dawn asked after a moment.
"Nope," all four agreed simultaneously.
"Though we did bullshit our way through that pretty well, I must say," Tári added.
"Yep," Dawn nodded, grinning madly.
"You guys all know why you're here, right?" Buffy asked, once the whole fellowship, except for Gandalf who was talking to Elrond, had gathered in one of the larger gazebos.
"You're going to display these powers you claim to have," Boromir said, refusing to believe any one of the female species might be better than him.
"Um…how do I word this? What do I say…no," Faith said, pretending to think about her words.
"You've worked on the sarcasm," Buffy commented to her sister slayer, slightly surprised.
"All that time stuck with a snarky dragon," Faith nodded.
"You know, I never did realize she was all that snarky until changed dimensions," Tári said.
"She really is," Faith agreed.
"What does this 'snarky' mean? Does that mean evil or dangerous?" Pippin asked, quite interested in their conversation.
"Mîdh's not evil or dangerous thank you very much," Tári frowned.
"I wouldn't say she isn't dangerous," Faith said, pulling up her sleeve to show a nice long scar along her lower arm, "she did give me this when I fell out of your damn portal."
"Yea, well, that was your own damn fault, you spooked her," Tári snapped, in a very un-elf like way.
"I spooked her, she was the one that came flying out of nowhere," Faith replied quickly.
"Snarky means sarcastic," Dawn interrupted.
"Right, not dangerous, Mîdh is a very well behaved dragon and companion," Tári nodded.
"Back to what this is about," Buffy said, claiming the attention again. "This is going to be a training session."
"The start of a bunch of training sessions, 'cause just one doesn't really make a difference," Willow added.
"Yea, a bunch of training sessions," Buffy agreed, before going on, "You can either join just in training or not, personally, this is always the biggest part of going into battle, also research, but I'm not usually the one to research, that's what Willow does most of the time."
"Yep, that's me, research girl," Willow nodded nervously.
"You all know I'm Buffy, I'm the Vampire Slayer back in my world," Buffy started to explain, though earning herself a cough from Faith. "So is Faith. Back in our world there's this thing; one girl in every generation will be given the strength and ability to fight off the demon forces threatening the world. Most are young when they're called, I was sixteen. Before you ask, yes, there are two of us, or three if you count Ma—Tári—"
"Except I'm not technically a vampire slayer, I'm technically a dragon guardian of this world," Tári added. "Dragon Guardians are pretty much the same thing as slayers, except we work with dragons to help them rather than slay them like vampires."
"Right. Anyways, when one slayer dies another is called. Two years after I became the slayer, I died for a couple minutes, I drowned and a friend revived me, that was Xander, so another slayer was called. She was killed in battle a year later and Faith was called, thus we have two slayers," Buffy explained.
"You're world relies on young girls to keep away the darkness?" Boromir ask, disbelief obvious on her face.
"Even our world does. They are more powerful than they appear," Legolas said thoughtfully, glancing towards Tári for a moment when he started.
"Elves are still considered young until at least a thousand, still children at two hundred. That's how old the females of my bloodline are when they're called as the next Carad'loki Vakha. We spend the first two hundred years of our lives training for the duty we must take, and at two hundred we join those that are still alive," Tári said seriously, the joking happiness of earlier completely gone. "For men, two hundred years sounds old, I know this quite well, at two hundred I was the equivalence of a human child of ten."
Glancing only once at the girl, no woman or she-elf, as she'd told them that she was almost three thousand, the other four girls knew instantly what they needed to know, Tári didn't want pity, she wanted to make them understand how she'd been fighting this battle for so long and knew what she was doing. An understanding passed between them. They had battled side by side, understanding didn't come hard to them, no matter how long they could end up separated.
"How about we do start with a small demonstration?" Willow suggested, glancing at Buffy, who nodded in agreement.
"You know what, Tári, you owe me one, for that whole sending me through the portal to a cave thing," Faith said lightheartedly.
"Definitely," Tári grinned, pushing the moment of showing a bit of her pain behind her. Then, tossing the bag she'd brought with her when she and Giles came to dawn, she said, "Hey, Dawnie, how about some music, Right Said Fred should be nice."
"Oh yea," Dawn grinned, immediately reaching into the bag, knowing exactly what it did, having been the one to actually discover the connection spell in one of Giles's old books.
TBC…
A/N: hey, I don't know, I've got the next scene in mind, but I don't really want to put it in this chapter.