Equinoxium: Chapter 27
by Lisette
Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings.
The return to the Houses of Healing was a blur in Legolas' mind, the long-legged elf only vaguely aware of towering walls and buildings of stone, the startled eyes of those who had been awakened by the tolling bells, and the hurried pattering of heavy feet as Buffy's friends followed his fleet form. He traveled swiftly over roads that had been worn smooth from over three thousand years of foot traffic - probably too swiftly for the two mortals that moved beside the creatures whose very essence seemed to sound a note of discord with Ilvatar's song. Yet the thought of slowing his steps never once crossed the elf's mind as he clutched his precious burden tighter against his chest.
There was no wound to be seen on Buffy's body - no blood to stain her white dressing gown or visible hurt to catch the eye - and yet he could almost feel the pain that caused her breath to catch in her throat. Her skin was pale and waxy, the pinched skin around her closed eyes bruised a dark color, and her body trembled in his arms as though it was unable to contain whatever agony coursed through her slender frame.
"Dartho ah nin, mellon-nin," Legolas breathed as he hurried through the open doors to the Houses of Healing, only to pause uncertainly in the grand foyer. The building was awash in the flickering light of torches and candles, healers and servants bustling through doorways and down twisting halls, their hushed voices creating a soft din that was reminiscent of darker times - times where this gentle house never slept. Word of the attack on Osgiliath had obviously reached Ioreth, and the Head Healer had responded accordingly as Healers were awakened and as servants were sent to prepare for the impending flood of the injured. War had come again to Minas Tirith and the illusions of peace and harmony that had survived for nine years had been shattered with those clear tolls.
"Legolas, to me!" Elladan instructed as he and his brother swept through the doors behind the fair-haired elf, the twins sidestepping the scurrying men and women and moving swiftly down the corridor that led to Buffy's chambers.
Nodding, Legolas paused long enough to instruct one young maid to direct Buffy's friends and all of those who would follow, before quickly hurrying down the torch-lit hall. It had only been a scant few hours since Legolas himself had awoken from an agony-induced unconsciousness to find his friends huddled over his taut frame in these same houses. Even then the pain had been so fresh and vivid that his aching muscles remained locked and rigid, his breath wheezing through lips that were drawn tight across clenched teeth.
He had been dealt a mortal wound by the dark-elf, and everything that was natural in this world stated that his fa should have long departed from these shores and all that he held dear in order to find its proper place beside his mother and brother in the Halls of Mandos. And yet he hadn't.
Hours of agony had claimed his mind and body as the sun crested in the sky and began her slow descent, bathing the world with her fickle light before disappearing behind the gleaming white mountains. Their world had been cast into darkness, and according to all that was right, he should have joined the sun in her westward journey. And yet he hadn't.
And the reason why he still lived was the young woman that he now placed upon her bed, his smooth hand brushing away a sweat-soaked strand of hair as others began to fill the room. Ioreth herself led the sudden influx of healers, the young and old alike flitting around the bed as servants were summoned and then sent away to retrieve herbs and medicines from the deep stores. Then came the four strangers, the men clutching their sides as they struggled for breath while the other two moved with a grace that was usually only seen in the firstborn. And yet these two were apart from everything in Legolas' world - something strange and alien. Something unnatural.
Frowning, the elf watched as the two vampires, as Buffy had called them, threw verbal barbs at one another, their words vicious and cruel. Their bodies were those of mortal men, and yet from all that Legolas had been able to glean from Buffy's tales, they possessed a strength that was awesome in its power, and they fought with a skill that would be terrifying to witness. Yet most frightening of all was the fact that they didn't appear to be living. Legolas could hear no heartbeat, could see no rise and fall of a chest that drew breath, nor could he sense the life that thrummed in all living things, from creatures of intelligence to beasts and growing things. These vampires were something wholly different, something dead and yet still living, and if it wasn't for the evident love that shone in their ice-blue and narrowed brown eyes as they looked upon the fallen slayer, Legolas would never have stopped Aragorn from destroying them.
Legolas leaned unobtrusively against a far wall as the aforementioned king joined the twins in their healing efforts, the two vampires pausing in their bickering with their young, dark-haired companion long enough to glare at the ranger-turned-king. If it weren't for Buffy, Legolas knew that he would have died long ago from his wounds. Her blood was an aberration in this world, and every bit as unnatural as the two vampires that obviously cared for her deeply. Yet her blood had saved him. As he had lain dying upon the blood-soaked ground, Buffy had opened her wrist and forced him to drink of the thick, coppery fluid. She had forced her blood upon him and forcibly led him down a different path than what the natural order had demanded. And in doing so, she had saved him. Did that now make him as unnatural as her and her two companions?
Frowning at this thought, Legolas slowly took measure of his senses, straining for something he couldn't define - some oddness that hadn't been there before. Her blood was responsible for changing orc into dark-elf, healing them of hurts that had been dealt several millennia before and passed through their breeding. And in turn it had healed the grisly wounds that had been dealt to him and had erased the many stinging cuts and small bruises from his fight with Vashnak and his two companions. Not a trace remained of the injuries that were meant to steal the life from his limbs, and if anything, Legolas found that he felt rejuvenated. Even the lingering ache from the pulsing agony of before was gone, leaving him feeling lighter than ever, as though he could float away with the merest brush of a gentle wind. He felt... free.
"Legolas?"
Turning slightly at the low rumble, the elf glanced upon Gimli's stout frame as his mind frantically struggled with this revelation. It wasn't just that he felt free, it was that he felt whole. He felt whole in mind and body and... and spirit.
"Legolas? Elf? What ails you?" the dwarf demanded, his queries becoming more harried with each utterance, obviously fearing some sort of relapse. Not that anyone could blame the dwarf, for just a few short hours past he had been dangerously close to losing his friend forever.
"I am healed," Legolas murmured distractedly, gently hushing the dwarf before his booming voice could bring a swarm of healers upon them.
"Well of course you are healed," Gimli returned with an irritated shake of his head, his small eyes scrutinizing Legolas' face as if searching for some sign that his confident words were untrue.
"No Gimli, I am healed," Legolas repeated, a slow, wondrous smile lifting his lips as he looked once more to the young woman that was surrounded by the most skilled healers in all of Middle-earth.
"A fact that we have already agreed upon," the dwarf grumbled with a show of impatience. "Her blood has seen fit to heal your wounds and-"
"Not just my wounds," Legolas returned with an enigmatic smile.
"Not just your... but what else would there be to heal?" Gimli huffed, clearly growing exasperated with his friend. "You are an elf and your kind suffer from no illness or-" he cut off as his dark eyes grew wide with understanding. "The sea-longing," he breathed, his gaze following his friend's to the small blonde that lay motionless upon the white bed.
"Everything has happened so quickly that I only noticed it now," Legolas whispered as he gazed in wonder upon the small creature that had lifted the stain of longing from his soul. Always the sea beckoned to him from the furthest corner of his mind, whispering promises of peace and tantalizing his senses with hints of salt and the whisper of the waves. The longing had fallen upon him nine years ago when he had first heard the cry of the gulls, and slowly, day by day and week by week and all the long years past the yearning battered against him like the waves upon the shore, seeking to push him from this world and to the comfort that only Valinor could provide. It was a comfort that he denied himself as he stubbornly refused to leave these shores until all his friends had relinquished their hold on their mortal lives, and as punishment, his spirit remained torn between this world and the next. Always the longing had been with him, and not once had the elf known true peace since that fateful day. Until now.
"She has healed me, elvellon, body and soul."
A wise man once said that you cannot know true joy until you know true pain. Someone else said that pain makes us stronger. To Buffy, a person who was experienced in the art of giving and receiving pain, it was obvious that in order to say such fundamentally stupid things, neither of these men had ever known a moment of true pain in their entire lives. She, however, had it in spades.
Groaning as consciousness returned in the form of a deep ache that encased her entire body, Buffy felt a bone-wearying wave of lingering agony that was so intense that she could almost taste it in all of its acidic glory. It was sharp and bitter, like when she touched her tongue against the end of a battery, and it filled her mouth with its cloying bite as it thrummed in time with her aching heart. "Oh, ouch," she moaned, her body shifting uselessly on the soft mattress as she made a mental note to avoid the next heart attack if at all possible. It was all fun and games until your heart decided to go all trippy on you.
"Buffy? Buffy, can you hear me?"
Sarcastic retort frozen on the tip of her tongue, Buffy's breath caught in her throat as her eyes slipped open, rapidly blinking to clear away the stinging tears that the harsh candlelight brought to her watery gaze. She knew that voice - had longed to hear it for so long - and even though it was too much to believe in, too much to possibly hope for, she still found herself turning towards it, desperately seeking her watcher's warm gaze. "Giles?" she whispered, her voice dry and scratchy as his large hands gently lifted her fingers to his lips, pressing a soft, tender kiss against the tingling flesh. And in that moment, Buffy knew that there was no way that she could deny that this time, this was real. There was no way that she could deny that somehow, impossible though it seemed, her Watcher was really sitting beside her.
Living.
Breathing.
And very much not of the dead.
"I wasn't dreaming," Buffy whispered, feeling the tears burn her eyes before falling free to trail down cheeks that tingled with remembered pain. God, even her hair hurt.
"No, no you weren't dreaming," Giles assured with a soft smile as he gently lowered her hand so that it was lying atop that blanket that covered her small form.
"But... how?"
"How am I here, or how am I alive?" he queried, causing Buffy to smile in return, her eyes tearing all over again as her numbed mind began to buzz with everything that she so desperately wanted to know. Everything that she so desperately wanted to understand.
"Both," she murmured, somehow able to sum everything into that one simple word.
"Ah yes," Giles murmured, shifting in the chair that was pushed against her bed. "Well, the latter is a far shorter story," he stated as he reached for his glasses, plucking them from his nose and absently polishing them upon the hem of the dark sweater that he wore - the act causing a few more tears to fall as Buffy started at the familiar habit. "You do remember that business with Eyghon, I trust?" the watcher continued, his eyes firmly trained upon the smooth glass that he worked between the soft fabric.
"How could I forget?" she returned with a wry smile. It had been years since they had last spoken of the mistakes of Giles' wayward youth, and yet the memory of Ethan Rayne tattooing the back of her neck with a cult symbol that acted as a demonic homing beacon was certainly something that she would never forget. She had been in Sunnydale for only two years when it happened, back before Jenny Calendar had been killed and before Angelus had been set free, and if it hadn't been for the others, she would have died that day. Just as she would have many a time after that. Just as it would have been this day.
"Yes, well as far as we have been able to figure," Giles continued, "when we summoned Eyghon and allowed it to take possession of our bodies, it appears as though we were brought far closer to death than any of us ever truly appreciated. Far, far closer," he admitted with a small, pained sigh.
"Apparently," Buffy agreed as Giles continued to work at his glasses, his eyes steadfastly refusing to meet her own. In order for the First Evil to have been able to take her watcher's image, that meant that he had been touched by Death in a way that most people tried to avoid. He had to have died and been brought back. Buffy herself had died twice before, and the First Evil had flaunted her image before her and her friends. It had even taken on Spike's own image when It had incessantly pushed him towards the breaking point of his sanity. "But why did the First wait to take your form?" Buffy whispered, a puzzled frown pulling at her features.
"Why did the First never take Angel's form? Why did It never use Spike's image against you?" Giles countered with a small, weary shrug, finally stilling his frantic polishing as he held the frames in his idle hands. "The First is gone, Buffy, and all we can do is try to venture at Its reasoning. Personally, I think that It wanted to wait until It could do the most damage."
Eyes slipping shut, Buffy couldn't help but agree with this guess. The First had certainly used Giles' image in the most damaging way imaginable when It had appeared before her in the guise of her watcher in the most pivotal of moments. How different would her time have been in Middle-earth if she had known that Giles was alive and well? How much quicker would her adjustment have been if she had only known that he yet lived? That he was still there to protect and guide her friends in her absence? Frowning at this thought, Buffy turned to her watcher. "And what of the others? What happened?"
"Ah yes... now that is a long story," Giles sighed as he leaned back in the narrow chair, his brow creased and his glasses dangling in one limp hand. "After the spell was complete, Faith and Spike led the others after the remaining Turok-han, which led them back to the Seal where they stumbled upon me."
Breath catching in her throat, Buffy watched as the older man absently rested his hand over his stomach, as though touching a memory through the thin sweater that only he could see. "So the First was telling the truth," she murmured. They... they-"
"The Bringers used my blood to open the seal," Giles finished for her with a wan smile, "but apparently It had more important things to do than to see the job to its completion."
"Like taunting me," she sighed with a grimace.
"So it seems," the watcher agreed as he leaned forward, his free hand wrapping around her own. "The others brought me to the hospital where I was forced to stay for... a time," he murmured, Buffy's eyes following his gaze to where her slender, pale fingers were twined in his calloused grip. "Meanwhile," he continued, "the others saw that the girls were returned to their families, and Spike and Faith went to Los Angeles to help find Angelus and kill the Beast."
"Nuh what?" Buffy cut in, her gaze snapping towards her watcher's tired features as a thrill of alarm coursed through her veins.
Frowning, Giles absently patted her hand. "The abbreviated version is that while we were dealing with the First, Angel and his companions were handling an apocalypse of their own in Los Angeles. By the culmination of our dealings with the First, their group had removed Angel's soul in hopes that Angelus would be able to tell them how to kill the creature they fought."
"You've got to be kidding me," Buffy stated, her frown deepening. "They willingly removed Angel's soul? And how? Did he get with the happy or what?" she demanded as she struggled to sit up in the narrow bed, as though doing so could somehow lessen the impact of Giles' words.
"They used magic," he explained as he helped to ease her back until she was supported by a mound of pillows behind her. "And somehow, despite their precautions, Angelus escaped," he added with a curt shake of his head, as though expressing his own disbelief at such a foolhardy move. "Yet with Spike and Faith's help, they were able to trap him, kill the creature, and Willow restored Angel's soul before more damage could be wrought."
"So they saved the day," Buffy hazarded - only to frown at Giles' hesitation.
"Not quite," he admitted. "The others returned and we..." he paused, his voice breaking as the watcher resolutely focused his attention on the hand that he cradled in his own. "We tried to find some way to continue on the Hellmouth without you," he stated, forcing the words in one rushed breath as he avoided meeting Buffy's searching gaze. "But unbeknownst to the rest of us," he continued, "Willow and Dawn had been conspiring from the day you left to find some way to ensure that you were alright."
"Willow and Dawn?" Buffy murmured distractedly, unable to think past the pain that had flashed in her watcher's shadowed eyes. She had been gone from her world for so long now, and it disgusted her to realize that in all that time she had been so focused on her own pain that she never once stopped to think about how much her friends would be hurting without her.
"Yes, well Dawn apparently refused to move on without knowing that you were doing well wherever you had gone," Giles hastily explained. "Willow found a spell somewhere, and they only finished preparations and managed to gather the necessary supplies a few weeks past. What your sister saw, however, scared her so badly that they came to the rest of us and revealed what they had done."
Wincing at her watcher's words, Buffy slowly looked away. Yes, she imagined that seeing herself so weakened, delirious, and a touch mad would be enough to scare any of her friends. As the slayer, she had always prided herself on being strong and keeping her weaknesses hidden, but Dawn had seen her at her worst, when she had been beaten down and defeated by circumstances beyond her control.
Buffy quickly shook her head. Who was she kidding? This whole adventure had been a lesson in humility for her. A lesson which clearly demonstrated how impervious she wasn't. Buffy may have been the slayer, but she was still human, and if someone pushed hard enough, she would break. There was only so much a girl could take - any girl - and Buffy had come to live this fact.
"I was, of course, quite furious with Willow for once more dabbling in things that she shouldn't," Giles admitted, breaking into Buffy's thoughts with his hesitant words. "The spell was dangerous and bordered on the darkness that she had been avoiding."
"Is she alright?" Buffy whispered, trying to focus on her watcher's words.
"Willow? Yes, she's fine," the watcher sighed with a vague wave of his free hand. "Everyone wanted to send someone back to you straight away, but the spell had taken months to prepare and it was only able to succeed because of the unique bond that you share with Dawn. Not to mention that it was severely draining for Willow - so draining, in fact, that all of her 'borrowed' magics have been spent - perhaps for good."
"But if Willow didn't send you guys..." Buffy trailed off, her confusion mounting. She had just assumed that Willow and her seemingly limitless reserves of magic were responsible for her friends' sudden arrival. She still hadn't quite worked out exactly how, but she had been sure that her wiccan friend had something to do with it.
"I'm getting to that," Giles admonished with a small smile as he gently patted her hand. "Before we could decide what was to be done, Fred, one of Angel's associates, telephoned from Los Angeles to seek our assistance. Apparently a mind-controlling deity had taken up residence in their headquarters and was busy ensnaring the world in her false image. Angel and the others were under the spell and we had no choice but to go to Los Angeles to see what we could do to help."
"Mind-controlling deity?" Buffy parroted, vaguely trying to keep up with the events that only could have befallen her friends. "Any relation to a certain Hell Goddess we knew?"
"No, thankfully," the watcher sighed. "Though in the end our assistance was hardly needed as after a few days Angel was able to break her control on the general populous and destroy her before she could do further damage." At this point, Giles paused for a lengthy moment as he seemed to debate about how best to phrase his next bit of news. "And in, ahem, return for ending world peace, it... ah... it seems that Wolfram and Hart offered Angel and his friends the firm's LA branch."
"Wait," Buffy interrupted, her sense of unease growing by leaps and bounds. "Wolfram and Hart as in the evil law firm that Angel's been fighting for the last four years?"
Giles managed to look both as grim and as displeased as possible as he reluctantly nodded his head. "Yes, and foolishly, they accepted the proposition. Although," he added, hurriedly continuing before Buffy could offer further protest, "as a part of the bargain, they managed to provide him the means to transport us to you."
Rolling her eyes at her watcher's words, Buffy glared at the older man. "So let me get this straight. An evil law firm gives you some doohickey and promises that it will bring you to me... and you actually believe them?!"
"Willow and Wesley assured us that the vial seemed to be everything that we had been promised," Giles defended, an indignant scowl creasing his features. "They gave us two of these," he explained as he pulled from a pocket a small glass vial filled with an amber liquid. "By mixing the contents of the first with Dawn's blood it was able to draw upon her connection with you to bring us here. To get home again, we merely mix this vial with your blood-"
"My blood?" Buffy cut in, her features darkening.
Smiling apologetically, Giles slowly looked away. "Though I'm loathe to admit this, Spike was right. Buffy, it is always about the blood. Always. Just as you were able to use your blood as a substitute for Dawn's to close Glory's portal, so will we be able to substitute your blood for Dawn's to bring us home. You two are more than sisters, as you said yourself, for the monks made her out of you. Your blood is one and the same."
"And it's what it'll take to get you home, yeah, I got it," Buffy sighed as she determinately forced her eyes from the glass vial, and in doing so, tried to focus on everything that her watcher had left unsaid. "So I understand that I'm only getting the cliff notes," she continued, "but where did the mind-controlling deity come from?"
"Oh yes, that," Giles agreed with a quick nod. "Cordelia gave birth to her."
"Cordy gave... what?" Buffy demanded, wishing that she hadn't bothered to ask.
"Apparently Cordelia was... well, evil."
"Cordelia was evil?" the slayer returned, trying and failing to somehow imagine the bitchy Queen C as anything other than the airhead that had given of her friendship for a few short years in high school before circumstances had torn them all apart.
"Well, it wasn't really Cordelia," Giles amended with a small frown. "Angel insists that her body was taken over by a higher power."
Buffy lifted a weakened hand and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying in vain to stave off the approach of a building headache that seemed intent on adding to the lingering ache of her body. "Is there anyone in our group that hasn't been evil at some point or another?" she demanded as Giles gently pried her hand from her face and once more held it in his own, his gaze turning serious.
"You haven't," he argued, causing his slayer to snort softly at this small platitude. Frowning, he gently squeezed her hand. "Buffy, depression and confusion after having been ripped from Heaven hardly count as evil. Nor do your actions while suffering from hallucinations, and especially not the inevitable casualties when you're fighting a war."
"Maybe," Buffy admitted as she turned from his prying eyes, "and maybe not. Regardless, I think everything that I've done these past few months more than count."
"You mean what your blood has done," Giles corrected with a frown, obviously having finally reached the matter that he had been striving towards all this time. Looking towards her watcher, Buffy thought that he must be able to sense the darkness that she felt weighing upon her shoulders and tearing at her soul. And maybe he could. This man was more than her watcher. He was as a father to her in a way that Hank Summers had never managed to be. This man wasn't about buying her shoes or clothes to appease her. This man didn't believe in buying her love or respect. This man had earned her respect, and she his, and it was because of him that she had been able to rise from being beaten so low time and time again for so many years; he and all of the friends that she had been desperately needing and secretly craving in her darkest hours in Middle-earth. The friends that had somehow been gifted to her when she needed them most. "And yes," Giles continued, "I have seen what your blood has done - though I would hardly attribute it to any evil deeds on your part."
"Giles," Buffy sighed, her hand trembling ever so slightly in his weathered grip as she finally forced herself to admit her failings to the man that she had always strived to please. "Giles, I'm responsible for making an evil race even more deadly."
"Then it would seem to me that this world should be thankful that they have been blessed with the strength, speed, and skill of the most powerful slayer that has ever graced our world in order to make that right," he countered with the calm surety that she had so missed. "A slayer that, I must add," he continued with a small smile, "has had a most wonderful teacher."
Laughing softly at his words, Buffy gently tugged on his hand, guiding him forward as she leaned into an embrace that she had been craving for much longer than the time that she had been banished to Middle-earth. This was a hug that she had been missing for too long - one that she had denied herself in a fit of anger that seemed so irrelevant now. "I've missed you, Giles. More than words can say," she murmured as she reveled in his familiar warmth.
"And I you," Giles returned as he gently squeezed her to his chest. "And yet," he continued as he slowly, regretfully pulled away. "And yet we both know that this is merely a temporary reprieve. This is your world now, and I fear that our continued presence would make things only worse for... what did the man call it?" he questioned, pausing as his brow crinkled in thought. "Ah yes, Middle-earth," he stated, answering his own question with a curious shake of his head.
Buffy slowly nodded to that which she had known from the moment that Spike had unwittingly taken the arrow that was meant for her. After all, if the revival of one Champion had been enough to allow the First Evil to strike against the Slayer line, she shuddered to think of the damage that could be wrought in this world by the sudden addition of two Champions, a Watcher, and a Carpenter. "I know," she admitted, her expression falling. "But it's so hard being alone."
"You are not alone," Giles countered, his sharp tone softening as she looked to him in confusion. "No matter where you are, I will always be there - as will the others," he added with a wry grimace.
Seeing this, Buffy curiously turned to the darkened room for the first time. Gone was her small prison cell and instead the slayer found herself back in her original room in the Houses of Healing. A room that was lit only by a few scattered candles and a small flame that burned low in the room's fireplace - and a room which was devoid of all save she and her watcher. "Speaking of the others," she began with a small, worried frown, "where are Xander, Angel and Spike? And how in the heck did this combination ever come about?"
"Believe it or not, we were the most obvious choices to send," Giles wryly returned. "You must remember that Dawn said you were being held in a chamber made of stone, weakened and bound by heavy chains. We were told that the vials could only transport four, and we had to send the most logical choices."
"And that included the combination of Xander, Spike, and Angel?" Buffy incredulously returned.
"Only by default," her watcher sighed. "Willow is still very weak from the spell that brought Dawn to you, and Dawn was needed to power this magic. We also couldn't very well leave our world without a champion, and so Faith, rather reluctantly, agreed to stay behind with the others."
"But.. what about Connor?"
"Who?" Giles returned, his brow crinkled in confusion.
Frowning at her watcher's evident bewilderment, Buffy felt her own expression shift to match his puzzlement. "Connor," she repeated, her frown deepening when Giles continued to blankly meet her stare. "You know, Angel's super-human son from his tryst with Darla, his reborn-again-sire?" she prompted. Yet when Giles merely shook his head, his gaze now narrowed in concern, Buffy waved a shaky hand. "Never mind," she sighed as she turned back to the empty room. "So I ask again: where are the others?"
"The others are outside," Giles responded, evidently deciding to let the matter drop. "Despite the blond creature's-" he continued, only to pause as his brow crinkled in confusion. "What is he, anyway?"
Smiling, Buffy remembered her own reaction to seeing an elf for the first time. She had thought that they were angels come to welcome her back to heaven. Snorting at the thought, the slayer shook her head. While two of the three could still pass as angelic in her mind, the third fell quite a bit short of that initial perception. Yeah, Thoron was about as angelic in personality and demeanor as a brick wall. "Legolas is an elf," Buffy supplied with a crooked smile.
For a moment Giles merely stared at her before nodding his head. "Right then," he murmured as he released her hand and returned to polishing his already immaculate glasses. "Well, despite his intervention on our behalf, the others are not quite so trusting of these people. Thus, Angel has not left the side of the twin Healers, as they seem to call them, while Spike, meanwhile, refused to relinquish his sword and has been standing guard outside your door for the past few hours. And Xander," he continued with a wry smile, "was in the company of a rather short fellow with an unsightly red beard, the last I saw."
Grinning now, Buffy delighted in the academic curiosity that had always been a defining feature of her watcher's personality. She could tell that he was just bursting with questions, and while she had always been willing to take things at their face value, Giles had always been more interested in the who, what, where, when, why and how of everything. "That would be Gimli, and he's a Dwarf," she supplied.
"I see," her watcher returned before pausing once more, his eyes hesitantly meeting her own. "And the other fellow... is he really the king of all men on this world?"
"And that would be Aragorn, the man of many names," Buffy laughed as she shrugged innocently. "To be honest, I'm not really sure about the whole political scene on this world. Heck, the closest thing I got to politics back home was when I blew up the mayor," she added with a bright smile - a smile that felt as though it had been missing for far too long. She had been so off-balance after arriving in this world, trying to deal with a place that was so backwards and people so foreign, even as she wrestled with the loss of everything and everyone that she knew and loved. It had taken her awhile, but she had finally gained some semblance of equilibrium - some balance - only to have it shattered with Vashnak's arrival and her hellish stay in Tol Brandir. That had been months ago, and in that time, she had slowly wilted until she thought that she would never have occasion to smile again.
Sobering at that thought, Buffy forcefully shook the troubling memories away and refocused on her watcher's concerned features. "Yeah, Aragorn is the Big Deal around here," she offered as though the pregnant pause had never interrupted their carefree banter.
Nodding gently, Giles offered a tentative smile. "Impressive company that you've been keeping," he noted, his soft words offering her a passage back into safer territory. A passage that she eagerly seized.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, the little girl that you were trying to help was a princess and daughter to the king's steward," she offered with a small, thankful smile.
"Of course she was," Giles agreed, his eyes twinkling. "After all, it seems as though everyone is royalty of some sort in this world."
Pausing, Buffy pretended to consider this statement before slowly nodding her agreement. "I think you're right. It's been nothing but lord-this and lady-that since I got here," she confided, moments before the door to her room was pushed open to admit Elladan and Elrohir, Angel following closely on their heels.
"I've never heard of this athelas," the vampire stated as he stepped into the room, the broody creature glaring suspiciously at the green leaves that were held in Elladan's pale hands.
"Not many have," Elrohir sighed as Buffy tried to hide a smile, the slayer quietly watching from her bed as he retrieved a kettle from the table that was pushed against an adjacent wall.
"It is usually thought of as a weed," Elladan added as he dropped the gathered leaves into the water before hanging it over the fireplace where a small flame burned low.
Angel seemed stunned by this response for just a moment before he quickly stalked towards the twins, a low growl emanating from deep in his throat. "You're giving Buffy weed?" he demanded, his voice a dangerous hiss.
"It's okay Angel, they're friends," Buffy cut in, her voice causing all three males to turn towards her in evident surprise. "At least... I think they are," she amended, remembering too late that this was the first time that she had really seen the twin elves since her rescue from Tol Brandir.
"Buffy, you're-" the vampire began, only to have his words drowned beneath the cheery greeting of the person that moved into the open door behind him.
"The Buffster's awake!" Xander sang as her dark-haired friend stepped into the room, a brilliant smile lighting up his handsome features. "How ya feeling?" the Scooby asked as he crossed the floor in a few long strides and settled onto the bed beside her, one arm dropping casually, almost protectively across her shoulders.
"Like I just had a heart attack," Buffy returned, her soft smile easing the bite of her words as she leaned into her friend's familiar warmth. God how she had missed this! It had been months since she had last been with her friends, and she was amazed at how easy it was to slip back into her role as though no distance had ever separated them. Xander was still Xander, and incredibly enough, it seemed that in his eyes she was the same Buffy that he had helped to save the world time and time again. He was still the goofy guy with the funny syphilis who had matured over the past seven years into the man he was today - and she was his hero. She may have never been in love with Xander the way that she had been in love with Angel, or even in the way that she had maybe been in love with Spike, but she had always loved the man that had been the heart of the group.
"Are you still in pain?"
Startled from her thoughts, Buffy turned to see that both Legolas and Aragorn had followed Xander into the room, quickly bringing the number of guests to seven - no, eight, she realized as Spike apparently decided to abandon his post before her door, the better to glare at the three elves that illuminated the room even further with their soft luminescence. "I've been better," she stated, answering Aragorn's question as she met his gray eyes. "Then again, I've been worse. Much, much worse," she added with a small, rueful smile.
Nodding slightly at her words, the king's gaze traveled over her and her friends before returning to the small slayer. "The Mornedhel have sent a message that is to be addressed at a council that has been called for the morrow," he stated. "I think that if you are able, it would be prudent if you were in attendance."
"Of course I'm able," Buffy countered with an indignant scowl. "I had a heart attack, not a stroke," she grumbled as Giles rested a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.
"What Buffy meant to say was that Slayers heal quickly," he explained as Buffy rolled her eyes at his words. She had been telling them the same thing for the past week, and even though she was back on her feet far quicker than any of the healers had anticipated, she was still healing far too slowly in her own mind. She imagined that extreme blood loss over an extended period of time had something to do with it.
"Point is," she continued, her voice containing the strength her body currently lacked, "I'll be more than able to attend your council tomorrow-"
"Not alone, you're not," Xander interrupted, his arm tightening ever so subtly around her shoulders.
"Xander! I'm-"
"Do you really think that we'd leave her alone with you lot after you tried to kill her?" Spike cut in on Buffy's protest, his scowl deepening as he leaned upon his sword, his glare sweeping over the king and his fair-haired companion.
"She will not be harmed," Legolas assured, his blue eyes sparkling at Buffy's long-suffering groan.
"And you expect us to just take your word for it?" Angel asked as the slayer sighed audibly, unable to decide whether she should be annoyed or bemused by her friends' protectiveness. "We don't gamble with Buffy's life."
"No, she seems to do that well enough on her own," Elladan interjected, his face a stoic mask that hid all but the barest glimmer of amusement.
"And what do you mean by that?" Spike interjected, his eyes narrowing dangerously upon the set of twins.
"Simply that-"
"Guys, enough!" Buffy interrupted as Aragorn shot the twins a disapproving glance, obviously begging them to go no further with their taunts.
"Very well then, all shall attend the council," the king relented as he moved to help his foster brothers with the simmering athelas. "Might as well invite all of Minas Tirith to the council," Buffy heard him grumble beneath his breath as she glared at her friends once more for good measure before simply reveling in the pleasure of their company.
"Bloody glowing faeries-"
"Spike, will you please desist in your-"
"What? They're not natural!"
"We are not natural?"
"Well, you are kind of girlie looking-"
"Girlie-"
"Yes, you're bloody well not natural with that nancy hair and-"
"Enough!"