Chapter One: Once Upon a Time.
"Once upon a time," she began, "in a land far, far away, there was a girl."
"Oh, come on. You're actually telling me a fairy tale? I'm eighteen, not eight."
"Shh. This is a different sort of fairy tale. Just listen, would you?"
"Oh, alright," she muttered, and the other one took a breath and began her story again.
"Now, every girl ever born has the potential to become somebody. But this girl was different. Destiny had marked her at birth, and though she never realized it, she would eventually become the greatest warrior maiden this world had ever seen.
"She lived her life out happily, and was known and loved by many people. But one day a man came to speak to her, and though at first she didn't believe what he was telling her, he handed her a weapon and showed her, by trial of battle, that she was indeed the warrior that he claimed she was. And though she was afraid, for her life and the lives of those she loved, she took the mantle of destiny and began to fight.
"But soon her secret fight became impossible to conceal, and the resulting storm of fire forced her to leave her home and move. She was determined that she would never lose the life that she had built for herself, and so she left her battle at her old home and did her best to be just a girl.
"She didn't realize it, but her new home rested over the mouth of hell. Soon she was called upon to fight again, and she realized that she would never be able to lay down her weapons and rest, because the battle would always find her. But by this point she had friends- a man with the knowledge of the ages in his eyes, a girl filled with magic that she would one day learn, and a boy with dark hair and a ready smile.
"And she had a man.
"He was one that she hunted, and yet he hunted at her side. He drifted in and out of her life like the wind, and he was there for the final battle with the oldest and darkest of the vampires. And he was there when she died, though it was the dark-haired boy who brought her back to life.
"And when she came back after a summer in her old home the fires between the burned hotter and hotter, until they finally gave into their desires. And when they did he returned to the creature he was, a creature of evil.
"These were dark times for the girl, for she had to battle a creature determined to destroy her even as he wore her beloved's face. And when the end came, almost the end of the world, she destroyed him, even though she wanted nothing more out of life than to hold him close to her and never let him go.
"She went on to have many more battles, and many more friends and enemies and dreams, but part of her was destroyed by the sword that pierced her beloved's heart. And with every breath she took, every blow she exchanged, a little bit more of her bled away.
"Since centuries before there had been an order of monks who devoted their lives to protecting a magical thing, a Key. And to keep it safe even when the Beast was hunting it, they placed the Key in the care of the girl, in the form of the girl's sister.
"And then the girl found something that she'd thought she'd lost, a piece of herself that had been bleeding away since she'd killed her one true love. She found a sister, someone she could love with all her heart, and it was that love that set her free."
Stunned silence reigned for a minute, and then it was broken by a slow clapping from the doorway. Dawn looked up to see Buffy standing there, smiling at them both.
"Faith," she said. "You didn't talk about yourself at all in that little tale. You sure you're not running a fever?"
"Just fine, B," she said with a matching grin. "Five by five. And your own fine self?"
"Five by five," Buffy returned. "Just got back from patrol."
"Get anything?"
"Few vamps," Buffy said, and their smiles deepened, a shared secret hovering there. Dawn made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, breaking the silent communication.
"Can't you two control yourselves at all? I'm only here for another day, and then I'm going off to college and you're taking off for parts unknown. You can make googly eyes at each other there, you know."
Faith stood fluidly and sauntered over to Buffy's side, draping an arm around the smaller Slayer's waist. "But it's much more fun to make them here, Dawnie, where you can make disgusted faces at us."
Dawn stuck her tongue out at them both, and started walking out the door, her nose in the air. "I'm going to go pack."
They both waited until she was upstairs before bursting into laughter and collapsing on the couch. "That's still fun," Buffy commented when she got her breath back. "And we've been doing it for the entire two weeks she's been here."
"Yeah, well, she's leaving tomorrow, and we'll have to disgust the locals of... where's our tickets for, anyway?"
"I dunno," Buffy said. "Giles gave them to me today, but I was too depressed about Christmas vacation being over to think about where we were being shipped off to next. I'll look at them in a minute."
Faith scooted closer to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling Buffy's slender body tight against her own. "It doesn't matter where we're going," she said, and Buffy smiled up at her before snuggling her head down into Faith's shoulder and closing her eyes.
"I know."