Title: Legends No Longer
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: Up to Gift in Buffy.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Do not own Buffy. I would buy her and Tara but I am broke.
Summary: AU. In a Post-Apocalyptic world where Demons control half of the Americas, two warriors with a legendary past they would rather forget but never can get an opportunity to fix things from the beginning.
" " denotes speech, ' ' denotes thought.
AN: The Wolf concept comes from the Wheel Of Time series by Robert Jordan.
Buffy and Xander were wandering around the Zoo, each nagged by a sense that something important was about to happen. Willow and Jessie came running up, well, bounding in Willow's case.
"We just saw…" Jessie began.
"Zebra's mating." Xander said, with a sense of major deja'vu.
"Heimlich with stripes, right?" Buffy added.
"Uh, yeah." Willow said, slightly deflated.
"Ok, this is all strangely familiar, but I just can't place it." Xander said, looking around.
"Over there. We got to go over there." Buffy added, pointing along the path and through some trees.
Both Buffy and Xander started along the path with certainty, not sure of what but certainty none the less. With a shrug, Willow and Jesse followed them. As they wandered, they passed a large enclosure with Canadian Timber Wolves in it. Most of the visitors watched the wolves from a slight distance, but Xander and Buffy got up close to the cage bars. The Timber Wolves had been growling at everyone to pass close, but the temporally displaced couple began a kind of purring rumble in their throats as they approached, and the wolves, after a minute, began to relax and approach them. A pair of cubs came almost bounding up to them, escorted by a large female, and licked their hands through the bars. With a few barks and a yap, Buffy and Xander back away from the Wolves enclosure, to the stares of all the onlookers, and the cubs bounded back to their play.
"What was that all about, bro?" Jessie asked.
"We were just saying hello to Night Wind and his pack." Xander said.
"We leant to talk with Wolves. Demons and Wolves have a natural hatred for one another." Buffy semi explained when she noted Willow and Jessie's confused expressions.
Early in the war, the hatred for Wolves harboured by the Demons was discovered. Eventually several people, including Buffy and Xander, were magically gifted with the ability to talk to wolves, and they discovered something amazing. Wolves could 'think' to each other, sometimes over a period of miles. In several areas of demon occupied South America, humans and wolves conducted ongoing guerrilla insurgency actions, with tactical information being passed between the packs.
Wolf names were also more complex than they first thought, with the name being an image rather than words. Like 'Night Wind', it was more, the subtle wind blowing through the forest, brining the scent of game and the sharp tang of winter, as the full moon hung high in the sky bathing the tall pines and the white, snow covered ground with a muted glow. Even that fell far short of the complex image of his name. 'Pail Moon' had bought her two cubs to meet the newcomers, 'Wounded She of Battle' and 'Male Mother'.
Buffy's wolf name, 'Wounded She of Battle', was of a small but powerful she-wolf, her light blond pelt ragged and covered with blood from the large rents in her left, forward shoulder, her teeth beared and her jaws bloody as she faced another enemy, the bodies of many foes surrounding her, as the merciless sun beat down upon her and the hard earth to which offered no softness nor game, only enemies and death.
Xander's name of 'Male Mother' was a complement rather than an insult as it would have been if said by a human. It was of a large wolf, its dark brown pelt glistening in the sun, the safety of forest and the glittering of water behind him, with desolation and desert before him, as he stood alone, flanked by treacherous chasms, facing down a large demon in order to protect young and old wolves behind him.
"I don't like seeing 'Night Wind' and his pack caged like that." Xander stated as they walked away from the exhibit.
"Remember Watson, Michales and Parker?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah." Xander said.
"Well I remember the account numbers they told us about."
A grin broke out on Xander's face, until his eyes latched upon five figures approaching a cordoned off area.
"Shit! Hyena!" Xander swore, taking off at full pelt towards the figures.
A split second later, when Xander's words had sunk in, Buffy was also off like a shot. The pair ploughed into Kyle and his buddies, Xander crash tackling Kyle and Tor while Buffy shoulder checked the two girls.
"Get out of here." Buffy commanded the intimidated Lance, who the others had been bullying, while keeling across the throat of one of the girls.
By the time Jessie and Willow had arrived on the scene, the fight was over. Kyle's gang were unconscious, with Buffy and Xander tying them up with their own shoelaces.
"What is going on here?" a voice demanded.
Buffy did not look up from her work, and Xander's only response seemed to be a quick glance and a hand gesture before returning to his unconscious body. Of course that illusion only lasted for a second, before the throwing dagger he kept in his boot blossomed in the Zookeeper's throat.
"What the HELL?" Jessie and Willow said, shocked beyond belief.
"Evil." Xander grunted, nodding to the Zookeepers' body as he dragged Tor's body off the path and on to the large grass area, where Buffy was depositing the second girl next to Kyle and Rhonda.
"Chuck him in the pit?" Buffy asked, indicating to the Hyena House.
"Yeah, just avoid the symbol." Xander said as he lifted the Zookeepers feet.
With Buffy handling his shoulders, they had the body thrown in the Hyena feeding area in no time, where the bastard was devoured by the spirits he had tries to possess.
"Question?" Willow said when they emerged.
"He was trying to get the power of the spirits of the Hyenas'. Kyle's gang would have gotten possessed and killed a few people, including Principal Flute." Xander explained
"Which would have meant that Troll Snyder became Principal. I swear if he sneers at me just once, I'll rip his voice box out through the lips you never kiss with." Buffy growled.
"Ohhkkaayy." Jessie said, cautiously.
"It's almost time to go." Willow said, looking at her watch.
"You guys head back to the bus." Buffy said as she and Xander walked towards the Zoo's main building.
"Where are you going?" Willow asked.
"We have to see a man about a wolf." Buffy said with a grin.
Buffy and Xander sat at the main table in the library. Giles was pacing nervously while Willow and Jessie were casting their eyes between their friends and the figure by the door. Jenny Calender was sitting on the stairs in a near catatonic state. That could either be related to the fully grown, female Canadian Timber Wolf curled up by the door or the fact revelation of what had happened during the 'Hyena Incident' the first time around. Or the fact that Buffy and Xander each had one of Pail Moon's cubs curled up on their laps and they had been petting and playing with the cubs the whole time. Strangely enough, since entering the room, Pail Moon had curled up by the door and her eyes had never left the rest of the Scoobies, while practically ignoring Buffy and Xander.
Pail Moon watched the Two Legs. She knew her two cubs were safe with Male Mother and Wounded She Of Battle, they were Wolfbrother and Wolfsister. The Two Legs, however, she did not trust. Two Legs has taken them from their territory and put them in Metal Surrounded Hard Place. Now Male Mother and Wounded She Of Battle had taken them from the Metal Surrounded Hard Place and shown them their new territory, a large area of cool trees and dark earth towards the rising sun from the Two Leg place, and all they had asked was for them to Kill any Vile Ones they could and warn of those they couldn't.
Normally if any Two Legs got this close to her cubs, Pail Moon would have been growling at them at best, but Male Mother had said that these Two Legs were part of his and Wounded She Of Battle's pack and that stayed Pail Moon. Finally the nervous motion of the old, wise one and the constant stares of the two who were little more than yearlings got to Pail Moon. She rose and with a growl and a thought she called her cubs over and said goodbye to Male Mother and Wounded She Of Battle.
"Goodbye, Pail Moon." Male Mother said in the Two Legs tongue, sending the appropriate farewell thought as well, while performing that strange Two Leg gesture with his front paw.
Time to return to the Pack. To Night Wind, the Alpha and to her mate, Hopper.
TBC…
