"So that's what passes for astrology in your world?" Ayesha sounded appalled.
Anya shrugged. "Most people don't really believe in it any more. It used to be a good bit more complex, but I didn't pay much attention back then. When I was young, we cast runes instead."
Ayesha frowned and thought that over for a while. "Other forms of divination can work, but I never understood why anyone would use them when the Loom is literally visible in the sky. In abstract form, at least."
"Some people don't seem to need it," Anya pointed out. "Buffy can see the future in her dreams. Cordelia has visions, not that she can control them. They're supposed to come from the Powers That Be, but I've always wondered which ones. She's had at least one since we got here."
"Well, yes," Ayesha admitted, "but they didn't set out to learn the future that way, did they? It was something that just came to them?"
"With Buffy, yeah. Apparently Cordy's visions can be passed on by kissing. Sometimes. I offered to kiss her once, maybe a year ago, so I could see the stock market trends, but she got mad." It apparently wasn't voluntary anyway, worse luck.
"I see," Ayesha said slowly. "Well, to the best of my knowledge no one's ever produced a method of fate manipulation based on some other divination form. It might be possible, of course; I'm not sure anyone has ever tried."
"I suppose you don't have much reason to with the Loom right here," Anya acknowledged.
They stood above it now. Or below it. Or beside it. The Loom of Fate was a mind-bending mechanism to watch, if mechanism was the right word. Images flickered through its silken threads as she watched. Lovers quarreled and separated. Wars fizzled; treaties were broken. Companies went out of business. In Nexus, a man murdered a rival in a jealous rage. In Whitewall, a pair of feuding families took the matter to court and settled it at last. She could see other things than endings, if she searched for them, but endings were easiest. And anyway, when you had a hammer, everything looked like a nail. A library burned down on the Blessed Isle, and a priceless tome's secret knowledge was forever hidden. A couple near Halta sold the family farm and set out to find their fortune as Guild merchants.
"Is the knowledge settling properly?" Ayesha asked. "Normally it does, but on the rare occasions something goes wrong it tends to be with those who've had a lot of information implanted."
"Had a few headaches," Anya said ruefully, "but nothing worse than that." She spoke the answer in perfect Old Realm. With Ayesha's accent, though. "I was about convinced you were going to leave me to Mister Kojak."
"Kejak," Ayesha corrected absently. "And you must be joking. He has too much pull by far to not get his turn first, if he wants it, but he knows we're all better off when we share students. To a degree, at least." She glanced at the Loom. "Nazri will have his turn last, and then we'll begin finding out what teachers work best for you. You do seem to have an affinity with Chejop where martial arts are concerned, more's the pity, but I'd like to see you work with Lupo at least a few sessions when he gets back."
"He's good?" Anya flinched suddenly. A hand had just shattered her power center with a rock. "Sorry, I..."/
"It's okay. The future happens," Ayesha said gently. "No one I know of can match Chejop, but Lupo knows some things he doesn't."
"I've started to wonder if Chejop doesn't know best about Xander's life," Anya said pensively. She kicked a loose pebble on the floor, sending it spinning out into the Loom.
"Of course you have," Ayesha agreed. "He's Chejop, and in many ways you're still a jumped-up mortal. That's another reason we trade students at the moment. With effort, he could persuade any new student he wanted, and then where would we be? But in practice he needs help from us to get everything done, and he knows it. And even he understands the dangers of groupthink, so long as it's not Solar-related."
"He knows better than to make everyone think just like him," Anya said dryly.
"Exactly," Ayesha said. "Bad for the bureau. In any case, I've taught you what I can about astrology. I hope you'll take the time to learn from others, but in the meanwhile what do you think of sorcery?"
"I used to be pretty good with it, actually. I got out of practice while I was a demon, and when I lost...when I became human again, I think I somehow lost that magic too." She'd never really understood how that had happened, but perhaps it had something to do with truly becoming Anya Jenkins. Or...
"Maybe it simply weakened your Essence. You might have regained those powers now. I'll happily test you on some spells, and initiate you again if you need it-though I can't say I've ever heard of that happening." The dark woman gave Anya a look of frustration and amusement. "But you're many things I've never heard of."
BThe Thermodynamics of Heaven/b
For the first time Rupert Giles could remember, Willow groaned with frustration, put her face against the pages, and mumbled, "I don't get it."
"I suppose I should not be surprised," he mused. "I couldn't follow it either."
"Nor I," Wesley acknowledged. Tara merely shook her head.
"I believe the topic may require a truly superhuman intelligence to properly fathom," Giles said reluctantly. "Therefore, none of us qualify."
"I got a few bits," Willow protested. "The 'supermote engine' has to be an Exaltation."
"Well, yes," Wesley began, annoyed.
"The trouble with analyzing it was how hard it was to even detect," Willow went on, overriding him. "Even the ancient Solars had to rely on what it used-Essence-instead of what it was. Like working out how a car ran by studying gasoline."
"I get ithat/i," Gunn said. "Don't see where you found it, though."
"It doesn't matter," Willow said with a shake of her head. "The Solars had to analyze the Exaltations by what they did-find heroes and manipulate Essence. But it was like breaking open a computer and finding nothing but solid plastic-minus the breaking part, because nothing could."
"That's more than I understood," Tara said encouragingly. "Maybe-"
Willow made a grouchy face. "All that was in the introduction and the conclusions. The rest is math I can't follow and words that aren't in my vocabulary." She plopped back onto the table. "I guess I won't understand Exaltation unless I actually Exalt. Maybe not even then. iXander/i has a better chance than me."
"We still have the capacity to hypothesize," Wesley pointed out, trying to be helpful.
Willow rose from her seat and began pacing. There was more room for that now that Anya had been given the entire floor. She'd said the Sidereals were talking about assigning her a nearby manse, though not one of the better ones. She was a promising student, but still a student. Willow had gotten some comfy chairs brought into the room, but for computing devices there was nothing better than an abacus that could be afforded, and Anya'd said no.
"We can't test our hypotheses, though," Willow said finally. "Except by asking Anya to try things for us, and when is she even here?" She sat down again with a thump. "And apparently Sidereals aren't even able to come up with new powers, which even Terrestrials can. That limits what we can test with her. We need the others."
On that point, at least, Giles could hardly disagree,
"So, what do you say?" Anya held on grimly to her brightest smile.
"Henh," the being grunted. It had identified itself as Criosyn, God of Artifact Production Breeding Program 113-JH-sub-4, whatever that was, and now that was how it placed its countersignature on the prayer strip. Poor guy had been homeless for decades at least. "There you go."
It wasn't anything really important, just a practice petition to alter the destiny of a single Guild chapterhouse, but best to get started early. It boggled her mind that no one had used this yet. "And there you go." She handed him a few coins. Not much, but enough to make a good meal. With careful planning and investment, Anya had calculated out that she could personally employ most of the neighborhood inside a year, and for better pay than she was giving this guy.
"Good work, Dawn." Anya felt like she was bubbling over...like...well, like a shaken soda and that was definitely not the right image.
"Seriously?" Dawn asked. "Anyone can sign those things?"
She hastily scribbled down the name of the next god in line, which resembled an animate crystalline horseshoe crab.
"Regulation 13, section 194," Anya quoted. "In the interest of interdepartmental solidarity, any god may countersign petitions for the Bureau of Destiny to be processed by the pattern spiders, save as indicated in subsections 4 through 8 regarding kickbacks, forbidden deities, and the harassment of important personages."
"But he's living in a box," Gunn protested.
"Not in a few weeks he won"t be," Anya effused. "Behold the power of capitalism."
"So, um...this isn't a kickback?" Dawn wondered.
"Of course not," Anya explained. "He's an employee. And these wonderful people," she said with a hand waving at the crowd of gods gathering in the dirty alley, "are my personal staff. Hired on my own nickel. I'm perfectly within my rights."
"Yeah, I just hope you're sure of that," Gunn said, and waved the next god forward. The elderly woman looked haggard and seedy, wrapped in a dirty grey robe. "Case in point: Resolute Speaker of Truth, God of Honest Lawyers."
"I'm not saying we should all go," Dawn insisted. "I'm saying it'll be less crowded if some of us leave. Some of us should go keep Fred and Xander company. Some of us should wait to go see Buffy and Spike...um, and Angel when we figure out how to get to them. And a couple of us should maybe stay here with Anya so we don't all forget her. We can rotate that out?"
"We're not exactly welcome here," Wesley pointed out. "They allow us to remain on sufferance because Anya wishes it. That does not mean we will be permitted to return if we leave."
"Maybe I can get us an in," Cordelia suggested, drawing stares. "No, seriously. My visions come from the Powers That Be, right? And I had one since we got here, about Fred Exalting. So since we're cut off from our world, doesn't that imply it was sent from here? Where else would the Powers That Be...be, if not heaven?"
"That sounds plausible enough," Giles agreed. "Perhaps even from these...Celestial Incarnae? They sound rather similar."
"Except for that great big monkey on their backs," Dawn argued. Tara frowned at the kitten in her arms. Dawn had said she'd found it on the streets, and most of them had believed her, but Tara seemed skeptical.
"No, actually, makes sense to me," Gunn said. "When have the PTBs ever gotten off their asses and done anything themselves?"
Tara looked briefly scandalized. She seemed convinced that this world's Gaia was the Goddess. "Dawn," she asked suddenly, "may I see Miss Kitty?
Dawn nodded and handed the cat over. She'd found early on that Miss Kitty didn't vanish if someone else took her when she got home and Willow had picked the kitten up at once. "It doesn't matter what they are," she said. "Won't the Maidens be interested regardless? Cordy can see the future without any rituals or anything. If they're not sending the visions, wouldn't they be interested in finding out who is?"
"Probably," Tara said. "Maybe Anya should take her to work tomorrow." She stroked the kitten, who squirmed in her grasp.
"Right," Cordy said irritably. "Because we get along so well." Dawn couldn't remember them even talking much, though eventually Anya had mentioned granting Cordelia's wish.
"To make arrangements for the rest of us," Wesley insisted. Cordy sighed and then nodded.
"It was a good suggestion, Dawn," Tara said as she handed the kitten back. "I'm glad you're speaking up more."
"I dunno," Dawn said, patting Miss Kitty on the head. "I guess I just feel more confident lately."
"Good to hear it. Y-you'd tell us if anything happened, right? Like if you Exalted too?"
"It's not gonna happen," Dawn said with a sigh. "I'm not really hero girl. But I'd tell you if it did. I promise."
Tara nodded and moved
"Well," Ayesha said nervously, "now we know you can't cast our sorcery, at least." Anya's first attempt at producing an Infallible Messenger had done isomething/i-it had produced a flash of blinding Essence light from her anima-but had otherwise been totally ineffective. A subsequent attempt had done nothing at all. That was more than Ayesha normally expected from an ineffective attempt at casting spells, but there was no clear way of being sure why it wasn't working.
"Maybe sorcery just works differently in my world," Anya suggested. That wasn't necessarily unreasonable.
"Or perhaps it's a matter of incompatible Essence in some way. We can't readily absorb energy from the Underworld, for instance," Ayesha reminded her. Anya was retaining an incredible amount of her training. Partly she was simply intelligent, partly she was vastly experienced, and partly her world and time seemed to have technology at least roughly comparable to the Shogunate's. Perhaps she'd prove to have an aptitude for magitech. That would be interesting and undoubtedly useful. "Anyway, the only thing we can do by way of finding out is see whether we can initiate you."
Anya nodded, though to Ayesha it looked as if she might be taking the excuse to study Ayesha's desk. "I don't remember much about learning to use magic the first time around, but it wasn't fun. At least I didn't have to hang from the gallows tree like Odin learning runes."
Ayesha blinked. "Hang from... Well, probably not. The final initiation is a sacrifice, but more than likely it's not going to be something culturally familiar. Quite frequently it's the opposite."
"Final initiation? There's more than one?" Anya pulled out a piece of green paper and began running it through her fingers in what seemed to be some sort of soothing gesture for her.
"There are five initiations, or steps to initiation. I could always just send you to Department 137, but I suspect you might need a more personalized approach. The first four initiations, of Serenity, Battles, Secrets, and Journeys, can happen in any order, but the Initiation of Endings is always the last. I don't want to tell you too much about them ahead of time, to be honest." Ayesha tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I wonder what you fear."
Anya visibly shuddered merely at the mention of her fears. Hopefully that wasn't going to be a problem. Wasn't this a woman who had been a demon, and who had then fought demons with her friends? What could she be afraid of?
"There's always the possibility," Ayesha pointed out, "that you have been through some of these initiations already. It's not unheard of for a sorceror to pass through all five informally in the course of their life-though clearly you haven't been through them all, not yet. Salina encoded the knowledge of magic into Creation itself so that sorcerors could initiate and even learn spells without having to formally study under a master."
"I wonder," Anya said quietly. "Would you be interested in meeting Willow? She's particularly powerful."
"A mortal sorceress?" Such people existed, of course. "She can't possibly have reached beyond the first Circle. It doesn't work that way. Well...rumor has it a few powerful god-bloods have done so. She'd have to be descended from someone like a third-circle demon or one of the Incarnae or something of that nature, though. I suppose that would be an interesting meeting on that account, at least."
"Willow's the most powerful witch I know." Anya emphasized the point by leaning forward, her eyes meeting Ayesha's for the first time in a while. "If I thought any mortal could beat an Exalted, it'd be her. Even if she did get schooled by that Deathknight."
Ayesha tried not to laugh. A mortal defeat an Exalt? That'd be the day. "Don't bet on it, Anya."
"That depends," Anya said. "What odds are you giving her? Hundred to one? Thousand to one?"
"A million to one would be generous," Ayesha said.
"Then she only has to do it once," Anya pointed out, "and you're set for life."
"Ow!" Dawn's eyes went wide. "You slapped me!"
Tara drew back her hand again, though she stared at it as she did. "Dawn...iwhy/i? She tried to kill you! She would have destroyed the world. She ibroke my mind/i, Dawn. Why are you meeting with Glory?"
"I'm not-"
"Don't lie to me, Dawn! I saw her! What's the matter with you?" Tara seized her by the hand and dragged her away from the bar and into the alleyway. Even that was paved with huge, regular stones, though the ivy growing up the walls was sickly.
"She doesn't even know us," Dawn tried to explain. "None of that's ever happened. I think this is the past. A past, anyway."
"I don't care!" She'd never seen Tara get this angry. "I can't believe she's different, Dawn. She'll do the same thing again if she thinks she needs to. She doesn't care about you, or me, or anyone."
"She doesn't act like-" Dawn paused. This line wasn't getting her anywhere. "She knows what I am, Tara."
"What do you mean, she knows what you are?" Tara's fist balled up and uncurled again. She wasn't a fighter, at least not with her fists. Sometimes you forgot she could be angry at all. "You're human, Dawn. And yes, you're the Key, but we know that, and you've never been able to do anything with it. You don't need to know-"
"Tara, I'm inot/i!" Dawn pulled out of Tara's grip, and the witch recoiled from her for the first time Dawn could remember. "I'm not human. Not really. This Glory...she said...she said I was a raksha. One of what these people call the Fair Folk." Tara's eyes widened. She knew the real stories about fairies, not just the sanitized fairy tales that were left in children's stories. "And I know better than to just trust her, but...I can do things."
"What kind of things?" Tara's voice was...strange. Fragile.
Dawn fumbled for something to tell her. "I...made...Miss Kitty. I didn't find her. She's...she came from me. Buffy can't do that. Anya can't do that. It's not an Exalted thing, it's...I'm different." Her voice dropped. "Glory says I don't have to be...me...if I don't want to. But I do."
Tara thought about that. "Are you sure she was telling the truth? Maybe she told you that because she doesn't expect you to try."
pWell, in that case, I'd have to try it if I were going to prove her wrong, wouldn't I? I don't want to. I like being me." She couldn't face that. Not unless she had to to stay alive. Maybe not even then. She was Dawn. She was Buffy's sister. If she wasn't that, then who was she?
But if she was, why did Tara's anger make her feel less...hungry?
"Worse than demons?" Anya frowned. "Not that some demons can't be useful, productive members of society, but-"
"For one thing," Nazri persisted, "people are prone to think you can make peace with the Fair Folk. Most people know demons are always a threat. More than that, though, demons are, ibound/i. Malfeas is a prison. To the raksha, the Wyld is ihome/i. They like it there. And they want to spread it here. We can't survive that."
Anya tried not to sigh. She'd anticipated getting along with Nazri, more than Ayesha or especially Chejop. He was reasonable about most things. This obsessive bit, though...if they did somehow get rid of the Fair Folk, would he turn on demons next? People who used to be demons?
"I know you've spent most of your...adventuring days fighting against demons," Nazri said. He flipped through the book on his desk. "It's not an invalid thing to do by any means, and I suppose you know first-hand what demons are like."
"The demons I knew? They remind me a lot of here, actually. Petty bureaucrats fighting with each other while the world gets away from them." She could be tactful. When she chose to be. It didn't usually get her what she wanted. "Your factions. The gods. The demons here seem to at least have their act together."
"I suppose that would make them more dangerous," Nazri said dryly. He could be very, very dry when he thought she was being foolish. "The Fair Folk are sometimes like that within their courts, but even then madness rules. It's merely the kind of madness that requires forms in quintuplicate and green ink and then loses your papers five times a year."
"Oh." Anya considered that. "I've dealt with worse." Nazri raised an eyebrow at her. He didn't believe her. Dumbass. "As for the Fair Folk, we at least have stories left about what they were like. I'll try not to do anything stupid."
Nazri sighed. "Down to brass tacks, then, I suppose. Do try to remember what I told you."
"Anya!" Tara virtually jumped out of her seat. "I told them you should be included in this discussion."
"Er...of course I should. I should be included in any Scooby discussion. Why haven't I been?" This was an alarming development, almost as bad as the idea that Xander had been sleeping with other women.
Willow made a particularly impatient-looking frown. "I didn't want to leave you out exactly but Giles talked me into starting without you. We were talking about transhumanism."
"Trans-what? Is Xander sleeping with Captain Redfang too?" This was getting serious. Maybe she needed to reconsider Iron Siaka's flirting, if only to make Xander jealous.
"Huh-oh. No, Anya. Transhumanism's about the idea of developing beyond humanity. With powers, mostly." Willow should have been getting into one of her bubbly moods, but she seemed far too agitated. "Usually it's a technological development-"
"The Exaltations are technological," Wesley put in, "after a fashion at least."
"Lemme guess," Cordy asked, "this is one of those 'sufficiently advanced technology' things?"
"That's it exactly," Willow blurted out. "Clarke thought he was being metaphorical, but magic is literally a technology we don't fully understand the basis of yet. It's a means of manipulating the world. That's what technology is."
"Okay," Anya said. She tried to keep up with the times, but this was something she hadn't heard of. "So I was transhuman before and now I'm transhuman again. Is that a problem?"
Wesley looked nervously at Giles. Tara looked anxiously at Willow. Cordelia and Gunn groaned, and Dawn...well, Dawn seemed to be pretending she was somewhere else.
"She cuts to the heart of things, doesn't she?" Wesley said to Giles, ignoring her.
"I'm not a demon anymore," Anya pointed out hastily.
"We kn-n-now you aren't," Tara hurried to add. "The discussion wasn't even about you, really. I-it was about Buffy."
"Wesley thinks that Buffy's getting too powerful," Willow muttered. "That she's dangerous and that maybe..." Her face grew flushed and she came to a halt.
"That perhaps the wisest course of action is to leave her here," Giles finished for Willow. "Where there are structures and institutions of power capable of dealing with her."
"And inevitably your name came up," Gunn added. "Along with Xander's and Fred's."
"This is why you always let Slayers die after a couple of years, isn't it?" Willow's jaw was set and her face red with anger. "They start to scare you if they get too powerful. What about me? Do I scare you too? Huh?"
"Willow, be reasonable." Wesley tugged on his shirt-tails. "Slayers even in our world have conquered nations on rare occasions in the past, if they escaped Council supervision long enough. There was the case of General Saghani, a Mongol during the late Middle Ages-"
"Queen Semiramis of Assyria," Tara said. "Joan of Arc, on the kinda positive side."
"But there is a positive side," Willow insisted. "Power isn't intrinsically evil. Imagine what we could do with more Exaltations in our world."
Cordelia shook her head. "But it wouldn't be us doing the doing. It'd be just the handful of people with the powers."
"Once they got past a certain point," Gunn said, "there'd be nothing that could stop them if they did go bad."
"Which is why we need to figure them out," Willow pressed on. "So we can make more. They're not just some intrinsic state-of-the-world thing, they were made."
"As weapons," Giles pointed out.
"Sweetie, you said yourself you couldn't begin to understand how to do that," Tara reminded Willow.
"It can be done," Willow insisted. "It happened once, so it can happen again."
Looked like it was up to her to get the discussion back on track. "You want to leave us behind," Anya said flatly.
"It isn't as if you're bereft of support," Wesley pointed out. "You have the backing of heaven itself. Fred is the ruler of Luthe, with Xander as her general, and Buffy is monarch of Gem. Should we tear them away from that?"
"Buffy wants to leave," Tara reminded him. "She's only doing these things to stop the prophecy from coming true."
"Does she have the right to just leave now?" Gunn asked.
"Does she have the right to stay and risk ending this world?" Tara countered. For some reason she looked at Dawn, who was being as quiet as a mouse even with her sister on the line.
"I'm not going to stay," Anya said, making her voice as hard as possible. "I'll learn as much as I can here, but you've all pointed out that this world is basically a hell dimension."
"How much of that is the Exaltations?" Wesley asked.
"How much is the Yozis and the Neverborn and the Fair Folk?" Willow responded, leaning across the table. Dawn flinched, which made a strange thought flicker into Anya's mind, and she opened her mouth.
"You're forgetting something," Dawn said suddenly. "Faith." Her eyes slid rapidly across Anya's face, begging her to keep quiet.
Anya changed what she had been about to ask. "Faith's Exalted too, isn't she? She's a Slayer."
"As a matter of fact," Giles said, "that's open to some question. I doubt that Exaltations can be copied or shared so easily, and it seems there are only ten Slayer Exaltations in existence. Eleven counting Buffy, but that may be a case of temporal overlap of some sort. The odds that Faith is also a Slayer, as we thought, are quite low."
"She's some other kind of Exalt?" Dawn asked. "What're the odds the Council doesn't know how to deal with her as well as they think?"
For the first time Wesley seemed to reconsider his position. "Rather high, I should imagine."
"Then it's settled," Willow said firmly. "We have to go back eventually, even if it's just to find out what Faith is doing."
"And take four other Exalts with us?" Cordy wondered.
"Who else is gonna deal with her?" Willow asked.
It was a fair point. Only, it made Anya wonder: if it didn't end with Faith, who would deal with ithem/i?"
"She knows." Tara stood in Dawn's way. "You can't hide it from her."
"That's why I'm leaving," Dawn said, picking up a satchel. "She said there was a place I could go. That she could teach me better there."
"Who said?" Anya had come up behind Tara.
Dawn looked up at her, a mouse in a trap, and said nothing.
"A raksha?" Anya asked, quietly for once. "Or a demon? I'm not going to get all judgemental, Dawn. You know me."
"A raksha," Dawn whispered. "Like me."
Tara tried not to let the pain show on her face; from Anya's eyes, she saw she had failed. "Glory," she added.
"What?" Anya's eyes bulged. "Dawn, she's obviously lying. She just wants to go home, same as she did in our world. She's trying to get you to-"
Dawn flickered out of existence. An instant later, she reappeared, inches away, gasping with pain. "She didn't say...how much...that hurts."
"But not in the Wyld," Tara guessed.
Dawn shook her head. "The Wyld is home. At least that's what she says. Our Glory...she'd been away way too long. She was broken. I hate her, Anya, but who else is going to teach me?"
Anya grabbed her by the shoulders. "Dawn, you don't need to learn the things raksha do. Don't do it. You don't want to be one of them, not if Glory was one."
Dawn shook Anya's hand off. "It doesn't matter what I want. I am one. I was before we ever met. I'm a burden on you guys. I'll never be special the way you and Buffy are."
Tara gave it her best try. "You're special in your own way, Dawn."
"Yes. I am." Dawn set her jaw. "You said you wouldn't get judgy, Anya. Liar."
Anya threw up her hands. "Who's being judgy? I just think you're making a mistake."
"My sister's spent her whole life running from her powers," Dawn muttered. "Where'd it get her? She could've beaten Glory before all this happened. We'd be home right now. We'd all be home. I'm the Key. I'm our best shot at making it back. But I have to know what I am."
The door creaked open and all three jumped. "Not interrupting something, am I?" Someone vaguely familiar strode into the room.
Anya blinked, then glanced at Tara. Distraction? Yeah, distraction was good. "Hi, Iron Siaka. That's an interesting look for you. No breasts. What happened?"
Iron Siaka glared. "What's this about going home, Anya? You haven't even finished your training." Tara struggled to work out what was different about the Sidereal. Anya had said "no breasts", so presumably Siaka usually had some. They ihad/i spoken, hadn't they? "You know nobody will know you."
"Nobody knew me anyway," Anya explained reasonably. "Just these few friends, and they're managing ok. But even if I stayed, they still want to go eventually. Wouldn't you rather mortals stopped cluttering up heaven?"
Iron Siaka shrugged broadly. She...was it she? Anya had mentioned breasts...had very broad shoulders. "Valid point. Can I talk to you alone? You do have your own room, right?" Dawn tilted her head quizzically as if she were just as puzzled as Tara.
"Last one on the left," Anya said. "The big bedroom. We've been remodeling. What's going on?"
That was what Tara wanted to know. But Siaka just gave Anya a wink and a grin-Tara must have misheard; Siaka surely had never had breasts-and motioned toward the private room.
"What was that about?" Dawn wondered as they walked off. The door swung shut behind them.
"Not a clue." Iron Siaka had looked as if he were trying to get Anya into bed, but surely Anya would shut that down.
"Good look for you," Anya said patiently. "Nice muscly shoulders. You went to a lot of trouble."
"You have no idea," Siaka said, yawning. "Sorry, I'm a little sleepy. Trading off hearthstones isn't forbidden but we don't do it much. Too much trouble. But I called in a few favors."
Anya nodded. Hearthstones made her nostalgic. "Are you on assignment? You're very attractive." Surely this wasn't a personal visit. She'd made it clear that the marriage was strictly a business arrangement, hadn't she?
Siaka rolled her eyes. "Is that a joke? Anya, look, I know you've got a long-term relationship going on. You're extremely lucky. There aren't many Sidereals and most other people forget us. I'm not looking for that." She peeled off her shirt in one smooth motion. "I just want you to cheat on your cheating boyfriend with me. One time." Was that a six-pack? She'd known Siaka was a big, tough kind of girl. "Is that too much to ask? You see how hard up I am."
Anya lifted her eyebrows. "Yes. Yes I do. What the hell. Sure. He deserves it. Just don't think I'm leaving him for you."
"I'm under no illusions," Siaka said, sliding out of her trousers. "You told off Chejop Kejak. You won't dump him for me."
Anya's gut churned at the mention of Chejop. "About him and Xander...I've been rethinking. Ayesha and Nazri put in good arguments too but maybe Chopjob is right. Xander wouldn't want...to hurt anyone. He...I..."
"Ssshhh." Siaka put a finger to Anya's lips. "Hold that thought. As much as I like hearing you come around, now is not the time. I don't want this to be an excuse for me to talk you into things." She replaced the finger with her lips, briefly. "This is a fling. It can be more later if you want, but it's a fling now."
"Thought we were married," Anya said, laughing nervously. Was Faith a Solar? Was that what-? Siaka's next kiss drove such thoughts away. Stubble. She had stubble.
"Told you relationships get weird when you're Siddie."
"And she just walks out," Tara sighed. She sank into a soft chair.
"Is she with Xander or isn't she?" Dawn's voice was still heated. Tara understood.
"Dawnie, I don't pretend to understand what goes through Anya's head, even when there's no boys involved. But she and Xander are in a really weird place right now." She patted the chair arm. "Come sit."
"He couldn't remember her," Dawn grumbled. "It's not his fault." She took a seat, but a few feet over. Maybe it just looked more comfortable.
"Not with Nelumbo, no, but things with...that Lunar are more complicated. And it still hurts her, even if he didn't mean to cheat." Tara pulled an apple from a nearby bowl and began to slice it. "And yes, this will hurt him back and she knows it."
"But then why...?"
Tara almost said "to even things out" which was true but would invite questions she had no answers for. Instead she handed Dawn the first slice. "Even if there was no one else, just this...Exalting thing could break them. No one remembers Sidereals. Even if Xander does, imagine if no one remembered your husband. And the time limit's all gone. They could both live for thousands of years now."
"Or they could die tomorrow, just like Buffy." Dawn popped the fruit in her mouth to avoid showing her hurt on her face. Tara started to agree and explain how that still changed things, but... "What if Slayers had been taught the stuff they needed to know? Buffy's practically invulnerable now."
"Dawnie, that's true, but...p-power changes you. It's changed Anya and Xander. It'll change you too, you know?" It had changed Willow.
Goddess, what would she do if Willow idid/i Exalt?
Anya woke to an empty bed.
Iron Siaka had been clumsy with a penis. Sure, teaching her had been fun, and she had definitely been skilled in other ways. Xander was better, though, even if he couldn't make her orgasm with a kiss anymore now that they were both Exalted.
Iron Siaka was nice, and blunt, and she knew how to play rough. She didn't object to talk of eviscerations, either. Just made jokes about bashing demon brains with her mace. Her goremaul. Sheesh.
Anya wasn't in love with her, though.
Somehow she and Xander were going to have to patch things up. She wasn't happy with sharing Xander with a Lunar mate, but then she was the one who'd gotten married. However weirdly.
It was time to go wake Cordy. They'd go to the Bureau together and ask some questions about the visions.
Siaka hadn't even left a note.
There was someone pounding on the door. "I'm up, Cordelia!" Cordy was eager to get to the Bureau and see what she could learn. If they told her anything.
Anya shrugged on a robe and stepped into the main room. No Cordy. But-
The knocking was coming from the front door. She unlatched it. "Sorry, just now-"
A lion put a paw on her shoulder. A gigantic lion carved from shining gold that gleamed in the noonday sun. "By order of Shining Barrator, you are hereby informed of your impending audit, Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins. You have one month to gather evidence on your behalf. This is a general audit; you have not been accused of specific crimes. However, I have been instructed to inform you that the gathering of unemployed divinities at your residence is a suspicious matter."
Audit?!
At least there wouldn't be any bunnies.
The shimmering sands went on forever, sparkling like diamonds. Above them it soared, a crystalline bubble, barely visible. Faint flickers of light revealed it vaguely, only to conceal the occupants. Even after thousands of years, Dragon King technology put all but the higher feats of Celestial engineering to shame.
"Will we three really be enough?" His voice muffled behind a veil, Black Ice Shadow had pulled a cowl down over his eyes as well. Even with virtually no flesh showing, the ever-present sun left him ill at ease.
"If not us, Mnemon's army will take her." Crimson Banner Executioner was even more concealed than Shadow, as he always was on a mission. The ancient battlesuit he wore hid him from head to toe. "Which isn't optimal, but at least she won't be turning Gem into a Yozi beachhead."
"But that won't tell us what she is," Shadow reminded Crimson. "Just a powerful akuma, or something more as Anya claims?"
"A 'Green Sun Princess'?" Crimson sounded as if he were rolling his eyes. "The Yozis aren't that imaginative."
Shadow grunted and shook his head. "Perhaps not. But statistically, we aren't seeing enough Deathknights i/i Solars about. If the Deathknights really are corrupted Solars, and some are still missing, we need to be prepared for the Yozis to have their fingers in the pot as well."
"Hey, guys, not that this stuff's not mission-critical, but don't forget the other reason we don't want to leave this up to Mnemon." Iron Siaka was just glad to be back in her own shape. Anya was almost good enough in bed to really be the ludicrous age she claimed, yet that still wasn't enough to do without her own boobs for more than a couple of hours. She stifled a yawn. Still didn't have her lullaby stone back.
"What's that?" Crimson asked. "Oversight tell you something they didn't mention to us?"
"Nah," Siaka said. She kept her eyes on the peak growing slowly on the horizon. "Just that if Mnemon gets to be the one to take out Buffy Summers, it'll be cause we're in pieces on the palace floors. Me? I got fun times to look forward to."
As long as it didn't entail more than a couple of hours at a time with that...thing...wagging in front of her? Married life might be pretty good.
"I hate to tell you this, Anya, I really do." Ayesha Ura unfolded the audit paperwork on her desk. "Your friends' testimony isn't going to be admissible."
"What? Why not?" Any moment now Ayesha was going to inform her that rabbits were testifying against her. "They're trustworthy adults."
Ayesha took a deep breath and released it in a sigh. "Unfair though it may seem, there is one very good reason mortals have no rights here. Manipulation. Just as Chejop could tie most Exalts and gods around his little finger if he found it expedient, even the least Dragon-Blood can entangle most mortals. Nothing your friends say can be trusted because we can't presume they're acting of their own free will."
"I see. So the people who actually know me are going to be presumed unfit to testify." Anya wanted to grind her teeth. Instead she buried her anger under a facade of mock cheer. Most people figured she didn't understand how serious a situation was when she did that. "Which leaves anyone who dislikes me free to rake me over the coals because an ex-demon imight/i be dangerous."
Ayesha nodded. "It's a shame. Powerful friends could spare you a lot of trouble, though."
This was it? This was their play to make her choose sides? They did inot/i understand who they were dealing with. "So basically I need Celestial Exalted on my side. Or I could end up living in a box with my salary garnished away and still having to run flunky ops for the Bureau. Is that how it goes?"
"That would be the size of it, Anya." Ayesha offered her a sheaf of papers. "I can guarantee you backing from a dozen Sidereals if you'll allow yourself to be guided by me and Lupo."
"These are what? Subpoenas?"
"Essentially. I'll tell you who to name. We'll take care of you, Anya. Everyone wants an up-and-comer like you on their side." Ayesha's smile was very wide, very ingratiating, and very fake.
"I know who to name." Anya peeled back three pages. "They want Celestial Exalts? I'll give them three who know me better than anyone you can offer." Alexander Harris. Winifred Burkle. And Buffy Anne Summers.
And if all hell broke loose in heaven, the gods would just have to deal.