Using her fork to cut into her third stack of syrup-drenched pancakes, Faith grinned to herself at the exasperated grumbling coming over from the other side of their hotel room dining table. There, surrounded by thumbed-through stacks of books, scrolls, tomes, and manuscripts, enough to stock a small library, sat an annoyed-looking Willow quickly flipping through her latest choice of literature and evidently continuing her total lack of success in her search for information about what had happened last night.
Faith hid her sudden smirk with a mouthful of flapjacks. This almost made up for the couple of hours in the early part of this morning, when a frozen Faith had been forced to watch Willow do nothing interesting at all, except for meditating in the factory where they'd encountered the Shadow Court, trying to learn more about those strange creatures. Finally, the witch had given up, gotten off the floor, removed her immobility spell from Faith, and then they'd both teleported back to their hotel. When the irritated Slayer had then crankily gone off to her bedroom to grab a few hours' sleep, at that point Faith had also thrown a parting glower over her shoulder at the other woman in the room, which was ignored by a gesturing redhead whose attention was primarily concentrated upon the numerous books she was teleporting from the New Council headquarters, with these appearing from out of thin air to then drop with soft 'thuds' onto the dining table by the witch.
By the break of noon, when an energized Faith, unreservedly ready for breakfast or lunch or brunch or who-cares-what-it's-called-as-long-as-it's-food, had at last wandered out of her bedroom, dressed in a clean, low-cut t-shirt and close-fitting jeans, and finishing drying her hair from the shower, Willow had been sitting there encircled by stacks of discarded books and still commencing her fruitless search. A red-eyed glare had been the only response to Faith's deadpan question, "Any luck?"
A quick call then to room service resulted in the subsequent delivery of an overloaded food cart being pushed into the room by a worn-out bellboy, who'd been tipped by Faith both with money and with her giving him a quick flash of her cleavage, and ending in the Slayer's appreciative glance at the young man's departing tight buns in the equally tight pants. Strolling over to the table with the coffeepot in one hand and an extra-large mug in the other, Faith stopped by Willow fixedly staring at an ancient manuscript that had just turned out to be of no help whatsoever.
Recognizing the signs, the Slayer hastily filled the mug to its brim with the steaming, aromatic liquid, put it down by an unresponsive witch, and then tiptoed away. Only when Faith heard from behind herself the long, loud slurp of a coffee cup being drained to the last drop in a single swallow did the Slayer allow the maniac grin she'd managed to previously suppress to finally blossom on her face.
As Faith continued to polish off her first enormous meal of the day that was pleasantly accompanied by the indignant mutters of complaint from her companion, the brunette woman's mood was further improved by making the final decision on where in the Scottish castle to inscribe her latest literary creation, inspired by and all about a certain Wiccan who really shouldn't have done that to Faith last night. Not when the totally-bored Slayer had tried to break the monotony of being turned into the Statue of Liberty by coming up with the most obscene limericks she could invent regarding one Willow Rosenberg.
Faith was really proud of one specific poem where she'd managed to rhyme 'witch', 'bitch', and 'Stitch', with its references expressed at more than one level of allusion concerning alien bestiality. Yep, when she got back to the castle and had her earliest chance to sneak into the downstairs men's room, that particular gem was gonna be carved in its own place of honor over the first urinal on the left-
"YEEE!" was yelped in a sudden shriek of agony from Willow on the other end of the hotel table. In an equally rapid blur of action, Faith jumped out of her seat at the table with such force that she landed out in the middle of the room at the same time her knocked-over chair hit the floor. The Slayer stood there, body tense and quivering, totally ready for whatever act of violence would be instantly necessary, holding her current weapon in an expert grip that clearly showed any unanticipated foe intruding onto their peaceful breakfast was going to be immediately forked to death.
Faith was at her most dangerous now, eyes darting around the hotel room, eager to Slay, and also managing to ignore the fact that her napkin tucked into the collar of her t-shirt as a makeshift bib spotted with numerous maple syrup droplets had flipped up during the woman's leap to stick to her lower face. After a few more moments, when there seemed to be no possibility of incipient combat, Faith's left hand flashed upwards to rip off the napkin and throw it to the floor, as the brunette woman now finally looked at a wincing Willow rubbing the sides of her head with her fingertips, to demand of her friend, "What the hell happened, Red?"
"My link with the Shadow Court, that started the first time I sensed them, it's gone, Faith!" cried a shocked witch in her chair, lowering her hands to rest palm down onto the tabletop, while absently pushing away a massive tome about demonic creatures. Willow then frowned at what Faith was still keeping ready in her right hand, as an abruptly-distracted redhead asked with actual bemusement in her voice, "Faith, what's with the fork?"
A quick flick of her wrist sent spinning upwards into the air that named piece of cutlery, in a graceful curve over Faith's head and behind her, twirling end-over-end, until the fork reached the Slayer's former spot at the table with her unfinished meal on the remaining plates there, to then unerringly sink prongs-first into the top of the last stack of pancakes, with the handle now perfectly vertical and quivering slightly. Faith hadn't even bothered to turn her head to check on this deft accomplishment, instead keeping her own serious glare upon a now-gaping Willow. "Forget the fuckin' fork! I thought you said you couldn't use that connection to track 'em down!"
"Er, yes," gulped Willow, wondering if she actually dared to ask Faith to do that trick again (judging from the glower she was getting from the Slayer, probably not). The witch went on, "It's - it was too faint to get anything more than the fact the curse was working, and that it was somewhere in this city!"
"Was?" incredulously said Faith, staring at the grimacing witch nodding back in her own utterly perplexed mood, as Willow tried to explain.
"It can't be anything else, Faith - not some kind or shielding of magical concealment on that curse. No, from what just hit me, why I yelled, it was like you tracking a line of footprints on the ground, and then having those marks burst into flame in front of you! I tell you, that curse was destroyed!"