"Here it is."
They had reached an apartment complex - an anonymous white box shining ghostly pale in the darkness. Taura indicated a short flight of stairs and jogged up them. Tara stood at the bottom, utterly drained. There was a click, then a small hiss as the door at the top of the stairs opened. After a moment Taura jogged down again, took one look at her, and swept her neatly off her feet, then jogged up the stairs again, and into the room. The door hissed closed behind her and the lights clicked instantly on. Tara felt herself being carefully placed down on a sofa.
"Right," said Taura. "Food first." She disappeared from Tara's line of sight. Food is good, thought Tara mistily, food is good.
She woke suddenly, and stared around her, disorientated for a moment. How long have I been asleep?
Taura sat opposite her, two empty trays and a knife and fork scattered at her feet. Her elation seemed to have seeped away. She slumped into her chair, her face grey with tiredness.
Tara looked at her, then down at herself. They were both filthy, and bruised, and stinking of smoke, and tired. But considering Taura had just escaped her kidnappers and survived not just one but two spaceship disasters, she seemed a bit... well, a bit depressed, really. What happened to crazy fun?
Tara straightened up on the sofa, and looked about her. They were in another off-white room. Seems white is in this year - whatever year it is. The furniture was minimal - a sofa, two chairs, what she thought must be a computer terminal sitting on a desk, with the second chair before it, and a blank plasma screen hanging on the wall like an empty picture frame. Three doors in three of the walls, and a window on the fourth side, currently shuttered against the dark. Cosy. Not. She looked across at Taura, "So, this is a safe house? As in, really actually safe?"
Taura nodded. "It should be - Dendarii covert ops are quality."
"Covert ops? Super soldier, super spy?" Tara tried a smile. "You're multi-talented, aren't you?"
Taura blushed slightly, "Well, I haven't actually done any covert ops, myself." She gestured at her eight foot frame, "I'm not the covert type. But I've done pick-up and mop-up. So I know the address here, and the code."
"Can you send a message to your buddies from here? The Dendar-whatsis? Tell them where you are, and what's going on?"
Taura ducked her head defensively. Hmm, something's going on there. After an awkward pause, Tara tried again. "Later maybe. And wow!" she tried to get some enthusiasm into her voice. "You sure can run fast!"
Taura sighed, and shifted uncomfortably in her chair, large clawed hands dangling between her knees. "Horse genes," she said glumly. "I'm very good at jumping fences too."
Tara looked at her doubtfully - was that a joke? She got off the sofa, and pulled up the apartment's solitary other chair to sit opposite Taura. She leaned forward, and placed a hand on Taura's knee. "I've always liked horses."
Taura's knee twitched under her hand. "My shrink said I should make jokes about it." She looked down, still avoiding Tara's gaze. This close Tara could see the pattern of bruises darkening on her face, under all the dirt, together with the angry red welts on her wrists from the razor ties, and a whole host of scratches on her big clawed hands. You've been in the wars, sweetheart. And she felt like they really, really should be worrying about other things right now, but still..."Your shrink said you should crack jokes? Who's he, Mr Chuckles the Clown?"
"She's the ship's counsellor," said Taura seriously, suddenly looking up to catch Tara's eye with her own glowing gaze. At this distance, the effect was overwhelming. "She said people were going to notice, and comment and stuff. You know, with the whole being eight foot tall, and having fangs, and claws. And the best solution was to joke about it yourself, first."
"Ah," Tara paused. I wonder if that might have helped me along? With the stutter, and the whole magical power thing. "Does it work?" she said cautiously.
Taura shrugged, massively. "Sometimes. Sometimes it falls flat and I just feel even more like a giant freaky dumbass." She looked away again.
"Yeah," said Tara, "I get that." She stared gloomily at her ill fitting boots. "So, do you know what kind of horse it was?"
Taura looked up, her attention dragged back from whatever unhappy place it had gone to. "It never occurred to me to wonder," she said, sounding surprised. "Are there lots of different kinds?"
"Oh, sure," said Tara. She smiled at Taura. "There's everything from Appaloosas to Arabs to Lipizzaners to Shires to Thoroughbreds. Then there's ponies - lots of kinds of ponies."
Taura leaned back in her chair and looked into the middle distance. "I didn't know that," she said. "But then I've never seen one. Not a real one, anyway. Not much room for horses in space."
"I can see how that might be true." said Tara solemnly, "but it's a pity you haven't had a chance. Horses are cool." She let a few beats pass. "Taura," she said gently, "are you going to tell me anytime what the hell is going on - why you were kidnapped, and why those other guys are trying to kill you - and why you won't contact your friends to try and get some help with it all?"
There was another long pause. Taura leant back further, her knee moving under Tara's hand again, and her arms crossing unconsciously. "I expect they spliced lots of different kinds of horse," she said. "A bit of this, a bit of that. I was designed by a Committee - I'm lucky I didn't wind up looking like a camel." She looked abruptly across at Tara. "That was another joke by the way."
"A camel is a horse designed by a Committee," said Tara automatically. And you're avoiding the question.
"That's right!" said Taura, "that's what Miles said! I didn't realise it was a quote." Just for a moment her face lit up, enthusiastically - then she sank back again, the moment past. "But I haven't seen a real camel either, so that one's kinda lost on me too. And at that point, her huge shoulders began to shake, and her body to rock, and she was bawling like a big - a very big - baby.
Tara stared, and then rather tentatively leaned forward and patted Taura on the shoulder. When that had no effect, she got up, perched on the chair arm, and hugged Taura as hard as she could.
"I don't understand how I got here, or why on earth I'm on a spaceship three hundred years in the future," She paused, "That doesn't make sense does it? I'm not on Earth. I'm on a different planet. Literally." She paused again, trying to get her head around the idea.
"You're not far from Earth," said Taura tentatively, "No more than two jumps away, with a little bit of shuttling in-between. And I've been thinking about the why." Taura wriggled, a little guiltily, "I think maybe, possibly, I might have summoned you." She looked over at Tara, and bit her lip.
"Summoned me?" said Tara, unconsciously taking her arm from Taura's shoulders. "Summoned me how?"
"I did a ceremony," Taura said, shifting in her chair, "to seek a Guardian Spirit. A guy called Duvitiski told me about it," she went on hurriedly. "I was, I was upset about not having a mom and dad, or grandparents, you know, or great-grandparents. No family. No one to burn an offering for me. But Duv, he said I do have ancestors, lots of them." She grinned briefly, "He said where he came from I'd be counted mighty lucky, because I had more ancestors than anyone else. Hundreds of thousands, maybe."
"Because of the gene splicing." said Tara, interested despite herself. "Yes - every gene, and bit of gene had to come from someone."
"Or something," said Taura quietly, "but yes - I've got more ancestors than almost anyone, ever." She shifted uncomfortably, "Anyway, Duv said when his people had something hard to face, they did this ceremony to invoke a guardian spirit from among the spirits of their ancestors. Someone to help them through it all." She looked hopefully at Tara.
"You think that's me?" said Tara slowly. "You think I'm your great-great grandma or something?"
"Lots more greats," said Taura, "if you're from the Earth's twentieth century."
"But I never had any children," said Tara doubtfully, "so I'm not sure how I can be your ancestor - not directly anyway." She frowned. "Maybe my brother had kids."
"Or maybe somebody got a DNA sample of you sometime, said Taura, "Looking for a witchy gene or something. It could have been in the Jackson's Whole databanks a whole long time. They had some pretty amazing stuff."
Tara looked at Taura's hopeful face. They told me I was a monster too. And maybe somewhere along the line someone in Sunnydale had believed that, and thought they could grow their own pet monsters to order. She shied away from the thought.
She looked at Taura sitting uncomfortably in the chair. "So, what's the hard thing you have to face, that I'm here to help you with?"