DISCLAIMER: I own neither Buffy the Vampire Slayer nor the Wheel of Time; they are the property of their respective authors, publishers, and probably a half-dozen other entities woven together in a more complicated weave than the Age Lace. If I could figure that out, I'd be a good IP lawyer. If I were the author, I'd be making you pay to read this. Unfortunately, looking around my rather Spartan apartment, I think it's safe to say that I'm neither, or there'd be a case full of Omega watches on my vanity. Don't sic the Trollocs on me.

SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: All Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel through Season 4 (no secondary sources, however); all main books of the Wheel of Time through Knife of Dreams. Of course, the WoT-verse is sufficiently complex that I'd be hard pressed to get everything right.

CHAPTER 5:

ACCOMMODATIONS

"Oh, you have got to be kidding!" Buffy burst out before she could control herself.

"I tried to warn you," Willow answered morosely.

"No, you just blushed like a virgin," Buffy countered acidly.

"Whatever, it's not like they have real baths here."

"They've got a friggin lake right there!"

"Oh, give it a rest, B," Faith laughed. "Gonna have to get used to it sooner or later." The raven-haired Slayer was apparently as comfortable in nothing but her skin around complete strangers—there were two men in the tent!—as she was with just Buffy in the tent the previous night. For some reason, Buffy found her surprise—well, not that difficult at all to contain.

Buffy seethed, but the fact was that there was no way she could leave the sweat tent without actually bathing—or sweating—since it did actually seem to do a passable job of cleaning the dirt and grime off one's skin, if Faith was any indication. The younger Slayer had been in the tent for a while now and was just about to leave, and her skin and hair had definitely recovered some of the luster that three battles without bathing had taken. Still seething, she began to peel her stained and sweaty rags away from her skin. No sooner had she done so than one of those white-robed gai'shain took them and vanished.

"Hey ...!"

"Relax," Faith said. "You didn't actually see anyone leaving the tent naked, did you? They'll bring you something clean."

"Anyone ever told you you have no shame?"

Faith gave a saucy grin in response. Buffy gnashed her teeth.

Several of the Aiel were trying to hide grins. Buffy guessed that they knew their hygiene habits weren't exactly the norm, and were enjoying watching her stew. Grrr! Nevertheless, the tent was warm and the steam was welcome after the parched desert air. She wouldn't have minded half so much had the steam tent not only been communal, but coed. At least the Romans separated the sexes. At least, she was pretty sure they did—but then again, she had never been the best history student, despite all of Willow's valiant efforts.

A few minutes later, another woman in white did appear with a fresh set of clothing for Faith, loose pants, a close-fitting undershirt, and an open-front desert jacket, all of lightweight algode. Buffy took heart at that; at least Faith was right about not having to leave the tent naked. She should have been able to concede that without having to see it in person, but the events of the last twenty-four hours—well, the last seven years—had made her perpetually suspicious.

No sooner were Faith and Willow gone than Alsera and Nandrys arrived. Buffy did her best not to look as the Aiel women casually shrugged their clothing aside, but found it hard; after all, there was really nowhere else that it was safe to look, and she wasn't about to close her eyes. Several of the other Aiel rose as the Wise Ones entered, however, including both of the men, though whether that was because of custom or because they were all finished, Buffy had no idea. In the end, however, only Buffy, the two Wise ones, and two Maidens of the Spear were left in the tent.

"I take it in California, people bathe in wetlander fashion?" Alsera asked.

"You mean as in, with actual baths? And privacy? Yeah, kinda," Buffy answered acidly. She had been looking forward to a real bath to recover some of her mood, and having to settle for a communal sauna wasn't quite what she had in mind, though now that there were no more men in the tent, she found that it was not nearly so unpleasant.

"An interesting land, California must be," Nandrys noted, "to produce such warriors amid such lushness. Most women of the wetlands here are soft. Most of the men, too."

Buffy chuckled mirthlessly. "I don't think ours are much different, mostly. I'm the one that's different. Well, me and Faith." And others. How many others? She might never get a chance to know at this rate, but she wasn't going to give up on getting back to Earth so soon after being torn away from it. "Sometimes I wish ..." she trailed off.

"You wish you could be like them?"

Buffy sighed. "Sometimes. But I couldn't. Not after seeing what's out there."

"'Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain,' I believe the Borderlanders sometimes say."

Buffy nodded. "Being a ... being able to do what I can isn't much fun sometimes. I'm twenty-three years old. Most girls in my school are just now finishing college, finding themselves husbands, starting families and careers. I get to kill things, until one of them kills me."

"And yet you want to return to that."

Buffy looked up and met the Wise One's eyes levelly, and her voice never wavered. "It's not an issue of what I want. That's what duty means. If my life were all about what I want, I'd be hopping in a minivan and driving my kids to soccer practice now. And thousands of people would probably be dead." She rose. Somehow, a signal must have been given, since a white-robed gai'shain appeared at that moment with a fresh change of clothes for her.

"Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain," she repeated, half to herself, though still loud enough for the others to hear. Memories of her brief rest in the afterlife floated unbidden to the surface of her mind—the white pillows of soft clouds, the watery radiance that had leeched away at the darkness of her soul. Or at least begun to do so, before its work was cut mercilessly short. "Understatement." Having to take up the mantle of responsibility of the Slayer again after getting to set it down once was more than anyone should ever have to bear, and yet now that she was back among the living, her self-preservation instincts were as feral as they had been before she had learned that death was not the enemy she had always believed it to be. Duty. It was simply her duty to stay alive, because thousands, maybe more, would die if she didn't, so she fought to live. That was all there was to it. The Wise Ones' expressions as she left the tent were unreadable, and she wondered if she had said more than she should have, but the warmth and her weariness had massaged the words from her lungs, and she was beginning to feel something of a kindred spirit among these Aiel; they probably understood her life better than just about anyone in California. At least they knew something of a life with a weapon in one's hand, and maybe even a little something about bearing more responsibility than was fair to ask a person to bear. They at least had not tuned her out when she spoke of the subject.

Faith was waiting back in the tent they shared, and there was a third pallet in the tent now, too. Apparently the Aiel were letting Willow rejoin Buffy and Faith, though the red-headed Wiccan was nowhere to be seen. Faith gave Buffy a grin as she arrived. "Enjoy your bath?"

Buffy nodded noncommittally. "We need to find this Car'a'carn person of theirs. Or anyone else who can work these Portal Stones."

Faith laughed. "Just like that, huh?"

"There has to be someone in this place, somewhere, who can get us home."

"Relax." Faith stretched languidly on her pallet as though it were a feather mattress. "We're here with the smartest woman in thirteen dimensions. We'll get home eventually, as long as we keep her alive. And in the meantime ... well, look around. No shortage of bad guys to kill here, either."

"Don't start looking for trouble."

"Since when have we ever had to look?"

"I really don't like you."

Faith's chest heaved with laughter beneath the coverlet. She took a deep breath to calm herself. "Seriously, though, look around. If it turns out we can't get home for a while, not the end of the world. We could do a lot of good here."

Buffy was dumbstruck. "Faith, listen to yourself! You know what's going on here?"

"A war," Faith answered simply. "Pretty big one, too, from the sound of things."

"Right, a war! A war, Faith! That's not something you can just get involved in and get out of whenever you want! Listen to me, Faith. We—do—not—belong—here! These people have their war, and we have ours! This war isn't ours. This world isn't ours! Our duty is to our world. Not this one. Remember that."

Faith sat up, and her voice bristled. "Our duty," she snapped, "is 'to stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness,' if I'm remembering that right, and it looks like they're here, too. Plus, think of the past week. Our world is safer than it's been for thousands of years, and going to get even safer as all the newbies gain experience."

"Or less safe as they all get killed."

"You are such a downer! Giles and Angel will find them, and they'll have dozens of veterans to train them."

"Veterans of one battle."

"A veteran is anyone who's killed one enemy and watched one friend die. Never mind that they had Sergeant Summers whipping them into shape for weeks. They know Rule Number One of Slaying by now."

Don't die, Buffy finished the thought. "You ought to think about that rule yourself, when you start thinking about getting involved with wars here," she added, acidly.

"Look, we may not have a choice. This Tar Valon place, apparently some kind of witch city or something, well, that's one of the places right in the middle of it right now. We want to go there to look for people who know how to work those rocks, we just might end up having to go through an army to get there. Maybe two."

"Right, and that reminds me of another thing," Buffy added. "Humans. Human armies. Killing freak shadows is one thing, but you're talking killing humans."

"I don't know," Faith countered. "Just saying. The witch-city is apparently under siege, or was when the last news came in. And this chief of theirs apparently manages to attract as much trouble as we do. Maybe more. There may be no getting out of fighting if we want to get out of here."

"Then we'll deal with that when we have to," Buffy finished bluntly. She looked around. "Where'd Willow go, anyway? Didn't she leave that strip club with you?"

"Oh, is that what it was?" Faith grinned. "Wish I'd known, I could've had a little more fun."

"Faith."

"No clue," Faith answered. "Said she was going down to the lake right after we left, hasn't been back."

"Eh. Whatever," Buffy said. "You packin' it in?"

"Think so," Faith said. "I got bit more beat up today than you. Oh, speaking of Rule Number One, we might want to take turns sleeping—much as I hate to say that."

"Done," Buffy answered immediately. "I can't sleep, anyway. You take the first four hours, I'll take the next. I was going to wait for Willow, anyway."

Faith murmured something in response, but whatever her words were, they didn't make it past the edge of her pallet, and the soft rise and fall of her breathing was the only sound in the tent a moment a later.

Faith was standing again. Buffy was not in the tent, and the mysterious half-light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere was there again. I'm back, she mused. She looked down and found herself wearing the black leather pants and close-fitting cami top that she had worn for just a moment the night before, though the stilettos had been replaced with low-heeled boots that would be easier to move around in. She grinned. Buffy talking about the sweat tent like that got me in a good mood.

She knew that she had only four hours to sleep, but she had learned to rest quickly while in prison, and this dreamworld was too new and exciting not to explore. Never mind that anything she learned now might make the difference between life and death later. There was always that.

She was only steps from the entrance to the tent, however, when a voice spoke to one side. "Do all women of California dress like that?"

Two silhouettes detached themselves from the shadows from whence the voice had come, resolving into the figures of two women, each wearing the shawl of a Wise One. They were both tall, as were most of the Aiel, blue-eyed and silver-haired; they did not appear to be sisters, but something about them spoke of a connection that flowed deeper than blood.

"Only the ones who can get away with it," she replied offhandedly, still not sure which of the two had spoken.

One of the women shook her head in bewilderment. "I have wandered into worlds that could only exist in dreams, but I fear I shall never understand this California of yours." That voice marked her as the one who had spoken before. She was the younger-seeming of the two, though her hair was all but completely white, and Faith guessed she was a lot older than she looked, merely having aged more gracefully than her companion.

"Don't think we've met," she noted.

"I believe not," the woman replied. "I am Amys, of the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad Aiel, and this is Bair, of the Haido Shaarad. We are in Caemlyn at the moment, so it is indeed not likely that you would have found us walking the streets of Rhuidean."

Faith shook her head. "Where?" Had Buffy mentioned something about wherever that place was? She remembered Tar Valon—that was the City of Too Many Willows, where someone might have some clue about how to get the three of them home—but she had not paid much attention to any of the maps she'd gotten a chance to see. There would be more than enough time for that once they were on the move, after all. It was hundreds of miles to wherever they were going, if they were going anywhere.

Amys and Bair shared an inscrutable look. "A city in the wetlands," Bair spoke after a moment. "Seat of Andor."

Faith shrugged.

"Alsera tells us that you are considering going to Tar Valon. Is this true?"

"Apparently," Faith admitted. "I don't make the travel plans. Just go where I've got to go and see that we all stay alive to get there, and this is apparently the place where someone might have a clue of how to get us out of here. Unless your super-chief shows himself."

Amys' mouth tightened. "The Car'a'carn hides his whereabouts even from us, even in his dreams," she said. Faith could tell that the woman was trying to avoid grating her teeth. "Though he finds ways enough to send his orders to my husband."

"Amys is husband to Rhuarc, Clan Chief of the Taardad," Bair added, as if that explained everything. Faith made a note of it—it sounded important—but it was all Greek to her at the moment. Did that make Amys some kind of Aiel noble? Faith had seen nothing to suggest that they even had any such ranks. Wasn't Alsera wife of a Clan Chief, too? How many of these Clans were there?

Faith shook off that line of thought. There were bigger things on her mind. "Look, this dreamworld of yours is pretty cool and all," she said. "But I don't suppose you could teach me to leave?"

Bair raised an eyebrow. "It's true, then, that you cannot on your own?"

"Not without being shaken awake. I just want a normal night's sleep—if those even exist in this world."

Amys sized Faith up. "I do not know," she admitted. "You are—different—than Egwene al'Vere. Times have changed greatly in the last two years as well. Our time in Caemlyn grows short. Even if you could reach us tomorrow, we would be gone before long. Even in less than two days, you must have noticed that our world marches to war."

"I kinda got the picture," Faith admitted. "But I was hoping you could teach me right here. Doesn't look like I'm going anywhere."

Amys and Bair looked at one another. "It is not our way to instruct those who have not given themselves over to us as apprentices," Bair said at length. "Some secrets cannot be only half-learned. But perhaps we can make an allowance for this. That knowledge is the least dangerous in Tel'aran'rhiod—if only because it takes one away from the all the other dangers of this place."

"I got it," Faith admitted.

Amys was giving Bair a hard look, as if she had offered too much too fast, but made no further move to challenge the other woman.

"Reach out with your mind," Bair instructed. "You should feel a connection to your own body, your sleeping body in the waking world."

Faith tried to imagine what it meant to be 'reaching out with her mind;' the only thing that came to mind was an image of Yoda, and she was relieved that the little green Muppet did not actually appear in the dream at that instant. She tried concentrating as hard as she could, and then tried the opposite, letting her muscles go slack, breathing evenly. She had taken a couple of yoga classes at Sunnydale Fitness Center a while back, while she was on a free trial membership, but not much was coming back to her. Or, at least, not enough to allow her to sense a connection to her own body from within an alien dreamworld—which, she admitted, had not exactly been part of the beginner program there.

She shook her head. "Not feeling anything."

"Concentrate," Bair continued firmly. "Know that your body is there, as surely as your mind knows that your hand is there when you're awake. Feel it. Reach for it."

Faith felt. She reached. She felt and reached nothing. She had no idea how long she stood there in the dream, with those two stern women watching her, silently, owls examining a mouse, before she gave it up.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking deep breaths to control her frustration. It would do no good to let it out on these women—for one thing, they didn't deserve it, and for another, they were probably a heck of a lot stronger than her in this place. They knew what they were about, and they could leave whenever they wanted. "I know you were just trying to help."

Amys' eyes were stern. "You give up after five minutes? My guess is you have at least half the night before your friend wakes you."

Faith's eyes bulged. "I'm not going to just stay here banging my head on the wall all night! I'm going to get nowhere trying this. You said yourself, I'm different from normal, whatever the hell 'normal' is here."

The white-haired Wise One's eyes didn't soften so much as a whisker. In fact, they glittered as if made of frozen crystal. "Perhaps. But even if you might be ready to give up so easily, I am not. I do not take being mocked so lightly."

"Mocked? No one's making fun of ... gyaaah!" the last came as she felt the air shift suddenly around her, and suddenly she was somewhere else. Somewhere without any ground underneath her. Her eyes widened for a moment, before she started falling. As she tumbled forward in the air, she saw the camp—a thousand yards below her, if not more. They teleported me straight up! She gritted her teeth to bite back a scream. She knew they were listening, and she wasn't going to give them that satisfaction, even though the ground rushing up toward her was the most terrifying thing she had seen in—well, a day or two, she thought with surprising calmness. The Turok-han army had definitely been a few notches scarier. That didn't make the ground any less dangerous, though, not unless a parach—

"Urk!"

She jerked upward. Well, I'll be damned! A parachute! It had literally appeared out of thin air around her as soon as she had thought of it, already fully spread out above her.

She glided down the rest of the way, remembering what she had deduced about this dreamworld, this Tel'aran'rhiod, the previous night—that one's will had tremendous power here. Thus, she kept concentrating on the parachute the entire way down, knowing it was there, just in case one or both of the women below decided to try willing it away. She didn't feel anything that felt like such an attempt, however, and the Wise Ones were waiting for her silently as she glided in. She let the parachute vanish a moment after she landed and rolled to her feet, turning quickly to face them but making no move after that. She wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her gibbering, either with fear or with rage, though there was definitely more than a little of both in her veins at the moment. She would never have admitted the former to herself even had it been there.

"Impressive," Bair noted. "Crude, but impressive."

Faith met the woman's gaze levelly. Did the woman think that she had just invented it on the spot? "I'm not going to ask if you were just going to let me fall all the way or not."

"Don't be absurd," Amys replied stiffly. "We would never kill over so mean an insult. But if you actually were my apprentice, I'd have you strapped until you cursed your mother for ever looking fondly at your father."

"I think I had you in seventh grade," Faith noted.

Buffy stood silently in the tent until she was sure that Faith was asleep, then slipped quietly outside. She asked the first few Aiel she saw if they knew where Willow had gone, and eventually found herself pointed in the direction of Maglor Egan's wagons. It was after ten, but apparently peddlers here—or at least this one—were open for business whenever there was business to be had.

Willow was not hard to find. Maglor's six wagons were arranged in a circle, the front of each facing outward so that the doors on the back of each wagon faced into the center of the circle, where a large fire crackled. A small handful of other Aiel, including Melainda, one of the Maidens of the Spear that had either taken an interest in them or been asked to keep an eye on them—probably both—were also still perusing some of the peddler's wares. Even at this hour, business had to be good. There were only ten thousand Aiel in the encampment, nowhere near the population of even a small Los Angeles suburb, but Egan's bazaar on wheels was also the only shop in town, and most of time, there wasn't even one. A gentle slope ran down from the far side of Maglor's wagons. Willow was there, sitting near the top of the slope, with something by her side that looked like a large, tan watermelon.

"You just buy that?" Buffy asked, drawing alongside. Willow nodded absently. She seemed to be concentrating on something else. In fact, she seemed to be concentrating on the fruit.

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "With what? They don't exactly take Visa."

Willow smiled, looking over at Buffy for a moment. "One of Egan's assistants had come down with heatstroke. I helped them treat it. The Aiel kind of believe in natural selection—I'm not such a fan. Apparently neither was Egan."

"So what is it?"

"Called it a hiari gourd. Apparently it's like a watermelon that really knows how to pull and store water, like a cactus—grows east of here and is really popular west of here."

"The Aiel were feeding us for free, you realize," Buffy pointed out.

Willow nodded. "I know. But I think it might be time we returned the favor. These people are all about debt and obligation. Doubt they really think they look down on us, but I think it might be time to show them a little something."

Buffy was puzzled. "Think we already did that with the shadows, didn't we?" Buffy wasn't going to say it aloud, but she had actually felt more charged during the fight with the shadows than she had defending Earth from the Turok-han. There was something about this place that just somehow let her let loose a little bit more. Maybe it was simply the fact that it was so obviously foreign a world.

Willow grinned. "Maybe. But everyone here can fight. Not everyone can do this. In fact, I'm not sure I can. I just want to feel ... to try something." She had clearly changed what she was going to say.

Buffy's eyes narrowed. Willow had that over-eager researcher look in her eye, from when she was young and first discovering her talents in the ancient arts. "Don't do anything stupid."

"I hope I'm not," Willow answered. "But it doesn't matter. This ... this is more important."

"Fruit is more important? Look, don't get me wrong ..."

"Hope this is about more than that," Willow cut her off. Buffy's eyes widened. Willow wasn't usually so assuming. "Here," Willow continued. "Think you can break that open for me? Don't eat any, though," she added.

Buffy took the melon. It was at least as heavy for its size as any watermelon. Willow must have had a heck of a time carrying it even this far. She shrugged, stood, and cracked the thing with both hands across her knee. The rigid tan husk cracked like an eggshell, and drops of red juice dripped onto the desert soil. That, at least, looked exactly like the inside of the watermelon, right down to the rows of dark seeds. She handed the two jagged halves back to Willow.

"Thanks," Willow answered. She immediately began plucking every seed she could reach out of the hiari, rolling up her sleeve to dig for those buried deep in the melon. Chunks of fruit came away and fell to the earth as she dug.

"Um ... Willow?" Buffy wasn't exactly starving, but the fruit did look pretty good after all the rough grain breads, mixed nuts, and other simple fare the Aiel had been providing. At any rate, it wasn't like Willow to be so wasteful.

"Leave it alone," she replied, continuing to dig until she had a double handful of seeds, which she laid out on a small scrap of cloth in front of her. She took a few deep breaths. "All right," she said. "Buffy ... stand back." A brilliant, verdant light blossomed in her pupils.

Buffy knew better than to argue. Dammit, Will, I hope you know what you're doing! She grated herself for not talking some sense into the girl before she started whatever the heck it was she had just started. She backed off to the top of the hill as quickly as she could, however.

Willow was facing her, up the hill, but not looking at Buffy. Just slightly over Buffy's shoulder, towards the heart of Rhuidean. Buffy turned, wondering what—

Oh, tell me you're joking.

Willow's eyes were locked on the great tree in the heart of the city, its great branches of trefoil leaves spreading above even the great stone palaces of the ancient settlement.

She swung back to look at her redheaded friend, just in time to see Willow curl her fingers into claws and make a raking motion. Ten shallow furrows tore into the hillside, five on either side of Willow. Buffy turned over her shoulder again, already sure of what she would see; Willow had not bothered to be subtle, and in fact might deliberately have chosen to do this in one of the more public places in the tent city. The Aiel that had been with the wagons had all stopped their shopping and were gazing openly. Buffy noted that Melainda was not among them; no doubt the Maiden of the Spear had gone running for Alsera and the other Wise Ones as soon as Willow had begun invoking her power openly. Buffy had an idea of what her friend was up to now. She wondered how it would go over with the Aiel.

She turned back to Willow. The furrows had closed, and the seeds were nowhere to be seen. Buffy sensed Willow gathering herself, taking a few more deep breaths, and she felt a tingle on her skin everywhere it was exposed in Willow's direction.

Then Willow began to sing.

Buffy had heard Willow sing before. The demon Sweet had come to Sunnydale and turned it all into a musical hell, and Willow's voice had been one of the more lamentable on that lamentable day. Bluntly, the girl might have been a genius, but she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, and she had no stage presence. She had practically shrunk into herself whenever one of her lines in Sweet's sick opera had come, her stage fright showing through even the preternatural force of Sweet's spell. Willow's voice now was so far removed from that that she wondered if it could even be the same person. The voice was clear, vibrant, and lush, even if the words were unintelligible. It was like listening to a live Adiemus concert, complete with harmony and accompaniment. Music floated on the wind, seeming to spring from everywhere and nowhere. Out of the corner of her eye, if Buffy half-closed and unfocused them, she thought she could see the vague shapes of humans, and even something that looked like a tree with arms and legs, gathered in a group behind Willow; the ethereal harmony might well have been coming from them.

There was nothing ethereal, however, about the vines that suddenly sprouted along the mounds of earth that had been heaped over the furrows. They seemed to clamber out of the ground like men buried alive triumphantly breaking free of the earth—even more so, Buffy reflected, since Buffy herself had done that herself once and definitely not looked so healthy at the time. Melons ballooned along the vines, first the size of golf balls, then breadboxes, then full-grown, every seed in the original melon brought to full maturity in mere minutes.

Eventually, the vines stopped growing, the wind died, and the harmony faded. Buffy tried to see the vague outlines of whatever it was she had seen before, but they were nowhere to be found now. Willow was still standing, facing the great tree in the distance, breathing hard. Buffy could hear her breathing effortlessly because there wasn't a single other sound to be heard. Hiari fruit by the score clustered on the hillside around her, though there was still a small, clear patch on the ground around Willow herself.

"Light preserve us," she heard a fervent whisper nearby. Buffy turned to see Alsera, Nandrys, Caithryn, and two other Wise Ones standing there. Alsera's features were well-schooled, but the other four had eyes wide with naked shock. Buffy shook her head. Willow had nearly destroyed the entire Earth at one point. Growing a patch of desert watermelons didn't seem so imposing by contrast. In fact, she wondered why this was so much more impressive than the firework show Willow had put on the previous night against the shadows run amok. Nevertheless, that certainly had occasioned no reaction like this.

Willow still had not moved, or done anything other than breathe. Screwing up her courage, or perhaps just not even caring anymore, Buffy picked her way through the melon patch toward her.

"You all right?" Buffy asked.

Willow didn't answer. She just kept breathing. If anything, her breathing was even faster and deeper now than it had been during the spell itself. Had she been like this, there was no way on Earth—or wherever the hell they were—that she could have sung like that.

"Willow?!" she called again, louder. Still no reaction.

She reached out a hand to take Willow's, and there was a brilliant green flash of energy. Buffy was thrown back off her feet, tumbling over one hiari, and spots danced across her vision as her head thumped into another of the hard melons. Fortunately, her skull had grown relatively thick over the years.

The discharge seemed to have finally snapped Willow out of whatever she had snapped into. She collapsed backward, folding to settle into a cluster of hiari that had arranged themselves like a low bench or divan. Buffy scrambled to her feet and approached again. Willow's breathing was still coming in ragged gasps, her chest heaving and her eyes fluttering and distant. It was hard to tell in the dim moonlight, but she thought there was a flush to Willow's cheeks.

"Willow ... Wills, you all right?"

Willow turned to look at her weakly. There was a warm smile on her face. "Wow," she said. "That was ... just wow." She crooked one finger and held it to her lips absently. A low, sultry, throaty laugh escaped her lips, and suddenly Buffy's entire perspective of what was "wrong" with Willow changed, and she found herself trying to keep herself from laughing as well—and failing miserably. She grabbed another nearby hiari fruit and broke this one across her knee as well.

She could feel the twinkle in her own eye as she held out one of the halves to Willow and asked, pointedly, "so ... breakfast in bed?"

With a helpless grin, Willow took the half offered her. Then she flicked her fingers, and the other half flew out of Buffy's hand and squashed itself down over the Slayer's head.

This is the worst night of my life, Faith seethed. That might not be entirely true—the night her first Watcher died would be hard to top—but at the moment, she was not thinking entirely rationally, and making no apologies for that fact. Why anyone would willingly become an apprentice of people like this full-time was beyond her. Amys in particular made Buffy seem a lax and overly cuddly taskmaster. She wondered if they were always this harsh, or whether they were just getting frustrated and taking it out on her in order not to show anything. The Wise Ones had even admitted that it would do no good to shock her or frighten her out of the dreamworld, since that wouldn't be a very reliable way for Faith to do it on her own in the future—it was purely to ensure "proper diligence," in their words. Diligence?! Like I'm not trying?!

"Trying is good," Bair intoned sagely. "Succeeding is better."

Bitch, Faith grated inwardly. She carefully made sure that that one didn't actually escape her lips.

She was lying prostrate on the ground, waiting for the next inane order from Amys or Bair when she realized that the two were talking, and not to her. She raised her head and opened her eyes. Bair and Amys were talking with a third Wise One, whose form was just a hair less solid, less distinct, than the others. The third Wise One seemed excited, even awestruck, about something. Faith didn't even care to think about that at the moment, she was just grateful for an opportunity to catch her breath.

A minute later, Amys turned back to Faith, and Faith sighed. Break's over! But Amys' mind was clearly elsewhere than it had been before the other Wise One had appeared, much as she did a good job of hiding it. "I am sorry," she said, and surprisingly, she actually sounded like she meant it. "We must leave you to fend for yourself for the night. Your friend should be waking you soon."

Great, Faith mused. And here I've gotten absolutely no rest at all. Then again, waking would be more restful than another hour with these two. "It's OK," she replied. "I ... I know you were doing your best."

"And perhaps we shall do even better on another occasion," Amys replied. "You are strong in the dream, and have some of the same determination that Egwene al'Vere possesses. I would not lose you to the perils of Tel'aran'rhiod just yet."

"Don't worry," Faith said. "I wouldn't lose me to them, either."

Amys and Bair gave predatory grins, and then, between one moment and the next, they were gone.

Faith turned back into the tent. Think, dammit, think, she grated to herself. You can't leave. You can't leave when you go to sleep in the waking world, and you can't fight when you go to sleep in this world, and you can't sleep in the open ...

Hide.

She didn't like hiding, but she had no problem with it when doing otherwise would go against Rule Number One of Slaying. Don't die, she reminded herself. Anything that came across her here could kill her while she slept. Anything could come across her here with no warning because distance didn't matter. Bottom line: don't let anything come across you.

So where? How? There was nowhere to hide here. Even if she could find a cave or something around here, for all she knew she'd find one with a dream-dragon in it. Where would she hide, if she could hide anywhere? Well, the only place she had ever considered a real place of refuge, even for a moment, had been at Angel's place in the basement of the Hyperion in Los Angeles, but that was a little out of ...

The tent around her swirled, and for just a moment, she thought she could see the rough wooden pillars and stone walls of Angel's erstwhile lair floating in the dark. It can't be! The moment the thought crossed her mind, the scene vanished, and she was back in the tent. But it had been! It was! Hyperion, she thought. It was there! I saw it! I know you're there! I know I can reach you!

The tent swirled again, and the basement of the Hyperion came into focus again. Stronger, this time. Emboldened, Faith fixed the image of that basement in her mind. Everything. The little refrigerator, where Angel had kept his meager stash of pig's blood to stave off his nocturnal hunger. The decrepit old stereo system and Angel's treasured vinyl collection. The little cot in the corner where Faith had slept the night before Kate came for her. The rickety stairs up to the little hallway off the lobby of the hotel. Each detail solidified the image in front of her, and when she took a step forward, it was like she passed through a membrane of some kind—from where, she had no idea, since it hadn't felt like stepping from the sandy ground inside the tent—and she heard and felt the familiar thump of her heeled boots striking the cement floor. Wow. Just ... fricking ... wow. Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder.

She was tempted to go look around the rest of the hotel, but she was already completely exhausted. She made sure that the door to the upstairs was locked, that her trusty knife was on the nightstand within easy reach, and killed the lights.

What seemed to be moments later, she felt herself being shaken awake.

Dammit!

"You're kidding," Buffy gasped when Faith explained what she had done. It was exactly what Faith had said after Buffy had explained what Willow had done, at least as well as she could explain it. Willow herself, once again allowed to lodge under the same roof as the Slayers, had already gone to sleep.

"I don't know if I was really like back in dream-Earth or not," Faith said. "But it at least felt safer than the tent."

"I can imagine," Buffy said, already thinking of her cozy bedroom back at 1630 Revello Drive in Sunnydale. It couldn't possibly be that easy, could it? After all, even if there was a "dream-Earth," it would probably follow the same rules as this dream-Wherever that they had fallen into every night since coming to this foreign world. Something could come up on them unexpectedly there as well as here. It was possible that wherever Faith had gone wasn't really the dream reflection of their own world at all, just a little piece of Faith's own dreams or memories, but still within the bounds of this strange world and its even stranger dreamworld that seemed to suck them in every night.

Still, there was only one way to find out, and she was already tired enough that she was going to end up finding out in short order whether she wanted to or not. The battle with her own shadow—and the fact that the previous night's sleep had not been exactly restful—had more than taken their toll on her stamina.

"All right. Wake me in three," she said.

Faith nodded.

Buffy felt herself sliding asleep even before she hit the mattress.

Almost immediately, she found herself standing in the tent again, with no memory of standing up, and that ethereal half-light coming from everywhere and nowhere casting the inside of the tent in that ghostly radiance.

Just passing through, she noted. Immediately, she began to recreate an image of her own room in her mind. The dresser, with Mr. Gordo standing sentry on top of it. The window where Angel had climbed in—or she had climbed out—more often than she could remember. The closet that concealed her stylish yet affordable wardrobe. The mirror where she had sat to style her hair for prom night—or where she and Angel had looked and seen only one of them looking back. The trunk with Mr. Pointy and his friends. As each detail floated back into her mind, the tent began to grow a little less distinct, like a picture shifting out of focus, and the image of her room in Sunnydale grew more and more solid around her. Eventually, she took a step—she didn't feel that sensation that Faith had described, of passing through a bubble, but she was there. The familiar feel of the carpet on her bare feet greeted her, and she looked down to see herself dressed in her favorite pajamas from Earth. From Earth. It felt strange thinking that. I'm an alien from Planet Earth. I come in peace. Take me to your leader.

So was it real? Was it Sunnydale? Cautiously, she strode to the window and looked out. It looked like Sunnydale. The front yard looked the same as she remembered. Revello Drive looked the same as she remembered. There was the neighbors' obnoxiously large SUV, and the yellow fire hydrant, and the school bus stop sign ...

She clapped her hand to her head and backed away from the window. School bus?! Memories of the flight from the school in the school bus, with Robin Wood's foot on the pedal, flooded back into her mind. This can't be real! What the heck was I thinking? Sunnydale doesn't exist anymore!

And yet here it was. This was her room, exactly as she remembered it. And yet, it was also clearly not here. The same ethereal unlight bathed everything; even the sun outside seemed indistinct, more like a hazy blob, the outlines of which were impossible to define, than the familiar blinding yellow-white disk.

So now what? Do I risk going to sleep? Faith clearly had, and had managed to emerge unscathed, but that might well have been pure luck. Just because you slept in the woods once without getting eaten by a bear didn't mean there weren't bears out there. And bears here could appear out of thin air. Yet there was no way she could go forever without sleep. Three hours a night were all she needed, but she needed those three hours.

In either case, there was no way she was going to sleep yet. Her nerves were too on edge, though her Slayer-sense was quiet. That was a plus. She hoped that sense still worked in this place, but it had worked well enough the previous night, and she was more inclined to trust her instincts than her eyes in a place like this, anyway. She did a quick search of the house, noting the familiar themes of the Aiel dreamworld: the less bolted down something was, the less likely it was to appear. There had never been a time in all the years Buffy had lived here where both the refrigerator and the pantry had been empty, but they were, and all the cupboards were devoid of china and silverware. Outside of her bedroom, even the furniture was missing, though it appeared when she concentrated hard enough, fixing it in her mind exactly where and how she remembered it—it took a lot of effort, however, and if she was at all uncertain of just how a given piece had been oriented, it didn't appear at all. What had been on the mantle other than those pictures, anyway? She couldn't quite place it, and the dream didn't seem overly inclined to help.

The electricity worked, she noted as she flipped on the basement light. I'm getting electricity in a town that doesn't exist in a dreamworld that doesn't exist from a power plant that probably doesn't exist either. Stranger things have happened. She imagined that a lot of people would have gone completely insane by this point, but after coming back from the dead twice, one's standards for what qualified as unacceptably weird tended to shift somewhat. The basement told a similar story to that of the rest of the house: the water heater was there, but very little else. It was almost like it was a new house, or one waiting for someone to move in.

"What is this place?" a deep, powerful voice behind her demanded.

Her Slayer-sense had tingled only an instant before the voice spoke, and she dove headlong across the basement to gain room, the Scythe springing into her hands as she sprang to her feet. She turned and settled easily into a battle-ready crouch, the Scythe held low to one side.

All hope that she was not in some corner of the Aiel dreamworld vanished. This newcomer, whoever he was, clearly did not hail from Earth. The man before her towered over her, with a thick, muscled hand already on the hilt of the massive sword at his waist, ready to bring it into play. Gleaming chainmail and gauntlets covered his torso, upper legs, and arms, which in turn looked strong enough to crush stone. His hair was long, thick, and black, and his eyes were blue-grey ice, bright, clear, and cold.

He regarded her warily. "Oho?" he said. "Not disappearing on me? And you look like you might even know how to use that ..." he trailed off, and a look of concentration crossed his face. "I know you, don't I?"

"Pretty sure you don't," Buffy replied icily.

The man released his grip on the hilt of his sword. "No, I think I do," he said. "At the very least, I know Sineya's Scythe when I see it."

If Buffy had been any more surprised, the ancient weapon might just have tumbled from her hands. Never in a thousand years would she have expected to hear the name of the First Slayer cross the lips of anyone from the Aiel world. "Got a name?" she asked.

"You don't know me?" he asked. Buffy fixed him with a steely gaze. "No," the man continued, seemingly unaffected. "I see that you don't. The Wheel weaves patterns beyond the ken of even the wisest, and I would never dare rank myself among them. But regardless," he said. "The people know me as Artur. Artur Paendrag Tanreall."

Author's Notes: Sorry it's been so long between updates! I promise to do better, however low that may be setting the bar. Thank you so much for all your feedback, it means the world to me, especially given that this is a somewhat less common crossover world than HP or SG-1 or LotR.

Joe: I don't think you need to worry much on that score; there are already too many characters in Randland for me to consider bringing the whole Scooby cast into the picture.

elf: Xander with a shoufa around his head ... fun thought!

Coming Soon: Chapter 6, "Where One Belongs." One of the main characters of the WoT-verse finally enters the picture—and, not surprisingly, takes a somewhat immediate interest in the mysterious newcomers.

Sneak Preview:

Willow's eyes narrowed, just before Egwene's eyes locked with hers. She was no politician, but her mind was working even if her body was not. Maglor Egan had mentioned something about paying careful attention to the words an Aes Sedai spoke, to be sure that you didn't merely allow yourself to hear what you wished to hear, rather than what was said.