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 would be a little bit more True Religion in my closet. 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 7:

TO TAR VALON

The low thrumming of the helicopter's engine grew and grew until it thundered from the sides of the crater. Dawn could just make out the landing lights in the distance against the night sky as the craft approached and touched down at the edge of the cliff; there was no ground smooth enough for a landing in the crater itself. She knew who was on board, but it was still crazy to think that the guy owned a helicopter now. The last time she had visited the guy, he had a one-bedroom basement studio apartment in a rougher quarter of Sunnydale. Actually, she reflected, somewhat morosely, she had never actually visited him there, but she remembered it and he remembered it, so it wasn't worth arguing at this point.

Twenty minutes later, Angel and Wesley Wyndham-Price appeared on the edge of the small hollow that served as Slayer Central at the moment. With him was a quiet, bookish slip of a girl whom Dawn didn't recognize.

"Hey," she greeted him awkwardly.

"Hey yourself," he replied. Well, at least he didn't seem to feel any awkwardness at the situation.

"Extraordinary," Wesley breathed, stopping to take in the sight of the massive stone column and the white stone dais around it.

"Yes, yes, I think I told you that," Giles noted.

"Anyway!" Angel announced to the assembled Slayers, none of whom had ever met him, or any of the Wolfram & Hart staff, for that matter, "ladies and ... nerds ... my name's Angel, you've probably heard of me, and I'll be your host for this ... well, however long it takes to get Buffy and the others back. This is Wesley Wyndham-Price, another former Watcher, in case it wasn't completely obvious—and this is Fred Burkle, our resident expert on interdimensional physics and parallel universes. Figured it couldn't hurt to bring her out."

The girl simply waved shyly. Dawn gave the girl another look. This girl was some kind of scientist? Then again, maybe imagining her in a lab coat or a library wasn't so hard, at that.

"I've got a cargo copter on the way with food and temporary shelters and some more mumbo-jumbo that Wes says might help. The roads are still going to be out of commission for a while—that quake was a doozy. Questions?"

Silence answered him.

"All right, well, I'll leave these three in your care. I'll be back when you guys get some better shelters built, but it looks like some of you sleep with the sky for a roof and the rest have tents that let in no small amount of sunlight, which I have certain problems with." He shrugged. "We'll be in touch. And we will never ... I repeat, never ... give up at this." There were nods all around, but most of those listening just shrugged.

"Oh forget it, I suck at speeches," he said, and set himself down on the ground, Wes and Fred on either side. Giles found himself a handy rock to use as a stool. Dawn, Andrew, and Xander just found themselves open patches on the ground. "Anything worth knowing?"

Dawn shook her head. "I'm sorry. I know I did something, but I swear, I have no idea what."

Angel nodded. "Figured as much."

They talked a while after that—Wes peppered her with many more questions than Angel himself did—before Angel had to leave to get back to his chopper to make it back to L.A. by morning.

Fred said nothing. She had brought a laptop and a number of thick notebooks, and had one of the notebooks out already, spread across her lap on a small writing board. She was either doing extremely advanced physics in her head or just doodling; it was hard to tell which. She never seemed to meet Dawn's gaze directly, though she did apparently take notes whenever Dawn gave an answer to one of Wes' questions that she hadn't already answered; the man had a tendency to ask the same question five different ways, as if she couldn't understand what he was getting at the first time. If she had any ideas, however, she wasn't sharing them, and when Dawn stole a glance at the girl's notebook when Fred shifted in her seat, it seemed nothing but gibberish. She seemed as much in another world as Buffy and Faith and Willow probably were at this point.

The rim of the distant eastern wall of the valley of Rhuidean was just beginning to don the rosy crown of dawn when Faith nudged Buffy awake. The elder Slayer's eyes opened quickly, though she gave no impression of being startled. Buffy seemed to have long ago given up the time-honored tradition of stretching and yawning and wishing one didn't have to get out of bed. At least, she did when she was in one of her "on a mission" moods, and from the looks of things, she was in one now that might not wear off until they were back in their own world.

"Hey," Buffy said as she rose. "I miss anything?"

Faith shrugged and nodded in Willow's direction. Buffy turned to look at the redheaded wiccan, curled up in a simple woolen bedroll near the back wall of the tent. Willow had never mentioned anything about the mushroom ring that had blossomed around her the previous night. That one had been picked and discarded by the Aiel—no one knew if the things had been safe to eat—but another had replaced it this morning. This made two nights in a row now. Buffy shook her head. Faith had become better at reading her sister Slayer's thoughts over the years, but Buffy's gaze now was unreadable. Faith guessed that she was thinking thoughts not entirely unlike Faith's own: this was new, and somewhat unsettling, but on the flip side, Willow had never looked healthier in her life. In fact, the air in the tent where she slept seemed somehow more wholesome and alive than Faith had ever breathed on Earth. Of course, given that Faith had lived mostly in Boston, Los Angeles, and Sunnydale her entire life, that wasn't saying much, but the morning desert breeze that rustled softly through the tent gathered scents of pine and moss and flowers, like the deep woods after a late spring rain, as it swirled around the sleeping Wiccan. That was nothing a desert like this would carry on its own. Willow's breathing was deep and steady, and her skin absolutely glowed. In fact, if Faith let her mind wander and unfocused her eyes in just the right way, she was sure she could almost make that a literal statement; distant, half-hidden flashes of light, dominated by verdant green and autumn gold interspersed with a smorgasbord of other brillaint natural hues, danced deep beneath Willow's skin like a thousand tiny gemstones resting lightly on the bed of a deep stream, stirred faintly by the current.

"She's never looked this good," Buffy noted. "Kinda worries me."

Faith nodded sagely. "She's definitely too healthy. That can't be healthy."

Buffy shot her a withering glare and began pulling her clothes on.

Alsera and Nandrys were waiting at the edge of the ruined city to escort them to the great stone plaza in the center of the ancient ruin.

"How did all of those things get here, anyway?" Buffy asked as they walked.

"Aiel brought them," Nandrys answered simply. "Thousands of years ago. The ter'angreal came first, the city second."

Abruptly, they came to the end of the last row of palaces, and Faith beheld the central plaza of Rhuidean for the first time. Her eyes bulged. Buffy's question suddenly took on a new meaning, just given the sheer size of the trove that littered the square. "'As much as you can as fast as you can?'" she asked incredulously. "We'd need a container ship to lug all this!"

Alsera chuckled. "Egwene al'Vere thus did not ask you to bring all of it. Or even much of it." She sighed. "She plays with forces she does not know trying to teach the Aes Sedai to walk the dream," she continued. "Or, rather, forces she knows well, but I fear her students may not wish to learn as well as they should before toying with them themselves. But I ramble. Egwene al'Vere has asked that you take some of the dream ter'angreal, and she now leads the Aes Sedai. The debt is hers to collect."

Nandrys nodded towards the western edge of the plaza. "The blades of which Egwene al'Vere spoke are there," she said. Her voice was surprisingly flat. "You can fetch them yourselves. No Aiel will touch a sword."

Faith turned to give the younger Wise One an incredulous look, which only became more so once Faith saw that the woman was absolutely serious. No Aiel will touch a sword? These people lived and breathed battle. They knew their spears and their bows well enough, at any rate. She was sure there was a story there, but she decided not to press the issue at the moment. Nandrys' voice left no doubt that she was deadly serious.

Buffy was already striding purposefully towards the edge of the square where Nandrys had gestured. Finding what she was looking for didn't take long. Faith was still several strides away when Buffy turned and gave a quick grin. "Here, catch," she said, and lofted a long, slightly curved blade in a hard black scabbard towards her. Faith caught it easily.

"Wow," was all she could think to say before she even drew the blade. The sheath was polished and hardened wood—teak might have been close, but it had been hardened by some craft or magic to be as firm and mirror-bright as steel. The hilt of the blade itself was the same color, but less reflective, wrapped in polished black cloth that had somehow survived all the turning of the years here in the desert untouched. Either that or someone had been coming here to clean it several times a year for millennia. Not likely. She pulled the blade just far enough clear of the scabbard to see the mystically forged blade in the flesh for the first time. It caught the dim light so effortlessly that it gave the impression of glowing from within, of giving off more light than could possibly have been there to reflect, though in truth it was just a perfect mirror finish. The blade itself was sharp enough that, even being careful, Faith pricked her thumb when she drew it across the blade just below the crossguard, by the stylized insignia of the wading heron etched into the steel.

"Don't get too cocky," Buffy noted. "Remember, they're not ours."

Faith grinned. "Yeah, but I'm holding it. Good enough for now. And don't try to play the stuffy card with me. I haven't had anything this cool since you let me play with the Scythe." Actually, in Faith's personal opinion, the Scythe was a downright ugly weapon, but of course, it definitely did get the job done. So did these heron-mark blades, however, if they worked as advertised—which certainly looked to be the case thus far, though she wasn't about to try them out on any stone walls here with the Wise Ones in plain view. "Come on, B. They're just like us. Able to kill everything in sight and look damn sexy doing it."

Buffy burst out with a hearty laugh before she could stop herself, and Faith nodded in satisfaction. Nice to know that her sister in arms still remembered how to do that.

They returned to Alsera and Nandrys, who had gathered a small pile of apparently mismatched trinkets next to them. Faith's eyes narrowed. She recognized one of those trinkets. It was the jade bracelet that Egwene had shown them in the dream the previous night.

"This is nowhere near all the ter'angreal that appear in the dream," Nandrys explained. "And none of us can offer much guidance as to which of them might actually allow one to dreamwalk. Among the Aiel, one is either a dreamwalker or one is not."

Faith nodded, accepting that wordlessly. It certainly didn't take any magical doohickeys for her or Buffy to end up in the dreamworld, at any rate. Heck, she might be in the market for one that could keep her out of the dream.

A sudden growth in the light announced the rising of the disk of the sun over the eastern valley wall, though it was hidden from view behind the palaces on that edge of the square. Buffy nodded back toward the tents. "Will'll probably be up by the time we get back," she said. "She ought to have a look at all this before we decide what comes."

"You go get her," Faith said. "I want to have a look around—if that's OK?" she turned the last question towards Alsera and Nandrys.

Nandrys looked at Alsera. The older Wise One let out a heavy breath, somewhat resigned, and shrugged. "Egwene has named you her retainers," she noted. "Be careful, though. She nodded towards a forest of glass columns that surrounded the great tree. "Do not wander in among the columns. We reserve that trial for those who seek to become Wise Ones and Clan Chiefs themselves. Many never return."

"Noted," Faith said.

"What are you doing?" Buffy asked.

Faith shrugged. "Feel like a little peace and quiet, I guess."

Buffy's shoulders bristled, but she controlled herself a moment later. "Fine, whatever. I'll see if I can convince Maglor Egan to give us some wagon space, too. Might let us carry a bit more of this stuff. Hey, you never know. Some of it might even be useful."

Buffy, Alsera, and Nandrys turned and left for the tent city. Nandrys turned a questioning eye over her shoulder as they reached the edge of the square, but a moment later turned and followed the other two women. Faith was alone in the square. She grinned, hefting the sword in her hands. Buffy had to have known that she wasn't actually interested in cataloguing ancient artifacts; that was Willow's department. Giles', actually, if all were the way it should be.

She set out at a slow jog away from the square as soon as Buffy and the Wise Ones were out of sight. As soon as her muscles warmed to the activity, she began to throw in a couple of quick sprints. Very quick sprints.

No way, Faith thought to herself. Neither Buffy nor Faith had spoken of it since arriving in this world, but their apparent imperviousness to whatever passed for magic here wasn't the only thing different about them since coming here. She had felt it in the fight with the shadows two nights past, and even before that, in the fight with the Aiel when they had first arrived here. I was never this fast on Earth. She wished she had gotten a chance to see Buffy fighting her own shadow.

She dashed down a narrow alley and vaulted up onto the nearest roof—three stories high. She reached it by springing twice her own height and pushing off with one foot against the right wall, then the same at again that height on the left wall, before seizing the edge of the roof with one hand—at an off angle, at that—and twisting her entire body in a circle using just that hand to vault onto the roof. It was not a roof, but a balcony in an even larger structure, twice as high as the balcony itself.

She coiled her legs and sprung with all her might.

She almost made it clear to the palace roof in one go. As it was, she cleared more than two stories before she landed on the wall. Even then, it seemed like gravity took a heartbeat longer than it should to catch up with her.

As she started to slide down the wall—it never even occurred to her to worry that she was two and a half stories above a stone surface—she tore the heron-mark blade free of its scabbard and drove it into the wall. There was a metallic shriek, but the blade struck right into the stone, carving out a gash almost as deep as one of Faith's hands, slowing her descent and giving her leverage to swing in one of the fifth floor windows.

Not a chance, she breathed. She wasn't even breathing hard. I did not just do that. Except that I did, and I'm not even breathing hard. Willow isn't the only one way healthier than she should be. Me and Buffy are, too. Just doesn't show as much on us because we were already just that gorgeous. She grinned and took a running leap out of the front window—not the one that had been against the alley, but the one that overlooked the much wider main boulevard—and cleared it into the top floor window of the next palatial building, a lower, wider, longer structure, somewhat less ornate than the ones around it.

The sun was already past its zenith when she returned to the Aiel tents.

Buffy and Willow were not at their tent, but it wasn't too hard to find them. They were at Maglor Egan's wagons. What surprised her much more was the way the attitudes of the Aiel toward her seemed to have changed suddenly—and not for the better. Some cast frowns in her direction, and one even turned and walked away when she approached him to ask for directions. Even Melainda, whom she had fought beside only two nights' past, and fought well, gave her a cold look when she asked for directions, and her answer was short and clipped.

"What's up?" she asked. "Something wrong?"

Melainda let out a terse breath. "I have seen you fight, outlander. You shouldn't need to carry that, gift of Egwene al'Vere or not."

Faith's eyes widened and dropped to her waist. Her sword? This was seriously about her sword? Nandrys' words from earlier floated up in her consciousness, and suddenly took on a whole new layer of seriousness. Despite her better judgment against leaving her weapons just lying around for anyone to take, she returned to her tent and left her sword on the sleeping pallet the Aiel had provided. On an instinct, she checked Buffy's, and found her sister Slayer's blade lying beneath Buffy's own pallet. Apparently these people were actually serious about this. That might just have been the strangest thing she had encountered yet. Not that these people weren't fantastically deadly with their spears and bows, and even their bare hands, but that didn't explain why they felt the way they did about swords. It wasn't just that they preferred spears. They held swords in downright contempt. For such a martial people, that made, as Oz would have said, "the kind of sense that's not."

When she arrived at Egan's wagons, she found that one, vaguely reminiscent of a Conestoga wagon with a high, curved canvas top over a wooden frame, had been pulled free of the circle. Buffy and Egan's people were unloading the wares it contained and loading them into the other five. Willow was standing off to one side, looking somewhat pensive.

"We got us a wagon?" Faith asked as she approached.

Willow nodded. "We got us a wagon."

"And ... you're looking like this is a bad thing."

She sighed and shook her head as if trying to clear cobwebs. "Not really. Just ... well, we didn't have anything else, but I've never had to use magic for money before. Or I guess for barter, but it feels the same."

Faith understood. Willow has always been a little bit—antsy—about using her magic for personal gain, though she was nothing like those three crazy sisters up San Francisco way she kept hearing about, who apparently made it some kind of religious point or something. Nevertheless, the fact was that if Willow had ever been even of the slightest mercenary bent, she could have retired in comfort even by Southern California standards before she was thirty. "Desperate times," Faith shrugged, trying to think of what to say to comfort someone who was—well, uncomfortable doing something Faith would have been perfectly fine with. "What'd you give 'em?"

"Small wine cask full of the potion I used to treat his guy yesterday."

Faith thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "Sounds to me like you did a good thing. Egan's a decent guy and his people are just trying to earn a living. If they die less than they might otherwise out here, I think I can live with it."

Willow gave a small, shallow laugh. "Not quite so simple."

"I know," Faith said, and on an instinct, put an arm around Willow's shoulder, despite the redhead having an inch on her. "But that's as complicated as I get."

Willow actually did laugh at that, and returned the hug. "What would I do without you?"

"No idea," Faith admitted sagely. "So it's a good thing I'm here." She looked back to see Maglor Egan's people unhitching the horses pulling the wagon Willow had just bought. "Hey, wait," she asked. "Are they supposed to be doing that?"

Willow turned a knowing grin on her. "Now that," she said, "you don't need to worry about."

"I sure hope you're not expecting Buffy and me to pull this thing. The whole ponygirl thing is definitely not my scene."

"Mm, and here I'd gotten my hopes up," Willow smirked. "Tempting, but no. Just worry about getting it loaded."

Faith and Buffy did just that, and it took the rest of the day.

"Where exactly are we planning on going?" Faith asked at one point, as the last of the empty floor space in the bed of the wagon vanished and they began to stack trinkets on top of more trinkets.

"Just stack softer stuff on top," Willow said. "And there's room up front for two."

"I call shotgun!" Faith called from the back of the wagon.

"More like longbow here," Buffy answered. "And we don't even have one of those."

"Sure about that?" Faith asked. Buffy and Willow turned as she hefted a red-enameled longbow set with silver runes in a flowing script.

"Nice," Buffy said. "Arrows?"

"Um ... I'll get back to you on that." She lay the longbow back in the wagon and hopped down from the rear step. "Hey Red, you sure you don't want to come with us? We're just picking stuff up that looks ... well, just whatever. I've gotten everything I can remember from the dream, but your memory's better than mine."

"Um, I was kinda never there in the dream." Faith grimaced. That was right. Faith had gone with Buffy to the central square after the Wise Ones and Egwene had vanished the previous night; Willow had conspicuously begged out.

"And I think this is about as far as I get. I shouldn't have even been down there once," Willow added, nodding at the tree in the distance.

"That bad, huh?"

Willow shook her head. "That good," she said faintly.

In another couple of trips, the wagon was as full as they were going to get it and still have any room for whoever happened to be riding in the back at the time, plus the tent and bedrolls, which the Aiel had allowed the three of them to keep. Buffy had run out of items she remembered from the dream as well, so at this point, they were just packing whatever caught their eye. There weren't many weapons left; apparently Egwene had taken the bulk of those with her when she had been here herself, with a much larger wagon train. There were still a small handful, mostly hidden where someone walking by wouldn't spot them easily. There were many larger items, too, but the largest thing either Slayer had been able—or inclined—to carry back to the wagons on her own was a flat iron circle about a meter in diameter, bisected by a sinuous curve, half stained white, the other half black. Faith had no idea how some of the largest items got here; they'd need a flatbed trailer to move some of them.

"So," Faith said, popping open a waterskin and taking a long draught, "bedtime?"

Willow shook her head. "Go time."

"What? Now?"

Buffy nodded. "I'll go get the tent. Come on," she gestured to Faith.

Faith hesitated. "You kidding? We've been sweating our asses off all day here."

"Don't even act like you're tired," Buffy said pointedly.

That was the closest Buffy had come to admitting that she had felt the same thing Faith herself had during her morning—workout was the only word Faith could conjure, though it had hardly even felt like a workout. It was true enough, too. Faith could have played stevedore for a few more hours if she'd needed to, despite the lack of sleep that both she and Buffy were operating under.

"Faith," Willow said softly. "I'm sorry, but I really need to be gone from this place." As if to emphasize the point, she reached up and plucked a dogwood blossom out of her hair just behind her shoulder. There wasn't a dogwood tree within a thousand miles. Possibly not even within a world.

Faith took a breath, then turned to Buffy. "Let's get the tent."

They finished striking the tent in short order, and without talking about it, somehow both found themselves concealing their swords in their bedrolls for the walk back to the wagon. Some of the Aiel still gave them looks, but most seemed to have forgotten what they had seen earlier, or at least put it behind them. They stowed the folded tent and bedrolls in the back of the wagon, making sure they swords were as hidden from view as possible, though still within easy reach if one knew where to look.

Alsera and Caithryn had joined them again when Faith clambered free of the wagon, as had a half dozen of the Maidens, including a few still sporting wounds from the battle with the shadows. They wore them as badges of honor.

"I suppose this is goodbye, as you reckon it, but I'm sure we'll see one another in the dream again," Alsera said.

Faith, remembering the previous night's crash course—emphasis on the "crash"—fought back a grimace, and did her best to accept the remark in the spirit in which Alsera offered it. "Certainly does seem a possibility," she replied dryly.

"You've been good to us," Buffy said. Then, after a moment, "well, except that first part, but we understand."

Melainda stepped forward. "It's a shame you could not stay with us a while longer," she said warmly. "I might have liked to call both of you spear-sister someday. Travel safe. I won't be able to see you in the dream, so I hope you keep yourselves alive until we can see each other in the flesh again."

Faith grinned. "I'm definitely down with that."

"I'm a fan of that plan, too," Buffy said. "If we find our way back here before we find our way home."

"Actually, we need to speak with you about that," Alsera interjected, a note of concern in her voice.

Nandrys, Dainya, and Charyn arrived at this point, each carrying a small bundle wrapped in cloth. Alsera gestured, and two of the white-robed gai'shain came forward, bearing similar bundles. The concerned note vanished from her tone momentarily. "For your valor in battle, and for teaching us a little bit more of this world, and the worlds beyond, than we had ever dreamed of knowing. And because it would sadden us if you died crossing the Waste."

The bundles contained nothing special, but nothing unwelcome, either: extra clothes, dried foodstuffs, some basic tools, a trio of waterskins, and a few maps—one large one and a set of smaller ones. Alsera also gave them weapons: two short horn bows with quivers and arrows, as well as six of the short, broad-bladed spears the Aiel used. Buffy, Faith, and Willow each thanked the Wise Ones as gracefully as they could. Faith wondered if Buffy and Willow had even thought of little essentials like these in their rush to be away. It was going to be a long journey across the Waste. Faith had heard of what Willow had done on the food front the previous evening, but it was nevertheless hard to imagine that she was going to be up for doing that day in and day out for however long it took them to cross the vast emptiness between Rhuidean and the mountains that separated the Waste from the more fertile lands to the west.

"It was the least we can do," she said. "But I also need to give you another warning of our customs. Your arrival here had no precedent, so we have made exceptions, and I do not regret them in the least. However, only Aes Sedai, the Lost Ones, gleemen, and peddlers travel the Waste by our leave. It would be best if you did not return outside the company of one."

Faith arched an eyebrow at that, but the Wise One was deadly serious. She shook her head helplessly. Customs here had more force than most laws in the U.S., apparently. She grinned. "Well, Willow will be an Aes Sedai before long, right?"

Alsera shrugged. "It takes most women years, and some decades, to earn the shawl."

Faith bit back a retort at that that; she had met the woman who was apparently the leader of the Aes Sedai, or at least of one faction of them, and she was barely Faith's age. Then again, the woman had had the most commanding presence Faith had ever seen, even among the Wise Ones and even counting Buffy herself, and she had been told that the woman was a historical exception. Besides, she was starting to have a few doubts about this whole Aes Sedai business, and wasn't about to make an effort to keep the topic alive.

"It may," Willow said simply. "But we'll have to find some way back here eventually," she added. "Or else find another Portal Stone out there somewhere."

"Be that as it may," Alsera said, "our laws must hold from here on. You have safe passage to the Dragonwall, but do not look back to Rhuidean once you are gone from here. This city is our secret, our refuge, and our dream. We do not share it lightly."

Faith couldn't think of anything else to say to that, and besides, it wasn't like they were really likely to be coming back anytime soon. She just didn't like the fact that the few friends she'd made here in the past few days were going to be essentially off-limits. She had no idea what a "spear-sister" was, but she was going to miss Melainda and some of the other Maidens and the other algai'd'siswai, the Aiel warriors around whom most of their society seemed organized.

"We won't do anything to offend, if we can avoid it, Alsera of the Salt Flat Nakai," Willow said with a light incline of her head. Alsera breathed a soft laugh at the Aiel form of address. Willow turned back to the Slayers. "Load up," she said. "Let's get moving."

"Um, Willow?" Faith asked.

"Hm?"

Faith just nodded at the front of the wagon. "No horses, remember?"

Willow smiled and walked to the front of the wagon. "Don't worry. I said I promised I wouldn't make you pull."

She kept walking up the gradual slope that led away from Rhuidean another few dozen yards until she came to what she was looking for: a pair of large boulders, almost equal in size and slightly larger than a good-sized motorcycle. Kneeling down in a small space between them, she spread her arms and put her hands on the boulders. Actually, Faith observed after another instant, that wasn't quite right. She put her hands in the boulders, like their surfaces were nothing but water. Glowworms of brown and yellow energy arced out from Willow's body and coursed over the boulders.

And they began to move.

At first, they cracked like old joints, only deeper and louder. Then they began to soften, only for a moment, legs and hooves taking shape and breaking free of the main masses of the boulders, long heads with manes of petrified mosses and lichens sprouting from one end, tails of rocky weeds at the other. Eyes glowed pale white at first, then resolved into quartz crystals of the same color.

"You're kidding," Faith breathed.

"Willow ... what on earth are those?" Buffy asked.

"Exactly."

"What?"

"Earth."

"Not funny."

"Not lying. Earth elementals. Tara and I used to create them to go riding, when Sunnydale was quietish."

"Earth elementals?" Faith gasped. "Don't tell me you brought your twenty-sided dice with you, too."

Faith got the distinct impression that Willow was resisting sticking her tongue out at her. "Right, because vampires and werewolves were just made up for a game, too."

"OK, point, but still."

Willow began leading the horses back to the wagon, the stunned Aiel who had gathered to watch shifting out of the way wordlessly. "And sorry, Xander stole my dice when we were in middle school. He denies it, but I know better. Especially because he was playing with them with Giles and Andrew before the Turokalypse."

"The little punk."

"And if you ever say 'Turokalypse' in my presence again," Buffy added, "I'm going to stuff you in the trunk for the rest of the trip."

Willow grinned lightly as she hitched the rocky horses to the wagon. She nodded at the space beside her, and Faith hopped lightly onto the right side of the wagon tongue. "Hey, I called shotgun," she reminded Buffy. Buffy just shrugged and climbed in the back.

"I doubt I'll ever get used to seeing that," Alsera noted, perfectly nonchalantly, as if such things happened here every day. If she were as stunned as some of the other Aiel watching, she gave no sign. "Perhaps one day, you will return to the dream as well. There seems to always be something more about you than meets the eye."

"I hope you're right," Willow replied wistfully, half to herself.

She and Alsera held each other's gaze for a moment longer. Then the redheaded Wiccan shook herself and turned to Faith. "Ready?"

"Let's do this."

"Ready?" Willow called into the back.

"Whenever you are."

Willow laughed grimly. "I don't think I'll ever be ready for this. But good enough."

She had no reins to flick, but she gave a curt nod forward with her head. The earth elementals lumbered into motion, slowly but smoothly.

They were under way.

Author's Note: Thank you all so much for both your patience and your feedback! You make this all worthwhile. ('Cause Light knows I ain't getting paid for this.) I'm glad to have found this much interest in a WoT crossover, given that the tickets to bigtime readership here seem to be HP and SG-1 crossovers.

Tombadgerlock: Actually, sometimes, I wonder if I write Willow as too assertive. She was never much of a Type A personality in the series. Even with Tara, it was Tara who made the first move in "The Gentlemen," and Willow wasn't always the dominant partner. And Willow was somewhat shy when Buffy "volunteered" her to perform the Awakening spell, too. Force of personality and decisiveness have never seemed, at least to me, to define Willow. At the very least, she doesn't respond too poorly to others taking the lead and making decisions for her.

ellf: There will definitely be more to come on that score.

Joe: I don't know if this will go on long enough to have that happen. But it's a thought, isn't it?

j.: I'll try!

Locathah: Well, Egwene does have an extremely powerful personality by this point in the series, enough so that many other extremely stiff-necked and powerful women (and men) have fallen in line with her, and I wanted to emphasize that. However, I don't think your concerns are misplaced, and I think you'll see that in chapters soon to come. However, see my earlier comments about Willow not necessarily being extremely decisive just because she's powerful. Also, Egwene's point about the Tar Valon library did seem like a legitimate trump card to me. The three women are alone in a new world and don't have a lot of friends or options.

jen: I hope to answer some of those thoughts very soon. ;-)

ok: I really don't think I've underpowered either Willow or the Slayers. If anything, I think I've powered up the Slayers, since I modeled some of my fight scenes in previous chapters after Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which involves, for example, much more powerful gravity-defying abilities than the Slayers have ever been portrayed as having. And Willow never really donned the industrial-strength white hat until the very end of the series, and her one experience with embracing serious power before that ended very badly, so she backed off for a long while.

impatientuser: I haven't ruled any of the above out as yet. Just have to see where things flow.