The longer he listened to his brood-brother Nuklak boast of his latest idiotic plan to become the newest chief of their demon clan, Onihccat became even more convinced he'd inherited all the brains in the family.

When Nuklak finally stopped and looked expectantly at him, Onihccat wearily pointed out, "I think you skipped a few important details. Such as, what makes you possibly think you can get past the Red Witch's wards? Not to mention even if you do, there'll be at least twenty Slayers at the Cleveland Hellmouth, all ready to chop off everybody's head the instant you and your…friends…show up there."

When saying with some disdain the stressed word in his last sentence, Onihccat waved a hand at the large group of Ednid demons several steps away waiting for their leader to lead them to glory and bloody battle.

Puffing himself up in pride, Nuklak showed his brother the clan's oldest and most powerful magical amulet ordinarily kept in the local temple. "Icrwt found out this'll do the trick! Not only will it get us through any of the strongest wards that human female can possibly cast, but all I need to do next is to hold it in front of me! Any Slayer who sees it, they'll be struck with such fear in their hearts that we can easily slaughter them!"

Onihccat repeated in disbelief, "Icrwt? Are we talking about the same person? You know, our tribesman whose girlfriend you bedded and laughed about right in his face just last month? The one who you've bullied virtually every day of our whole lives?"

"Yes, so?" blankly responded Nuklak.

Giving his dimwitted brother a truly incredulous stare, Onihccat looked past him at the other Ednid warriors. Wait a second…

"Aren't those the twins Kidni and Kydni who used to throw Icrwt in the lake every winter and make bets on whether he could crawl out of here before he froze solid? And…next to them, there's Alúopolag that I remember broke Icrwt's arm while cheating in a village stickball game. I'm also seeing Ayistrut, Etolojaug, and Nhahtrut—"

"The best bunch of fighters ever!" smugly announced Nukluk. He then brandished his sword towards those demons to get their attention. When confident his warriors were watching him, Nukluk bellowed the tribe's traditional ferocious war cry. In turn, they promptly joined in.

Hearing that chilling sound by what Onihccat privately considered the village's biggest troublemakers, arrogant pests, and general all-around nuisances for whom nobody would miss the slightest, a sudden realization by this Ednid demon had him include his very own brother in that obnoxious company.

Satisfied his warriors were now in the proper vicious mood, Nukluk turned back to Onihccat, expecting him to still act the spoilsport like his brother had been doing for the last few minutes. Rather, an astonished Nukluk was told, "Good luck, war leader! Leave none alive and return in triumph!"

Now really happy with his brother, Nukluk gave Onihccat a friendly cuff about the head. Not daring to rub his aching skull, Onihccat instead put a fixed smile on his face and watched how Nukluk then strode over to his friends. Clustering around their leader who lifted high the magical amulet, an abrupt glow appeared around the entire band of Ednid demons. When this enchanted glow vanished, so had every single enemy of Icrwt.

Walking back to the village, Onihccat mused out loud to himself, "I think in the next council I'll put Icrwt's name forward for clan chief. Anybody clever enough to get rid of so smoothly everyone he hates, they'll do a really good job. Besides, I definitely don't want him mad at me!"

"I wonder if anybody'll notice when the puddle of drool they're standing in rises over the tops of their boots," Xander mentioned with a smile.

In their gazebo bench at the New Council's Cleveland House back gardens, Willow and Dawn sharing a comfy wool blanket in the crisp autumn weather giggled together on either side of Xander. Seated tailor-fashion at Xander's feet, Buffy also guffawed. Even Giles at the other end of the bench and dressed in full English tweed style finally matching the local climate rather than a warm California day chuckled in appreciation of the young man's jest.

They all looked over at where the full Cleveland contingent of Slayers were standing in a line along the garden's far edge where the private campus bought last year by the New Council turned into an exercise yard. Nobody was doing training today, though. Not on Thanksgiving Day.

In fact, each and every young woman were sniffing the air, eyes closed and mutual blissful expressions on their faces while they smelled the delicious odors drifting from the main campus kitchen. Xander might've exaggerated a wee bit, but there were actual hints of saliva trickles amid continuous licked lips during the Slayers' impatient wait for Andrew to end their banishment by announcing the holiday's full turkey dinner with all the trimmings was ready at last.

Since that former Sunnydale native was now in charge of the House's meals, he could get away with barring any Slayer attempting to sneak into his domain for a quick snatch and grab raid. Should any of them still try, Andrew had threatened the most dire of punishments for the culprits: taking the place of the current wrongdoers already sentenced for earlier misconduct to clean up afterwards, down to scrubbing spotless by hand every used cookpot and serving tray.

"Anybody want to bet if Faith and her gang can con someone else into breaking Andrew's rules and get off scott-free from doing the dishes?" snickered Dawn, bringing a hand out from under the blanket to point at where that named Slayer was casually strolling behind the line of young women.

The normal humans seated from about fifty feet away could see Faith's mouth open and close as if she was saying something, but only an entertained Buffy could hear, "Hey, ladies, somebody better check if Andy's cookin' everything right. Not like he's done this before, what with us comin' here after last Thanksgivin'. A quick peek couldn't hurt, right? Say, Vi, you said you gave Andy your mom's personal recipe for the stuffin'. Dunno 'bout that, but me, I can't help thinkin' he might not go to all that trouble—"

Turning her head, Violet Day growled at her sister Slayer, "Not a chance, Faith! You and the rest, you did the crime, you do the time!"

An aggrieved Faith volleyed back, "It's not like we knew it was the sheriff's personal car when we stole it! An' we put it back right where it belonged after us bitches took down that damn demon sorcerer! Yeah, okay, alla the windows and mosta the paint mighta gone missin', but it wasn't our fault!"

Vi smirked at Faith. "Too bad! I'm not passing up the chance to take lots of pictures of you in rubber gloves, a hairnet, and a 'KISS THE COOK' apron elbow deep in dishwasher bubbles!"

Snarling wordlessly at a snickering Vi, Faith stomped off, looking for another potential mark in order to avoid her upcoming horrible fate of scrubbing servitude.

Back at the gazebo, Buffy was bent over in helpless laughter. Watched with varying gleeful interest by the others there, Xander, Dawn, Willow, and Giles, these Scooby Gang members then heard their Hellmouth comrade announce, "See you at our table. I'm going over where Faith is and totally rub her nose in it."

Getting up onto her feet, Buffy smiled at everyone there and then headed toward where Faith was glowering at B's approach. Great, this was all she needed today!

Just when Buffy arrived at where an irritated Faith was waiting, mouth beginning to open to offer helpful advice from her own DoubleMeat Palace job on how to avoid chapped fingers, a supernatural portal abruptly opened in the back garden area just beyond the line of Slayers.

Overjoyed at their success in invading the Cleveland House so easily, Nukluk the Ednid demon flourished his sword in one hand and held out the tribe's magical amulet with the other.

Yes! Just as Icrwt had promised, the Slayers were terrified into total immobility! Opening his mouth to roar their war cry as the order to charge, Nukluk was echoed both in that bellow and by the rest of the rushing warriors heading full tilt behind their leader right at the Slayers.

Who – from Buffy and Faith down to the least experienced superhuman female there - had to spend at least a full second taking in the fact that about two dozen eight-foot-tall turkeys wielding assorted swords, battleaxes, and maces and yelling "GOBBLE-GOBBLE!" at the tops of their lungs had just appeared from out of thin air and were attacking them.

All right, maybe it was two seconds. But only because it was Thanksgiving.

Of course, the Slayers led by Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane counterattacked in turn with their own headlong charge.

Fifteen minutes later:

Surveying the field of battle, a dazed Rupert Giles declared in his hollowest voice, "They ate them! They actually tore them apart with their bare hands and ate them!"

"Yes, Giles," Xander patiently responded from where nobody had stirred in the gazebo throughout everything, "We know. We were here, too, remember?"

Giles seemed not to have heard Xander. Instead, in the same monotone, he continued, "Raw."

Sharing a mutual concerned glance, Dawn eventually shrugged at Willow and Xander. Soon enough, they'd fill up Giles with enough hot Earl Grey to sufficiently dim the latest horrific memories. Satisfied at her mental note, Dawn then glanced over at the back garden at where her big sister and the other Slayers were lolling around at ease on the ground.

Dawn couldn't help but to identify that current placid attitude by every one of Sineya's daughters as matching that of a pride of lionesses after their latest kill. Catching sight of the last of the descending feathers which had gone up at least several hundred feet in the fury of the recent conflict before covering virtually all of the garden, Dawn cleared her throat.

"Okay, guys, stupidity is usually enough of an explanation, but I'd like a little more of a honest reason for the latest bout of weirdness. Anybody got some idea?"

All of them looked at where Willow was on the bench. This witch had a thoughtful expression on her face, until she made a sudden mystical gesture towards one part of the feather-strewn garden. A small circular object rose up from there to waist level, and next floated over to just in front of Willow regarding it keenly.

"That's the thing which broke through my wards." She peered more closely at it. "Hold it…Giles, can I borrow your handkerchief?"

The older man seemed to be brought back to reality at hearing this prosaic request. He pulled out that item from his front jacket pocket and handed it over.

Accepting the handkerchief with a preoccupied "Thanks," Willow then shifted this fabric in her hand until a corner of that square cloth was uppermost. Then, she spat on the corner and used it to rub the surface of a portion of the strange object she'd summoned.

Once she'd finished in this action, Willow started to hand back Giles' borrowed property, until he dryly told her, "Keep it, please. Now, was there a reason for that?"

Beginning to smile, Willow told everyone, "Kind of. See, I recognized the demon language, but it looked a bit odd, what was engraved there on this amulet. It looked a little like the usual 'striking fear in their hearts', but when I cleaned it off, it showed what's actually the spell Buffy and the others got hit with."

"Which was…?" prompted Xander of his bestest bud seemingly finding this truly funny.

"Translated literally, it means 'assail their stomachs with the greatest of hungers.'"

The small group in the gazebo quietly contemplated this for several moments. Xander eventually broke the silence there by sniggering, "So, when a bunch of already ravenous Slayers on Thanksgiving Day got attacked by giant turkeys—"

Dawn also beginning to giggle broke in on Xander, "—which were throwing around starving spells—"

Willow barely containing her own amusement finished off with, "—it turned into chow time!"

Contently burping while staring up at the clear sky, Buffy ignored the loud laughter coming from the gazebo. Even Giles' acerbic, "Really, people? Must you?" didn't disturb her good mood.

At that moment, Andrew Wells opened the back door. Drawing in a breath, this young man paused at seeing how the outside was now liberally littered with turkey feathers.

Deciding with an accepting shrug that he'd learn later just exactly what'd happened outside the house, Andrew shouted, "Dinnertime!" before prudently stepping well to the side.

It was a wise precaution, since every Slayer arose in a flash from their prone positions and stampeded in a group towards the back door. Once again, Buffy and Faith were leading the rush.

Giles stared in shock at this newest event. He protested, "Surely none of them are still hungry, not after—"

He broke off when Xander, Dawn and Willow jumped to their feet and also sprinted from the gazebo across the garden towards the back door.

Giles then heard from Xander calling over his shoulder, "Seven years in Sunnydale, and you're still surprised at Slayer appetites? Better get a move on, Giles, or the last drumstick's gonna be mine!"

Arising at once, Giles snorted, "Not bloody likely."

For a mature Englishman, he had quite a turn of speed himself.

Author's Note: All of the demon names are backwards versions of the word 'turkey' in various languages, as given below:

Dinde – French

Tacchino – Italian

Guajolote – Mexican Spanish

Truthahn – German

Turtsiya – Russian

Indik – Yiddish

Twrci – Welsh

Indyk – Polish

Kalkun – Norwegian

Galopoúla – Greek

And Meleagro Day just means Turkey Day in Esperanto.