"So, how'd you find me?" the farrier short in stature but with an impressively muscled upper chest clad in a leather smock asked while expertly filing to its proper size the horseshoe he was working on at that moment.

Dawn replied, "Willow – a friend of ours with really good computer skills – hacked into some facial analysis databanks of various spy agencies and did a comparative search among the longest-held photos to the most recent ones. Your picture soon came up. Don't worry, she promptly got rid of all your images plus any other records and wrote a little worm program that'll tell any computer to ignore you in the future."

From where she was standing just outside the opening of the Illinois Renfaire smith's tent for some fresh air as a defense against the very pungent smells inside of both generations of horses and unfortunately the sweaty farrier himself, Buffy nodded in agreement.

The farrier paused in his work, waving with some puzzlement the heavy file he was still holding towards his face almost entirely covered by a thick, bushy beard and curly hair the same grey shade from which only deep-sunk but bright eyes and a wide nose were discernible. "I thought this would keep anyone from recognizing me, starting when beards and long hair for men came back in fashion fifty years ago."

"Ears don't change," Dawn told him rather kindly.

The farrier resumed filing down the horseshoe. "I guess not." He shot a quizzical stare at his two visitors. "All right, you've got me. So what do you want?"

Taking a deep breath, Dawn mentally reminded herself not to blow it. "We'd like the last living Neanderthal to come work for the New Council."

For some reason, that produced a remarkably blasé reaction from a man who'd once called himself Clarence Aloysius Gaffney and had decided to take on this name again for the current era now that anybody previously knowing it had surely died out decades before, "And do what?"

The mouths of Buffy and Dawn fell open in their mutual surprise. Dawn managed to recover a bit faster, though she couldn't help babbling, "Uh, ah…we'd like to hear about everything you've done, for starters. Your travels, the people you've lived among, their everyday activities—"

"All fifty thousand or so years of it?" Clarence responded in a tone of what was nothing less than sheerest sarcasm.

He then eyed his dumbfounded visitors with a somewhat strange expression of exasperated pity. "I mentioned to the last guy who knew the truth about me, back in New York City in the late 'thirties, that if I'd ever tried keeping a diary the last couple of centuries alone I would've wound up with lugging six trunks full of paper around with me. Ever consider that might work for my memories, too?"

"You mean, there's just too much stuff to remember?" Buffy ventured, winning a beam of approval via large, white false teeth from Mr. Gaffney.

"Yep. Good thing is, after a hundred and twenty years, just about everything fades. Oh, I keep my original life up to when that lightning bolt hit me so long ago during a hunting trip but after that, it's pretty spotty."

Clarence gestured with the file again, holding it up. "Take this, for instance. I know I've been a blacksmith and farrier before, but not how many times or where, and I had to relearn it all again for working here. If I stop and take up some other sorts of jobs for the rest of the century, I'll eventually forget it again."

Heading over with staggering steps towards a fortunately-handy hay bale, Dawn sat down hard upon this, rubbing her forehead with despair. She moaned, "All the extinct languages you learned, the history you watched up close and personal…they're completely gone!"

Clarence simply shrugged. "History's just one day at a time, and during most of this, nothing important happens at all. People should be glad of it, too. Like me, they only want to get on with their lives."

Ignoring how Dawn was on the verge of pulling out her hair over hearing that bit of placid philosophy, Buffy thoughtfully examined Clarence once more returning to his metalwork. Those treetrunk arms he had, it looked like he was more than capable of straightening out that horseshoe with a single twist of his hands…

The Slayer tried again. "We can always use more people who know how to fight."

"No, thank you," Clarence instantly declared. "I've remained alive this long by staying out of fights. When trouble comes around, I make sure to leave town as fast as possible. Most times when this wasn't in the cards, it was usually because some guy on a horse pointing a big sword at me suggested I join their side right now without absolutely any argument or backtalk. Are you planning that, miss?"

Buffy reluctantly shook her head, adding, "We don't repeat the old Council's mistakes. But…look, this much time you've been around, you've got to have encountered vampires and other nasty demons before, plus knowing about magic. Didn't you ever get involved then?"

"I tried my best not to," Clarence earnestly answered the young woman. "That kind of supernatural commotion came under the heading of serious trouble for me, besides, and I've always managed to avoid it after a fashion. If I ever needed a reminder to persist in this, all I had to do was to dredge up the whole stupid Wandering Jew situation. I've never really figured out how that mess started in the first place, but once was quite enough, if you take my meaning."

Listening to this, Dawn couldn't help asking, "What about vampires, though?"

The Neanderthal's massive shoulders lifted up and down once like a rogue wave traversing the ocean. "After checking me out at a distance, lots of 'em decided to go for much easier prey instead. The really hungry ones coming nearer still mostly changed their minds because of my smell. Just like dogs, they absolutely can't stand it."

He dryly glanced at Buffy at her position in the tent opening. "Guess it works on Slayers, too."

Buffy hoped that guy couldn't see how she was blushing, but judging from how warm her face felt now, this wasn't likely. The truly regrettable part was that Mr. Gaffney indeed spoke the truth. His harsh bodily reek to any other Slayer's nose would be both unbearable and disconcerting if he ever crossed their paths, either of what would make the New Council's warrior women residents worldwide with their heightened senses swiftly flee these Slayer Houses for more salubrious locations anywhere. The nearest sewer, for example…

Attempting to come up with an effective reason for Mr. Gaffney to nonetheless join the New Council, Buffy cast her gaze around the farrier's tent with its propane forge, anvil, hammers, and other tools to find something there which might change his mind—

"Hey, can you make good swords? We can always use more for the girls."

Clarence once again bestowed a decidedly sardonic glower towards Buffy. "Like I said before, if I've ever done that kind of blacksmithing, it was long ago enough for me to forget it. Honestly, you could find dozens of guys a lot better at that than me alone."

"But you don't want to," sighed Dawn, getting up from the hay bale.

"That's right, miss," politely responded Clarence. "All I've ever asked for was a quiet life. I didn't think it'd be this long, but by and large, it's been a peaceful one for me because of heroes like you. I'm very glad to have met the both of you."

Clarence then intently studied a disappointed Buffy for a few seconds to next put down his file and horseshoe onto the nearby anvil. He then strode over into the direction of this former Sunnydale defender in the tent opening, stopping before Buffy Summers now warily regarding someone nearly at the exact same eye level as herself.

Reaching out to gently take the startled human's hands in his own enormous ones, Clarence Aloysius Gaffney formally announced, "I, Shining Hawk of the Turtle Clan, do call those who were the Slayer, those who are the Slayer, and those who shall be the Slayer, the true champions of this world. All of you who lived, fought, and died to protect us from the dark, may blessings be granted forevermore to your sisters in the Bright Lands. Thank you, tall one, from the last of your cousins."

Several moments later, Dawn and Buffy were walking among the Renfaire participants towards the parking lot field, the farrier's tent now a hundred yards behind the two women. Dawn then heard a distinct sniffing sound coming from where her older sister was by Dawn's left side. Looking over there, Dawn was shocked to see Buffy surreptitiously wipe away a tear.

"Oh, honey," Dawn sympathetically said, "I'm so happy somebody in the know finally took the time to appreciate everything you've done since being Called. It doesn't happen all that often, even if it should a lot more."

Buffy sent a poignant smile towards Dawn. That same smile swiftly quirked into a more ironical twist of her lips, along with the sheepish admission, "Yeah, not like every day a fifty thousand year old guy lays one intense compliment on me. Even if it also came with a humongous stench really close up that still feels like two red-hot crowbars just got shoved deep into my sinuses."