makeitquick | 4th Dusting

[ buffy has a harder time ignoring the monkey. but she tries, regardless. ]

Right. Here's me, fret-free. [ a pause; she sits on a chair. ] Where do you wanna start?

Wherever you wanna. You're the tales-teller.

[Eyebrow arch]

...Shadow Men. Know anything about them?

Not by that name, I think.

...Think of them as the Council before the Council got all....Councilfied.

What's a Council?

The Council. As in Watchers'. Watchers' Council.

Oh.

You mean the people that shoved all sorts of mojo and demons and stuff into a girl to make the slayers?

...Right. So you know that part? How do you know that part? Who told you about that part?

[ gee. she had to go and get creepily violated in the first slayer's place to go learn about that. ]

He- ...guy that told me I was the Slayer.

[A bit evasive.]

...Huh. Took me seven years to learn that part.

Sucks.

...I don't know. Sometimes? I wonder if I was better off not knowing. [ the chains. they had been the worst. chain to that cave while the shadow men worked their ritual.

she must have been so scared. she must have been so angry. sineya. ]

...Y'think? Sorta just a tale of a long dead girl.

[Melaka can't know the connection of the slayer dreams. She brushes it off. It did surprise her at the time, yes, but the emotional impact of it never hit her]

A long dead girl who lives...[ huh. how to explain this without sounding corny? ] I still see her, Melaka. I saw her in my first dream and I've seen her in nightmares. I've seen her on spirit quests. The first girl. I stood where she stood -- where they did that to her.

They tried to turn her into a tool, Melaka. Turn all of us into their own weapons. [ a beat. ] But they failed.

Seeing as how the Watcher in my time was a needs, failed bad.

They haven't...always failed, though. Over time. Some've been sneakier than others. Some have been better than others. Sure. The diaries are informative and all but...the dreams?

[ a pause. ] That's through their eyes. The girls. Not their Watchers.

[Nod. That's what's been bugging her - the point of view issue]

If I'm going to tell you about them -- the ones I've seen? Then I'm not going to hold back on any of the details. And their lives were rarely pretty. [ their deaths even less so.

buffy is nervous. she has never committed herself to giving someone else so many details about the dreams. normally, it's something she wants to skirt past. ]

...Summers, been a warrens girl since I was born. I can handle some fug.

[Without shifting too much. She senses the other's nervousness, but doesn't know what to make of it]

[ she picks at the arm of the chair. ]

There's one Slayer. In the Middle Ages. I-I don't know her name but I've kinda given her one. She shows up a lot. Beautiful white dress. When you see her, you can't help but get the impression that she's very...pure. Very righteous. She didn't accept the calling, at first.

[Nod. "what's a middle ages" comes to mind, but she dismisses that]

...There was a town. Her town. It was under siege by a pretty big time vamp, for her era. Saint Just. I'm sure the name was pure irony.

[She has no idea how that is ironic, but decides not to press the point right now. she just nods]

...I don't know what it's like in the future but -- this Slayer? She comes from a time when it was even tougher to be a woman with power. She kept who she was hidden from the village until Saint Just attacked. Would've brought the whole city to its knees except she stepped out of her secret identity and she saved the place. Every. Last. Villager.

She should've been a hero, right? That what I would have called her.

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