FIC; Encounter (3/3)

[JDMeans@xxxxxxx]

Disclaimers; The Joss Posse at Mutant Enemy own Buffy and crew. Disney hasa 
lock on the Gargoyle characters. Yep, it's the third episode of "Defenders 
of the Night". Enjoy.
Rating; PG-13. About the same level of action you'd see in a typical episode 
of either Buffy or Gargoyles.
Archives; Go for it, just let me know where and when, and spell my name 
right.
Feedback; I'm still here at JDMeans@xxxxxxx
Summary; Buffy meets a new ally and a powerful new enemy while investigating 
a werewolf-like attack.  

Defenders of the Night
Encounter
By Kirayoshi


Chapter 3
First Contact

For God's Sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd;
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd.
--William Shakespeare
"King Richard II", Act III Scene III 

She had poured herself a cup of chamomile tea, and was leaning back in her 
office chair listening to the new Cherish the Ladies CD when she heard a 
knock at her door. Lowering the volume of her CD player, she opened the 
door, pleasantly surprised to find out who her guest was. "Tara," she 
smiled. "Please, come in, make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you, Miss Lafayette," Tara answered timidly as she took her seat, 
unwilling to take her eyes off of her mentor. The melodious Celtic music in 
the background would have normally soothed the younger woman, but today it 
washed past her. When Miss Lafayette offered her a cup of chamomile tea, 
Tara declined. Until she was certain of what she was dealing with, Tara 
wanted to keep her wits about her.

Miss Lafayette moved her chair out from behind her desk and sat directly in 
front of Tara. "You look like you have something on your mind, Tara," she 
observed. "Is there something you wish to talk about?"

Tara could feel the gentle power of Miss Lafayette's eyes upon her, regarding 
her in a motherly fashion, yet at the same time analyzing her carefully. She 
shied away from this loving scrutiny, and concentrated on her reasons for 
coming here. "Well, there is something, yeah. I had this dream the other 
night, and, well, I wondered if you could help me understand it."

Lafayette pursed her lips in thought. "Do you think it was more than a 
normal dream?"

"I think it was supposed to be telling me something," Tara admitted. "Likea 
vision, or something." She paused, not sure how to proceed.  

Miss Lafayette regarded Tara with a gimlet eye, picking up every nuance, 
every awkward glance, every shift of her body in the chair. "Maybe if you 
described the dream," she suggested, "I could understand it better."

Tara sighed, her shoulders sagging under an unseen load. "Well, there were 
knights on a battlefield," she started. "Most of them were dying, or already 
dead. And a king, dying on the field. And there was this woman, I think she 
was a priestess or something. And the weird thing was, she looked like you.  
I mean, maybe that's why I was thinking priestess, because of you and the 
wiccan group and all?"

Lafayette nodded slowly. She placed her teacup down on her desk, almost 
reverently. "You dreamed of Arthur. Of the fall of Camelot."

Tara gasped audibly, and Lafayette had to suppress a smile at her reaction.  
"How d-did you know ab-bout C-camelot?" Tara fell back into her nervous 
stutter as she gawked at her mentor. "I d-didn't tell you that my dream was 
about King Arthur, I…I..." Tara blinked for a second, then found he