FIC: Militat Omnis Amans (Every Lover is a Warrior) Part 9c/?

["KPB/LCMB" <kevin.beckett@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Militat Omnis Amans (Every Lover is a Warrior) Part 9e/?
K. Beckett (c) 2000, with the exception of musical lyrics which are (c) the
individual artists / labels.

Disclaimers:
Buffy, Willow and all of the other characters and places from the show
belong to Joss Whedon, WB and Mutant Enemy etal. Everyone and everything
else is mine. None of my characters are meant to resemble anyone living,
dead or un-dead, if you see yourself you are looking way too hard.
This story contains descriptions of sexual acts between consenting adult
women, and was written in a jurisdiction where it was legal to do so. If
this offends you, don't read.

Rating: R
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The three young women left their room and proceeded to get their day
started. Once they had settled into the village they, along with Buffy and
the guardsmen, had resumed their daily exercise routines. It provided a
routine to their exile, in addition to the obvious benefits to Buffy and
Willow's pregnancies. In spite of their daily grumbling, none of the women
would have willingly given up the exercise, for, as had happened to others,
the daily routine had become a habit that was very hard to break. After
their exercise and bath they were returning to the inn in a very relaxed
mood, laughing and chatting, wondering just what Buffy was going to put
together for breakfast.

"Juice and fruit," was Bridie's opinion, "she would be far too dangerous
using a stove."
"Not fair," interjected Willow, "she's very capable in the kitchen,
usually."
"Usually," asked Aiofe, "what do you mean by 'usually'."
"If she isn't preoccupied or worried about something," replied the
arch-mage.

Just as they entered the common room the three women heard a boom, as the
building shook around them. They then saw a cloud of dark smoke billow out
of the kitchen and rise to the high ceiling of the room.

"Buffy," they all said together as they broke into a run towards the
kitchen, to see just what damage had been done by the slayer.

As they entered the kitchen they could see Buffy standing over the stove,
holding a pot, which was still belching acrid smoke. There other evidence
of damage, Buffy's singed hair, her soot streaked clothing and droplets of
blackened porridge that had been scattered throughout the kitchen. Buffy
was looking, with a vexed expression, at the pot, as if it had deliberately
caused the explosion. Meanwhile the usual occupants of the kitchen, the
cook and her three assistants, were trying, with various degrees of success,
to keep from doubling over in laughter.

"Buffy," said Willow as she came up to her lover, "what happened?"
"Oh, hi Will," replied Buffy, "guess I had too much pressure."

At that everyone, Willow included, broke out in laughter over the unintended
double meaning in Buffy's words. They were unable to bring themselves under
control, every time someone stopped laughing, they would either see Buffy,
or remember her words, and start to laugh again.

"This is so not funny," commented Buffy when everyone had finally started to
calm down, "I mean it," she continued, "here I am, trying to do something
good and..." at that point even Buffy lost it as she too broke down, seeing
the humour in the situation.
"Anyone for crispy porridge," she asked through her giggles, tears streaming
down her face, "got lots, with extra burnt flavour, more than enough for
everyone."

Later that morning the four women were sitting around a kitchen table, still
giggling about the 'porridge' incident. Buffy had taken the time to clean
up and had had Amana trim her hair removing the worst of the singeing. They
were sitting, eating a breakfast of meat, eggs, fruit and baked goods, all
of which had been prepared by the experts in the kitchen.

"No porridge," commented Aiofe, "not for a long time."
"I don't think that I'll ever look at it the same way ever again," added
Willow.
"Me neither," said Buffy, not at all upset at the events. She was able to
look at the humour in the situation, and realized that the kitchen accident
had given them all a much-needed cathartic release. They had all been so
wound up by the events of the last few months, combined with the pressures
of rehabilitating the inn that they were beginning to become stressed out.

"Well," said Willow, "now that we are all gathered together, lets discuss
the upcoming nuptials."
"Yes. Lets," added Buffy, "after all it is in five days."
"How can we help," asked Aiofe, "we are ready to be your dogsbodies."
"List, have a list," replied Willow, "I'm sure I have to have a list."
"Easy lover," commented Buffy, "deep breath and take it one step at a time."
"Right," replied Willow as she took a sharp intake of breath and continued,
"ok, I don't think we need to worry about things such as invites and such."
"Nope," interjected Buffy, "that's easy. Everyone in the town is invited."
"So," continued the arch-mage, "we'll need you two to make sure everyone
knows about the events."
"No problemo," replied Bridie, "what else?"

"Well," continued Willow, "there's flowers and other stuff for the circle. I
guess your best bet would be to work with Amana on that. No need to worry
about dresses at least, since we'll be using our ritual robes."
"Ok," said Aiofe.

"Rings," injected Buffy suddenly, "we need to do something about rings."
"That's ok love," replied Willow, "I've an idea about that."

"Well then," said Buffy, "carpe diem."

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The four women left the table to start their various activities. Aiofe and
Bridie went off to find Amana and Grael, to start the required work on
collecting the necessary items for the hand fasting. Meanwhile, Willow lead
Buffy to one of the smaller rooms of the inn, which she and Buffy had
earlier appropriated as their own personal workroom, to put into action her
plan for the rings.

Willow was going to try to combine each of their essences into the molecular
structure of the rings. In order to do this she was going to create pure
gold, since it was one of the most magically reactive substances that could
be used for rings. She was then going to forge the rings, and in their
making incorporate both the biological and magical essences of both of them
into the rings. It was going to be a long, and exhausting day for the both
of them.

Willow explained the basics of her plan to Buffy as they gathered the
material they needed together.

"Ok, Buff," she said, "first we're going to purify some gold."
"What gold?"
"We have a little ore that Grael found in the mountains a few weeks ago,"
replied the arch-mage, "it should provide enough for two rings."
"Sounds good," said Buffy, "how do we purify it?"
"Well," replied Willow, "we are going to have to work together on this.
First, you are going to use your ability to manipulate air to create a small
vacuum around the ore."
"Sounds ok, so far."
"Then I'll use my ability to manipulate earth to extract all of the
impurities out of the ore, leaving us with pure gold."

They proceeded as Willow had outlined. They used a previously created box
into which they placed the ore. Buffy concentrated on the air located
within the box, and then gradually reduced the air content until she had
been successful in creating the desired vacuum. At the same time Willow
used her abilities to seal the box, so that no air would leak back into it.
Once the vacuum had been created Willow looked within to the see the ore
sample. Using her inner eye she looked deep within the sample until she was
able to identify its molecular makeup. She identified the parts of the ore
that was gold, and then forced it to gather together and leave the ore
sample. Once they opened the box, they were left with a lump of pure gold,
and another lump of various trace elements.

This had been an exhausting and lengthily process that took over four hours
to complete. At the end, Willow was exhausted, and there was still a lot of
work yet to be done. After wolfing down a quick lunch of cheese and bread,
which had been brought to them by Amana, Willow set out to complete the
first part of the ring forging.

"That was harder than I thought it would be," commented Willow as she
finished her lunch.
"What's next," asked Buffy?

"Oh," replied Willow, "not too much. Just forge the rings and incorporate
our essences into them."
"Curb the sarcasm," said Buffy, "how am I going to help?"
"After I create the rings," answered Willow, "you are going to collect some
blood from each of us, in addition to some of our magical essence, and then
we will both work together to combine them into the rings."

"Let's do it," said Buffy.

Willow concentrated on the pure gold that she had extracted. Using her
ability to manipulate the essence of earth, she split the gold into three
equal portions. With Buffy's assistance, she created a pocket of heat,
surrounding the gold. Once the gold had been heated to the correct
temperature she levitated, and then she started to rotate the gold, spinning
it out into three long strands. As soon as she was satisfied with the
length and consistency of the strands of gold, she then braided the strands
together. Finally, she split the braid in two before joining the ends of
each portion, thereby creating the basis of the rings. The rings were still
glowing with heat, since Willow had not yet quenched the rings.

"Ok love," said Willow, the sweat dripping off her body and the exhaustion
evident in her voice, "your turn."

"Right you are," replied Buffy who then began her portion of the ritual.
First, she used a scalpel to collect from each of them a small amount of
blood, which she then placed in a crucible. Looking deep within herself,
she translated her sight so that she could see into the magical realm.
Finding the ties that bound her permanently to Willow, she used some of her
biofeedback ability to direct a small amount of the essence and energy from
the ties into the crucible. She then forced the biological and magical
elements to combine to form a single tincture.

Both women then worked together to force the tincture of their essences into
the still reactive rings. Finally, once Willow was convinced that the
molecular structure of the gold had been bonded to their essences, she used
her ability to manipulate water to create a small pool of pure water, in a
copper basin which had been placed under the rings, in which to quench them.
Steam rose from the surface of the water as she released her hold on the
rings and they dropped into the basin. After several minutes both women
leaned over the basin and saw on the bottom the two rings, glowing with both
reflected light and somehow with their own luminescence.

"Wow," commented Buffy as she retrieved the rings from the basin, "that was
amazing."
"No kidding," replied the exhausted arch-mage, "I need a bath, food and a
cuddle. Not necessarily in that order."
"Your wish is my command," said Buffy, "will you need me to carry you to the
bath?"
"I don't think that will be necessary," answered her lover with a smile,
"but you may have to support me on the way."

As they were leaving their workroom and heading back through the common room
to the baths, the women noticed that there was a gathering of people near
the entrance of the inn. Looking over and seeing that Amana, Grael, Aiofe
and Bridie were all standing near the door Willow called out, "what's up
folks?"

Amana turned around and seeing the two women replied, "Buffy, Willow are you
finished?"
"Just now," answered Buffy.
"Good," replied the older woman, "please come over. We have guests. Daithi
has brought in another group of refugees."

<Guests,> asked Willow, <we've had refugees before, but what does she mean
by calling this group guests?> Previously when they had come across groups
of fleeing humans they had offered some sanctuary before sending them across
the mountains to safer locations. Never before had they invited any of them
to stay longer than a week or so.
<Don't know love,> replied Buffy, <let's go see.>

They went over to the entrance to find a group of about ten young women,
surrounded by most of Willow's task force. They were all in their late
teens or early twenties, and in very good physical shape. In their soiled
and ripped clothing and exhausted expressions, they bore the evidence of
days of hard travel. Standing just in front of the group, and giving the
appearance of being its leader was one blond haired woman staring at the
floor of the inn. Sensing Willow and Buffy's approach she slowly raised her
head until she was looking directly at them.

Both young women were stunned. Standing facing Buffy was her identical
twin. She wasn't pregnant, nor was she in the superb physical shape that
Buffy was in, but the face was identical.

As Buffy and Willow stood in disbelief with the others, she addressed Willow
in a voice that was tired beyond belief, "Lady, we have been called to
help."

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To be continued...