FIC :: Fabula Rasa (2/3)

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's that Nyrond again -- before the flames get too hot !!
 
 
TITLE: Fabula Rasa ((2/3)/7) -- in other words, installment two (of three) of the first episode of what might be seven 
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: All characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I'm poor, I'm harmless, I'm just borrowing.
SUMMARY: It's got a book in it, it's got Buffy and Willow, and an 'owl
SPOILERS: None, except that nothing much happens, so we're still talking minimal smut
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome. It's still not my fault. And Iapologise again in advance if I never get to the end of this. And Hi to anyone that knows me (especially the UK lot, some of whom may be subscribershere-to -- Are you there, Annie ?)
 
 
    
Fabula Rasa - - Part 2

 

 

Okay - it was white. Very white.  

The first thing Buffy did was check she was standing on something. The second thing was climb up off it, and help Willow to her feet, from where she'd fallen after cannoning, unintentionally, into Buffy.

"Where are we ?"

"Pass. Do you have any ideas ?"

"Not a one."

 

It was about then that Buffy registered that she was wearing some sort of white frock. So was Willow, but hers hung from just her left shoulder, whereas Buffy's had straps either side.  

"We weren't wearing these when we started," she said.

"Nope," Willow replied. "Any ideas how we get back, only my folks might expect me home before midnight ?"

Buffy looked round. "If there's an 'exit' sign, I'm not seeing it, Will. Nor am I seeing Giles - - on the other hand, he's had plenty time to wanderoff."

Willow pulled open her magick bag.

"At least this came with me. Hang on a moment, and I'll try something."

She produced a short rowan rod and half-sang, under her breath, something that sounded both musical and incomprehensible to the Slayer.

Then she pivoted, very delicately and precisely, on one heel. 

Then she looked peeved.

"Should have worked - - it does at home. Amy's book called it a Latin name, but I just call it Way Home. Useful when Oz and I used to go up into thewoods . "

Buffy grinned: "I won't ask, so long as you tell me every detail later." She had always accepted Oz, who had focussed on Willow, whereas Xander, whose eye was caught by every girl that passed, Buffy found far harder to take seriously.

"Anyway, I take it, it doesn't work."

"Near as I can tell," Willow replied, "it thinks every way is home, or no way at all."

"Well, we have to go somewhere - standing here is, in a manner of speaking,getting us nowhere."

"I didn't expect this to happen," Willow admitted: "I should have taken more precautions."

Buffy pulled her friend into a hug. "Not your fault. You Research Girl, me Slayer - frankly neither of us are Pathfinder Scouts of the Deep Woods."

 

And with those words suddenly there were in the middle of a dark and gloomyforest, with dark shadowy pine trees all around them, and a narrow path leading off in one direction.

"And that looks like our cue," Buffy said.

"But how . "

"No idea - not caring for now."

"Not caring ?" Willow sounded slightly mystified and slightly miffed: Buffy, leading the way, hasted to explain (she knew how cranky Will could get with Unexplained Mysteries - - like what Cordelia and Harmony had been doingwhen Buffy had decoyed the Bilitis demon away from the Queen C a few weeksbefore).

"There's no point getting into 'how' now, when it's just we two. Once we get someone local, who might know, on the other hand . " and she made an overhand stabbing motion with a wooden stake she didn't have.

"Point," Willow acknowledged, "By the way, there's a dead sapling over there." She pointed and, with a broad grin, Buffy followed up and acquired four makeshift stakes from among the dry wood.

"They'll do," she said.

 

That was when the first howl came on the air.

It wasn't a comforting sound. Not friendly. Slightly feral. Indeed, verymuch a wolf-in-a-hunting-mood noise (Willow had learned to be pretty good on wolf-calls).

"Something's out there, Willow said softly, trying to crouch and make herself a bit smaller.

"True," Buffy replied, following suit. "I think the residents are home."

"Could we skip the polite amenities and just go without saying hello," Willow asked. Buffy slipped her free arm round the witch's shoulder.

"I hate to point it out, but it's them saying hello at present. Come on --keep moving. We must be going somewhere."

She was just concentrating on where they would go (it seemed to be getting darker), when Willow gave out an "eep" sound.

Buffy turned, fearing the worst, and found Willow holding out the rowan rod, which was vibrating perceptibly, even to Buffy who wasn't holding it.

The howl was repeated, and closer.

"Which way ?" Buffy asked.

Willow pointed, and they ran, like young does across a meadow.

 

Except that meadows don't normally come covered in trees. With roots. Willow ended up being slung over Buffy's shoulders for a few hundred paces.

Some people, she said to herself, would resent this. I, on the other hand,don't, because I get to watch my love do something she does superlatively well: cope in a crisis.

"Whoa - left. At ten o'clock," Willow called, as the rod twitched again, and she caught sight of something.

The something was a miniature Stonehenge - about twenty feet tall, and about eighty round. In the middle of it was a round stone table, which looked about thirty feet across. It also looked to have something written on it. If Willow had ever seen a Capital-C-Clue, this was one.

Buffy effortlessly changed course and headed for it.

 

And dropped Willow abruptly when she sat down firmly after running into some sort of invisible barrier.

"Ow. You okay, Will ?" she asked, as she tried, simultaneously, to pick herself up, recover the two stakes she'd lost, and check nothing was leaping out on them from the now-very-definite shadows.

There wasn't, but the howls were still ringing out on the air, and seemed to be getting closer.

"Expressing definite preference for going home," Willow said, emphasising the last word. At the same time she was testing the barrier - - it was there, it was invisible, and, so far, it had proved impermeable to a rock, somelank grass growing in the vague light of the tree-girt vastness, her shoe,and her rowan rod (although the rod was telling her firmly that the Way Home was somewhere within the stone circle.

"No way home yet," Buffy called back. Then, a second or two later: "And visitors are arriving."

 

Part 3 in preparation

Be Afraid, be very .... all right, then.

 

Soren