Re: FEEDBACK :: Fables of Tone (4/4)

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: C S Armitage 
To: buffywantswillow@xxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 5:58 AM
Subject: FIC :: Fables of Tone (4/4)


And now, to close Episode (hey, guys, what episode number are we on, anyway, what with spell-checking, writing, rewriting, drafting, thinking aboutand dreaming of smoochies ??!!) whatever:
   

TITLE: Fables of Tone (3/4) 
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: All characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Some Archetypes are being used in this story: they look like they belong to Other Companies, but it's the Archetype I'm borrowing, and not their characters. Similarly, I acknowledge borrowing a body-shape from C.S.Lewis, but that's all, these aren't anything like his was, this is p*ss*nt versions.
SUMMARY: It's got Buffy and Willow in it, it's got some non-specific trnas-dimensional demonic thingies and it's got a young man (for those who likesuch things). If you're all very good, it might also contain smoochage, but you'll all have to sit quietly for the story first.
ARCHIVING:: What archiving ? Do I have an archive ? Where does one getone ? Are they taxable ?
SPOILERS: None; should there be ?
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome. Thanks to all those who've written so far.


   
Fables of Tone - - Part 4
   
Suddenly a scent sailed on the light breeze, which eddied now that they were among foothills. Buffy sensed it and her senses tingled. Dollars to donuts there were demons about.

Willow had noticed, too, but in a different way. The voice in her inner ear had said <This would be a good place for an ambush>.

Sharouq knew that the shrine was higher up, on a small plateau which overlooked a natural bowl on the farther side of the mountains. And he knew the narrow pass which led up towards that ledge. They were in the pass now, a passage just wide enough for three horses abreast, with steep walls climbing to a narrow river of sky above, before and behind.

It was obvious that, having got thus far, Sharouq expected the famed Warrior Scout to lead. Willow didn't like the idea, but it was the part fate had ascribed her. Buffy fell back to cover the rear, and they proceeded.

   

They were about halfway to the top when the attack came.

>From the lip of the canyon walls the demons swept down through the air like silent wraiths.

But silent enough neither for the Slayer, the Chosen One, (even if she was presently Companion to a Hero), whether you called her Buffy Summers or Gabrelita of Carthens, nor for the Warrior Scout, the Witch Adept (who happened to be the Chosen One's lover), whether she was Serena WarGodsChild or Willow Rosenberg.

Buffy pulled two stakes from her waistband (they had once been chair-legsat the Pig and Blanket), and slipped from her horse, tossing the reins to Sharouq. Willow vaulted from her horse effortlessly, drew her sword in a single motion, and slashed it through a demon's chest even as it flew at her.

   

Buffy somersaulted past one demon, caught the next by a scrawny ankle, dodged its beak, and plunged her stake hard into its emaciated chest. Then she let go and rolled aside, before either of the other two could get her.

   

Willow's first enemy dissolved into vapour, and she carolled her war-cry and challenged a second.

   

Buffy felt her own arm caught, the one with the stake, and rolled herselfup, fist at the ready, and smashed knuckle into demon face, before dropping free, to the ground, and kicking its legs from under it.

   

Her first enemy was just getting up, wooden chair-leg protruding from itschest, when Willow calmly stabbed it into non-existence. She had already finished off a second, and now was targeting the fourth, the one that wasn't grappling with Buffy.

   

Buffy finally worked out that stakes weren't enough, and decided to go for another tactic. She vaulted over the demon, as it tried to regain its feet, grabbed its neck, and sharply and savagely pulled and twisted.

Vertebrae parted and the demon dissolved into elemental chaos.

   

The last one saw the Warrior Scout approaching, and launched itself upwards, fleeing, flying away, before either Buffy or Willow could prevent it.

   

"Hey," Sharouq said, awe-struck. "You beat them . they're gone. Totallyout of this world. What do we do now ?"

"Now," Buffy Summers, Chosen One, Slayer, said, in a half-breath "We takea rest." And she and Willow wrapped arms round each others shoulders and gasped and sighed until they felt human again.

   

   

The witch-doctor gazed upon the last demon.

"You have failed," he said.

The thing bowed before the indictment.

"You were commanded to slay and you have failed. Two mere girls."

"They were powerful," the demon replied. "Both of them. You did not warn us."

"We had an agreement. My foes were to be your food. You agreed - you are foresworn from taking other food, and you remain bound to your duty."

"Open the gate again. I shall summon more of my brethren and we shall beavenged." The demon raised a clawed hand and uttered a Word to seal the bargain.

The witch-doctor gestured and the circle glowed with dark eldritch light.And through the portal thus created poured a cohort of the demon's kind. And, needing no bidding, they departed to seek the life of their enemies.

   

Both Buffy and Willow sensed the renewed threat. Both also knew that they had little more they could do by way of defence. And, knowing that as bad or worse was to come, it didn't seem worth pressing on, to be slaughteredshort of their goal, or going back, and drawing attention to the city, so they stayed where they were and waited. They assumed Sharouq felt the same.

Sharouq assumed that the Warrior Scout and her Companion knew what they were doing, and tried very hard not to distract them, even if his young blood burned hot at the thought of their vibrant young bodies and the way they stretched and flexed in combat. Marissa the Councilman's daughter would never look the same to him, not now, not after seeing .

   

   

The demons flowed over the rocks like a shadowy tide: an entire mass of them, shoulder to demonic shoulder, an embodiment of awful inevitability. This was twice, ten times, as many vampires as the entire Scooby Gang had ever fought at full strength, and even with their new-found powers Buffy knewthey stood not a chance.

   

Willow was also sinkingly well aware of the hopelessness of their situation. But inside her, something spoke again.

<The Sword - Look to the Sword. Look to the Jewel in the Sword>.

Willow saw that there was indeed a jewel set into the crosspiece of her sword.

<You must command it> the voice said <and through it the demonkind. You must say

<I am the Warrior Scout, and, by the Power of the Moonstone, through the Power of the Mistress of the Night, I am here to maintain Order and to defeat Darkness>

Willow raised the sword before her and said the words aloud.

"You cannot defeat us, Warrior Scout," the demons replied, milling in a circle round the three of them and the horses. "This time we are too strongfor you."

<Now say this> the voice said

<I command you, begone, for I shall unleash the Power of the Moonstone>

Willow did, but it did no good: the demons still hovered.

"Prepare to die."

"Now - hold the sword out and say Moon Stone Moon Sword Demon Bane Demon Ward>

<You've done this before> Willow thought back, and said the words aloud.

At once a blinding white light swept over the demons, and before it they shrivelled, wasting away into nothing. Two or three tried to charge in, but Buffy was ready and she shepherded them back, for her Warrior Scout to deal with, until finally there were none left.

   

The silence seemed almost deafening, then Buffy walked over to her friend, who stood, still and silent, with the sword drooping in her hand, and said, softly "Way to go, Will. Not the way I'd have done it, but your way worked a sight better than getting our bodies ripped to pieces."

And in Willow Rosenberg's head another calm voice was speaking.

<'Way to go' indeed, my Avatar. What had to be done, you have done. Take no pain: they were evil in a half-bodily form. They would have slaughtered you, then turned on the city and everyone else. Finally they would havekilled the one who had summoned them. You must go on, now, on to the top of the rise. There you will find what you seek. You will not hear me again, little one, but be sure of this: today you have served all existence farbatter than you can ever know>.

   

   

And that was how it was: they rode to the top of the cleft, Sharouq showed them the shrine, and behind it, on a green lawn, was a vast stone disc, fifty feet across, with an inscription, in glyphs Willow thought she could translate, 

round the edge.

Willow was subdued, but Buffy hugged her and cuddled her, and looked daggers at Sharouq when his eyebrow raised itself a little, and quietly explained to him that Heroes, the Chosen Ones, aren't like mortals, that they haveto go great deeds, and afterwards they need to be treated gently.

   

It wasn't easy, getting Sharouq to go back. First he insisted that someone had to look after the horses.

"We shan't be taking them," Buffy told him.

"Then how will you travel ?"

It had been Willow who had thought fast: "The Warrior Scout has means of travel of which ordinary mortals may not know."

"Then let me come, too - I can be a Companion to Heroes, too."

"You have your father to look after. Anyway, who would look after your father's valuable horses if you came with us."

Finally he agreed to go when Willow gave him a copy of the best translation of what the glyphs on the stone disc meant.

"There - take that back, and you will be famous on our behalf, for extending the knowledge of Qu'dim."

He still protested, but he went.

   

"And now he's gone," Buffy said, "perhaps we can get on with something I would like to do." She crouched slightly, and advanced on Willow with mischief in her eyes.

"You're thinking of smoochies !" Willow said, backing away, round the edge of the stone disc.

"Maybe," Buffy admitted.

"Uh-oh;" Willow shook her head. "Not after last time."

"What do you mean ?" Buffy asked, halting for a moment.

"No snugglies, "Willow said, firmly: "Last time, you'd just started loving me in the middle of that henge thing, and we got zapped though to here."

"Wait a minute !" Buffy protested. "I hadn't 'just started' - - " Then the wicked possibilities struck her. "Or perhaps I had only just started."

Suddenly she pounced on Willow and bore her off, giggling, to the grassier ground well away from the great stone disc. There she helped Willow out of her armour again, and swiftly dropped what she was wearing. Then, naked, she stretched out, half on top of Willow, and tried to reconstruct things.

"Now, as I remember it, I'd just done this and then this . "

"You have an - oh - talent for this you kn - oh !!" Willow managed to say. Then her nerve endings started to tingle and the blood beat in her ears and words became irrelevant.

   

Slayer and Witch, Scout and Companion, lover and lover - it was all the same. And it was all very nice.

   

   

End of Bit 4

End of Fables of Tone

   

Episode 3 will be posted shortly, probably called The Tower of Fable

   

Love to all my readers

Soren


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