FIC :: Fable Environment (2/ )

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

TITLE: A Fable Environment 2/ ) 
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: Characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. 
SUMMARY: It's got Buffy and Willow in it; there is a sort of a plot, but this episode is pretty well smut-zero
SPOILERS: None since it bears no resembance to aired
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome. Chocolate cookies also accepted. Have fun




A Fable Environment . - - Part 2
 

The next morning, Buffy and Willow carefully dug themselves out of the haystack again, and looked on a day not very different to the previous one.

Willow had been careful to pick the straw out of her clothes, and watched with a little amusement as Buffy wriggled and twisted to remove stray wisps from her own clothing.

"I could almost drag you back into the haystack," she said, as Buffy unfastened her top for the fourth time, offering a brief flash of pink-nippled breast.

Buffy looked across, the 'almost' word obviously on her mind, and Willow grinned at her.

"But you're the Slayer, and we have to find your Watcher."

"Oh, my - Willow, why didn't you remind me, when we first woke up ?"

"Because we had other things on our minds," Willow said. "Besides, we alsoneed food: kisses are nice but not a nutritious breakfast."

"Okay, back to the road," Buffy said: "It can't be much further now."

 

The road was just as it had been, poorly surfaced, with ditches and hedges,sometimes on one side, sometimes on both. Once it climbed a small rise, and then as gently it descended on the other side. Again, there was the ubiquitous birdsong, but Willow noticed that she still hadn't seen any birds. Nevertheless she kept having the feeling she was being watched.

She mentioned it to Buffy.

"I know - it's funny. Like knowing there's a vamp somewhere in town."

"Vamp - as in vampires, as in . Did you pack stakes ?"

Buffy held up two lengths of wood, roughly sharpened. "There are four morein your bag."

"Hey, thanks - not, I mean, that I'm intending to use them. Just relieved to know I can reload you."

"Hey, Will - stop the panic mode. We're going to be fine."

 

Thorpe turned out to be a small village: a church, some cottages, a couple of what looked like small shops, all set round a green, with a pond. The thing was, there was no sign of life. The two watched for full five minutes, and then, suddenly, a burst of movement as the church door opened and people came out, splitting up to go to various cottages, and so forth.

"Okay," Buffy said: "Mystery solved - let's go and say hello."

The shopkeeper's name was Mrs. White - she seemed utterly unfazed by Buffy offering her American money, and sold them lemonade and carrot cake.  

"Mrs. Brewer, the baker's wife, makes a nice pasty," she told them. "'Boutlunchtime's best: they're fresh then, but they've had time to settle."

"Have you seen any strangers ?" Willow ventured. "A tallish man, dressed in tweed ?"

"No, dearie - just the two of you: that's all."

"Pity," Buffy put in: "We're looking for a friend: we heard he might have come this way . "

"You could ask the Professor," Mrs. White said: "He might know."

"The Professor ?" Willow asked, not wanting to sound rude.

"Oh, yes, dearie - him in the big house."

There seemed little else to ask of the shop-keeper, so they went back outside.

"Buffy -- ?" Willow spoke quietly, lest she be overheard.

"Yes ?"

"Did you see the stuffed owl in the shop ?"

"High up, at the back ?" Buffy nodded. "I wasn't sure if it was real or not."

"It didn't move," Willow said; "But I got the strangest feeling it was watching us."

Buffy looked at her witch, with a slight worry: was Willow losing her innerstrength ?

There wasn't time to think about it, though - a muffled shout was the only warning she got as three bales of hay tumbled down at her, from between twoof the cottages.

 

She threw herself aside, even as voluble expressions of what she hoped wereapologies were coming forth. The hay crashed down around her, as she rolled and tumbled, finally getting clear about five yards further on.

Her temper rose: had that been deliberate ? Were there enemies here (therehad been everywhere else this crazy multiverse had sent them) ?

But from the look of it, the cause of the accident had been her stepping out, causing a young farmhand to brake his tractor (carrying the bales on a front fork-lift) far too swiftly for safety. Except that if he hadn't have,he would have run her over.

Buffy offered her own apologies and she and Willow retreated to the villagegreen to eat a hasty snack breakfast-cum-lunch. From a wooden seat there,they watched as the village went about its ordinary life. A red Royal Mail van arrived to empty the post-box in the churchyard wall; three men disentangled a remarkably complicated machine from a small shed, and loaded it onto the flat bed of a trailer which was then pulled off by a four-wheel-drive truck of some sort; and a stupendously statuesque red-headed girl, with a figure which exceeded even Cordelia Chase's, walked past on the far side of the green, past the three ivy-covered cottages with thatched roofs, and down a small lane.

Buffy and Willow were both recovering when, suddenly, a rushing noise alerted them to the fact that Willow's bag was flying toward the pond, apparently caught on the hook of a fishing line.

Willow acted without really thinking about it, simply pulling the bag back by telekinetic energy, even as Buffy was getting to her feet. The unfortunate fisherman was plucked backward by the force of Willow's spell, but Buffy was ready and deftly unhooked his line, and secured the bag, while Willowregathered her wits and her strength.

"I didn't know you could do that," Buffy said, quietly, as the man reorganised his line for another cast.

"I can't, usually," Willow said; "But the bag is so much a part of my beingwiccan - I have a natural tie to it."

"Well, thank good ness you got it back - without that, I don't know where we'd be."

"We'd still have each other," Willow said, sincerely. "Which reminds me - didn't that lady say something about pastries for lunch ?"

 

Mrs. Brewer, the baker's wife, had a small shop down the same lane that hadso held their attention (all right, Buffy admitted, less the lane than itstransient tenant). There were half a dozen women in there, in the warmth,apparently enjoying a thorough chat. And there was baked things piled high, among them, neatly labelled, the pasties, triangular pastry-covered envelopes, which looked big enough for a whole meal.

Buffy went in to look, but as soon as Willow stepped into the shop, all conversation skidded to a halt.

"Hello, young miss - are you the Captain's niece ?"

"Yes, she were in 'ere this morning - his daughter."
Willow stammered something, and Buffy went to her side, but Mrs. Brewer stepped in first:

"Now, Alice Carter, don't harass the girl - if she's Miss Symphony's cousin- "

"I'm sorry," Buffy said: "We're just visiting - we don't know anyone here. We are looking for a friend of ours, though -- a tall man, dressed in tweeds ."

But the conversation was back on village matters: whether Thatcher the poacher or Weaver the carpenter would win the prize at throsh-parling, which marrow was better for a northern-facing cabbage patch, that sort of thing.

A pasty apiece, Willow and Buffy stepped out of the shop, and turned along the lane in the other direction to the green, to see where it led. Five minutes later, to their confusion, they found that they were looking at the green again, from beside Mrs. White's shop.

"I'm sure we didn't turn that many corners," Buffy said.

"Well, the fisherman's gone," Willow said. "We could have our seat back and eat these pasties.

After lunch, which they supplemented with another bottle of lemonade each (being careful not to ask for ginger beer, in case the owner of the knapsackalso lived in Thorpe), they decided to try to find the big house and the Professor. Apart from the narrow road on which they had come into Thorpe, there were two other roads out, both broader and better-made. One had a sign post at its head, which said "Ingle 1/4". Part-way down, though, there was a large gate across it, marked "Private - No Admittance", and as soon asBuffy touched the gate to see whether it was locked, there was the ominousgrowl of a large dog from somewhere.

"Let's try the other road," Willow suggested, oblivious of the glassy stareof the vinyl-plastic polecat which stared down at the gate, and the road in front of it, from its perch high above on a tree branch. The cable for the camera ran back from a hole in its tail, into the tree and down.

 

The "other road" had been the one down which the Royal Mail van had come and gone again. It led part several more cottages, a bigger building with a sign "Old Smithy Cultural Centre. Open between Hocktide and Roodmas, 1 until 4. A Government Heritage Project in collaboration with Celconia Concrete and Hardcore Aggregates of Wickhampton", and a derelict filling station formerly associated, according to the peeling sign, with Pewsley's Pink Petroleum - Progress with Pep.

Then it made a sharp left turn, and passed through a stone gateway, just wide enough for one vehicle at a time, and a good twenty feet thick. On the other side . was Pewsley's Pink Petroleum and the Old Smithy, and the road back into Thorpe.

"I don't think that this is meant to be happening," Willow said.

"I wonder if that haystack is still there," Buffy mused.

 

"All right," Buffy said. "There's no way out, and there doesn't seem to beanyone we can talk to."

It was getting on for evening, but they had found a pub, the Goat and Compasses, down another twisty little lane, so they had been able to get a meal (again, nobody paid any attention to the fact that they paid in American currency, even though this clearly was not America).

Around them burly men discussed fat-stock prices and the weather, amid an atmosphere of wood-smoke, hops, and (regrettably) flatulence.

Willow had tried to use her rowan rod guidance spell again, but once more it had proved inconclusive, and neither of them had fancied the long trek back to the haystack (assuming it were still where they had left it).

Towards mid-evening, the Goat and Compasses began to empty, with the men making comments about "getting home before 'tis late", with emphasis on the last word.

Buffy and Willow slipped out, not wishing to be noticed especially, and made their way back to the green. It was definitely colder, and Willow was starting to worry.

"Buff - I hate to be a burden, but - "

"But you want to know where we're going to sleep - I know: I've been thinking about that, too, but I wanted to wait while it was dark.

"Have you noticed," Buffy went on, "how we haven't see any children ?"

"True," Willow admitted, "we haven't."

"Plenty of men, and women - no children. Follow me."  

Buffy led her to a garden at the far end of the green. The cottage to which the garden belonged - Peacock's Nest, according to the carved panel nailed to the gate - was dark. Even so, Buffy avoided the gate and the neat, flower-lined path, and effortlessly boosted Willow up to the top of the garden wall, and then helped her down on the inside. Then she led the way to trees toward the back of the garden. There was, just visible in the almost-gone light, a strange blocky shape, and on the trunk, when Buffy felt for them, were wooden blocks, nailed, to form a crude ladder.

The tree-house gave a superb view over the village green. It was dry and there were a couple of ratty blankets up there.

"You settle down," Buffy whispered to Willow. "I'll join you in a minute or two: I just want to watch, just in case this is a nest of vampires or something like."

Between the blankets and their rain-slickers, Willow managed to fashion some sort of a nest, and huddled inside it.

At some point she must have dropped off to sleep: the next thing of which she was aware was a rush of chill and then Buffy cuddling round her.

"My warm witch. Go back to sleep."

 

 

End of Bit 2

Bit 3 follows shortly.