Fic: Another Willow (1/?)

["sochankitsune" <annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Comments/Feedback Appreciated.

Anne-Lise.

--

The smoke burned her sensitive eyes as she approached the village. 
Bodies lay everywhere, strewn haphazardly around the central square. 
She swallowed back grief and bile and gripped her splintered stake 
harder. Blood welled from between her fingers, yet she did not care. 
Let them come.
The acrid stench caught in the back of her throat, and her eyes 
still smarted, yet she was still aware enough to sense the approach 
of the first. He jeered at her as he lunged, the demon in his eyes 
revelling in the death and destruction it had helped cause, and 
attacked her without style or prowess.
She retaliated. Dodging a vicious swipe at her purposefully 
unprotected neck, she crouched, whirled and rammed the stake into the 
soft flesh of the vampire's leg. The vampire dropped to the floor 
with a bestial scream of pain, and she ripped the stake from his leg 
and thrust it deep into the monster's black heart.
Dust.
Warily she approached her family home, knowing that this was the 
end of one journey and mother to a new. Her father had once told her 
that grief was a fire upon which the heart must be forged, and he was 
right. She realised that she already knew what she would find inside, 
and decided against opening the door.
She steeled herself, and walked unafraid into the night.
She was vengeance; a talon of her people.
Her people had named her Arbewatidi, or Willow Tree. But now she 
assumed her rightful name: Didatidea, she who walks with anger. 
Vendetta.

*

She walked until her legs buckled, and then she sat beside the road 
and let the tears fall. Dawn had announced itself in pastel shades, 
and the air was heavy with impending rain. What would her mother 
think of her little Willow Tree now? She would be proud, Vendetta 
guessed, and locked her grief away in her mind. She tried to rise to 
her feet, and recognised it as a bad move. She needed food, water, 
and somewhere to rest her head for an hour. Before she'd arrived to 
find her village in flames and her kinsfolk dead, she'd been high 
upon the Atami peak undergoing the ritual of womanhood.
The ritual had been simple enough; to climb the peak and there 
await a vision from the Powers. Some girls received, most didn't, but 
the ability was strong in her family and she'd hoped... Oh how she'd 
hoped. She'd wanted to feel special, to be admired by her people.
And now she had no people.

*

This was a godforsaken country, Giles thought, as he struggled to 
keep the Kia Sorenta on the almost-road he was speeding along. He 
glanced across at Willow, who seemed to be in a bubble of calm on the 
passenger seat. Then he realised Willow really *was* in a bubble of 
calm.
"Hey!" He accused. "What did we agree on? No magic allowed in the 
car while I'm driving!"
Willow pouted, oh-so-cutely. "But... You drive like a maniac!"
"I agree its a little more treacherous than I'm used to," Giles 
confessed, "and this beast handles quite differently to my own 
vehicle."
Willow ignored him as he prattled on about his old Citroen, and 
stared out of the window. "Giles... Stop!"
"What?" Giles put his foot on the brakes, and the custom ABS slewed 
the Kia viciously to one side as they came to a precipitous 
halt. "What's wrong?"
"She's there," Willow pointed, and Giles glanced at the needle on 
top of the dashboard that appeared suspended in a faint blue glow. It 
followed the same direction Willow was pointing, and he took off his 
glasses to give them a quick clean.
Putting them back on he saw the girl lying beside the road. She was 
covered in blood and appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be 
dead.
"We're too late," he muttered. "Again."
They got out of the SUV and approached the girl, who shocked them 
first by sitting up, quickly, and again by appearing almost identical 
to Willow.
"You're not dead," Willow said, although she wasn't entirely sure.
Giles seemed unable to articulate himself.

*

"You're not dead," the foreigner told her in the common trading 
tongue, as if this was some major achievement, and not some cruel 
trick of fate.
"No," she replied, and was glad to hear no trace of raspiness in her 
voice. Her strength was returning. "But everyone else is." She 
pointed back into the foliage. "My family, my kin. All dead." She 
sighed. "Wampyri." She didn't care if the foreigners believed her or 
not. She was beyond caring. She had a duty, a last duty, and if these 
strangers had supplies she could use, then she could afford time for 
them.
"Vampires?" The elder man appeared galvanated for the first 
time. "They attacked your village?" He turned to the younger 
girl. "They must have been after this young woman."
The girl nodded an agreement.
"The Wampyri have been fighting my kin for generations," Vendetta 
interjected. "This is nothing new to me. Only now they were more 
powerful in number and countenance. I was only able to kill one 
alone. I was too late."
The man swallowed. "We'd better get her back to Sunnydale. She 
could be the key to all this!"
The younger girl, who resembled Vendetta in subtle ways, looked her 
in the eyes and spoke at length.

*

"Who was that?" Xander asked as he made omelette for the gaggle of 
SITs who loved to watch a man cook.
"Willow and Giles," Buffy replied as she checked her weaponry ready 
for the night's patrolling. "They've found another SIT, but they say 
she's in bad shape and needs to be cleaned up before they can get her 
on a plane."
"Plane from where?"
Buffy shrugged. "Somewhere in Korea, I think."
Xander flipped an omelette. "Bet she'll be glad to see the land of 
plenty."

*

The helicopter sped into the night carrying Giles, Willow and the 
girl who'd refused to name herself. Willow had asked her name, but 
she said it'd been entrusted to her by the Powers and was for her 
alone to know.
"If you must call me anything, call me Willow," Vendetta had 
said. "It was the name my mother gave to me."
The foreign girl swallowed and frowned. "You can call me Rose," she 
said. "And this is Giles."
"A strange name. But you have powerful friends to charter such 
vehicles, and I need powerful allies in my fight against this evil."
Rose smiled. "Riley. He's Buffy's ex. You'll get to meet her soon, 
and yes, she can help you with the vampires." She looked across at 
the man, Giles.
"Yes," he said carefully. "Its her job."

*

End Part 1.