FIC: To Conquer Death - Prologue and Interlude

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Title: To Conquer Death
Pairing: B/W/Dakota
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimers: the usual.
Spoilers: er... no
Feedback: You guys all know I'm a feedback whore
Distribution: Ask first.
Summary: Sequel to my story The Prophet
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PROLOGUE
 
London, 1247 A.D.
 
They called it the Prophecy of Rebirth when it was first spoken.
 
"For it shall come to pass in the latter days, in the place of the sun, that the Chosen One shall initiate the destruction of the Watchers. She herself shall turn and face the sun, and shall ally with the sorceress. She shall conquer Death and live forever, even to the end of the age, and from theget of the witch shall the new order be sprung. This is the prophecy."
 
Carefully recorded by the scribes of the Council in that time, the prophecywas known to all and researched carefully in order to try and determine its meanings, and to perhaps divine when it would take place. After all, "latter days" is an awfully general term. But as the years passed, those who knew about the Prophecy of Rebirth died off. Eventually, the Prophecy was known only to the Head of the Council, who passed it on to his successor when he retired, in order that the new Head might be able to study it and make plans for its eventual fulfillment.
 
Sometime in the muddy years between then and now, it became known as the Prophecy of Destruction, and the plans made for its fulfillment became plans of watching, waiting, and attempted thwarting. For even the Watcher's Council is not infallible, and even those most accustomed to mystical powers can forget that prophecies, while often fulfilled in unexpected ways, can never be truly escaped.
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London, present day
 
When Quentin Travers became Head of the Watcher's Council and received the Prophecy, he resolved in his arrogance and ignorance that any Slayer under his Council should be strictly controlled and not permitted any possible opportunity to fulfill it. He succeeded quite well for the most part, identifying potentials and making certain that they were trained strictly by onlythe best Watchers. For two decades, his plan worked perfectly.
 
The hitch came in 1995, when the Council discovered to its collective horror that two potential Slayers had been missed - and that they were in fact the next two Slayers in line.
 
A Watcher was dispatched immediately to find young Buffy Summers, and was successful only three short days after the death of the current Slayer, which activated Buffy. He successfully began her training which, unfortunately, was abruptly halted by his death.
 
The other potential Slayer, the one who would be called upon Buffy's death,proved elusive. Her family no longer lived in the place where they had when she was identified, and tracking them down proved harder than was at first anticipated. Fortunately, however, they were finally located. Her Watcher was sent to make contact with her and had in fact located her home whenthe Council seers suddenly reported that the girl was dead. How she died was a mystery, and the seers could not find it out, but the line shifted tothe next potential, a young Jamaican girl named Kendra.
 
When Buffy died, activating Kendra, and then was revived, Quentin Travers sat up and took notice. But soon he breathed easier, having assured himselfthat she was not capable of fulfilling the prophecy. The girl wasn't immortal, just lucky. A fluke.
 
Then, one night, one of Travers' operatives came to him with a recording ofa telephone conversation that had been recorded, unknown to the two speakers: a Council employee named Jonathan Edgerton, and one Rupert Giles, ex-Watcher and current helper and confidante to semi-rogue Slayer Buffy Summers.The things that Giles asked Edgerton to research were nothing short of terrifying, and upon learning that the call had been received over three weeks before being brought to his attention, Quentin Travers immediately dived into the Council records to see if his suspicions were accurate.
 
His hand trailed down the list of names of girls identified as potential Slayers, checking the notations as to which girls had Watchers, which girls could be successfully removed from their families for more intensive training, and which girls, as occasionally happened, had died before being Called.His finger stopped at one particular name, bearing just such a mark, and trembled as he read the name over and over, whispering it out loud to himself as though by saying it, he could make it disappear. But it did not, andthe words stared up boldly at him from the page.  
 
Quentin Travers began to sweat.


INTERLUDE: DAKOTA
 
The sun was just peeking over the tops of the palm trees as three figures, arms slung across each other's shoulders, ambled out of the Restfield Cemetery and headed down the street. The wan light of the new day illuminated the trio while also seeming to drain some of their color, leaving them looking almost like a sepia-toned film of themselves as they strolled along. They looked tired and all of them bore marks of a struggle, as though they had been brawling. They all bore bruises and scrapes, were all dirty, and one had a torn shirt; but for all of that, they also appeared to be in extremely high spirits.
 
"Six vamps, two Veralnis demons and a lead on a coven of apocalyptic Satan-worshippers... what night! I feel positively giddy," teased the dark-haired one. "In fact, I think I feel like dancing!" With those words she tookthe hands of the blonde, who laughed and followed her in a sort of demented two-step that turned itself into the Electric Slide on acid and ended them both on either side of their companion, a laughing redhead.  
 
"Ooh, look!" the blonde exclaimed. "A pretty girl. Just in time for smoochies!" She wrapped her arms around the redhead's waist and kissed her thoroughly, leaving them both quite breathless.
 
"Buffy!" the redhead exclaimed when she was finally released. Her face was flushed and she was obviously going to say something else, when suddenly arms were around her waist from behind her, as well, and a gentle set of teeth settled in the spot where her shoulder and neck joined. The merest touch of sharp fangs, combined with a gentle sucking sensation on her skin, caused her to gasp and fall silent.
 
Buffy stepped forward again and captured Willow's lips with her own as Dakota drew her fangs along the back of the redhead's neck, causing Willow to shiver with sensual pleasure. Finally the redhead gasped out one word. "Home." The three women immediately joined hands and moved rapidly toward their home with no further conversation or hesitation.
 
The house was empty when the three women arrived, and Buffy was silently grateful that Dawn and Mercedes had been invited to a slumber party at one oftheir friends' homes. They entered the house and went upstairs to the quiet of the master bedroom.
 
It had been four weeks since Dakota had relinquished her place as Willow's lover, and in those four weeks, the three women had come to a startling revelation. 
 
A long night of patrolling which had included several vamps and culminated in the destruction of a nest of ten who were attempting to raise a baby bezoar left both Slayer and Daywalker wired and jumpy as they turned onto Revello Drive near 2 a.m. They were working off some of their energy by slinging verbal barbs at one another, and as they climbed the steps to Dakota's empty house, planning to raid the refrigerator here where they needn't be silent before Buffy went home, the teasing took on a sudden sexual innuendo that rapidly built an almost palpable tension between the two women.
 
As they stood in the kitchen together, wolfing down submarine sandwiches and barbecue potato chips, Buffy had a sudden flash of memory - Faith in the Bronze, remarking on the "funny" way that slaying made one "hungry and horny." Before she quite realized she was speaking, she'd quoted that line to Dakota. The Daywalker turned and stared at her, eyes wide in something like shock, and Buffy felt the blood suffuse her face in a fierce blush. ThenDakota took a step toward Buffy, her mouth opening as though she were preparing to speak.
 
The next time either of them became consciously aware of what was going on,Buffy was naked on the kitchen counter with Dakota's hand between her legsand Dakota's fangs buried in her neck. The orgasm rocked the tiny blonde and she screamed Dakota's name as the surges of heat shot between the points at each end of her body. The Slayer cried out again a moment later as both fangs and fingers were slowly withdrawn, then she simply collapsed against the vampire in utter exhaustion. Dakota, coming back to herself, wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and held her tightly, staring out the kitchen window into the darkened back yard, wondering what on Earth they were going to say to Willow. Witch and Slayer had only been lovers for a little over a week - how would the sensitive redhead react?
 
Her answer came a moment later as soft lips grazed the nape of her neck anda warm, familiar set of hands slid under her shirt to caress her breasts. "My turn," Willow's sensual voice whispered from behind Dakota's ear. "I felt you two coming down the street an hour ago and you've been driving me crazy ever since. Now it's time to do something about it."
 
Dakota turned slightly to see Willow standing behind her, dressed only in ashimmery blue slip that Dakota had bought for her from Victoria's Secret on one of her walkabouts. The grin on Willow's face could not be described by any word other than erotic, and Dakota opened her embrace to pull the redhead in with herself and the Slayer. As she slid one hand under the slipto touch the secret places of Willow, places she had thought never to touch again, she dimly thought that their lives would never be the same again. And then she thought no more.
 
In the few weeks that followed, the three women found that they were easilyable to build a relationship together. It was made a bit simpler, in Dakota's opinion, by the fact that they did not all live in the same house. She had, in fact, rejected the suggestion that she and Mercedes immediately move in at 1630. The kids would need time to adjust to the concept of the three "stable" adults in heir lives having apparently gone insane, as well as even to he concept that they were in a three-way relationship. Mercedesneeded stability in her life, something that she could depend on, and her home was that major stability right now. She knew that she could walk in the door and everything would be a certain way. There was no reason to upheave her life like that.
 
There was also Dawn to think of. Dawn was notoriously picky about things, (Dakota hated to use the term spoiled brat, but it fit so aptly in Dawn's case), and she needed time to adjust to the relationship as well before a new parental figure and - in essence - a stepsister came crowding into her space.
 
Dakota also thought, very quietly in the back of her mind, that with the two girls living in separate houses, she could limit the amount of influence Dawn's attitudes and behavior had on Mercedes. In fact, all of the adults in close contact with Dawn - even Anya, who was disgracefully insensitive to subtleties in human behavior - had noticed that Mercedes had actually been somewhat of a grounding influence on Dawn. As Buffy's sister watched therelaxed way Mercedes interacted with the world around her, she realized that the little Southern girl had a lot less stress in her life than Dawn did, and tried to emulate her manner with some small success.
 
The other major reason that Dakota didn't want to move in with her lovers was that she had a craving for personal space that she didn't really feel would be available in a house with three adult women and two young teenage girls. Not that she didn't love Buffy and Willow both dearly, but Dakota washer own woman and she needed that alone time to keep her sanity. Since she'd become a vampire, she hadn't shared living quarters with anyone, and she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to start. Time enough for all of thatlater, when they could be sure that this was really a love thing rather than a lust thing.
 
But there was little time to think about that now, because the trio had made it to the master bedroom and Willow was naked under her hands and teeth, and there was no more time for abstract thought.
----

~~Rainne
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I am Willow. I am death. If you dare defy me, I will call down my fury, exact fresh vengeance and make your worst fears come true. [pause] Okay?" 
---Willow Rosenberg
-- "Never Leave Me" - Buffy ep 7.8 --
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