Return of the Lurking Nyrond -- FIC: Fimbul (1/12) Revised & Reposted

["soren_nyrond" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxx>]

Okay -- if this works out, then over the next weeks (because I'm not 
posting till I'm sure I can finish the job) you will all be able to 
read the revised and expanded version of "Fimbul", first posted 3 
years ago.
Why do the revise ?  I was never completely satisfied, first time 
round, with the build-up.  Basically, this isn't a 45-minute episode, 
or even a 90-minute special.  This is X-Files movie stuff: background 
the same, but instead of a tin shack mysteriously exploding, it's an 
entire office block.  So, if I was needing Mutant Enemy to build me 
an entire Sunnydale to destroy, not to mention the special effects 
gear to realise my plotline, I owed it to them to spend even more 
money on better and bigger effects to justify it.  And Return of the 
King has shown just what can be done with 60,000 extras.
Have fun -- I hope to !!



TITLE: Fimbul (1/?) - Revised & Reposted
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: Several characters in this belong to Joss Whedon and 
Mutant Enemy. I'm poor, I'm harmless, I'm just borrowing.
SUMMARY: It's got Buffy and Willow, and a Thing (but only a small 
one). And no real violence
SPOILERS: None, except that nothing much happens, so we're talking 
minimal smut
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome. Hi to anyone that 
remembers me 
ARCHIVING: Take it if you want it, so long as you don't alter it: 
just link to Google so's I can find it later.  I have "Word"-
formatted documents if that helps.  Thanks.



"Hey, Jackson, aren't you coming ?" 
"I got trigonometry to finish."
"It's ball time." 
"You go ahead  I'll be there in a couple minutes." 

The other three stormed out of home room and Jackson Fentleman 
reached for his books again. It wasn't fair  on the other hand, his 
place on the Razorbacks depended on his grade point average. 

Sunnydale High might have burned down, in a massive explosion, the 
previous Graduation, but school went on  the Vas Complens warehouse 
(derelict since the directors all three died in a night  something 
to do with running PCP, so the papers had said) had been taken over 
and quickly subdivided and senior year classes were there, with the 
rest dotted elsewhere. 

/I could tell you the answers/ the voice said, seductively, in his 
head. /Then you could go play ball with your friends/ 
"And what will it cost me this time ?" Jackson whispered, 
remembering, with a sick lurch in his stomach, the incident of the 
hamster and the kitten. 
/Just some words this time  no hurting/ 
"What do you mean ?" 
/Say the words  I tell you the answers/ 
Words never hurt  "Okay  what words ?" 

They made no sense: in fact they sounded gibberish. The sudden icy 
draught that ensued Jackson put down to nerves. 
The voice gave him answers, which Jackson wrote down, and then fell 
silent. Not that Jackson minded  there was ball to play. 

After he'd gone, the tiny glowing Thing that had materialised through 
the barrier between Sunnydale and the Hellmouth lay, unnoticed, on 
the warehouse floor. Then it shivered slightly and fell through a 
crack in the worn boards, into the space between the floor joists. 

Evening was falling  it was getting colder already. Tomorrow, 
though, the sun would rise and there would be warmth. The Thing was 
waiting for the warmth & to start with, anyway. 

FIMBUL 
By Soren Nyrond 
Part 1 :: Chilling Out, Chilling In 

It was warm in bed, with two. 
Buffy Summers woke first  being a Slayer, with Slayer senses, did 
that. There were certain things that needed attending to first thing 
in a morning, and she was aware of them. She slipped out of the 
warmth, kissed Willow on the forehead, and snuck out to the bathroom. 
Willow Rosenberg basked in the warmth and the love. Finally finding 
Buffy had made such a difference. Now every day seemed like summer & 
or something. She forced herself down from the level of Disney-fied 
bluebirds and chipmunks and faced it square. They were in love  
certainly as much as she and Oz had been  and so long as Buffy was 
happy & 
The door opened  Buffy coming back. Willow flipped back the edge of 
the covers invitingly, and gasped as Buffy dove straight in, wrapping 
her in her arms, and kissing her soundly. 
"Awake ?" 
"Now, yes  was drowsing  awake now. Good. Love. Cuddly." 
Buffy nodded, not trusting her own voice, in case it, too, descended 
into babble-mode. Loving Willow could do that to a girl. (After all, 
it had kept the Oz-wolf in check for over a year, with one or two 
minor exceptions.) 

"First class at ten," she said, "Plenty of  " 
"Oh oh." Willow was struggling free suddenly. "Wednesday  lab test. 
New program. Have to  " 
"I'll come too," Buffy offered, as Willow scuttered round, getting 
her things together. 
"No need." Willow headed for the bathroom, and Buffy pulled on her 
clothes for the day and wondered just what was so important about 
this program. 
Willow had been using the computer labs for a couple of months now, 
running a series of programs. Buffy knew one had been to improve UC 
Sunnydale's enrolment system, and another was meant to 
predict "unusual occurrences" (in short, using data Giles had 
assembled from the newspaper archives, to predict when the Hellmouth 
was likely to be liveliest). What this latest one was for, she didn't 
know, but going along sounded supportive (and, besides, there was a 
little conference room just off the labs she had been aching to try 
for weeks as a snugglarium).
So, not wanting to either be rude or to give anything away, Willow 
let Buffy go with her to the labs. On the way, they chatted 
inconsequentially, brushing their hands against each other to confirm 
their one-ness in two bodies. 
They were at the lab door when suddenly Buffy shivered. 
"You can't be cold," Willow said. 
"I'd say someone walked over my grave, but that wouldn't be funny," 
Buffy replied. "Probably nothing & " 
"You could go check  I wouldn't mind," Willow offered, artlessly, 
but Buffy picked up the resonance and grinned. 
"You're trying to keep a secret, Will  come on, fess up, what is 
it ?" 

It was cold in class  Jackson Fentleman was near to shivering. Which 
was odd  it had been warm enough on the school bus in. 
He glanced round and saw Ricky Mendez rubbing his shoulders and arms. 
If the Rick-meister was feeling it, then things were definitely &. 
"Mr. Fentleman  " He whipped his head round to face Mr. Capes, 
putting on his "Number Four" expression: the one that said "I'm 
Listening and I'm Interested". 
"Mr. Fentleman, would you go to the janitor's office and tell him 
that I think the air-conditioning is set a little too high." 
Jackson wasn't going to argue: anything that saved him five & ten, if 
he played it right & minutes of Capes' drone about pork bellies and 
Keynes was well worth it. 
He headed out, noticing as he did that the cold wasn't just getting 
to him and Ricky  Angela Morrice's habit of "forgetting" her bra 
under her little blouses was paying dividends in the "spot the 
nipples" division. 

In fact, he managed to spin out the errand to a full fifteen minutes, 
by ducking into the school bathrooms on the way back. It was quite 
chilly in there, too, he noticed, and the cold water was like ice-
melt. But by the time he got back, with only five minutes of Capes' 
lesson left, he was feeling quite easy in himself, and the 
temperature felt to be creeping upwards. A pity, really: he'd been 
wondering if Angela would be in favour of a little body-to-body to 
warm her up again. 

Under the floorboards, the Thing glowed softly ice-white, as the 
warmth trickled in around it. It was still hungry, but there was 
plenty of time: there was no timetable for its mission, just a 
certainty of the final outcome. 

It hadn't worked: Willow had tried distracting Buffy with a 
Mandelbrot-pattern generator, she'd tried to mystify her with a 
program which (actually) just created ever-more complicated random 
numbers, and she'd tried to get Buffy to go fetch coffee.  She'd even 
let herself be cuddled behind a server stack, in the hope that a 
snuggle-top-up would send the Slayer on her way, satisfied for now.
It hadn't worked: Buffy was insistent on finding out what this latest 
project was for. Finally the only thing that got her to go away was 
the imminence of ten o'clock classes, and since she and Willow shared 
the first one, Willow still couldn't get time to do the runs she had 
wanted. 
What she also hadn't had time to do was to read over the "unusual 
occurrence" predictor's nightly report. If she had, she might have 
noticed radical changes in its predictions, and a line of red print-
out toward the bottom. 
But of such instances is fate made up, and for the moment both Slayer 
and Techno-Witch were oblivious to the warning signs. 

And then, suddenly, things turned out better: after classes they'd 
gone to Giles', and he had asked Buffy to do a special patrol at the 
Emberleigh Fields of Rest. 
"I'll drive you there, and back," he said: "It's just that they've 
had three cases of vandalism in a week, and we're coming up to the 
New Moon  " 
"And you were wondering if someone was collecting body parts," Willow 
chimed in. 
"Ah  yes  exactly, now that you mention it. Yes." 
"Fine  give me an hour to get changed and grab a snack. What about 
you, Will ?" 
"I'll pass," Willow said: "Besides, I've an assignment to finish for 
Professor Walsh." 
"Oh  yes," Buffy said, unenthusiastically, "That one & thanks for 
reminding me  Not. Okay. We'll be back by ... when, Giles ?" 
"Oh, eleven at the latest." 
"So, no Bronze  see you at our room, then." 
Willow didn't mind at all  now she could get back to the lab. 
The new project was something else she was developing with Giles  
she wanted to help Buffy and again the first step was to combine 
her "Research Girl" skills (or, rather, the computers' skills, at her 
command) with Giles' diaries. Buffy kept having dreams  prophetic 
kinds of dreams. Giles kept a note of them, and tried to work out 
whether or not they were being fulfilled and, if so, how. Willow was 
going to take that to try and build an interpretation protocol  so, 
when Buffy told her the dream, Willow told the computer, and the 
computer threw out likely interpretations. 

Meanwhile, as night deepened and the temperatures fell, the Thing 
waited, brooded, and hoarded its slowly-growing power. 

END OF PART ONE 




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Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

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