Title: BRAVE EYES
Author: psimetis
E-mail: psimetis@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
4/?
* * *
‘LIGHT’
“I-If Angel hadn’t been there, I would’ve...” Tara said
quietly.
“God,” Amy simply ejected, her head in her hands as she stared wide
eyed at her cup of chai tea. Both she and Tara were at the reading table of
the Magic Box, and it was one of those rare nights where Tara would spend just
a little time with her friends.
“Confronting her head-on is like such the bad idea,” the younger witch
finally admonished Tara. “Which is probably why she did what she did, to,
y’know, draw you out, make you start the fight so the blame rests with
you. And if you did actually beat her up, you’d just look so bad, because
she’s the Slayer. That’s why I keep saying, ‘sneaky witch’!
Do the ‘sneaky witch’!”
“No cursing. No hexes,” Tara answered softly. She had barely touched
her tea.
“A, ‘my will be done’ spell,” Andrew gave helpfully from
the loft balcony, where he dangled his legs and read his comic books. Michael
snorted from behind the store’s register.
“‘Harm none,’” Michael merely said. Michael was a very passive
warlock, and besides Jenny, the most accepting of Tara’s commitment to
peaceful Wicca practice.
“She said what she said as a message,” Tara murmured. “She knows
that I don’t intend to keep Willow locked up in my dorm room forever.”
“Oh god, Tara,” Amy merely said again. If it were her, the Slayer
would have been bald, blind, and terrorized by apparitions by now. Cursing wasn’t
healthy for the witch doing the cursing, but it could be darn effective, and
at least kept said witch and her vampire lover intact from Slayer fists.
Tara sighed and passed a hand wearily through her blonde hair. “I wish,”
she said.
All three of the other occupants of the Magic Box stiffened in fright. There
was a displacement of energy in the room, and suddenly a young, well dressed
woman appeared, an orb of teleportation blinking briefly around her.
“Did you just forget that Anyanka the Vengeance Wish Demon owns
the Magic Box, Tara?” Amy whispered out of the corner of her mouth. The
blonde witch bit her bottom lip. Yes, she forgot.
Andrew remained as still as an invisible rabbit on the loft level, and Michael
tried to look as passive and yet as busy as possible, behind the register.
“I’ll,” Amy started, as the well dressed, blonde woman approached
their table. “I’ll--help Michael restock the herbs!” she suggested
cheerfully, and immediately left the table.
Tara sighed as Anyanka slid into the chair beside her, the demon’s attitude
attentive and politely sympathetic. Her amulet gleamed against her silk blouse.
“I’m not a scorned woman,” Tara told her.
“No,” Anyanka agreed, leaning ever slightly on her arm. She had a
beautiful manicure, and very nice skin. She looked at Tara with interested,
bright eyes. “But in all my eleven hundred years, I’ve never seen
a case quite like yours. Love for a vampire, an enemy in the Slayer. I petitioned
my overlord boss, D’Hoffryn, to take your case, and he agreed.”
Tara looked at the attractive demon with some disapproval.
“This would be a feather in your cap, I suppose, vengeance on a Slayer,”
the witch merely said. She wasn’t really angry at Anyanka’s self-interest;
she wasn’t even that offended. The other blonde was a demon, after all,
and a very efficient one, or else she would not be eliciting the nervous fear
that was coming off the others in the store.
“It would, but even more than that, it would be a satisfying, and very
special, personal achievement,” the demon admitted. “But enough about
me, let’s talk about you! The Slayer has done you grave harm,” she
continued sympathetically.
“I don’t want vengeance,” Tara stated. Amy made a sound of derision
from where she was helpfully loading a jar with more hellebore. Anyanka looked
Amy’s way.
“You’d make a great vengeance demon, Amy,” she noted to the young
witch.
“Thanks,” Amy acknowledged.
“I was angry. I’m still angry. But I have no intention of giving Buffy
lasting harm,” Tara spoke, almost to herself, as she stared at the table
before her.
“But your other options are undesirable. Do your friends know that you’ve
been looking into transferring out of UC Sunnydale?” Anyanka put in. Amy
and Michael, startled, looked at Tara from behind the counter. “Does your
vampire know? You haven’t the money or resources to make such a move, yet.
And if you are thinking about waiting the Slayer out, hoping she will lose interest
or that, maybe, she might get herself killed soon--well, those are all ‘maybe’s’,
aren’t they?”
Tara looked at the demon beside her, her blue eyes deeply sad and serious.
“Please leave,” she said.
Anyanka leaned in a little, gazing into Tara’s eyes.
“You are a good person, Tara Maclay. You would know how to handle the power
of the Wish. I’m making an exception for you, because, as you say, you
are not scorned. Since it is an exception, and a very special exception, don’t
think of it as vengeance. Think of it as justice. Justice, for Willow.”
Then Anyanka stood up, smoothing out her Anna Sui suit.
“I’ll be back to check the till later tonight, Michael!” she
called out cheerfully, and she orbed out.
“Wish for pain. Like the pain of her victims. She should feel her victims’
pain, that sort of thing,” Amy immediately babbled.
“Guilt, lots of guilt. Torment, like Angel’s, for a hundred years,”
Andrew exclaimed from the loft.
“If...if it’s for justice, perhaps it’s okay,” Michael said
slowly. “And...you and Willow can get closure.”
Tara just sat silent, her arms crossed, as she stared at the black windows,
which only reflected herself back at her.
“No,” she eventually said. “Retribution is never okay.”
* * *
Tara held a fresh strawberry between her fingers before Willow.
“Okay. Now I want you to,” she began. Suddenly the strawberry was
gone, and Willow was chewing something.
“Will!!” Tara berated. “You weren’t supposed to eat it!”
“Oh. This isn’t naughty feeding?” Willow queried. She was seated
cross legged before Tara, on the dorm room floor. Tara removed another strawberry
from the plate beside her and held it before Willow again.
“No,” she informed. “This is a magic lesson.”
“Oh!” the vampire exclaimed, and immediately sat up straight.
Tara grinned at how she now had her vampire’s attention.
“When we work our will on something, we rely alot on ‘line of sight’,”
the witch began. “But if we can already, um, discern where the thing is
that we want to work our will on? Then visualization is good too.
“Learn this strawberry,” Tara then instructed.
“Okay,” Willow acknowledged. “But there are a couple of them
over there too,” she added, pointing in the direction of the plate of strawberries,
which she had easily scented. Tara set the one in her hand down before Willow,
and moved the plate away to her desk table. She returned to sit before her vampire
again.
“Okay. So did you learn your strawberry?”
“Yes,” Willow said cheekily, her tongue between her teeth.
Tara grinned again, then looked meaningfully at her lover. Though Willow could
not see her eyes, the vampire could often sense when Tara focused on her.
“Now...work your will on it,” Tara instructed softly.
Willow concentrated, and reached with a different awareness for the small fragrant
fruit she knew lay before her.
Tara watched as Willow mentally grasped the bright strawberry, floated it slowly
up into the air like it were held in a cloud, then settled it softly down again.
The act was remarkably gentle, and was hardly awkward or forced at all.
“Beautiful,” Tara breathed.
And Willow smiled broadly, her blind eyes shining with pride.
* * *
Jenny watched the apple sail very slowly, very softly, straight up. It gave
the slightest, elegant spin in the air, then floated gently back to the floor,
with a grace the coven head was tempted to compare to that of a ballerina.
“Well done,” she finally praised, noticeably impressed by the display.
The rest of the coven members took that opportunity to clap appreciatively,
and Willow beamed from where she sat on the floor.
“Very nice, very nice,” Jonathan was murmuring, stroking his chin.
“Beautiful, sweetie,” Tara congratulated, kneeling on the floor to
give Willow a kiss.
“Anyone for soda?” Amy offered, already at the side table and pouring
out a cup of coke from a two liter. The coven members broke up their viewing
circle, eager for snacks.
It was evening, and they were congregating in Angel’s Crawford Street mansion.
In return for erecting the ‘Slayer proofing’ wards around his property,
he had graciously invited the coven to hold their meetings there.
“You have a very focused, attentive style,” Jenny was telling Willow.
“It shows patience. Keep up that kind of concentration and you will have
very successful spells.” Amazing, the teacher then thought to herself,
that she can actually compliment a fledgling, baby vampire on a virtue like
patience. Jenny recognized that the vampire’s ability to concentrate could
easily be applied later to more difficult, ritualistic spells usually reserved
for more disciplined witches like Tara and Amy. The coven head wasn’t about
to tell a beginner like Willow that, however.
If the vampire was anything like the human Willow, she might refocus on over-achieving,
and Jenny definitely did not want to encourage that.
“Reward, now,” Willow said happily.
“Uh,” Jenny said.
Tara fished in her sweater pocket and removed a red tootsie pop. Willow immediately
grabbed it, the wrapper gone in a blink, and stuck the candy in her mouth. She
scrambled to her feet and wandered away, barely avoiding furniture with a searching
hand.
Jenny looked at Tara. Willow may have great concentration for a fledge, but
her vampiric attention span was pretty typical.
“Reward program, huh?” she said to Tara with a raised eyebrow. The
blonde girl blushed.
“It would be cool,” Andrew was saying eagerly over the chip dip to
Jonathan, Michael, and a bored Amy. “She’s got real keen, magical
perception. She could sniff out all those lost magical artifacts that are hiding
here in Sunnydale. Or, if we need to track down Rack again, we can take her
out--”
“On a leash, you mean,” Amy interrupted, in a really bored voice.
“Are you talking about me like I’m your Puppy?” Andrew heard
a soft voice say casually behind him. Suddenly, all his friends beat a hasty
retreat from the snack table, wisely scattering to other parts of the room.
“Wha, wha, um,” he gulped. He tried bravely to turn around. He drew
on all his comic book fortified courage, and spun to face the vampire. He almost
wished he hadn’t.
Willow didn’t dress like a scary vampire anymore, and being blind, she
seemed tamed. But Willow was still Willow, Andrew realized belatedly. Still
very scary--all pale, and wide eyed, and--very scary. Even with a lollypop
in her mouth.
Willow pulled the candy out of her mouth, her blind, green eyes staring uncannily
in his direction.
“I’m not your Puppy,” she stated very softly to the frightened,
young man.
“N-N-No, you’re not,” Andrew stammered. “S-Sorry.”
“Bored now,” Willow whispered to him, standing very still with the
candy in her hand. “Run, little boy.”
Andrew looked wildly around for Tara, and saw the blonde girl standing by Jenny,
looking curiously in their direction.
“She’s just playing with you,” Tara reassured him. To Andrew,
that sounded just like his mother’s tone when his bigger brother Tucker
would chase him and then beat him up behind the house. What did moms know, he
thought bitterly.
“Ah,” Andrew exclaimed as Willow stepped closer to him, and then he
bolted for the verandah doors. Willow happily followed him outside.
“Tara said I could eat one of you!” she called out after Andrew in
the garden.
“I did not,” Tara refuted in embarrassment to the room at large. Everyone
returned to what they were doing, and Jenny turned to Tara once again.
“Are you still thinking about moving away?” Jenny asked quietly. Tara’s
eyes immediately saddened.
“The more I think about it, th-the more it doesn’t feel right,”
Tara finally answered softly. She fretted with the ends of her sweater. “It’s
not just the money, and stuff. Angel said he’d help. It’s more about,
taking care of the...threat. Of making sure that Willow has...nothing to fear
anymore.”
Jenny took a breath, trying to remember that they were talking about Willow
in particular, and not just any demon. Jenny was always of the mind that demons
needed something to fear, hence the existence of the Slayer. Tara was far too
compassionate for her own good. She was also, the teacher realized, a good soul
seeking a non-violent solution, and that seemed hardly possible for the kind
of tragic circumstance she and Willow had survived.
At least not possible in Jenny’s personal experience, or else she would
tell Tara what that non-violent solution was, right now.
“With time,” Tara was saying to Jenny softly, as she stared away from
her, caught in her own shadows of memory. “A person can come to understand
things...that have happened to them. But vampires aren’t like that. For
them, it’s kill and win, or, kill and survive. They don’t...”
“Bear the humility of mortal suffering,” Jenny finished for her, almost
wryly. Tara’s blue eyes focused on her gratefully.
“Willow’s actually learning how. At least I think so. But it’s
not enough. If she could have her eyesight now, she wouldn’t hesitate to
try to kill the Slayer, somehow.
“If she regained her sight while we’re away, I don’t doubt that
she’d leave me to come back for revenge,” Tara added simply.
Jenny shook her head, more to herself about the situation than to what Tara
was explaining to her. “Is she thinking revenge now?” the teacher
queried, wondering if, during all this time, Willow might have been plotting.
Outside, Andrew’s cries of mortification were heard, and the other coven
members gathered around the verandah doors to curiously watch his mysterious
humiliations at the hands of Willow.
“I haven’t given her time to,” Tara gave quietly.
* * *
“More more more more more,” Willow was chanting softly, little breathy
girl sounds from her lips as she crawled slowly and deliberately around the
bed, all cat-like, pretending to look for Tara.
“Mmm,” Tara hummed, as Willow finally pounced on her, her vampire’s
secondhand, baby tee riding up. She wore only that, looking delectable and naughty.
The scars on her body from cross burns were only silvery ridges now.
“More what?” Tara murmured, as she ran lazy hands down Willow’s
back beneath the little shirt. She squeezed the cool, firm flesh of her vampire’s
ass. She wished she could buy Willow the kinds of clothes her vampire was comfortable
with, but leather was expensive, and fetish gear was definitely not within Tara’s
budget. Her lover didn’t seem to mind the thrift store clothing, though.
Willow coquettishly pushed up the shrunken, faded girl tee she wore, revealing
her small breasts. They gave a little bounce free from the fabric, the nipples
hard and taut. She teased Tara’s face with the tips of them.
“More more more more Tara,” the vampire breathed above her, her clouded,
green eyes shining. “More Tara everywhere. More Tara everything. More Tara
always.”
“Beautiful baby,” Tara whispered.
“Inside,” Willow urged, and when Tara’s fingers found her vampire’s
sex, it was very wet and ready.
Willow held the headboard and rode her witch’s hand slowly and deeply,
making every wet, tight connection last.
“Love you,” she gasped, arching her pale, undulating body. “Love
you love you love you...”
“Love you too,” Tara breathed, reaching, reaching beyond the internal
scars, and spoke her declaration to Willow like a solemn vow.
* * *
When Willow came back, all she wanted was assurance--that Tara was really here,
with her--that the vampire belonged here, with her--that the Slayer’s brutal
lessons were not true--that she now had the chance to say what she had thought
was irrevocably lost to her, in that cage--
“Love--you, love--you,” she gasped.
Not easy, cheap words of affection. Not lip services of gratitude to her savior.
Not expressions of lusty, demonic obsession for her very beautiful, magical
woman.
“Oh, Ta-ra, OH--”
Love. She was certain it was, because--how to explain such emotion? How to explain
such indescribable beauty, agony, and joy that flourished in her like her own
mini sun, just in Tara’s presence, and even without it. She loved her--
“OH TARA,” she cried, gripping wood beneath her hands and cumming,
and cumming, and cumming--
REAL; her love became stark reality under the breaking of her bones.
With the burning of her eyes, her inner sight had come alive and recognized
Truth--not the truths the bitch had wanted to teach but the truth that had resided
right there, all that time, in her undead heart--a truth she could have ignored
if not for humiliation, a truth she could have lied about or mocked if not for
being violated, over and over and over--
She collapsed upon Tara, a broken, spent thing; a vessel, a nothing, and then
everything, all over again, but this time a Willow/void filled with only Tara/Love--
Love, you, she mouthed brokenly into the warm, living throat of her beloved.
So much.
* * *
“Am I your Puppy?” Tara heard softly spoken up to her. She stirred
from the semi-sleep and contented peace their coupling had brought her.
Puppy? the young woman thought, with the slightest frown, as she ran her hand
languorously through Willow’s soft, bright hair. Tara was, unfortunately,
always so slow of thought at times like this.
“Do,” Willow was saying softly from the pillow of her breasts. “Do
you...think of me as your pet? Cos it’s okay, I don’t mind.”
Tara’s frown deepened, and she gently tried to lift her vampire’s
face, wanting to look into her lover’s eyes. Then Tara realized: stupid,
of course she doesn’t really know, it’s not like she can see your
face.
“Come here, darling,” Tara coaxed, her heart hurting to see the guarded
fear in Willow’s unseeing, cloudy eyes. Poor sweetheart.
She adjusted Willow atop her so that she could take her weight, and then placed
her vampire’s slender, cool hands on her face.
“Doesn’t matter if you’re evil. Doesn’t matter what other
people think,” she told her solemnly, as Willow felt her lips, her features.
“I love you. I love you, Willow of Aurelius, childe of Xander, grandchilde
of Darla. I love you, completely.” The smile that graced Tara’s mouth
at the announced conviction was so wide with happiness, it felt like sunrise.
Understanding dawned on Willow’s face as her fingers felt that smile and
the same joy grew and burst into being in her own wide eyed countenance. The
vampire suddenly descended on Tara’s lips, kissing, kissing, kissing everywhere.
“Happy, happy,” Willow cried, as well as ‘love’, and ‘you’,
and ‘thank you’. And she caressed her witch’s face over and over
and felt the truth of Tara’s own declarations of love for her right there.
Much, much later that night, just a few hours before dawn, Willow was certain
she was still glowing from her witch’s affirmations. As she made her very
silent way down to the vending machines in order to ransack them for another
orange juice carton for her witch, the vampire wondered if she was giving off
love radiation, because that was exactly how she sappily felt; glowy and radiating
of love.
“Love you lots,” she stated with happiness, as she beat up one of
the machines until it dropped her juice prize for free.
Even love vibes, however, could not dull her other senses to the things that
still existed out there, in the night.
On her way back up the stairs, she immediately clung to the stairwell’s
wall and whimpered when she suddenly felt her.
“Go away,” Willow harshed out. “Go. Away.”
And when it didn’t, Willow tried to still her shaking fright and focus
only on Tara, only on her eyes, only on her calm, beautiful, strong blue eyes--
“Not, not going to let you, take this, not,” Willow bravely got out,
still feeling that presence right there, out--out there-- “Kill
you first, I will. I will. I’ll kill you when I’m better. I Will!!”
And Willow ran as best as she could for her witch’s dorm room. During the
hours until dawn, she laid tight in Tara’s arms, her love for her witch
warring with demonic thoughts that submerged her in the familiar, dark scenarios
of death and violence.
* * *
‘enlight’
“Evil,” Willow judged as she pulled a dark grimoire and then placed
it on another shelf. “Evil,” she noted again with another book she
pulled. She reshelved it. “Evil. Oh, and this one’s really evil!”
She gave the sinister tome a slight sniff. It was giving off oily vibes and
stank of hell and corruption. “Human skin. Blood of babies,” Willow
assessed to herself. She wrinkled her nose. There was sick, the vampire thought
to herself, and then there was sick.
“That one gets wrapped up for Angel,” Anyanka instructed from the
store’s floor below. Willow was on the Magic Box’s second floor loft,
where all the very serious magic books were stored. She was helping to sort
through the ones Jenny didn’t want her coven members to even touch. Considering
how full of nasty, black magic some of the off-limit books were, Willow could
understand why. She would never want Tara touching these bad things. The vampire
could hear the vengeance demon turn a page in the newspaper she was avidly reading,
as the elder sat at one of the reading tables.
“Do you need more protective binding cloth?” Willow heard Michael
helpfully call up to her, probably from his position behind the register.
“Nope,” Willow simply acknowledged. She carefully wrapped the ‘human
skin’ book in a hide of more conventional leather, then secured it with
braided leather lace--braided by herself, Willow noted proudly--and knotted
the laces tightly. Then she placed the book for safekeeping in a chest meant
for Angel--who was probably going to chuck it in the ocean or something. Willow
had to wonder where elders hid stuff. If the Master had really hidden away some
treasures, like Xander had said, Willow wouldn’t mind getting her little
vampire hands on them so she could help her witch finally financially. She hated
being a burden on her girl.
She takes care of me, she loves me, Willow thought happily. The vampire wanted
to figure out what she could do to take care of Tara too.
“Where’s Tara?” she asked aloud, realizing her witch’s presence
had disappeared.
“Below, in the basement stockroom,” she heard Jonathan say. He was
somewhere below Willow herself, among the shelves that sold magic books to the
public. “Andrew and Amy are still trying to locate the mummy’s hand
that escaped. Tara went to help.”
Hrumph. Willow thought. I can hunt for a mummy’s hand, easily.
“Finish inventorying my evil books,” Anyanka directed from where she
sat, like as if she’d read Willow’s thoughts. The vampire heard another
page of the Italian newspaper--Il Manifesto, Anyanka had told her--being
turned and the demon then chuckled to herself. It was obvious the elder was
reading about some social or political disaster that she had personally caused.
Pah, Willow mentally scoffed. Don’t care. Want to see my witch.
Willow made her way to the loft’s stairs, easily ignoring her assigned
duty. If she found the mummy’s hand for Tara, there was always the possibility
of reward kisses.
She only made it two steps down when she felt it. The dreaded sensation took
the strength from her legs and despite herself she sank, clutching to the bannister
desperately.
Noooo, not now, she pleaded desperately, as she cowered on the step. Not now,
when I still can’t see, not now!!
“J,” she tried, finding her voice suddenly gone. “Jonathan,”
she called weakly. “G-Go get Tara.”
“Willow?” Jonathan called up to her. She heard the clueless, young
man emerge from the stacks below, probably looking curiously up at her stupid,
sick looking self. “What’s wrong?”
She’ll say nothing more. Not a word. Not if that bitch could overhear her
right now, as she came closer, and closer. Willow could do this. She can tough
it out. She was a vampire. Even if her legs didn’t work.
She tried to pry her fingers out of the bannister above her, wondering if she
looked as pathetic as she had on that cage floor.
Anyanka leisurely turned another page of her newspaper, but she was no longer
reading.
“She comes,” she merely said, and her tone held a quiet solemnity.
The Magic Box door bell jangled, and the door swung open.
Buffy walked in.
The other Slayer entered behind her.
The blonde Slayer stepped slowly down the steps, the hard soles of her steel
toed boots impressing her weight deliberately upon the wood. She looked around
casually, putting a finger out to idly poke some amulets hung on display. She
came to a stop at the middle of the store, beside Anyanka’s table, and
rested a palm on the surface as she looked down. The demon laid her paper aside,
staring with interested, alert eyes. Buffy ignored her. She finally lifted her
own emotionless eyes from her resting hand and directed them up the steps to
the loft, and to the huddled figure there.
“Hey,” she said. “Happy to see me?”
Silence answered her.
Buffy turned with a brief motion of her head to address Faith.
“Should have heard her before. A really quip-meister. Guess she.”
Buffy returned her cold attention to the vampire on the steps, her gaze wide
and dispassionate. “Lost her smart mouth. A vampire, with no mouth, is
like, not a vampire at all. So here I am. To put you out of your misery.”
“No,” Willow breathed. She wished for once, that her voice was not
so little girlie and small. And shaking. “Thanks.....You, have no passion.
You’re already dead. It would be, a, very sad fight. So,” she continued
in a braver tone. “Let me put you out of your misery, instead.”
Faith guffawed briefly from her side of the room, but Buffy merely stared up
at her prey and smiled.
“C’mon then, little Wills,” she quietly cajoled, remaining where
she stood. “C’mon down then, and show Buffy what you’re made
of.”
Willow gripped the bannister.
“C’mon, little blind bat,” Buffy quietly taunted, staring wide
eyed at the seated vampire.
“Back off,” Jonathan suddenly blustered, from below Willow. Buffy’s
eyes connected with his.
“Unless you really got the stones,” she stated with deadly intent.
“You don’t get a second warning.”
Jonathan clenched his fists, his rapid thoughts evident on his face, and Buffy
stared, fascinated.
“Jonathan, don’t,” Willow suddenly ordered him from above. Slowly,
the vampire rose to her feet. “I’m coming down,” she said.
Buffy’s gaze slid up to her prey.
“Leave Jonathan alone,” Willow warned, as she took a step.
“Sure,” Buffy said. She watched Willow take another step. “Guess
I didn’t hit you enough,” she added.
Willow took another step.
“Oh,” Buffy remarked casually. She reached for the small of her back,
and pulled out something. There was the familiar clink of metal upon metal.
Buffy held the cuffs aloft. “Brought your favorite bracelets.”
Willow swayed on the steps, clutching the bannister. The naked fear in her blind
eyes was everything Buffy wanted to see.
“Ignite,” a woman’s voice intoned from the basement door.
The cuffs flared red hot in Buffy’s hand, forcing the Slayer to drop them.
“Ow,” Buffy merely said.
Tara stepped forward, placing herself before the blonde Slayer. Amy, Andrew,
and Jonathan spread themselves quickly behind her. Faith, from her position
behind the watching Anyanka, went into a defensive stance.
“B’,” she warned.
Buffy just held up a hand in the direction of the dark haired Slayer, then dropped
it. She stared up into Tara’s eyes.
“’Bout time,” she simply said.
“Amy, take Faith,” Tara ordered, her gaze unwavering. Amy’s eyes
turned to black.
“Thicken, Hold Fast,” she intoned, staring at Faith. The dark haired
Slayer found herself immobile.
“B’!” she cried. “Get out of here! B’!!”
Buffy ignored her, her eyes only on Tara’s.
“Tara?” Willow whispered from the stairs, trying to discern what was
going on below her.
“In a minute, baby,” Tara reassured, never taking her eyes off Buffy.
“Why are you still here,” the Slayer mused, as if to herself.
“I couldn’t leave town,” Tara quietly said. “I have to finish
what you’ve started.”
Anyanka rose from her seat.
“You’re ready,” the demon ascertained, anticipation gleaming
in her eyes like a coach appraising her champion. Tara finally looked away from
the Slayer to grace Anyanka with a quiet look, then turned to the loft stairs.
“Willow,” she urged. “Come down, baby.” She held out her
arms, as Willow obeyed, stepping down until she found the safety and warmth
of her witch.
“What’s going on?” the vampire whispered, as she hugged Tara
close.
“I’m going to make a wish,” Tara told her softly. “I’m
going to do it for us. I just...I hope you’ll understand why I’m doing
it,” she added with trepidation and worry, as she caressed Willow’s
dear face.
“I trust you,” Willow said, as her shining, blind eyes found Tara’s.
“But--”
“I trust you,” Willow reiterated softly, and a small smile
reassuringly curved her lips for her witch.
Tara kissed her sweetly, and when she turned back to the watching Slayer, there
was a barren landscape in the smaller girl’s eyes.
A devastation.
“B’!!” Faith shouted.
“Do your worse,” the Slayer simply said.
Tara held Willow’s hand.
“I wish that Buffy Summers should know, in an instant, all that Willow,
childe of Xander, knows, and has known,” Tara spoke quietly.
“Done,” Anyanka granted, and she wore her demon face.
Buffy immediately collapsed.
She began convulsing, her eyes agonized and unseeing. She shook from being the
forced vessel of another’s life and unlife. Recognition, horror, and revulsion
twisted her comprehending face. She opened her mouth.
A deep, guttural howl of anguish tore from her being.
She kept howling.
“S-Stop,” Andrew cried, palms to his ears. “God, make her stop!!”
Finally, the Slayer’s screams stopped.
She stumbled to her feet, blind, flailing.
She made it to the door.
She fled wildly into the night.
“Release,” Amy bemusedly said, and Faith immediately ran out of the
store after the other Slayer.
In the stillness of the store, Anyanka walked back to the table she had left
her newspaper at, her expensive heels making a leisurely, rhythmic sound that
broke the silence. She picked up her newspaper, folded it, and then walked back
to where Tara stood, her vampire wrapped around her. Willow was kissing the
tears away from the young woman’s face.
“Well done,” Anyanka said, a sense of great, personal satisfaction
in her voice. She spared Tara a thoughtful glance, then reached out and very
briefly, and awkwardly, patted the witch’s arm. Then she orbed out.
“It’s over,” Andrew blurted shakily, utter relief and a grin
forming on his face. “It’s really over!”
No one said anything. Willow buried her face in Tara’s neck.
After a while, she murmured softly into her witch.
“Liked her screams,” she said.
* * *
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