OPEN ♔ I HAD BEEN DRESSED IN A COAT OF ARMOR.

[slays]

♬ Horse and I ; Bats for Lashes

WHO || Buffy Summers and YOU. (open)
WHAT || Insomnia strikes.
WHERE || Knight's HQ, the Kitchen
WHEN || Saturday night, around 1 am.
HOW || Actionspam or prose, multiple threads

Buffy stirred as she slept, her tiny body stretching to encompass the entirety of her bed as she steadily shifted about, propelled into unconscious action by the vividness of her dreams. They gripped her in a way reality had yet to since she ... well, since she couldn't remember when. She gave a quiet grumble of protest at the sudden aching pain that flooded her senses as she relived a four hundred-year-old memory.

White Doe you are, white doe you shall become!

The burn of fresh, present pain creaked through her bones as they snapped and altered. Her teeth gritted, but she did not scream. The Slayer did not scream, did not submit to the wills of men, did not allow them to be satisfied by controlling her. But, the agony was unbearable. She fell to the ground, fingers digging into the dirt, grabbing fistfuls of earth.

Her vision blurred, her mind edged dark, and for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, the world around her was only blurred swatches of whites, blacks and greys. They slowly gained shape, but the colors had bled out and didn't return.

Flailing, she tried to scramble to her feet, but the attempt caused her to collapse, because her legs were not those of a human. They weren't intended to hold her upright on two. No, below her were the knobby, furred legs of a doe, unsteady and collapsing beneath her.

She tried to run. Across water, which cooled her hooves (hooves? Really?), but it warred against her. Rushing up from the waves, blue figures surrounded her, assaulted her, crushed her beneath the weight of them. It was all she could do not to drown as it filled her tiny doe lungs and she was forced back ashore on the beach of the island.

The monsters weren't going to allow her to leave. She was trapped. Trapped on this rock.

She wasn't sure how much time passed. Weeks. Months. It was all a blur of long runs through wooded areas. They were peaceful, but confining. The trees felt more like prison bars after so long. She was alone, locked away on a part of the earth that no man would visit. Until he did.

Seal of the Ocean. She saw him from where she hesitated on a rock, and her eyes widened, her body growing still and unmoving. He drew his bow, but he was too far off for her to see. She couldn't budge, too shocked that it was really him.

Too shocked to realize that her body was changing again, and when she could finally move, when she finally outstretched her arms to greet him, smiling wide and bright, she felt pain blossoming in her breast. Looking down, she saw the arrow planted deep in her rib cage. Blood flooded her heart, her lungs, and she gasped for a breath that wouldn't come, falling once more to the rocks below.

Seal of the Ocean made his way to her side, holding her, calling for help, though she could scarcely say she understood what came out of his mouth.

"Too late," she informed him. "I must speak ..." He held her in his arms, and she told him. "I was the Slayer. I let anger and hurt and pride betray me, and now I pay the price. Do not mourn. I die loved." Her vision blacked as her breaths grew more shallow, more gasped, more impossible.

And the inability to catch her breath, even as she gasped for it, jerked Buffy from her slumber. She shot straight up in bed, panting, wheezing, gulping down oxygen like it was a fire sale.

Different dream. Same end. Death. They always died. She didn't know who White Doe was, who Seal of the Ocean was, or what it had to do with her, but she could safely say that it could be added to the tiny collection of memories she'd managed to regain, none of which were hers, all of which were different gruesome deaths wrought on by demons and magic that she didn't understand.

She was sweating. She pushed the covers back, finally catching her breath, and reached up to wipe the moisture from her brow, pulling herself out of the bed. Hell. It felt like every time she shut her eyes, she was trapped in some ... some perpetual Hell. Somebody else's Hell, even. She took a moment to re-orient herself to the unfamiliar room, then shuffled her feet into slippers and ducked out of it entirely, leaving the door cracked behind her to remember which one was hers.

Making her way down the hall, she hung a left and found her way back to the kitchen. It was harder to find in the darkness, but at least she could say she'd been there before. Made it easier to find than Jack's office had been. She grabbed a piece of fruit off the counter and a paring knife, leaning over it and slowly cutting into the pulp of the fruit, biting her lip as every squish of its flesh reminded her of the sickening noise of the arrow in White Doe's chest.

One decent night's sleep. That's all she wanted. Why was it so much to ask? If her life was going to haunt her, couldn't it haunt her with the rest of her memories and not these ... Slayers?

Comments

[slays]

It's one in the morning. [ Her tone is a little harsh and defensive. ] I wasn't exactly prepped for company. [ She at least assumes he just means the jumpiness. She rolls her shoulders a little. ]

[bigbad]

No, I meant-- [She barely knows him. She probably doesn't want to confide in him. He shakes his head.] Never mind. I was just getting... [Blood. He can't say blood. He just gestures at the fridge. He can find... something. Do vampires even eat human food? He hopes they do.]

[slays]

Right. Well, don't let me stop you. [ She gets out of the way of the fridge to lean against a countertop, carving another chunk out of her fruit and eating it off the knife. ]

[bigbad]

[He walked past her and opened the freezer. He grabbed a red popsicle and unwrapped it, then turned back to face her.]

So. Trouble sleeping? Or do you just keep late hours?

[slay]

What is that, the one a.m. kitchen version of "you come here often?" [ She's deflecting. ]

[bigbad]

[He shrugs, looking amused.] Maybe. Should I offer to buy you a warm glass of milk?

[slay]

Gonna buy me dinner first? [ She raises an eyebrow, contesting, then just shrugs, staring down at the knife and fruit in her hand. ] I don't know. Just a new place, I guess.

[bigbad]

[...he wouldn't mind buying her dinner. But this probably isn't the time or place. Especially as she's probably joking. So he just raises his eyebrows suggestively, then focuses on her second point.]

I get that. It's weird, you know? Living in a castle. [He didn't think he was used to that.]

[slays]

Tell me about it. Kinda feels like I should be practicing my thines and thous.

[bigbad]

Actually, that's the less formal tense. The normal you's what the people who lived in castles would use. [...how does he know that? Spike frowns, looking confused, then bites into his popsicle to cover it up.]

[slay]

[ And this is just an expectant look with her eyebrows steadily raising. How the fuck do you know this, bro. ]

[bigbad]

[Spike looks up at her defensively.] What? I know a thing or two about grammar. [Apparently.]

[slay]

Apparently. I'm more wondering why.

[bigbad]

[He shrugs.] Guess I picked it up somewhere. Bugger if I know where.

[slay]

Right. Amnesia and all. [ She hesitates, then leans around, checking out his head for a minute. And just generally seeming creepy, weird and invasive as she does so. ]

[bigbad]

[The weird part is, he tolerates it for a moment before he realises just how strange and invasive it is. Then he sort of leans back and gives her a confused look.]

What are you doing?

[slays]

... [ She catches onto her weirdness and just gives a kind of expressive shrug. ] Checking for head trauma?

[bigbad]

[He stares at her for a moment, then gives a sort of confused laugh.] Thanks, I think. [Weird girl. But at least she's far from boring.]

[slays]

[ There's a tiny huff. ] Well! [ And now kawaii defensive times desu. ] I just thought, I mean, it didn't look like you were sporting the post-concussion look at the ceremony or the party. Doesn't that usually go hand-in-hand with the lack of memory thing?

[bigbad]

You don't have to get defensive. [He held up a hand, smiling a little.] It was... thoughtful? [But still weird.] It's not a concussion, though. It's... something else.

[slays]

I'm not -- [ She tries to interject, but when he calls it thoughtful, she quiets, swallowing her words and just waiting for him to finish. ] So, you know? How it happened, I mean.

[bigbad]

Sort of. [He looks a little uncomfortable. There's a lot he doesn't understand about the whole veil thing, but he does understand that it's why he doesn't have his memories.] I'm not from around here.

[slays]

Funny, 'cause you sure sound like it, and you seem to fit in waaaaay better than I do. [ She's not gonna stop pushing. ]

[bigbad]

[He raises an eyebrow.] Really? You seem to fit in just fine, as far as I can tell. [At least she's human.]

[slays]

Sure, if you ignore the weirdness of hearing "blah blah Dragon's Claws taking on squires blah blah." Also, you know, American. [ Apparently. Maybe. With what Val'drin had said, it was pretty likely even that was Veil-induced wiggins. ]