Chapter Text
“Giles, I want to learn magic. Or at least learn about magic.”
Giles startles out of his morning tea. Buffy just barged in without knocking - really must get that lock fixed. “Why-why do you want to do that, Buffy?”
“Because Willow has barely talked to me since that whole fear demon thing. I think she was really hurt by me saying her spells never worked, and she doesn’t seem to be doing magic anymore. And now that she’s dating Riley - blegh, by the way - she doesn’t even really sleep in our room. I’ve tried apologizing, a lot, but she won’t really take it, not enough to talk to me. So I wanna try to connect with an interest of hers I have at least, like, a chance of getting, and maybe get her back into it in the process? Magic has been really good for her. Plus, not to sound too Machiavellian, but if Willow really leave-leaves the group and runs away with Riley or something, what’re we gonna do the next time a spell needs more than one person?”
Giles somehow manages to look surprised and wary and happy at the same time. “W-well, I must say, that’s quite astute - when, uh, when did you read Machiavelli?”
“I didn’t. I heard ‘Machiavellian’ in that movie, Meet Joe Black so I asked Will about it - back when we were, you know, talking. Still not big into political philosophy, Giles.”
Giles stands up and starts walking around, looking at his books. “Buffy, I’m not even sure if Slayers can do magic. The Watchers’ diaries never mentioned it to my memory, though that may just be because magic would let Slayers be more independent of their Watchers. We can try, though I would be concerned about who you choose to practice with, or if you were practicing alone like Willow primarily does.”
Giles holds his glasses to his chin as he thinks. “Why don’t I get you, oh yes, Leland’s Brief History of Magic. Relatively modern so it shouldn’t be too much of a, ah, drag. And then why don’t you look to see if there’s a nice entry level coven around, maybe some kind of campus Wicca group?”
___
Buffy reads some of History of Magic. It seems to be much more history than magic, though, and not the relatively fun war and politics kind of history, but the reciting dates kind of history. She flips the book shut and goes down to the hall lounge to look at the bulletin board. She finds a notice saying that the next meeting of the Wicca club is in an hour at Briscoe Hall across campus, and rushes to get there on time.
At the Wicca meeting, they mostly talk about baking and dances and stuff. After about five minutes of droll arguing about brownies and candles, she nervously butts her head in.
“Uh, hey, guys, not that I’m not all for the social engagement kind of stuff, but do you think we could talk about or-or maybe even do some basic spells? You know, conjure the elements, levitate a pencil, stuff like that?”
Everyone makes fun of her. Seems like no one in this group really knows about magic. That’s kind of sad. Oh, but, across the circle -
Buffy doesn’t really hear the next part of the conversation. She thinks this girl is agreeing with her and everyone else is really and truly making fun of her for some reason, but she’s caught up on the girl parts of that girl. She’s… really pretty. Like, unreasonably pretty. And - is that hair natural? It’s so white. Oh, no, look at the top, her roots are coming in. That dark brown looks great on her too, though. Through the din of whatever this is, she hears a name. Tara.
___
After sitting through an extra 20 minutes largely taken up by an argument between a girl with a shrine to Athena and one with a shrine to Minerva, Buffy tries to catch up to that girl. What was her name again?
Buffy walks after her, but a class probably just let out, because the quad is full of people. Buffy keeps going in what she hopes is the right direction, and after a few seconds the name pops into her head.
“Tara!”
Wow, Buffy, that was really stupid, there are probably a dozen Taras out here, but - oh, 25 feet or so down the path to Stevenson, there’s a flash of white hair. It seems like whoever it is just turned around for a second and kept going, but that gave Buffy an opening. She really rushes, Slayer rushes, to catch up, but she has enough experience with this by now to slow down when she gets within a couple feet and look a little breathless as she starts talking to Tara.
“Hey, back there, I’m sorry I didn’t jump in to help defend you. I got a little - um,” Buffy flushes a bit, although she isn’t sure why, “distracted.”
Tara looks startled, even a good 5 seconds after Buffy started talking to her. She also still looks super pretty. Why does Buffy keep thinking that? “O-oh, that’s… that’s okay. They, they uh, they don’t like what I have to s-say very often.”
“But it seemed like you actually knew something about, y’know, the midnight dance. The devil’s devotional. The black arts, or the white arts. What makes the arts certain colors? Are there gray arts?”
“I don’t. I don’t think so? Do you really w-wanna learn?”
Buffy’s relief is palpable. “Yes, please. Can we hang out sometime and talk about this stuff? I live over in Stevenson.”