Chapter Text
Hemery High School, Los Angeles, California-1995
"….and I was like, 'Oh, my God, Maryanne, why are you wearing that dress?' I swear to you, I will never see something so amazingly hideous again. The odds of such a thing happening again are so huge as to defy belief." Despite being a freshman, Buffy Summers was at the top of the social food chain at Hemery High, and it seemed as if nothing could depose her from her reign as Queen B. Walking down the halls with her subjects, Buffy's opinion of Maryanne's dress was swiftly revised as she came across a shy, perpetually slouching blonde girl who seemed to be trying to completely hide herself in her locker. "Of course, I could be utterly mistaken. Jesus, Tara, I understand that your family is on some sort of exchange program from the set of Mad Max, but could you at least follow the most basic rules of proper fashion? You look like the love child of an Amish person and a hippie!"
"I-I-I-I-I-I'm s-s-s-sorry," answered the girl, Tara Maclay, utterly afraid of Buffy and completely ashamed that she lacked the courage to stand up to her.
"What was that?" sneered Buffy. "I c-c-c-couldn't make that out over your st-st-stutter." Buffy's friends, Jennifer, Kimberly, and Cassandra, laughed obediently at the cruel joke. Rushing to leave in a nervous panic, Tara accidentally dropped an old-looking book with the title Wiccan Spell Book, some runes, and a truly foul-smelling bag of herbs.
"Oh, gross!" shouted Jennifer.
"A spell book?" remarked Buffy as she picked up the tome and started mindlessly rifling through the pages. "What are you going to do, turn us into toads?" Queen B emphasized the point by picking up the arcane materials in Tara's arms, nearly forcing her to drop all of her books.
Completely humiliated, Tara stammered for a few seconds before turning tail and running, not even bothering to close her locker.
"God!" declared Buffy, slamming the locker shut in a fit of annoyance. "What a freak!"