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Chapter Text

Sunnydale Island is a shadowy crag, full of boulders and cavelets and places to hide. Buffy noticed this right away as the barge carried her across Lake Hellmouth this morning. Now, at deep midnight, she's rethinking her assessment. Sunnydale Island is an exceptionally difficult place to sneak about.

She picks her way down the boulders that line the castle walls, listening for the rattle of footsteps along the gravel beach below. Someone’s tracking her, and they’re not very good at it. Buffy rolls her eyes. She’s got an island to explore, so whoever it is will just have to try and keep up with her.

She and the other Slayer candidates have only gotten the sanctioned tour so far – castle, training grounds, all within the sturdy stone walls of the fortress. Skills testing has kept them too busy for anything else. It makes Buffy itch. It isn’t her way to stay inside the lines. Anywhere she travels, the first thing she does is sneak out at night and patrol. Not for anything in particular. She barely knows what she’s looking for; she just doesn’t feel able to rest in a new place until she’s managed to sneak away and observe it herself: the alleys, woods, and canals where in daytime, Buffy is told she must never go.

“Patrolling,” her mother’d scoffed when she caught Buffy sneaking back in the window of her aunt’s cottage during their last visit. “It’s nearly time for the dawn bell to ring! The only folk out at this time of night aren’t patrolling, they’re prowling.” That was the last time Buffy’d been caught. But it wasn’t her final patrol. She merely got better at staying unseen and unheard. A difficult task for a girl as unnaturally strong as her, who’s forever slamming doors she meant to gently close.

Joyce Summers thought her daughter’d stopped her nighttime investigations after that, but Buffy had only gotten better at it. On their journey to Sunnydale Island, Buffy slipped out of every inn to patrol at night. No easy task when you’re sharing a narrow rented bed with your mother, but that was all the Summers women could afford. Joyce’d seen her all the way to the shore of Lake Hellmouth, pressing tears from her eyes as Buffy boarded the barge toward Sunnydale. The whole time, she’d been none the wiser.

Buffy swallows down a little lump of guilt, thinking of that. Joyce barely scraped together enough coin for the trip. She doesn’t like deceiving her mother when she’d gone so far to see her off. But that kind of thing doesn’t keep her up at night. The itch of not knowing what lay in the shadows? That does.

She’s right to be suspicious, Buffy reflects. She’s found a nook in the cliff that separates the boulders from the beach, and there is a tall, square shadow waiting for her on the gravel. The owner of the shadow, whoever they are, isn’t even trying to hide.

Her first night patrolling on Sunnydale Island, and someone is following her.

Chapter Text

One week later.

Willow and Xander are fine companions, better than Buffy could hope for, but their consoling skills could use some refining.

“It’s not so bad, Buffy.” Willow’s eyes are wide in pity. They’re leaning against a crumbling wall in the training yard, far from the wizened tree where the Watcher posted the Slayer assignments this morning.

“Apprenticing High Scholar Giles? Think of the things you’ll learn.” Jealousy tinges Xander’s voice no matter how he tries to hide it. Bookish and missing an eye due to a recent accident, he assumed he’d be the one helping the brilliant Giles research bloodsucking beasts and invent new weapons, or whatever it is Scholars do. “His monograph on the beasts of the north completely changed my mind about cockatrices!”

Buffy’s no dullard, but she’s never been one for thick books and grinding herbs and writing notations down in ledgers. She likes to get out there and put her strength to use. She doesn’t really have an opinion about cockatrices. “I already spent two years squiring for my town’s Slayer. Now I have two more of being someone’s glorified assistant.” Willow puts a sympathetic hand on her arm.

“I can’t make sense of it,” Xander sighs. “Here I am, polishing my armor up for a monthlong campaign in the field. But they hold the freakishly strong girl back at Sunnydale Castle so she can be a Scholar’s apprentice.”

“Right? Not to say I deserve to be a Slayer, but…”

“No, you do. That’s clear enough.” From anyone else, Buffy’d take that as another halfhearted attempt at consolation, but the past week has taught her that Xander Harris never says anything he doesn’t truly believe.

“Yeah, Buffy. Your performance in the physical challenge was…” Willow’s exhalation puffs out her cheeks comically.

And that was where the problem started, Buffy reflects. Her scores in the physical Slayer test yesterday were the best in her group. Too good. She’s strong, yes, but she’d never have scored that high barring outside help. Help she should have rejected.

If the person following you is waiting for you to approach them, who’s really doing the following?

Buffy’d asked herself this that first night on the beach. 

There weren’t any stars that night, nor moonlight, thanks to the heavy cloud cover. The blocky shadow following her had no visible features, just broad shoulders and significant height. There was nothing for it, she’d decided, but to confront the shadow standing with its back to the Lake Hellmouth, relaxed as if they were simply stargazing.

Buffy knelt, never taking her eyes off her pursuer, and felt around the base of the crevice where she was hiding. Grabbing a rock just smaller than her head, she heaved it in the air. It soared over the gravel beach, over the shadow’s head, and splashed into the lake. The shadow turned, and she took her moment. Sliding the rest of the way down the cliff, Buffy sped across the beach and slammed the stranger to the gravel.

“You’re damned strong, you know that?” the stranger managed after regaining some of the air Buffy’d slammed out of his lungs. He was a man, she saw, square jawed and dark haired. He’d be a little bit handsome if his eyebrows didn’t meet in the middle.

Buffy’d ignored the question, pushed the dagger from her boot into the soft flesh of his neck. “What do you want?”

“The same thing you do.”

“I highly doubt that.” She’d examined him closer then. “I’ve met all of the other Slayer candidates, and you’re not one of them.” Though his height would be an asset in Slaying. Buffy had to straddle his ribcage just to see him face to face. He, wisely, kept his hands planted firmly at his sides. Buffy pressed her dagger just a bit harder to make sure they stayed that way.

“I’m not a candidate for Slayer. But I’m…a friend.”

“No friend of mine.”

“Give it time.” He, incredibly, smiled.

“Don’t have any. I’m here for a week, then I’m getting placed as a Slayer somewhere far, far away from here.”

“Then just try something for me. Take this –” he pressed a small sack into her hands – “and see if you find an opportunity to use it this week during your skills testing.”

She weighed it in her hands, felt the shifting grains inside for any hidden weapons, even sniffed at the bag, but none of her instincts were aroused. The itch that raised her from her bed to walk among the shadows wasn’t making itself known at all. Buffy eased up on the dagger – not too much – and gave her shadow one more assessing look.

“Don’t let me catch you following me again.”

Dagger sheathed, her gift pocketed, she slipped back into the night.

“D’you think she knows she doesn’t have to wear her mail everywhere?” Willow asks. As the afternoon has worn on, the shade provided by their bit of wall has shifted. Willow has pulled her voluminous linen cloak over her head to block the sun, while Buffy shows Xander some dagger parries.

A small silver dot is bouncing its way across the training field toward their bit of wall, blonde hair flapping above like a flag. As it grows closer, the dot materializes into the squire who’s been assigned to serve their training cohort. Buffy can never remember her name – probably because she spends her time ignoring all the candidates except for Xander and Cordelia Chase – but she knows that she is short, blonde, and very enthusiastic about having recently acquired her first set of chain mail.

“Summons from the Watcher,” the sweat-sheened squire huffs when she finally reaches them.

“Thanks, Harmy,” Willow says, dusting off her cloak. “Come on, Xander.”

“It’s Harmony. And it’s not for you. It’s for her.” The squire – Harmony – points at Buffy. “And Slayer Harris, if he wants to come along.” She twirls a loop of blonde hair around her finger and gives Xander a display of fluttery eyelashes that Buffy supposes would be appealing to someone, somewhere.

“No thanks, Harmy,” Xander replies, not looking up from practicing parries. “Willow and I are going to spar.”

Buffy follows Harmony slowly across the training field, her stomach dropping to somewhere around her knees. The Watcher knows. Somehow, he found out that she cheated on the physical challenge.

They are at the top of the castle’s highest tower by the time she finally catches up with Harmony. In addition to wearing her mail, the squire also seems to believe that she has to run everywhere. 

Her stomach completes its descent to the floor when she sees High Scholar Giles waiting outside the Watcher’s Room. Despite the hot day, the stone corridor is cool and damp. Scholar Giles’ customary open kirtle over loose trousers is belted tight today, ready to meet the inspection of the highest authority on Sunnydale Island.

He spots her. “W-well then, Summers, are you excited to become a Scholar?”

She stares in horror. He doesn’t know. Poor Scholar Giles is about to find out that his apprentice is a cheat right in front of his own Watcher. “I – I don’t even know what a Scholar does, sir. To be honest with you.”

He smiles. “All the fun bits, I’d say. A-and it’s no ‘sir’ with me, if you please. Just Giles.”

She smiles back pityingly. High Scholar Giles seems like a nice enough fellow. He’s more friendly than he has to be, which is a kindness, and the way he trips over his words when he’s excited about a topic is charming. It’s a shame this has to happen to him.

“Summers?” The Watcher calls through the heavy door of his offices.

The furnishings inside match the corridor – dark, damp stone – and the smallest chair Buffy can find still forces her legs to dangle above the floor. The Watcher ignores it. Robin Wood is humorless, relentlessly clean shaven, and always attired in a boxy tunic the color of earth. 

He folds his hands and addresses Buffy. “Summers. I thank you for coming to see me. Put simply, your scores on the physical challenge were excellent.”

Buffy swallows. She knows. That’s why she’s here.

“Your use of the handcannon was impressive. They’re quite new technology, but you’re obviously already familiar with them.”

“I initially developed the handcannon as a shock tactic,” High Scholar Giles breaks in. “You know, a b-blast of fire to distract a beast, then you lance them from the side with a –” he makes a stabbing motion, then catches himself. “I digress, however. What I mean to say is, whatever gave you the idea to use additives?”

He means the sand – or whatever it was – that the shadow gave her. The sand that Buffy still doesn’t understand, simply tipped it into her handcannon during the height of the challenge in the hopes it might do something, anything to the firebird she and the other candidates were supposed to be subduing. Buffy looks between the two of them, Giles and the Watcher. Their faces are open, genuinely curious. This is no trap. They truly want to know more of Elizabeth Summers’ stroke of genius during her Slayer testing, and whether they can expect more from her in the future.

“I have a confession to make. My use of the handcannon…I received outside help.”

“What kind of help?”

“I was given a…gift. From an anonymous source. The first night I arrived on the Island. I wasn’t sure what it was – what it did. I packed it with the rest of my gear and forgot about it. It wasn’t until the middle of the physical challenge that I even thought to use it.”

The firebird, bearing down on Willow, its wings licking flame. 

What puts out fire? Sand. Must find sand. Ripping open the tiny bag, pouring it into the barrel of her handcannon, instructing the other candidates to do the same. 

Lighting their cannons in unison, pointing them at the firebird.

Screaming in shock as the detonation of the weapons did not just dampen its fire, but dissolved its physical body until nothing was left but a single scarlet egg. Buffy never wondered until now what happened to the egg.

“I – I’m sorry,” she tacks on. “I’ll go back to my quarters and pack my things.”

“Why would you do that?” the shadow says, stepping from behind a row of thick stone shelves.

“You,” Buffy breathes. 

“You may be wondering why, with your physical capabilities, we have assigned you to apprentice High Scholar Giles. Proconsul Angelus here is the origin of the idea.” The Watcher gestures to her shadow, who is leaning against the shelves carelessly.

Angelus nods. “I believe you could be of use to us, Summers.”

Chapter Text

The following day

The sun comes out just as the convoy finishes lining up on the dock. It’s been hiding behind murky clouds all morning, and its appearance just as they’re leaving Sunnydale Island feels spiteful, if Buffy’s being honest. The watery light filters through the haze over the lake and glares off the armor strapped to the Slayers’ backs. They stand in formation, a three-by-three block: Willow and Xander in front alongside High Slayer Calendar, a middle row of three Slayers Buffy doesn’t know, and Cordelia Chase bringing up the back with Kendra the Younger and the equally stoic Slayer Osbourne. Harmony hovers to the side of the formation, leaning in from time to time to adjust Cordelia’s cloak.

Giles squints as he rechecks their trunk for the dozenth time. “Quills, quills, spectacles. Specimen jars…hammer,” he mutters, kneeling on the crumbling brick of the dock.

Buffy leans over his shoulder. Tucked in with the hammer are a small axe and a roll of leather that she’s sure contains several knives. And not the little kind you use to trim a quill. “What do you need all that for?”

“You’d be surprised how often it comes in handy,” he says. “Making camp, r-repairs, self defense…”

“Don’t we have the Slayers to defend us?” Buffy asks. She’s being petulant, she knows, but she’s allowed a sulk after the week she’s had.

Cordelia turns from her position. “I’m not putting myself in danger to make sure you and the librarian don’t get mauled by monsters,” Cordelia huffs. “I don’t even know why you’re going on this campaign.”

Neither does Buffy. The last day was a blur, starting with Angelus materializing in the middle of the Watcher’s Room and ending with her hastily packing her belongings for a monthlong campaign.

That’s his name, Angelus. First or last, Buffy isn’t clear. Proconsul is just a title, something that fancy families give to their eldest children wherever Angelus is from. Giles explained this to her later, after she finished grilling him about whether he really, in fact, had invented handcannons himself.

“You’ve helped us a great deal, Summers,” Angelus had said from his lazy slump against the stone shelves of the Watcher’s Room.

“Who is us?” Buffy’d asked warily, looking to Giles for some kind of clue. He cleared his throat nervously, but his face was impassive. It triggered that itch in her, the one that said there are unseen things in the shadows, and you’d better keep an eye on them.

“The entire Society of Slayers, firstly,” the Watcher had replied, spreading his hands across the circular stone table where he sat. “And myself and Proconsul Angelus in particular.” The surface of the table was carved with a map of Lake Hellmouth and the lands surrounding it, the full scope of the Slayers’ domain.

“We’re hoping you can continue to do so,” added Angelus. Buffy folded her arms, slouching in her chair. She’d come to Sunnydale Island to commit her life to fighting the shadows, not serve as some kind of lackey. “The beasts are starting to change, Summers. Robin here has brought me to the Island to advise him on how we respond.”

Buffy’d looked to Giles again, and he’d nodded confirmation. “The beasts’ behavior is diverging from what we knew to be true. What I’ve spent my l-life studying.”

“And as the beasts change, so must our approach,” the Watcher added, folding his hands.

Angelus had crossed to the table, traced his thumb along the edge of Buffy’s homeland, far to the northwest. “The – material – that you utilized during your physical challenge –”

“That you gave me!” Buffy protested, and neither Giles nor the Watcher had reacted to that. So they knew.

“ – is unique to my home country,” Angelus continued, ignoring her completely. “What you fired out of that handcannon is a pollen released by plants that grow only on my family’s lands. It’s known to have…unusual properties. We’d like for you to continue working with it, finding new applications for it. There is a Slaying campaign shipping out tomorrow morning. What better opportunity?”

Her jaw fell open. Being a Scholar, that she could handle. Well, not handle, but she was working on it. But being forced to spend a month on the road, watching her peers build the Slaying career she thought she’d have? It was too cruel. “Giles, tell them I’m not doing this. We’re not doing this.

The Scholar tilted his head, not quite meeting her eye. “To tell the truth, I-I haven’t been on a campaign in years. I’m rather excited at the prospect. Not to mention working with H-high Slayer Calendar.”

The Watcher nodded. “She’s one of our best. Just as you could be one day.”

“Not as a Slayer, apparently,” she’d retorted, standing up from her oversized chair with as much dignity as she could summon.

The Watcher sighed then, looking worn. “You have a great deal of potential, Summers,” he said simply, and dismissed them with a nod.

It was mealtime by the time their meeting ended, but Buffy’d gone straight to bed. She’d barely slept, kept awake by the itch, the questions, the anger at it all. She lay in her narrow bed in the trainee’s dormitories, staring at the ceiling. But for reasons she couldn’t explain, she didn’t dare go out into the night.

____________________________________________________________________________________

The way Buffy sees it, she was tacked onto this campaign at the very last minute. The least she can do is try not to attract attention to herself. But Cordelia’s making it very, very difficult.

“All I know is,” she says as the first line of Slayers boards the barge, “we all had the same equipment for the physical challenge, Summers included. Then all of a sudden, the firebird we’re supposed to be Slaying isn’t a bird anymore, it’s an egg. No handcannon can do that. Am I the only one remembering this?”

Slayer Osbourne shrugs. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Next to Cordelia, Kendra tightens the straps on her armor, preparing to board. “We all know Summers can defend herself,” she drawls, throwing Buffy a rare smile. “And the librarian if she needs to.” Before Buffy can return the smile, the last row of Slayers is climbing into the barge.

“I-I’m not a librarian,” Giles calls after their retreating backs. “Well, never mind. Excited to get on the road? Er, boat?”

She ignores his attempt at levity. “What does a Scholar do on campaign? Or at all?”

“Record keeping, of course.” Buffy sighs. Penmanship is not one of her strengths. “Collecting specimens of beasts that have been Slain, o-observing the Slayers using their weapons and innovating upon them.”

“What’s that last part?” She pauses in the middle of slinging on her pack.

“Ah, yes. I th-thought you’d like that. Over the decades, we have found that a Scholar’s pool of knowledge – the qualities of various materials, weaknesses of different beasts – can be quite useful in discovering new ways to –”

“Kill?” Buffy raises an eyebrow.

“Incapacitate. A campaign very rarely sees any death, as you well know.” He gives her a reproving look.

It’s one of the first things Slayer Merrick had taught her when she became his squire. Slaying is not killing, not if you do it well. A Slayer subdues beasts, removes the part of them that drives them to feed on humans, and frees them back in the wild. Each beast’s is different: the flightfeather of the aralez, the tooth of the shamir-wurm, a whisker from the snout of the serpopard. If the beast puts up a fight during this process, it may well be killed – but that is never the intent. Slaying is not killing. It is a mercy.

The sun is fully out now, and Buffy is sweating. They are finally let on the barge after the Slayers are well settled in. Cordelia makes a great show of claiming the best spot to store her armor – “my father summoned a craftsman all the way from the Eastern Desert to custom-make this helm, I’ll have you know” – but everyone ignores her for a bit to watch Buffy toss Giles’ heavy trunk into the cargo hold one-handed. Osbourne nudges one of the unfamiliar Slayers knowingly, and Buffy pretends not to notice.

High Slayer Calendar stands at the bow, ignoring this little drama. “Move out!” she calls as soon as Buffy gets two feet aboard.

The barge pushes off from Sunnydale Island, and the campaign begins.

Chapter Text

“How did you really do it, Buffy?” Willow says. “You can tell us.”

They’re one hour in, one hour to go. The barge is halfway between Sunnydale Island and the mainland, suspended in the iron-grey water. Its surface is slightly greasy and very calm. The only motion disturbing the lake’s surface is made by the two long oars propelling them. Xander and Willow, standing on two raised platforms on either side of the barge, dip them in and out of the steely water. Buffy sits just behind on starboard, pretending like she didn’t hear Willow’s question.

“I’ve never seen a firebird do that before,” Willow continues, sweat beading on her forehead. “All because of that stuff . Do you have any more of it?”

“A…a little bit,” Buffy lies, thinking of the cask of – stuff – as big as her head hiding in the cargo hold. Fraxinus ceneri , Giles had called the tree that this stuff came from, although he’d only read about it in books. The Watcher had insisted they take it with them on this campaign. She hasn’t told Willow and Xander about any of this, not yet, though she hasn’t been forbidden from talking about it. The whole thing – the ceneri , that first meeting with Angelus – is a secret Buffy isn’t ready to share just yet.

“Xander, you’re oddly quiet,” she observes, trying to change the subject.

He pauses his rowing to mop his face with a sleeve. “God, I hate boats. I’m a mountain boy. I shouldn’t be anywhere near a boat.” Xander’s cheeks are slightly green. Buffy leans over to his platform, pats his foot consolingly. Harmony shoots her a jealous look from the prow, and she quickly withdraws her hand.

“The squire’s got it bad,” one of the unfamiliar Slayers says from the port side. He’s typically handsome, if you like that kind of thing. Strong chin and tousled hair. “I don’t blame him. There’s just something about an eyepatch.” He leans his chiseled jaw on his hand, watching Xander row.

“ West ,” the Slayer next to him hisses. “You can’t say that kind of thing. Sorry, Harris.” He’s squarely built and light in coloring, like most from the Southern Waste, so when he blushes it’s obvious.

“What’s that?” Xander is concentrating on his oar, clueless to the ogling happening behind him. 

“Nothing,” the Southern Slayer says. “West, quit leering and go take over for him.”

“Thanks, Blaisdell,” Xander breathes, flopping down beside Buffy. Willow catches her gaze, and they both roll their eyes. Half the population of Sunnydale Island has been salivating after their friend since the first day of Slayer testing, and he still has no idea.

The barge makes slow progress across the lake toward Port Tuzud, their first stop on campaign. The water is broken only by a craggy island on the starboard side, one Buffy assumed was uninhabited on her first trip across Lake Hellmouth. Today, a small inlet is visible, and as they pass Buffy swears she sees a boat moored there. Not just any boat: a pleasure vessel of pitch black wood, its intricate carvings inlaid with gold. A pavilion draped in wine-colored embroidery sprouts from its middle, but no humans are visible.

“I thought nobody lived on that island,” Buffy muses, nodding to the inlet.

Willow shakes her head. “There’s a family there, some foreigners.”

“From beyond the Lake?” News takes so long to reach the far northwest, it’s no wonder Buffy’s never heard of them. She hums as she digests this new information. Between them and the island, a slight wake shivers the water’s stillness. They pass the inlet, and the pleasure craft is once again hidden from view.

“Far beyond. The other side of the desert, some people say.” Willow’s spent her whole life in the Eastern Desert. She should know.

“You haven’t heard of the Del Nido?” Xander asks. “They’re exiles. Nobody knows what they did to get kicked out of their own country, but it was something horrible. You’d know this kind of thing if you ever read a book.” Willow and Buffy roll their eyes at each other again.

The lake ripples again, the wake Buffy spotted keeping pace with their barge. Shadowing them – or chasing them. “Calendar?” she calls, rising to her feet. “I mean – High Slayer? Are you seeing this?”

“I certainly am,” the High Slayer affirms, joining her from her perch at the stern. Giles follows close behind. “And I don’t like it.”

As if to confirm her suspicion, the wake breaks the lake’s surface, a vast fin slapping the water. The Slayers gasp and yelp at the sudden spray. Willow wipes her brow, shoots Buffy a look of alarm.

“Shit,” Calendar spits. “Not an hour into this campaign, and we’ve already got a beast. This should not be happening.”

“I-it’s highly unusual,” Giles affirms. “We shouldn’t have encountered anything until we got well inland.”

“Chase and Kendra, with me,” Calendar orders. “Giles too. The rest of you, row!” 

Buffy grabs one of the auxiliary oars on her side of the barge, with Harmony and Osbourne joining her. She’s strong enough to handle this half of the boat single-handed, but there’s no time to quibble about it. The beast’s fin crests on the opposite side of the barge now, and a thump sounds below her feet. It’s swimming under them, dammit.

“God I hate boats, I really really hate boats,” Xander moans from his oar. Buffy grits her teeth and blinks away the spray kicked up by the beast. It’s all she can do to rein in her strength. If she rows all out now, she’ll overpower the other rowers and set the boat spinning.

“Chase, Kendra, to arms,” Calendar calls, but the two are already readying their weapons. The water churns. A horn crests the frothy surface, then four more in quick succession. 

“Quinotaur,” Kendra shouts.

“Oh my god, it is,” Cordelia gasps next to her. She nocks an arrow to her bow. “It really really is.”

A bull’s head has emerged from the foam, twice the size of any livestock Buffy’s ever seen, and damn if it doesn’t have five horns – two facing upward from its scaly black skull, two facing forward, and one pointing straight up. She’s seen pictures, she’s read books, it’s all part of the Slayer training. But nothing could prepare her for a quinotaur in person. Each horn is the thickness of Buffy’s arm, easily.

Calendar holds up an arm, blocks Cordelia from releasing her arrow. “This isn’t even the season for quinotaurs to be active. What the hell is going on here, Scholar?” The beast disappears again, finned tail flipping under the water.

“I couldn’t say,” Giles pants as he rows. “But we ought to f-focus on getting to shore and d-discuss the details later.”

The water next to Buffy explodes. The horns are there, right there, five of them, and she’s lost her concentration for just a moment. That’s all the time it takes. One stroke of her oar at full strength sends the barge spinning away like a child’s paper boat. The prow is now facing the Del Nido island, back where they came, but at least there’s some distance between them and the beast.

“Chase! Attack!” Calendar barks, and she looses an arrow from her bow. Buffy’s got her own feelings about Cordelia Chase, but she’s a hell of shot. Strong and accurate. And the arrow she’s aimed at the beast bounces right off its scales like nothing.

“Summers – the cargo hold.” Giles meets her eye across the width of the barge and raises his eyebrows meaningfully. She doesn’t want to do it. She doesn’t want to involve the ceneri again, doesn’t want to reveal her lie to her friends. Not so soon.

The quinotaur lows, an angry sound, and rushes toward them. Its mighty black fin sweeps up, catching Cordelia around the legs and crashing her into the lake.

“Cordy!” Harmony screams.

“Cargo hold, now !” Giles shouts, and Buffy abandons her oar. The loss of her strength sends them spinning again, making her head whirl as she tries to crawl to the stern. Dampness fills Buffy’s nostrils as she opens the hold, unwrapping the pottery cask from a ragged blanket. Her hands shake as she runs to Kendra, grabs her spear and plunges its tip into the cask.

“What the hell –” Calendar starts, but Kendra simply nods at Buffy. The Slayer pulls her weapon from the cask, climbs the prow of the barge, and hurls the spear directly into the quinotaur’s eye.

It hits home.

The beast dissolves in a shower of scales and lakewater, leaving behind a single iridescent horn spinning in the frothy drink.

“Chase, quickly, before it sinks,” Giles calls.

Cordelia flounders in the water, grabs the horn and the spear. “Now can I get back on the boat, please ?”

“Can s-someone p-please explain,” Cordelia shivers as she squelches onto the Port Tuzud pier. “What the hell is that stuff?”

“Enough, Chase,” High Slayer Calendar sighs.

“I’m s-serious. Kendra p-put that stuff on the end of her spear, and she made a quinotaur explode . No one has anything to s-say about what just happened?” She looks from Slayer to Slayer, wrapping the ragged blanket around her shoulders a little bit closer.

“No, I have something to say.” Xander steps onto the pier, drops his armor with a thunk . “I am damned glad to be back on land.”

Chapter Text

“Auntie,” William says. “I heard a funny thing just now.”

Aunt Drusilla doesn’t acknowledge him at all, just a hum. She’s sat on the covered terrace of Villa Aurelia, the ridiculous name she insisted on giving the dumpy little island fort where they’ve been relegated. Drusilla’s canopied chair faces away from him, looking over the ugly grey lakewater, giving William a view of his aunt’s profile. Her eyelids are half closed, fluttering slightly.

He presses on, approaching the chair with folded arms. “The servants told me you were out in your little boat just now, when the doctor told you that you have to stay inside.”

“The sunlight on the water makes such a glint…a gleam…oh, what’s the word, Spikey?” Drusilla wrings her hands in her lap.

He grits his teeth. How he hates that nickname. “You’re meant to avoid the sun.”

“They’re changing,” his aunt whines. “I wanted to see for myself.”

“What’s changing?” William turns to the water, trying to see what she sees.

But Drusilla’s eyes are fully closed now. “Your brother told me,” she murmurs. His aunt’s only seeing what she wants to see, the inside of her own addled head.

“Angel’s not here, he’s on that godforsaken island.”

“Do something for me, sweet Spikey?” Drusilla holds out a pale hand. He can’t resist the call to her side. For all her ignoring doctor’s orders and pushing them around like pieces in a game, she’s still the woman he’d kill for. Has killed for.

He kneels before her canopied chair, a child again, a supplicant. A knight receiving his orders from his queen. “Join your brother in Tuzud,” she murmurs, stroking William’s cheek. “He needs your help.”

He can’t help himself. “Proconsul Angelus is just fine without the likes of me. You said as much when you made him head of this family.”

Drusilla’s hand is around his throat in an instant. “I am head of this family,” she hisses, suddenly lucid. Her grip is iron, her eyes wide. “I am Consul Drusillus of the House of Del Nido. Your brother is merely my agent. He serves until I am well again, not a moment longer.”

William swallows a retort. She’ll never be well, never again, but reminding her of that now won’t get his airway unblocked. “He’s in Port Tuzud?” he squeaks.

His aunt retracts her hand from his throat, rests her head limply on the satin cushion built into her chair. She is exhausted, staring wide-eyed at nothing. “He’s been bad,” Drusilla murmurs.

“Our perfect Angelus?” William snorts. His aunt does nothing but whimper in response, and he covers her limp hand with his own.

“I’ll go,” he reassures her.

Chapter Text

The Northern Paradise is vast, Buffy knows, but she doesn’t realize how vast until Port Tuzud. Buffy has lived her whole life in the far northwest of the Paradise, where the biggest structure is the great living wall of carnivorous plants that mark the boundary between their civilized land and the untamed forest, where no humans can thrive. Here at port, there are enormous dry docks for vessels that dwarf their barge. There is a temple that could fit her entire village inside. And there are hordes of people. As they leave the pier complex to head to the local Slayers’ garrison, Buffy suppresses the instinct to grab onto the hem of Willow’s cloak so they don’t get separated.

The rest of their party seems completely unfazed, even Xander, who never wastes an opportunity to remind them that the tiny western mountain town he grew up in only had one book that they had to all share between them. 

“I thought paradise would smell better,” he gripes, dodging baskets of fish heads lining a market square bigger than any Buffy’s seen. She can’t even pick out the stink of old fish amidst the riot of smells and sounds Port Tuzud is flooding her with. The market has pyramidal towers of dried fruits, rolling carts with tiny cups of chilled soup, and vendors pounding spice pastes with pestles as tall as her. Buffy’s mouth waters with hunger, or maybe nausea. Is it possible that she wasn’t meant to be a Slayer after all? If she can be overwhelmed by a city that everyone around her seems to consider a backwater, was she ever cut out for the Slayer life to begin with?

“I heard you got a quinotaur out there,” a customer at the soup cart says, and her head spins.

“I’ve got to get out of here.” Buffy’s chest is tight, and she’s far too warm.

“I’ve got you,” the customer tells her, and a strong hand slides under her elbow, a familiar broadness cradles her as her vision swims. Angelus.

“Wait. How –” There’s no way Angelus could have found out about the quinotaur so fast. There’s no way he could have even gotten to the city this fast without hitching a ride on the barge. “Are you even human?” she blurts, nonsensically.

“As human as you are,” he answers, and he has the temerity to wink, damn him. He’s annoyingly tall in a way that makes her feel small and silly. It’s not helped by the way he’s got her by the elbow like a misbehaving child. And the furrowed-brow look he’s giving her, a mix of fondness and impatience.

“Summers?” Giles calls for her across the market square, and Angelus pulls Buffy closer before she can react.

“I’m going to be here awhile. Family business,” he murmurs in her ear, breath hot against her neck. “But I’ll have company soon. Someone I can’t control all that well. Just – stay alert, will you, Summers?”

She pushes him away then, remembering her strength, and runs to join the others.

Buffy’s head has cleared by the time they arrive at the garrison, shabby but imposing on a rocky outcropping above the city. High Slayer Calendar quickly issues orders from atop a boulder. Giles stands a step behind, looking nervous at his proximity to command. “Everyone but Summers, straight to your quarters. We’re leaving for the mud flats tomorrow at dawn and I want you fresh, hear that?” Calendar barks.

“As if we’d want to go out drinking in this hole,” Blaisdell sighs, looking down at the city.

Calendar ignores his comment. “Summers, with us.”

Not again. Buffy is getting really tired of being pulled into secretive meetings with authority figures. She just wants to be a normal girl. Well, a normal Slayer.

High Slayer Calendar leads them to a stuffy interior room with cracked tile. “I want you to show me exactly what this pollen stuff is, now.” Her arms are folded.

Giles has already placed the cask in the center of the room, still unwrapped from its padding from the incident on the barge. He pulls off the pottery lid.

“I wouldn’t –” Giles cautions, but Calendar has already dipped in a forefinger. The ceneri is sandlike, blood red, and not as uniform in texture as Buffy had originally thought. Jagged chunks stud the fine grain of the powder, some as big as her thumbnail. Calendar raises her finger to the light, examining the material caked on it, then gives an experimental sniff. “I really wouldn’t do that,” the Scholar mutters under his breath, but makes no move to stop her.

“And this is from a tree,” the High Slayer says skeptically, rubbing her finger to her thumb. Giles watches her intently, pulling out his spectacles.

“So the Proconsul tells us.” Buffy folds her arms, mimicking Calendar.

“Do w-we have reason to disbelieve him?”

“I don’t know, High Scholar Giles. Do we?” Amidst all the quinotaur-slaying and public swooning, Buffy’s forgotten that she’s mad at Giles. He let Angelus and Wood move her around their little games board without even letting her know she was in the game, dammit. The Scholar doesn’t meet her eye, just rubs his forehead absently.

Calendar dusts off her hands, resolved. “We’re headed to the mud flats tomorrow. The beasts are active on the flats this time of year. I expect to start Slaying right away. And I want it done right, the way these Slayers were taught to do it. No more mysterious powders until they’ve gotten a chance to experience Slaying the way it’s meant to be done.” She fixes Giles with a steely glare, and he actually blushes. “Am I understood?”

Scholaring is hard work, it turns out. There’s the Scholar’s Log to record, writing down every minute detail of the day in addition to their unusual adventure with the quinotaur. There’s maps to refer to, for plotting their course through the mudflats. Then there’s the rerolling and storing of the maps and replenishing the inks with fresh supplies from the port and generally waiting around for all the damned ink to dry, and by the time Buffy returns to the garrison, the Slayers are already in their nightclothes, brushing their hair and jostling around the washbasin. Save for Cordelia, of course. She stands in the middle of their shared room, holding out her arms as Harmony unwinds a fabulously embroidered cloak from her shoulders. The garrison is spare and ill-swept, but it only makes the Slayer look more splendid by comparison.

“Where has she been?” Buffy asks Willow, who’s perched on the tumbledown wooden frame where she’s laid her bedroll.

“At the House of the Honorable Cazador Chase, Junior Undersecretary to the Deputy Vizier of Port Tuzud,” Willow informs her. She’s braiding up her long copper hair for the night, her eyes wide in amusement.

“Slayer Chase was specially invited to dinner,” Harmony adds, heedless of Willow’s rueful giggle. Pulling away the cloak reveals a tight-fitting kirtle of even finer fabric, clearly made just for the graceful limbs of Cordelia Chase. Interrupting the line of its hem are a pair of pointed silk slippers, with not a spot of mud upon them.

“I suppose the Senior Undersecretary was busy,” Buffy says, swallowing her jealousy. She’s never had clothes that were new, much less made just for her. 

“It just so happens that Caz is my fourth cousin. We used to summer together.” Cordelia kicks off the slippers. Buffy can’t begin to guess how someone walks around the streets of a city like Port Tuzud without getting their shoes filthy. “Harmony, laces!” Cordelia orders.

“Where did you even pack those clothes?” Buffy asks, watching Harmony loosen the lacing on the kirtle.

“In my trunks? Obviously?” Cordelia flicks her a look of disbelief. The kirtle sags off her shoulders.

“The barge brought Slayer Chase’s luggage to port yesterday, ahead of our arrival.” Harmony tucks the folded cloak into a tower of trunks occupying a corner of the room. “To make sure she has everything she needs on campaign.”

The Slayers – and Buffy – are only permitted one Watcher-issued satchel of personal belongings on this campaign. Buffy’s was barely full this morning until Giles stuffed a few recommended tomes in at the last minute “for casual reading.” Everything she needs to survive easily fits into one bag, and she likes it that way.

“The rules are different for her, haven’t you heard?” Kendra drawls from the washbasin, drawing an acid look from Cordelia.

“And what of it? Don’t you know where Slayer Chase’s name comes from?” Harmony twitters. “Chase, as in The Chase for the very first beast?”

Buffy considers. “I thought that was a myth. At least, partially.”

“Uh, no,” Cordelia butts in. “When the very first Slayers gave chase to the very first beasts, it was my great-great-great-great uncle who blew the hunting horn. Making me Cordelia of the Chase. Don’t they have books where you come from, Summers?”

“No, I was raised by a flock of feral gryphons,” Buffy deadpans.

“They actually assigned her to High Scholar Giles so he could teach her how to read,” Willow adds solemnly.

“Caz did tell me something interesting, if anyone’s interested.” Cordelia snatches back the attention of the room with a roll of her eyes. “Apparently, there’s a new high-up at Sunnydale Island advising the Watcher. He got to the castle just as we were leaving. He’s disgustingly rich, has some murderous origin story, and most importantly, he’s devastatingly handsome.”

Buffy’s face feels hot, her head all spinny like at the market. “Are you all right?” Willow asks, looking up from her braid.

“Say more about the murder part?” Buffy blurts, but any further information is cut off by Kendra’s irritated sigh.

“Enough. I’m exhausted,” the Slayer says. She licks her thumb and forefinger, pinches out the candle next to the washbasin. Buffy shuts up then, and focuses on washing the day’s dirt off her face in the dark. It’s hard when her hands won’t stop shaking.

The Slayers make a chorus of sighs and murmurs as they settle into their bedrolls. Buffy pretends to do the same, but doesn’t even bother getting undressed. There are unseen things in the shadows of Port Tuzud, and she’s going out tonight to find them.