I was thinking one night going home on the bus (I have a 3 hour commute a day . . . a lotta thinking time) that Tara would probably like to write. Not being the most confident speaker myself, with a tendency to mutter, stutter or flutter (or all three!) I prefer to write. So I wrote this poem from Tara's perspective.
I read a lot of the fic on this board, and am in awe of some of the talent that exists here. Hence my apprehension, I suppose. Please be aware that I've never put anything I've written out in a public forum before, and go easy on me!
Light of my life
Rays of morning sun strike her -
Adding gold strands to the red fire.
She stirs; her hand moves instinctively to mine -
Causing my heart to flutter and my face to beam
She opens her eyes and smiles -
And the sun is eclipsed.
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Willow : And I happen to think mine is the level head, and yours is the one things would roll off of.
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Heart match of mine
Heart match of mine,
Whose serenity instils peace within my turmoiled soul,
Whose gentle touch brings comfort while I grieve and weep,
And whose unconditional love gives me the will to live.
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Willow: And I happen to think mine is the level head, and yours is the one things would roll off of.
==========================================
Leaving
Heart heaving with grief, I leave -
The house that has become my home,
The family whose love I've come to cherish,
The soul - my reason for living and for leaving.
Resolve sets in - its what I must do.
I pray to any and all deities needily.
Hope of her redemption envelops me
And I cling to it with all my might.
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Anya: You think it's sensible for me to go down into that pit of
cotton-top hell, and let them hippity-hop all over my vulnerable flesh?
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Untitled (any suggestio[/i]
Red-rimmed, grass-green eyes gaze vacantly
at the dusky shadows cast on the wall.
A purple-hued crystal clutched to her heart
as if all life and hope depended on it.
Words, whispered, in rapid cadence,
repeated over and over and yet again.
A chant?
A prayer?
A name?
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Anya: You think it's sensible for me to go down into that pit of
cotton-top hell, and let them hippity-hop all over my vulnerable flesh?
==========================================
Destination reached
Candle lights her way -
Parting the gloomy path.
Her destination reached -
Door opens to a darkened room.
A fearful face regards her -
But still she gains entry.
With few words and a gesture -
The visage visibly brightens.
Forgotten, candle lights the Embrace -
Destination reached.
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"But children robbed of love will dwell on magic"
Barbara Kingsolver - Animal Dreams
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Title: Still Dunno! (no that's not the title, I don't know what to call it)
Spoilers: Set after Wrecked
Notes: Gráinne is pronounced graw-n-ya. Spelling is UK, 'cause otherwise I wudda confused myself
After a few minutes Gráinne asked "So . . . what are you going to do, Willow?" An apathetic shrug was the only response. Gráinne continued. "Your friends are worried about you - Buffy and her sister, Xander and his fiancee, and Tar-" "Don't! Don't you talk about Tara. You don't know her. Just don't!" 'Ah, at last a fully-felt emotion. Keep pushing Gráinne'.
"Well, I don't really know you either, and yet you didn't seem to mind me talking about you. Why can't we talk about her?" The face of the young woman hardened, and she decided to change her tactic.
"In school, Rupert tells me you were very bright". A look of disdain replaced the anger on Willow's face. "So you're going to ask how someone as intelligent as me comes to make such a stupid mess of everything, is that it?" "Not at all, I'm just trying to make some conversation, seeing as there are certain things we can't talk about", said Gráinne nonchalantly. With a tired voice Willow replied. "There are a lot of things that we can't talk about. I don't want to talk - not to you" "Then who do you want to talk to Willow? Do you want to talk to T-"
"I told you - don't talk about her". Willow stood and looked at the woman near the door. The anger she felt at this person daring to talk to her about Tara was pulsing inside her. 'Why can't she just leave me alone?' Unbidden, a transportation spell came to the fore of her mind.
Gráinne could feel the anger from the standing woman. She knew what Willow's answer to the problem that was her presence would be, so she offered a lob-sided smile and said reproachfully - "Now, now Willow, you can't do a spell on me. You're not a witch. You quit, remember?" Shock from Willow. 'How did she? . . . Oh God, how could I?' Her confusion fueled her anger and she moved swiftly toward the stranger.
Only to come to a stop directly in front of her. The eyes that looked upon her were benevolent; the woman smiled, consoling, as if sensing her pain. Willow felt her anger dispel, and quietly whispered "What do you want from me?" "I just want to help you Willow", answered Gráinne honestly. "No-one can help me", sighed Willow. Gráinne continued smiling and rested her right hand on Willow's shoulder. "Are you telling me you're "unhelpable"? Because I don't believe that. Everything can be fixed."
"No!", the word erupted from Willow, "that's what started all this in the first place!" Gráinne tilted her head to one side and regarded the shaking figure before her. "Is that what you think? Really?" "Everything I tried to fix, I just made everything worse. I got Dawn hurt, I dragged Buffy back from heaven, and Tara . . . Tara left me. Everything cannot be fixed. I mean, nothing can be fixed, I mean - sigh - I don't know what I mean". This tirade seemed to tire her, her shoulders drooped as if from carrying a great weight.
Gráinne guided her back to the bed, and sat down beside her. She let a few moments go by to consider how she should continue. The girl's spirit was quite obviously being devoured with self-hatred and grief. She had to show her there was hope ahead. 'How will I do that?' She wondered.
Gráinne's eyes came to rest on the crystal the redhead was still clutching. With her senses she enveloped the crystal, and a sensation of complete love and trust, immersed her. She realised that this had been a gift from Tara. Again, Gráinne decided that Tara was what was going to bring Willow back from the verge of despair. But she knew she would also have to ensure that Willow knew where she had gone wrong.
"Rupert told me that you're good with computers. Well, you must be because you actually got him using e-mail. All the times I tried to encourage him to e-mail us instead of ringing at all hours. You know, for an intelligent man, he could never seem to remember the difference in time zones" 'You're rambling, Grá . . . get to the point or this one will fall asleep on you. She looks like she hasn't slept in a week!'
"So, do you do any programming or anything like that?" A disinterested shrug of the shoulders, then "Yeah, sometimes". Gráinne continued: "And would you ever just put in some code and command lines at random and then run the programme without checking it first?" A wrinkled forehead, a bemused curl of the lip, and a sniggered "no", were her answers to this question. Gráinne pounced. "So what made you think you could use spells without thinking through the ramifications?" The girl flinched as if struck. 'No time for empathy, Grá. You have to make her see!'
"I didn't know. Didn't think. Ah, god, why has it all gone so wrong? I just wanted to help" the distraught young woman looked beseechingly at Gráinne. Gráinne softened slightly "maybe that's how it started". A crushed look appeared on Willow's face, and tears shone in her eyes. Kindly, Gráinne asked "What is it? What has made you cry?" Willow looked at the crystal in her hand. "She was right" - the sentence whispered reverently. Her voice, stronger now, declared "Giles was right. You are right. I started off using magic for good, and ended up using it for my own selfish reasons. Help me . . . please." "That's why I'm here Willow".
Gráinne looked into the now hopeful face before her. "It's not going to be easy. Just so you know that. You're going to have to change how you think. Before you do anything - no matter how trivial - you have to consider the possible outcome. You will have to develop a mental locking system on your actions. No reaction until you've thought it through. It would be so easy to fall back and do a spell, and I realise you know this. That's why you haven't left your room, right?" A nod from the young woman confirmed her thinking. "That's not the answer Willow, and its not how you need to deal with this problem".
She continued: "I have some books in the car that will help you. Mostly meditation rituals, and some chants that will assist in focusing your energies out safely. I imagine you've found it hard to sleep? That's because you need to siphon off the excess energies. Dark magic that's unreleased can, well, its not good. These techniques will work, trust me". "Its not magic? 'Cause I'm not . . . I don't want to . . ." Gráinne's heart ached at the pained, child-like voice. "It's okay, Willow, its not magic. But you know that magic isn't what brought you to this situation. It was just bad judgement. And we're all allowed to make mistakes - even you"
Probably will be continued, if I ever get my act together.
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"To let this love survive would be the greatest gift that we could give"
Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)
==========================================
Spoilers: Set after Wrecked
Notes: Gráinne is pronounced graw-n-ya. Spelling is UK, because otherwise I would have been a confused lickle bunny wabbit.
I know this is not strictly a W/T fic, as its more about Willow's perspective, but I just wanted to try and set out how she gets back to Tara.
"No, that's not, I mean, it wasn't bad judgement. It was me being arrogant, and selfish . . ." Gráinne could bear it no longer; she reached out to the shivering woman beside her. "Willow, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You have to concentrate now on the future. On growing stronger, and on what you are going to do to make it up to the ones you love."
Willow started to cry, clutching the crystal in her hands ever-tightly.. "I don't know what to do. How can I make it up to her, to all of them. Please, tell me - what should I do?" Gráinne touched the shaking shoulder beside her, and looked into Willow's eyes - "It starts with one word . . . Forgiveness" Willow began to nod her head eagerly, "yes, how do I get them to forgive me?" Smiling, Gráinne said "that's not what I mean. First, you have to forgive yourself. That's the first step".
Willow's voice rose with incredulity. "How can I? What I did? It was horrible. Dawn could have died because I was out of my mind on power that I couldn't handle. And what I did to Tara? That was the worst of all. I messed with her mind. She - she told me one time that when her family was mean to her that she used to escape into her mind - into fantasies and fairy tales - and then after what Glory did to her, well you don't know what Glory did to her, even I don't know what it was like, but God, it must have been awful, and then I did the same thing. I don't deserve her forgiveness!" Gráinne reached out to Willow, and the young woman fell into her arms, sobbing.
After a time, when Willow's crying had subsided, she sat up, and looking embarrassed excused herself.
'Okay Gráinne, you've succeeded in making her cry her eyes out, so obviously she knows what she did was wrong. Now . . . you have to show her that there's hope'
In the bathroom, Willow was trying to compose herself. 'Well done, Will, you've made a complete fool of yourself - again! God, how could I let her do this to me? Even when I talked with Buffy I didn't get this emotional. Its her fault, she was so, I dunno, kind? Stupid! She was kind, therefore I cried!' Another scrub of her now raw-red face with the towel. 'She said I have to forgive myself. How can I? Although, if I want, no need, Tara to forgive me, how can I expect that if I can't forgive myself?' Willow stared at her reflection in the mirror, recognising the truth in what she had just been thinking. 'Ooo-kay, let's see what else this Gráinne person has to say'
When Willow re-entered the room she found Gráinne examining the painting over the bed. She smiled self-consciously as the older woman turned to face her. "Are you okay? Do you want me to go?" Gráinne was worried that she was making Willow deal with too much too soon. "No, please stay. I, I need help, and well, that's what you're doing, well what you were doing before I ran out of here crying like a big old baby, and its what I want you to do - oh help I mean, not cry, no I definitely don't want you to cry. Well, I don't really want me to cry either, but . . ."
Gráinne couldn't contain the giggles any longer. Her outburst causing a confused frown to appear on the face of the redhead. "Oh Jaysus, I'm so sorry Willow, its just, Rupert told me about your propensity for babbling, and I thought he was exaggerating, but, I see now that he wasn't."
Willow's mood shifted from confused to irritated, but her scathing reply was interrupted by a knock at the bedroom door.
Buffy entered warily, and upon seeing that Willow was angry and quite obviously had been crying she entered slayer mode. She was standing in front of Gráinne in a split second. "What did you do to her?" she spat. Willow attempted to intercede, but was silenced by the raised hand of the slayer. Gráinne looked at the glaring young woman before her with a mixture of wariness and amusement. 'Now I know she possesses supernatural strength, but she's just so tiny!' Before she could answer, Buffy grappled with her and attempted to pin her against the wall.
Suddenly, Gráinne disappeared, causing Buffy to fall over and curse loudly. She recovered quickly, and upon standing, saw that Gráinne had re-emerged right beside a shocked Willow. "How did you . . .?" "Buffy, please calm yourself.", Gráinne spoke softly to the agitated slayer before her. Willow turned to Buffy "Buffy, its okay really. She didn't hurt me, well, she did but it was in a kind of a truth hurts way, not a broken bones way. I'm okay".
The tension drained from Buffy, and she looked sheepishly at the stranger. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tried to manhand, I mean womanhandle you. I just over-reacted when I saw how upset Will was. How did you get away from me anyway?"
"She's a witch", declared Willow, and then turned to the woman beside her to get confirmation of her theory. "Oh, that's grand that is, try to help someone and they resort to namecalling!" Gráinne's response getting the intended wry smiles from the younger women. "I'm gonna go see what Dawn's up to - see has she broken anything . . . else. I'll see you later Will, and sorry again, uhm, Giles' friend". Buffy rapidly exited the room before Gráinne could properly introduce herself.
"Well, that was fun - nearly getting killed by a wee slayer!" smirked Gráinne. Willow laughed at that, surprising herself. "Although a few minutes ago I thought a wee ex-witch was going to kill me. Rupert told me Sunnydale was a dangerous place, but I thought he was talking about the hellmouth!", Gráinne continued, causing Willow to collapse onto the bed in a fit of laughter. She smiled indulgently, and let Willow laugh for a few moments more before quietly asking "Tell me about Tara".
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"To let this love survive would be the greatest gift that we could give"
Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)
==========================================
Willow stopped laughing, sighed quietly, but did not speak. Gráinne waited. She had almost given up on a response from the redhead when she answered.
"She's wonderful. She's the kindest person I've ever met. If everyone in the world had even a bit of her consideration there'd never be any wars or anything like that. She's an example of how people should be". Willow paused and smiled nostalgically "She always knows how people are feeling, you know? And if they're upset or anything she always tries to help them - just smiles at them, or a word or two - that's all she has to do", she said, the pride evident in her tone. "She has such a wonderful way of looking at things too - like she has her own names for the constellations, and I taught her how to play chess, but she prefers to play her own way which is where she wants to guard the queen, and wants to keep the knights, only she calls them horsies, and rooks, and doesn't care about the other pieces". Quieter now, Willow continued "I never knew I could love and trust someone so much - until I met My Tara".
Self-hatred bittered her tone as she spoke again. "She trusted me - completely, and then I violated that trust, and she won't want to be anywhere near me ever again!" Tears threatened to spill down the cheeks of the redhead again, but she resolved not to let them. She looked again to the crystal in her hands, felt its rough edges that she had memorised from many nights of intent staring. It gave her a feeling of serenity that helped her escape from her self torment, but that feeling usually evaporated when she accused herself of deserving to be ravaged by the feelings of despair.
Gráinne watched Willow, and saw the despondency in her aura. She knew that Willow believed that she couldn't make amends with Tara and the others, and that she had to find a way to show her there was hope. She looked over to the chess set on the table near the window, and noticed that the white queen was missing. 'No prizes for guessing who has it', she thought to herself. When she drew attention to it, Willow shrugged, and said "it must be lost, maybe Dawn misplaced it. I haven't played for weeks now - maybe longer".
Willow grew quiet again, and Gráinne used the time to focus on the chess set, on the white pieces in particular. She studied the signature of the chess set, and set her objective on tracing the missing queen. Moments later, she was viewing a girl sitting forlornly on her bed cradling the chess piece in her left hand. 'So, this is Tara', she thought. She noted how lonely Tara seemed, solitude surrounding her aura. She saw many photographs of the couple placed lovingly about the sparsely decorated room and vowed to reunite the pair.
On coming back to Willow's room she was aware that Willow was speaking to her. " . . . I should probably just leave Sunnydale, it'd be better for everyone". Gráinne paused before answering "I'm sure Tara thought the same when your ex-boyfriend came back that time; how it would be easier to walk away out of fear of rejection - but she chose to stay, didn't she? And you must too. You think you'd be able to live knowing you walked away from something that special?" Willow retorted caustically "I'm not the one who walked away - she did, she's the -" "She walked away because she couldn't bear to see what you were doing to yourself" was Gráinne's angry reply.
Standing, Willow shouted "What the hell would you know about it anyway?" "I know about it because I've been there. I've been in Tara's position", said Gráinne quietly. This revelation causing Willow to sit back down on the bed and to regard Gráinne as she continued "I had to watch the one I love sink deeper into the mire of dark magic - helpless to do anything about it. Hating what it was doing to us, but being unable to stop it. It wasn't my place to. All I could do was what Tara did. That's why Rupert asked me to come to you Willow. I know how Tara is feeling, and I know, too, what you are going through. But you can overcome this. You can find each other again".
Willow's face, still red from the crying earlier, now blossomed with hope. "Did you find each other?" "She found me. Like you, I was afraid to go to her. Even though I'd heard from friends that she had been able to stop doing the magic. Actually, I found out later that it was my mother who helped her, giving her the books that I brought with me today. It must have taken a lot of courage for her to come to me, though. Fear of rejection can be paralysing. But she didn't let it stop her, and even though I was cautious, and she was still afraid of messing up, we worked at it, and have been together since. We're stronger now than we ever were. I don't know what my life would have been like if she hadn't bested her fears. I imagine I would have spent the rest of my life sitting on my bed holding on to something of hers"
A wry smile from Willow, and then a whispered "I don't know if I'm strong enough". Confidently, Gráinne answered: "you are. You were strong enough to look after Tara when she was hurt last year. Your love is strong enough - that's obvious. And don't tell me again that you don't deserve another chance with her. I ask you this: does she deserve to feel that you don't want another chance? That's how I felt first when Emily wouldn't come to see me."
Willow looked pensive, and then a look of resolution set in. "You're right. She needs to know that I know now what I know. I have to go now. But you'll be here? When I get back? To give me the books and stuff?" "Yes, Willow, I'll be here. Go to her. But remember, don't expect a miracle. It could take time. As a wise woman once sang - "Everything in its own time".
Willow was half way out the door, but turned back to look at Gráinne. "Thank you. Wish me luck?". "Ádh mór ort. Now off you go. I'm going to find that Slayer of Rupert's so we can swap stories about him!" Gráinne sighed with pleasure as she watched a more optimistic Willow bound down the stairs and out the front door.
END
Thanks to all who've commented on this and my other efforts.
Am so glad this bloody thing is finished now, it's like it was haunting me until I completed it.
Am going back to less haunty poetry, methinks!
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"To let this love survive would be the greatest gift that we could give"
Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)
,
but I'll be back! 