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Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Ten
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Absolutely, yes please. That’s why I write for this place, to engage in the discussion about the story.
Spoiler warning: Not sure why I am bothering, really, but Season 4 and Season 5 of BTVS.
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. No conversion to ebook or other formats please. Enjoy it here.
Summary: It’s Halloween and things are going a little differently. Buffy and Willow deal with Parker. Tara makes a discovery about Diana.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property. As this is a missing scenes and alternate reality fiction lots of scenes are new versions of those seen in the show, as such dialogue and situations are taken from the show. I’m sure you can tell which. All credit for those aspects go to the original writers.
Rating: Occasional, tasteful, adult situations and contextual bad language. However by and large equivalent to the show.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever, that’s all I’m bothered about.
Text convention: Use of italics denotes either special emphasis if used for a single or a few words in a sentence OR first person thoughts if used for a whole sentence.
Notes: Originally the two scenes in this part were the other way around, but I came to think that the Tara scene had the more powerful ending.
So, out of the blue, just from something Tara thought in the last part, I realised that there was something I simply had to do. So even though I was supposed to be writing the ending of the entire story, I broke away to write a little scene that now forms Chapter One of the story – witches dancing naked around the fire. It’s one of those things that you can just do when you’re dealing with lesbian witches and slot in almost anywhere. Even then I never thought it would form the opening of the story. But this is why the redraft process adds lots of words. Even without this I’m still adding 1500 words a day, just in pure redraft.
Thanks to: The people who work to tell us what’s really happening instead of what passes for journalism these days – the easiest, cheapest and most politically agreeable ‘news’. Why? Can’t remember, but something was happening the day I wrote this
Willow popped another eyeball into her mouth while she listened to the wail of the Dingos. You wouldn’t think it, but eyeballs really were delicious when they’d been soaking in the – not entirely non-alcoholic – punch for several hours. Someone had evidently chosen to liven it up. Knowing them as she did, her money was on someone in the band.
All the members had been a little, well, different since they’d come back from LA. Playing gigs out there – and the small matter of delivering a really rare and precious ring to a vampire with a soul – seemed to have changed them.
Of course only Oz had taken care of the last part, but they were all… It was like they weren’t just Sunnydale anymore. Or that Sunnydale wasn’t big enough to contain them, maybe that was it.
They had their eyes on the prize now. The prize was obviously a deal and that would be in the city, where they could play somewhere bigger – and better paying - than the Bronze – every night if they wanted to.
Where Halloween haunted house parties weren’t the extent of their ‘special invitation’ gigs.
Most likely there were groupies out there in the city too. Groupies who weren’t in High School which, now they’d all graduated, was one of those things that would make everyone a lot more comfortable.
I wasn’t a groupie.
What all that meant for the future though – her and Oz’s future - she wasn’t quite sure. But they’d work it out. Sunnydale wasn’t all that was on her horizon either and she didn’t think there was much chance that Oz was going to seriously think about blowing college off for a chance at something that would still be there later.
Right?
Besides, if the guys could start to realise their dreams by having a weekend away in LA then… That’d be cool. All they had to do was learn to get out of bed in time to make the drive. It’d be tough, but they were up to the challenge. Otherwise they probably deserve a deal anyway.
Another eyeball. She could just munch these things all night.
As Halloween parties went, this was pretty cool too. There was good music, a great sound system – thank the science girl for the help with that after a debate between the science of acoustics and the band’s pure instinct which she’d won – and, yes, there was some liquor in the punch. The peeled grapes did feel like eyeballs and she was pretty sure she had fake cobweb in her hair, but she couldn’t quite seem to care.
This year she was Joan of Arc and nothing she was wearing was too short, too revealing or – lets face it – too slutty. Most important, Halloween wasn’t turning into a crisis. Maybe, for once, this was just what it was supposed to be. The night that all the demons and ghouls and bad guys took off. A holiday for the big-bads. The one time of the year when everyone was supposed to be able to enjoy themselves, or just chill.
But then, that wasn’t true was it. Not all the demons were taking it off. And not everyone had managed to avoid being slutty.
Stood beside her, holding the bowl of grapes they were both dipping into, was Anya. Anya who wasn’t supposed to have been here. Anya who’d just decided on a whim to accompany her boy-toy. Probably just to make her night… that little bit less special.
Anya who’d thrown her costume together in about thirty seconds and managed to make a toga look slutty. Of course it was no help that she was frickin gorgeous and obviously had never had to worry about an ounce of fat in the wrong place or – apparently – brassieres.
Oh, and Anya who never shut up…
It was no wonder her mind went other places, it wanted to disconnect itself from her ears.
“So I said to Xander that he really needed to get himself on the careers ladder. An important consideration for any couple is financial stability. Did you know that nearly fifty percent of problems with male sexual potency can be linked back to concerns about financial well being?”
Willow groaned, but Anya didn’t seem to realise the difference between that and a ‘No. No more. Please, I beg of you no more.’
“Not that Xander has any problems in that regard, he’s still very potent but we have to look to the future. Keeping him that way is something we have to start planning for now, not later, when it might be too late.”
This time she whimpered, she couldn’t help it. Where was Xander? Why had he left her alone with this… this… ex-demon who was very much meriting a slaying if only someone would stab her in the heart. Give it much longer and she might not even have to wait for Buffy. Oz had shown the way, by dusting Harmony. Would anyone hold it against her? It wasn’t like Anya was even legally a real person.
And she was still going - “ - repeatedly so. Last night - ”
“Last night, nothing,” Xander said, putting his arm around Anya and himself between the two of them.
A wise move, borne of many years of knowing her. He recognised the signs.
“But I thought - ”
“You thought that maybe we wanted to keep some things between ourselves, honey. It’s a couple thing to do.”
“And we are a couple,” Anya said proudly.
“Yes. Yes, we are… Would you like to grab us a drink?” Xander suggested. “While I talk to Willow, for just a second? Thanks…”
Eager to please Anya left them to it, but Willow knew that she’d soon be back. Too soon. “Xander!”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”
“No you’re not at all. You’re getting some.”
“Yup. I really am. And even in my limited experience that some is… definitely worth the downsides.”
“More like it’s because of your limited experience,” she said, forming part of that limited experience – thought in an even more limited way – she wasn’t too bothered by the unintentional comparisons. There were many things that Anya would never have that she did, no matter how hot she was.
Things like compassion. Genius level IQ. Natural red hair and the ability to know when to just shut the hell up. On balance, Willow would have all those things and Anya could have Xander.
If it had been anyone else, probably anyone else in the world, she’d have been unreservedly happy for him. As it was, she was managing ‘grudging’ and sticking with that much.
“Yeah, lets rub that in. But look at it this way, if it hadn’t been so limited then we’d both have made much more of a mistake than we actually managed to.”
“We weren’t going to talk about that again,” she reminded him. It had seemed best all around to just leave it in the past where it belonged. Like the Bangles and Speak and Spell. Something that had seemed like a good idea at the time, but… not actually.
“I know, sorry. But… it just goes to show, eventually everything works itself out. You’ve got Oz. I’ve got Anya…”
“It’s hardly the same thing.”
“It could be,” he said, sounding quite serious.
“She’s using you for sex!”
“Yeah, I know. It’s a pretty sweet deal.”
“But - ”
“Willow, have you any idea just how many guys would love to be used for sex by a hot girl who rocks a slutty-toga and is happy to deliver me drinks at a party?”
“Are you talking about me?” Anya said, handing him a drink.
“Always. Ah, Anya, where’s Willow’s drink?”
“I only have two hands now. Of course when I was a vengeance demon I could’ve manifested another but… you all seem much happier now I’ve lost my powers.”
“Not all your powers,” Xander said, threatening to make her barf.
“It’s okay,” Willow said. “I’ll go get my own.” She’d just spied Buffy and given who else had turned up to the party, she was supposing that her roommate might need some sympathetic company.
She’d have been wrong though.
“Hey, Buffy… you look… cheerful. You are cheerful aren’t you?” This wasn’t some smiling despair?
“Trying to be,” her friend said. “Isn’t that what you all wanted?”
“Well, yeah… but Mister Asshat Parker just arrived and I thought that - ”
“Really? He’s here? Where?” Ah. Buffy wasn’t coping well, or even better. She just hadn’t known.
The burst of interest wasn’t exactly the reaction she’d been hoping for. Willow could tell that, given half a chance, Buffy would be over there trying to get him to like her again. But ‘liking her’ wasn’t the problem, Parker had ‘liked her’ all the way into bed and then he hadn’t needed to anymore.
“No,” she said. “He’s not alone. Buffy, I’m sorry but he’s… with someone.”
“Who?”
“A girl…”
“He’s with a girl?”
“Yeah. A girl.”
“Maybe it’s his sister, he said she was coming to visit soon - ”
“She kind of looks Asian,” Willow said. “So… unless one of them is adopted, I’m guessing not his sister. I’m sorry.”
Of course she had to feel guilty now, because Buffy had been blissfully unaware until she’d laid it all out and now her friend looked absolutely stricken. She looked like she was desperate to be told that it was all a mistake, that it wasn’t as she’s said it. But that that was absolutely it. If they laid eyes on Parker and his latest pursuit, she’d be willing to bet that she’d be able to spot every move that he put on Buffy being played out for the new girl.
Maybe even Buffy would recognise them?
And it’d probably be the same again in just a few days, except then it’d be two girls moping over him. Having never been involved in casual sex – in fact she was struggling to think of anything that could be less casual than sex – she was stuck trying to imagine the appeal to him of doing that.
But then Buffy hadn’t signed up for that either. She’d just… jumped the gun. Kind of… Note to self. Don’t use that phrase.
“Can I tell you something, for your own good?” Willow asked.
“Is it that I should ‘just get over it’? Because I have a pointy stick and I know how to use it, just remember that.”
“No. I mean, not exactly. I was… I was thinking of something a little more practical than that.”
“I do like practical – you mean like, hitting things right?”
“Without the violence,” Willow agreed. Though if Buffy could just get to the point that she wanted to hit him that would be a good sign. No, that would be a great sign. Hitting him would mean they were past the mopey, ‘its all my fault’ phase and on to ‘what the hell is wrong with that guy?’ which was where she needed to go first in order to get to ‘Parker who?’
“Good, because I don’t think I could hit him.”
I’ll hit him for you, for doing this to my friend.
“No, we’re going to do something that’ll hit him where it hurts. Without, like I said, the actual hitting.”
Physical violence didn’t seem too out of place right now, particularly precisely aimed – smart – violence which would feature little by way of collateral damage.
A swift kick to the nuts, by any other name. And there were few people who could manage that swifter, more accurately or powerfully than Buffy. Unfortunately that wasn’t where Buffy was right now so… other steps would have to be taken.
“Willow, I don’t know if this is a good idea, I mean… what if he’s only with her because he wants to make me jealous? To teach me to stop calling, I’ve been full on stalking him for days, I shouldn’t have done that should I? Or what if she’s just a friend?”
“Yeah, well, its more likely than being his sister,” Willow said, tired not so much of Buffy as what Parker had done to Buffy. It was just that her friend wasn’t quite ready to hear ‘mwahaha, he will pay.’
She hoped Buff would back her up and go with her play… She’d never caught herself wishing this before but… this once, she could wish that Buffy was more like Faith. Then they’d definitely have seen some kick him in the nuts violence… Of course Faith would probably have used him rather than the other way around and the whole problem would’ve been moot.
“Come on,” she said, half dragging Buffy over to where Parker was hanging with the new girl.
“Hey Willow, Buffy. Great party?”
Oh, so that was his game… pretend like nothing had happened and nothing mattered. Mister Not-So-Much-Innocent-as-Cool. He was absolutely shameless. But that’d been obvious, even to someone with limited experience.
“Hi Parker,” she said, forcing it out as cheerfully as she thoughts he could manage. “Did you try the eyeballs yet?”
“Yeah, great – someone spent a lot of time peeling those grapes. Oh, this is Kelly. Kelly, this is Willow and Buffy.”
The broad smile from Kelly actually seemed genuine and she didn’t seem to mind Parker introducing her around at all. Of course, she had no reason to know what he was like yet… Probably. Did they really want to add broken-Kelly to the broken-Buffy pile?
No. No more breaking.
“Nice to meet you!” she said brightly, and it might’ve been. She looked like a nice girl for all that she was hanging out with a piece of sewage floating on the tide of a social gathering. An allusion she was going to have to remember to mention once Buffy was safely into ‘I hate that guy’.
“So what are you guys majoring in?” Kelly asked.
Since Buffy didn’t exactly seem to be up to the finer arts of conversation and was just making pleading eyes in Parker’s direction – which he was studiously ignoring by keeping his on the conversation – Willow felt that she needed to be the one to answer and did, watching for signs that she should call this off if Parker had a sudden bout of remorse…
“That’s so interesting,” Kelly said, actually sounding like she meant it.
Of course, there was a lot of that going around, ‘what’s your major’ It kind of replaced ‘when’s your birthday’ from Kindergarten as the most important question to ask anyone you’d just met.
Kelly, it turned out, was pre-med. Which made her a smart girl. Too smart to be allowed to fall for smarmy Parker. It also meant that she needed to be somewhat careful what she said under this slowly maturing plan of hers. Revenge was – the man from Fantasy Island always said – ‘a dish best served cold.’
“Isn’t the band great?” Kelly asked next, displaying a talent for never letting her mouth fail to say words for more than three seconds unless someone else was speaking and… even then.
“My boyfriend is lead guitar,” Willow said. It’d been a while since anyone had needed to be told that, but the cheap thrill of it was still there.
“Cool! What are they called?”
“Dingoes ate my baby,” Willow said, checking on Buffy who looked like she was about to apologise – and possibly beg – to Parker.
“I hope that’s the band’s name and not something that really happened to you?” Kelly joked and Willow thought, just for a moment, about playing that one… But no, there were simpler dishes to serve up in the cookery book of revenge.
Besides, she was finding it hard to hate Kelly. It wasn’t her fault she was Buffy’s replacement. It was more like her bad luck.
And Parker’s fault…
“I’ll look them up, they sell CD’s?”
“Up the front after the set, only five dollars or ten with a tee-shirt.” She pointed to her chest.
“Umm, they sell plastic armour?”
“No, sorry. The tee’s underneath.”
“Oh!”
And everyone laughed… everyone laughed for now. But soon, Mister Can’t Keep It In My Pants, soon you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face. And it’s very cold on the other side of your face…
Where no one could hear you scream.
Okay, it was just a good job she wasn’t saying all this stuff out loud, it’d really hurt the plan.
“What’s up with your friend?” Kelly asked quietly, “she seems a little down.”
“Oh,” Willow said, exaggerating her gestures. “She… got a little bad news today.”
And yes, I certainly am making this up as I go along.
“Oh, no! I’m sorry to hear that – I hope everything will be okay?”
“Oh, yes! But it’s not to worry. You’ll know, being nearly a Doctor - ”
“I’m only pre-med,” Kelly said modestly.
“Well, in that case I really hope that you don’t know as it’s kind of… embarrassing.”
Kelly looked at Buffy with what – in a facial expression store – would’ve been sold as ‘horrid fascination.’ “What? I mean… if it’s not too personal.”
“It is kind of personal, but… I figure you should hear it. What with – look, the biggest problem Buffy had was that she didn’t listen. Someone came up and told her to be careful about him and… well, now she’s had to get tested and everything and there’s a problem but not to worry, they can clear everything up with pills these days. You know, in time.”
“She and Parker…?”
“Yeah, it’s her own fault, for not listening when someone warned her,” Willow said as reasonable as she could be. “But hey, it’s only a bit of itching. Some discharge.”
“What’s that now?” Parker turned back from one of his buddies to find two and a half hostile faces. Guess who was the half?
“You! You irresponsible asshole!” Kelly shouted, drawing attention.
“What?”
“What you did to Buffy? And that other girl?”
Willow sat back to admire her handy work. This was usually far outside her area of expertise but she supposed, deep down, a girl knew when she was being played and lied to. She might not want to believe it, she might even think that was something to do with her or be impressed enough by a pretty face not to care, but all the signs and cues must’ve been there because Kelly had just turned on him like that.
She’d been ready to believe. Very ready.
“Uh, what did I do?” He seemed genuinely mystified.
“You need to get tested, until then, you need to keep it locked up.”
Willow was hoping for a face slap, but it didn’t come. Clearly Parker and Kelly hadn’t quite gotten far enough to make that a viable alternative, let alone a requirement. Lucky for her. Lucky she stormed off too.
“Tested? Kelly?! Wait?” Then he turned to her and Buffy. “What, exactly, did you say?”
“I just told her the truth, kind of. That you cause itching and discharge… She may have taken that the wrong way though.” Willow called after Kelly. “Tell your friends! Don’t be suckers!”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Parker grabbed her arm, spinning her back to him.
Uh-oh.
Now he was in all sorts of trouble.
If she didn’t do something about it herself - and there was still the precisely aimed kick as a solution to every male problem if she needed it - then there was Oz, she heard the slight tremor in the lead guitar which would be him noticing what was going on.
But what Parker really needed to worry about was…
Buffy grabbed him, spinning him backwards. “Get your hands off my friend.”
“You crazy bitch! Both of you, you can’t just go around telling girls I gave you… What did you tell her I gave her?”
Buffy turned to her. “You know, this isn’t exactly great for my reputation either, Will.”
She shrugged, feeling herself blush. “It was the best I could come up with at the time. And it worked didn’t it?”
“We had our fun and now you can’t let it go, is that it? I didn’t think you were so clingy and needy,” Parker mocked.
“Do you really want me to show you needy?” Buffy said, grabbing his shoulders and holding him in just the right place for the vital blow.
“That’s spelt with a ‘K’, Buffy,” she pointed out. Punning was fine, but you had to keep things kinda accurate.
“I know that, Will. We’re in college now.”
“But you’re behaving like a child,” Parker accused, missing the reference entirely. He’d get it soon enough though.
Willow was wincing even before he realised what was happening and Buffy’s knee was… well, it couldn’t have been a full slayer strength strike. She’d seen what both Buffy and Faith had done to a two-by-four in just such a move. The boy would’ve been singing falsetto for life. Unrecoverable destruction… All the same… Ouch.
“More childish than you?” Buffy said, looking down at him.
He just groaned and rolled around on the floor.
“See, I should have done that three times. Once for what you did for me. Once for what you were about to do to that nice girl and once for putting your hand on Willow. Actually, I think it was really mature of me to just let it go at one. Come on, Will.”
“Hold on,” she said, squatting down beside Parker who was holding himself protectively, afraid she was about to follow up. And she was, but not that way. “Hi, Parker. If you think that hurts, wait until you see what I can do.
“If I so much as hear that you’ve been treating girls like you treated Buffy, I’m gonna take control of your emails and I’m going to let everyone know what we told Kelly. I’m going to get pictures, medical websites have that sort of thing and I’m going to send them to everyone you know, friends, family, your Mom.”
He groaned again, possibly a denial.
“Have your fun,” she said. “Fine, but don’t you lie to them, don’t you lead them on. Every single one of them deserves better than that. They deserve better than you”
“Buffy…” he said, reaching out a hand towards her. “I’m - ”
“So not interested,” Buffy completed. “Hey, Will, want to go check out upstairs?”
“Sure.” She patted Parker on the head and the pair of them took a small bow in front of the assembled crowd, looking on in a mixture of horror and knowing satisfaction – largely depending on their gender. “Be a good boy. And next time a girl knees you in the nuts, try not to spill the good punch. It’s a waste.”
“What did you say to him?” Buffy asked as they left the room. Oz and the boys were in mid-set, but it wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard dozens of times before and she didn’t mind leaving them to it.
“I told him I’d send pictures to his Mom,” Willow said. She was pretty happy with that too.
“Of my imaginary STD?” Buffy asked.
“Of his imaginary STD, technically. And not to be icky after the fact, but it may not be totally imagin – never mind. It’d be unpleasant work, looking it up, but definitely the sort of thing that’s out there on the net.”
“And you know this because…?”
“I spend too long online, this is true,” she admitted.
“But did you have to give it to me?”
“Well… I have a boyfriend. He’s in the band. I couldn’t say I’d gotten it…”
“Well, I guess I can rule out anyone from this party as my next boyfriend,” Buffy said, looking around.
“I think kneeing him in the nuts probably achieved that, they won’t even be thinking about your STD.”
“That makes me feel much better.”
“It’s what friends are for.”
-------------------
“You’re supposed to dress up,” Tara said.
“As what?”
“A-As… whatever you want. It’s the one time a year where you get to go out, dressed however you like and no one says a word about it. It’s actually expected. It’s… It’s nice to go out that way.”
Didn’t they even have Halloween wherever Diana was from?
“A custom of some curiosity.”
“Not really…” Tara said. Having grown up with it, one night a year where being a demon or a witch wasn’t a bad thing, she was actually quite invested in the idea.
“And you’re dressed as what?” Diana asked, looking her over.
“C-Clyde,” Tara said.
Diana looked blank.
“You know, Bonnie and Clyde. Annie’s going as Bonnie.”
“So you affect a man’s clothing?” Diana looked at her as if she was practically bonkers, even though every time Tara had seen her she’d been wearing that same, short, tunic which looked like it should’ve given everything away if she even breathed the wrong way. But somehow it didn’t. The wind never caught it. No matter how she moved it was just long enough.
“Well, yeah.”
She’d turned to the old thrift store suit and hat as soon as Annie had revealed her flapper dress. Most likely Bonnie and Clyde never went out this way, but it was practically expected as the ‘uniform’. That it was a man’s suit was in no doubt, but equally it was cut… just right. A little baggier around the crotch than she’d need, but just about right up top. A little work with a needle and thread and… perfect.
“And the weapon?”
“It’s a toy,” she explained. “Do you know who Bonnie and Clyde were?”
Blank…
“Famous outlaws, they were pursued and hunted, until they were caught and their car was riddled with b-bullets.”
“Ah, so you would celebrate their deaths?”
“Actually, it just seemed like a good use of the costumes, plus Annie said I could rock a suit.” Especially once she’d fastened her hair back and put on the hat.
That had been a big deal. No one had told her that she ‘rocked’ anything before. Not clothes, not musically, not even the Kasbah.
“It fits you well,” Diana said after some consideration.
Which might be as close as she was going to get to a compliment from her. “Th-Thank you.”
“It was by your hand that the ring was delivered to the Slayer?” Diana asked, completely changing the subject and catching her by surprise.
Walking through the halls of the college, where no one ever seemed to question the woman’s presence, even barefoot, Diana had asked her to come with her and she could do no less than she was asked.
“I-I hope that’s alright?” Tara said. Maybe it actually hadn’t been hers to give away, even though Diana had left it in her custody.
“A wise decision. You had no way to destroy it.”
Not that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but she’d never been much of a destroyer. Destruction had – thankfully – been almost entirely absent from her life.
“You still have questions, Tara Maclay.”
She nodded, that was certainly true. “M-more than I know how to ask.”
“Then start at the beginning.”
“This place,” Tara said, gesturing around but meaning much wider than the college building or even the campus. “Is it what brought you here? Or was it us?”
“Us?”
“The Wicca Group.”
“What is it you think I am, Tara?”
“I d-don’t know, but you’re not a student. You’re not on the faculty. You came here and if you weren’t doing good things, protecting us, then I – I guess I’d be more worried. This place is… different. The whole town.”
“You have the right of it on that, at least.”
Which part? All of it… or some element, like not being a student. Or about the town?
No one stopped or halted Diana for not having ID – or shoes – though. No one questioned her presence at all. So long as she wasn’t with the dogs – an obvious no-no here on campus except for service dogs – then everyone pretty much left her alone to do what she wanted…
Whatever that was?
And that was another thing, she had no idea how Diana spent her days and nights when she wasn’t with the Wicca Group, or her. Most of her time, in fact.
So she asked the question. “I’m not a student, in that you are correct. Nor a teacher. Likely I do not have the patience.”
“But you protect us, right?”
“I do not have patience for those who would harm those that belong to me, either,” Diana said.
Belong to you?
“This place, it’s no coincidence,” Tara said. “I came here, you do… Magic is easier here, isn’t it?” Earlier today she and Annie had been at a frat house all dressed up for Halloween and she’d been able to feel – for no other reason than proximity – when someone accidentally invoked a summoning circle, calling a demon to the house.
It shouldn’t have been possible, it should’ve taken power and rituals and arcane knowledge… All it had taken here in Sunnydale was a library book and the slip of the hand. Luckily her boot had been adequate to the job of dealing with a problem on the scale of Gachnar. In pumps it would’ve been much messier and she might’ve had to throw them away. She’d just scrapped him off on the step though and the boots had been as good as new.
“It is the gateway to the underworld,” Diana admitted. “The powers of that realm cannot be contained entirely, not so close as we are.”
“And… who are you?”
“I have already given you my name, I am Diana.”
“But Is that your real name?” she wondered. Some of the things the ‘woman’ said, some of things she seemed to have experienced in her – seemingly – young life…
“I’ve had many,” Diana told her. “This is true, but you ought to know me by the one I have given you.”
“Would you give me another?” Tara had the wonderful/awful feeling that she’d never been lied to, that she’d been told only the truth and when you stacked up all of those things…
“I’m known by one other, above all others, this is also true.”
She knows that I know, she just wants me to accept it. To believe it.
“Artemis,” Tara said. “You were known as Artemis.”
“My own name, one that has almost gone from the world except in myth, but your kind honour me with the names of your children to this day. So, I am content to be Diana.”
She was claiming to be…
She was claiming to be a Goddess.
No.
She was the Goddess.
******************
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
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