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The Third Bit
Willow sat cross-legged on the floor, watching Tara light a ring of candles around the room. The young Wicca had removed at least one layer of clothing, revealing a simple yellow blouse over a light brown skirt. She had removed her shoes as well, and the overall effect, to Willow was a petite fairy princess, mysterious and silent. She knew Tara came from a long line of witches; she wondered just how powerful her new friend really was.
Mostly, though, she just watched the lithe blonde’s hypnotic movements as she went silently from candle to candle, with her face half-painted in shadows and light. Willow noted her finely sculpted cheekbones, the smooth slope of her nose, the fullness of her lips, especially her lips, which parted slightly as she blew out the tiny match she held gingerly between her fingers. Placing the match in a tiny tray, Tara turned fully toward Willow, and was momentarily alarmed by Willow’s fixed stare.
“A-are you ready?”
Tara’s whisper was barely audible. Willow only nodded her head, afraid to speak; afraid another babble fest would erupt and ruin the moment. She watched as Tara stepped around her, the light material of her skirt brushing against her shoulder, as Tara bent and sat opposite, crossing her legs, lotus-style.
“We’ll first call upon Artemis, the m-moon goddess for her blessing; then ask her to raise the candles and extinguish them.”
Willow nodded; her eyes unable to look anywhere but at Tara, who held both her hands forward. Willow accepted them in hers and together they recited the small chant to summon the goddess:
“Artemis, divine daughter of the moon,
Protector of women and virgin huntress,
Accept our humble obedience and prayer.
Give us your blessing in all our endeavors.”
Willow frowned slightly as Tara finished the last lines of the incantation alone.
“Willow?”
“Oh, um…virgin huntress? Does that mean she hunts virgins?”
Tara stared at her for a moment, missing her point then shook her head.
“Oh, no. She’s the virgin goddess of the hunt and moon. She doesn’t actually hunt them, I mean, virgins; that I know about.”
“Oh. Now what?”
Both women held a collective breath, neither releasing the other’s grip as the candle flames began to grow stronger, strong enough to bathe the room in bright yellow light.
“Hey…the candles are all, like extra flamey! Kinda cool.”
Willow grinned at the apparent success of their chant; Tara, on the other hand, began to frown.
“Um, Willow? Look at them.”
The flames had grown so bright, it began to hurt their eyes; when the candles began to move off their respective shelves, into the air over their heads, both Willow and Tara rose and moved apart to avoid the hot globules of dripping wax that began to rain over the room.
“Uh…this is not good. Was this supposed to happen? We didn’t ask for this yet, did we?”
Willow looked frantically around the room for anything that might aid in extinguishing the lively waxworks quickly, without causing damage when Tara –
“Enough!”
The candles instantly froze in place, immediately extinguished themselves – and fell in a heap on the space of floor Willow and Tara had so recently vacated.
Picking drying bits of wax out of her hair, Tara looked worriedly over at Willow who was staring at the pile of candles, dumbfounded.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. I love it when that happens. What just happened?”
Tara shook her head and approached the young hacker, reaching out to pluck a few scraps of wax from her bangs. She found it impossible to stop and kept finding imaginary things to dust away until there simply was nothing else and her hand came to rest on one pale, smooth cheek, and Willow’s eyes were fixed in hers and it was so dark now, only the moonlight pouring in, illuminating their flushed faces, and Willow’s skin was so warm and her hands felt burning hot and –
“Your phone’s ringing.”
Tara’s hand dropped to her side like someone had just tied a weight to it, nearly dragging the rest of her down with it.
“Oh! S-sorry.”
Fishing around for the light switch, Tara reached for her phone.
“H-hello? Buffy?”
Willow had bent to pick up the candles then stopped at the mention of Buffy’s name.
“She’s here, do you want to talk to – oh. Oh. Okay. I’ll tell her. Okay. Bye.”
Quickly putting down the phone, Tara turned to Willow, who, now that she could see in the light, was covered in candle wax, despite her ministrations.
“What’s up?”
“Um, it looks like the vamp party ended a little early. She just wanted you to know she’s staying at Riley’s tonight, so not to worry.”
Willow frowned. Another night at Riley’s. Those two were worse than a pair of bunnies on crack.
Crack bunnies. That’s what I’ll call them. But just to myself, not to them, cause, hey, rude much? And besides, what’s it to me, I’m just the best friend here, brainless and Oz-less…which may not be such a bad thing anymore, I think. No, emphatically, I think not.
“Willow?”
Tara knew by now that Willow could sometimes wind up in her own world once in a while, she did it too, but Willow made it look cute.
“Oh, hey! Sorry there. Brainless and everything, just hanging a left into the red, huh? The needles’ on E.”
Definitely cute.
“Into the what? What needle?”
Willow scrunched her nose at the blonde.
“You know, like um, running on empty? Out of gas? Riding on fumes? Brain dead?”
Tara nodded sagely, something she did very well, and reached out to lift several more strips of wax off Willow’s shirt.
“We really took a bath in this stuff, huh? You’re totally covered in it.”
Willow looked down and confirmed, she was, indeed, saturated with candle wax, then noticed the same on Tara and began to assist in the removal from her blouse.
Willow’s eyes followed her hands as they swept at the tiny pieces of dry tallow, over Tara’s chest, down Tara’s breasts, her hardening nip – Wait! Hands! Hands in new places!
Tara almost smirked as Willow quickly stepped away and dropped to the floor, once again collecting candles.
“Well! No mess is a good mess, I guess, so, uh, better make with the lessening of the mess! Less mess is, well, you know, less messy.”
Recovering much sooner than she wished from Willow Contact, Tara dusted off her blouse and collected a waste basket from under her desk. She wondered, briefly, if Willow ever suffered from lightheadedness – due to the lack of oxygen to her brain whenever she babbled. Or maybe it was just the opposite – she had so much oxygen going on that her brain simply shifted into overdrive and had a hard time coming off it – like a kid on helium. Her thoughts weren’t mean-spirited in anyway, she just couldn’t believe how close she had come…no pun intended.
“Thanks.”
After collecting as much of the wax that they could, Willow searched around for her jacket and keys, preparing to leave. Though she didn’t want to, making excuses to stay seemed a little stalkerish and she definitely didn’t want to go there. Then again, she knew she had felt something very important – and not just Tara’s breasts - although they were wondrously soft and firm at the same time and she’d didn’t realize nipples could be so – Hold it! We are NOT discussing Tara’s breasts! Be quiet! Shush, you!
“Willow?”
Tara cocked her head to one side, examining the startled expression on the red head’s face as she emerged from her Willow Trance.
“Sorry! Tired, battle fatigue, you know…the usual. I should go and get a little breast, Ha! Rest! Yes! Rest. Lots and lots of rest. ”
Tara shook her head, very slowly as she gazed at her friend, her eyes narrowed to tiny slits.
“Oh. Yeah, rest. You’re probably tired, it’s been a long day” In Tara’s mind, this translated as: I’m boring, the spell was stupid, it didn’t work and she’s just trying to be nice.
“Yeah, long day.”
For a long moment they simply looked back and forth at one another, just nodding their heads in some taciturn agreement.
“Well,” said Willow, at last.
“Yeah, um, well.” Agreed Tara, for no reason; her head still nodding in time with Willow’s.
“I’ll be going.” Willow spoke and her head nodded, but she made no movement in the direction of the door.
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow, m-maybe?” Tara’s nod called in sick at the last minute, forcing her to hold up her own head, only a slightly askew angle.
Willow (whose nod was curious as to how this would all turn out) nodded. “Oh, yeah, absolutely, tomorrow, as in, the day after today.”
“Yeah.”
Determination made some head way as Tara reached for and opened the door for Willow. Willow smiled, still nodding and passed through the arch into the hallway. They smiled again at one another before Willow turned and Tara finally shut the door. Tara was just about to bolt the lock when she felt the tremors of a slight rapping from outside.
Her heart racing, Tara opened the door. Looking far more expectant than she had hoped, Willow dropped her hand back to her side and took a step closer than was absolutely necessary.
“Tara?”
Taking a step a closer than she knew to be necessary, Tara brought herself almost nose to nose with the red head, unaware that the pounding in her chest was threatening to deafen the dorm. Even Willow winced and her heart beat was no better.
“W-willow?”
“I was going to ask you –“
Now completely unaware of herself, only the green, slightly bloodshot, somewhat sleepy, yet oh-so-sexy eyes before her, Tara took another step…right onto Willow’s feet, which started Willow, forcing her off balance, yet, unable to move her legs, went backward, taking Tara with her.
From her new vantage position on top of Willow, out in the hall, Tara thought she could hear all the music of the world, a rapturous, sublime melody with strings and flutes and harps and, yes, even the stars were out and sparrows soaring over their heads, and there was something her mother had told her, when she was little and it came back to her, a cherished memory:
Tara! No running in the house!
She almost laughed; she looked down at Willow and smiled.
And then she realized where the stars and sparrows had come from.
Willow was unconscious.
TBC….
"Human kind cannot bear much reality." - T.S. Eliot
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