Buffy stood in the middle of the sunlit field for a while. She kept looking around. Finally Angel spoke up: “Buffy?”
She shook herself out of it and smiled at her fairy. “Sorry. Just… homesick, I guess.”
Angel nodded in his fairy-like way. “Let’s go home, Buff. Go see Xander, just for a while. It’ll help you find inspiration or something. Besides, he’d probably want to know.”
Buffy looked over at her fairy and smiled. “Thanks, Angel. I think I’ll do that.” They walked together in conversation, going across the bridge and finding herself back in the town that she loved so dearly just as the sun was about to set. She looked all over town for Xander and didn’t find him anywhere. “He’s probably in the Lost Woods or something,” she muttered to herself, and climbed the vines. She noticed one of those clock-rocks right near the entrance and glared at it. “Now why have I never noticed that before?”
Angel laughed and whirled around. Buffy followed the sounds of the woods that always led her to him.
“Hey, B. Over here.”
“Fuck,” Buffy muttered, and faced Faith, perched over one of the tunnels.
“Follow the music of the woods. It’ll lead you to…”
“Sacred Forest Meadow?” Buffy asked, smiling.
Faith frowned. “You… already know.”
“Hate to break it to you, Faith, but I’ve lived in these woods long before you started ‘helping’ me.”
The woman’s face fell. “Fine, whatever. See you around.” She disappeared.
“Ha, ha,” Buffy said quietly, and continued through the rest of the way. When she finally emerged in Sacred Forest Meadow, she found her path unusually blocked by a big gate. She frowned. “That’s odd,” she muttered, stepping towards it.
A howl filled her ears. She turned and found herself facing a strange-looking wolf. Angel hissed out of his teeth and flew around it. “It’s an Oz!” he shouted at her. “It’s very quick to defend, but not so quick to attack. Slash him just before or after he tries to attack, and use your shield!” he told her.
Buffy defeated it, with a few scratches of her own, and the gate fell. “I have never seen that before,” she told the fairy and started through the maze. She stopped and used her shield on the Orange Watchershrubs. “These haven’t been here, either,” she said, fighting them off one at a time.
“Just run past them,” Angel said eventually. She got hit a couple of times but she did get by a lot faster. Finally she found herself running up the stairs to what she and Xander always used to call Xander’s haven; a quiet area with fairies floating around and an old broken staircase.
He sat quietly, reading a spellbook. He’d always been interested in spells, but every time he said one, they’d never turn out… except for one he created. They called it Xander’s Incantation, and it made the listener feel very relaxed and happy.
She walked up to him, smiling. He looked up. “I thought you’d come soon,” he said. “We never could stay away from this place long.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said sarcastically. “It’s only the location I missed, Xander. It has nothing to do with you.” He stood and they hugged.
“Learned any spells?” he asked, beckoning at the spellbook attached to her belt.
Buffy nodded. “One. Royal family heirloom. Princess Willow’s caretaker taught it to me.”
Xander gaped. “My God, Buffy! You’ve been gone a day and a half and you’ve already met a Rosenberg!”
Buffy grinned. “How’s the magic coming on your end, Xand?”
“Not so good,” he said, grimacing. “Xander’s Incantation is going well.”
“How does that go again?” she asked, taking out the book and a pencil and writing it down as he said it out of politeness.
“La Bastrangue,” he said lightly. Buffy immediately grinned… not really of her own free will.
“What’s that mean, anyway?” she asked him as she finished copying it down.
Xander shrugged. “It’s a French dance, I don’t think it translates into anything.”
The second Buffy wrote down the final E, a shimmer illuminated the page. They both gawked at it as cursive text appeared again saying: You’ve learned Xander’s Incantation!
Buffy stepped forward and pushed Xander lightly. He fell off his perch. “Xander! You didn’t tell me that it was an actual spell that books knew!”
He sat back up slowly and examined the book closely. “I didn’t know either!”
Angel floated around and cleared his throat softly. “Buffy…” he began. She nodded.
“I know, I know, we have to go see Death Mountain.”
Xander gawked. “You’re joking, right? You’re not actually going to a place called Death Mountain, are you?”
Buffy nodded and winced. “’Fraid so, Xand. So if I die, sue the Princess, all right? She’s the one who sent me up there in the first place.”
He stood up. “Will do,” he assured her, hugging her again.
“I’ll see you someday, Xander. I don’t think I’ll be back for a while.”
Xander nodded. “I didn’t think the daily visits would be a normal thing.”
They smiled at each other and Buffy ran away. She had a mountain to meet.
When she got to the foot of the stairs, she jumped up the ladder and down a hole in the middle of the ground. “This’ll just take a second,” she told the fairy as she stepped in amongst other fairies and got instantly healed.
Angel scoffed as she teleported back out of the hole. “Oh, so you knew about the healing fairies, but you didn’t know about eating hearts?”
Buffy grinned. “Jealous?” she asked him.
He snorted. “No.”
“Lying?” she asked, grinning wider still.
“…Maybe…” the fairy muttered. Buffy chuckled, but let it go. She walked out of the woods.
“Hey, B.”
“FUCK!” Buffy yelled and tried to turn away.
“Not so fast,” Faith said, amused. “Did you learn a spell from Xander?”
“What’s it to you if I did?”
“That incantation seems to have mysterious power.”
“That’s not your buisness. It’s Xander’s.”
“There may be some other mysterious spells you can learn in Sunnydale, B. You just gotta look around a little.”
“Thanks, but I don’t really want to take advice from you. You’re far too annoying. Hell, you’re even more annoying than my fairy, and when you’ve lived my past two days, you’ll understand just how unbearably annoying that is.”
“Hey!” shouted Angel.
“What? Is something coming?” Buffy asked in alarm.
“No, I was protesting again.”
Buffy looked up and noticed that Faith had disappeared. She shrugged it off. “Maybe you should find another protesting word,” she suggested to the fairy as she walked back to the forest.
Night fell the second they walked out onto the field. Buffy heard the ground rip behind her, and a very dead thing came at her slowly. She slashed at it with her dagger and it burned up just as three more appeared.
“There’s too many,” Buffy said after a while. “I can fight them, but I’ll be fighting until daybreak.”
“Just walk past them, maybe?” Angel recommended. “They don’t seem to be moving too quickly.”
Buffy nodded and put her sword away, running through Central Sunnydale. She sighed of relief once she realized she was more or less safe from the weird creatures despite the fact that a handful of them popped out of the ground wherever she went. “What were those?” she asked.
“Vampires that haven’t fed in a very long time,” came Angel’s sombre response.
“…Yuck.” Then she sighed. “I guess I have to run around here until day breaks if I want to see any activity in the town at the foot of Death Mountain, huh?”
Angel paused. “Or you could trek up to the High School, see what’s happening there with Dawn and Robin. I bet by the time you got there, the sun will have risen.”
Buffy grinned. “I like this plan.” She wandered in that direction and totally dismissed the underfed vampires as they followed her at a slow pace. Finally the sun broke horizon and Buffy heard the noise of the vampires scuffling back underground. She walked through the door.
Dawn’s flowing voice was easily heard throughout the school. Students filed along at a leisurely pace and went to one of two rooms; the rest of the establishment was outside. Buffy kept walking and found a small group of student crowded around Dawn, one in particular loving her voice.
Buffy walked up to her and greeted her warmly. She stopped singing. “Oh, it’s the fairy girl again!”
“Hi, fairy girl!” her fan club said.
“I heard that you found my dad,” Dawn said. “How did you like the castle? Did you see the Princess?” She giggled for no obvious reason. Buffy tried hard not to back away. “Dad came home in a hurry after you found him. Oh yeah, I have to introduce you to my best friend, fairy girl!”
She turned and beckoned to the boy who was about six inches away from Dawn. “He’s this guy. His name’s Riley. Isn’t he cute?”
Buffy frowned and Riley ran away at the sight of Buffy… apparently he was shy with everyone except Dawn. This was not lost on the girl; “It seems Riley’s afraid of you, fairy girl…” she giggled again. “My mother composed this song, but the lyrics to it compose a spell. Let’s sing together!”
Buffy took out her spell book. Dawn gasped and clapped her hands. “Oh, are you going to write the lyrics down in that spellbook? Okay, here we go…”
She opened her mouth and sang the lyrics four times. Buffy only wrote it twice. “Joli prof… Joli prof…” she sang, giggling and then repeating it. Buffy got it down and the page shimmered, the standard cursive writing appeared saying You’ve learned The Riley Summons!
Buffy frowned at the cursive and asked Dawn what the text meant. “Oh! It means ‘lovely teacher’ in french. It used to be the school’s theme song, but… but she… she died, and it hurt dad too much to keep it. I sing it all the time, and Riley’s really taken a liking to it. He’s shy, but he’s nice. He runs so fast, too… a lot faster than anyone I’ve ever seen!”
Buffy bade goodbye to the weird girl and repeated the words when she was out of earshot. Riley immediately ran up to her. Buffy smiled at him, and he smiled back. “I’m Buffy,” she said.
“I’m Riley, and I like that song. Dawn sings it.” He looked down. “Can… we be friends?” he asked her hesitantly.
Buffy grinned. “Sure,” she said.
Riley grinned back. “I can run really fast and I give piggy backs to some of the littler kids. They love it. When I’m older I plan to make a career out of it,” he told her triumphantly, and then ran away as though to prove that he wasn’t lying.
Angel chuckled after the kid and suggested to Buffy that they check out the classrooms and then skadaddle. Buffy agreed and walked into the one on her right; small children walked about the room and Robin Wood lay sleeping in the middle of the floor amidst the chaos. Three of the children tugged at his sleeves. He didn’t notice.
Buffy cleared her throat. Wood jolted himself awake. “Huh? I’m awake already!” he said stupidly, and then saw the grinning person in front of him. “What? Well, I’ll be! If it isn’t that forest kid from the other day! Thanks for waking me up, really. It took some doing, but I finally got Dawn back in a good mood. So, what are you up to today?”
“Nothing much,” Buffy admitted. “I was curious about your school, so I came to visit.”
Wood nodded. He looked nervously around at the kids. “Want to play a game with them? I’ve got something for you if you do, I’m just… really tired.”
Buffy nodded. “Sure.”
The three kids surrounding him exchanged urgent looks and ran away with the rest. Wood sighed. “Those three kids really have to go to the bathroom. Now they’re running around amidst the rest of the students and I can’t tell who’s who. If you can pick all three out in thirty seconds and send them upstairs, I’ll give you something… good. It’ll help you on your trek.”
Buffy winced, but agreed. Wood smiled appreciatively. “Great, thanks. Please hurry,” he said, and Buffy disappeared into the gaggle of children, picking them up one by one. At one point Wood cried, “That’s one!” Buffy sent him upstairs and went looking for the other two.
At five seconds left, Buffy picked up the final one and Buffy sent her upstairs, too. She went over to Wood, smiling. “Hey, you,” he said, amazed. “You’ve got the talent to be one of the world’s best teachers. Can I offer you a job?”
Buffy hesitated. “…Er…”
Wood chuckled. “I’m just kidding. You’ve got a world to save, way I hear it.” He shook his head and pulled something out from behind him. “Here. My last dose of magic milk. This rejuvenates me after every day, but Cordelia won’t let me in to get more. I’ve been saving this last one… that’s why I’ve been sleeping so much lately.” He sighed. “It’ll heal you the equivalent of five hearts. When the bottle’s empty, you can put other stuff in it. Take care; it’s glass.”
Buffy thanked him and put it in her hat. By the time she was done, Wood was already asleep again, so she and Angel crept out and went to inspect the other classroom to see if it was as chaotic.
It really, really wasn’t.
Buffy looked around at the subdued children. They all wore thick glasses and they were all watching their assignments very closely as they wrote them. A frazzled-looking woman stood amongst them. Buffy went up to greet her.
“Thank God! Somebody to rant to,” the woman said. “I have been in this classroom for a very long time, you know. And does Robin ever give me credit for it? No! He sits around and sleeps all day in his classroom, while I’m stuck in here with these incredibly boring people, and I don’t even get paid as much as he does! I should be principal around here, but noooo, because his wife created the school, he gets to be principal. And then he comes in here and expects the kids to use their chemistry and make him more of that milk of strength? Puh-leeze! I don’t think so. I should be the one in charge. I’m the one who does all the work!”
Buffy blinked. “Uh… hi. I’m Buffy,” she finally got in.
The woman smiled sarcastically. “I’m Cordelia.” She inspected Buffy carefully. “And unless you’re here to learn something, get out! They don’t need this kind of fashion disaster distracting them from their work.”
Buffy raised her eyebrows and turned away, walking out the door and back into Sunnydale central. “Well, she was unpleasant,” she said to Angel, who had still not stopped laughing from the Cordelia encounter.
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