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TITLE: Carvings On Stone AUTHOR: seraC EMAIL: seraphcelene@yahoo.com SPOILERS: BtVS through Bring on the Night RATING: PG-13 ARCHIVING: Essential-Imperfect and Buffy Fiction Archive. All others please ask. SUMMARY: Things are not going well. NOTES: Companion piece to Istanbul. This is an experiment with stream of consciousness. It starts out somewhat linear and then unravels. FEEDBACK: Is like air and highly addictive. In other words, yes please! THANKS: A thousand hugs and hershey's kisses to Moonwhip and Arrie for fabulous beta services!! DISCLAIMER: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and all related characters belong to Joss Whedon, Sandollar, UPN, et al. I’m just taking them out for a little exercise. “And there came one of those Broken-glass-shard memories So abrupt it drew all my blood.” -- Triana, Violin The world is burning. If she were to touch it, surely, her hands would be singed redgoldred to match. Perhaps she will wait for a breeze, but that may not be for the best. Buffy has been lost before and she doesn’t want it to happen again. It is a secret that she is made of ash. She blinks and the world is darker than it was or should be. Darker and colder. It’s been this way for a while. She remembers things that follow and it makes sense. This is not a new occurrence. She has lost pieces of herself over time and now all that’s left is atomic winter. She learned to wear Death a long time ago, only now it smells like the beginnings of Decay. Things are not going well. The White Hats fight to win but the Big Bad fights to kill. The nicknames tumble in her head, a testament to the simplicity of youthful years when everything was Black and White. Out of the corner of one eye she can just see Willow fall. It’s an easy slide. Slow motion. Like holding an image in your head, the action stopped, until you turn the page and finish the sentence on the other side. She blinks and Willow is kneeling over her, speaking. Buffy can’t hear the words. All she sees is the motion of Willow’s soft, bow mouth still raspberry slick with gloss, her brow crumpled and earnest. Buffy knows that she is broken, but she isn’t sure how to begin the repairs. She wants to say Willow’s name, just a purr of sound, to reassure her that everything is good and right and fine. But the sound catches in her throat, a tangle of liquid salt and copper. Willow’s eyes are bleeding tears and Buffy can’t reach up to wipe them away. Her arms are heavy, too heavy, and she knows there’s something wrong with that. At the moment she wishes that she could care. The world is burning dreams in fire and gold. Over time, her heart has hardened. Over time, she has dropped things, once-essential things. Things that made her soft and pretty and human. What remains is hard, striking and efficient. She is not a demon. Buffy remembers things that she swore never to forget. She imagines the memories are written on her heart like carvings on stone, clean and precise. They are important and if she could get past the flavor of liquid salt and copper she would whisper them to Willow like secrets long kept. But she always gets these things wrong. Instead her memories are dreamy, hazy fragments that taste of salt and water and sugar, like joy, on her tongue. She remembers things from before the winter and the pieces she lost on the way. She has saved them in a box on the mantle. Knick-knacks and keepsakes for her friends to remember her by. There is a big silver cross on a leather cord, a lock of chestnut hair and blonde. Blonde, Strawberry, Platinum. The loss of her can be traced in bottles. There is a ring made of hands and hearts and a necklace from Nana that Mom used to wear. Prowling the town. Flowers at the door, “from Brian.” She remembers Willow in sweet white tights, water glistening on her chin and Mr. Giles in the library. There is a kiss from a prince that doesn’t work as it should and he is a demon in disguise but it’s already too late. Too late. Too late. pitter patter. pitter patter. She’ll kill him if she has to. She remembers an argument and sixteen-year old girls are supposed to live forever; in the real world that’s how things work. There are tears in her eyes and a cream colored dress in the closet and now she has to make the world safe for the sweet innocence of white tights. Buffy remembers the first time she died, she drowned. Xander tastes like bubblegum and red licorice. It is a secret sealed with a kiss. Sunshine and light times. Happy Happy Joy Joy. Pretend for long enough and even she believes. Smiling leaves cracks in her pretty face and love doesn’t last forever. Her innocence is a gift that destroys and she should have known then. Death is your gift. All of the signs were there and Jenny was dead, her pretty neck broken. Yet another gift that should never have been given. She remembers Acathla and the end of the world, bleached blondes and insane girls with red finger nails and mad dervish eyes. She kissed him and killed him when she had to. Forever is shorter than you think. Buffy blinks and Willow is gone. Her tongue is still coated and she can’t remember if she said everything that she wanted. Someone has to look out for Dawn and there’s the house and Hank and tell Angel don’t forget to tell Angel. Deep down in the pit of her stomach Buffy misses Faith. Faith could hold her hand and call her “B” and then she would lean in close and smile her pretty, wicked smile and Buffy would know that it was just for her. Buffy doesn’t want to die alone. She blinks and remembers that Faith died on what might have been yesterday and Angel the day before that and Cordelia and suddenly she can’t remember when Oz left or if Riley came back because now it doesn’t matter except that she misses them and she’s forgotten where she left her legs are cold. Buffy remembers her lover returned from Hell and a sister who was her darker half and that you can never be friends, children so he walked away and away and away and away... She remembers when she really began to lose herself. She washed out her face in endless circles, losing track of the light and the path and the purpose. She lost her voice and her friends and her body and her freedom. In the end, she remembers, there was further to go and more to lose and precious is just another word for valuable. A real life is different. Pretend long enough and even she will believe. Everyone needs a little sister. Summers’ blood. It’s red and runs deep. They made her out of me. Sister. Daughter. Twin. With dark hair and wide eyes. She’s got her father’s height and long elegant hands like Mom. Dead on the couch. Eyes wide open and oh god oh god ohgodohgodohgodohgod... Riley left before she could say, “I’m sorry.” Buffy remembers the second time she died, she jumped. Witchy black Willow eyes, do you want fries with that? Anya’s wedding dress is beautiful although the room is bathed in blood and Buffy can’t remember if she had to kill her. The first time was an accident. Up against the tree. A building. The loft at the Bronze. Grass stains never come out except when Mom did the laundry cause she knew Mom secrets that she never got to share. She came back wrong. Didn’t she? Heaven is a place. In a box on the shelf includes a gift from Tara. A pretty charm on a chain because she was sure that Buffy was right and it’s her birthday and even if they never leave the house she should be pretty. Tara in a box under the earth. Buffy remembers what it feels like to claw her way out of a grave. And here she is, always making the tough decisions. She kills for a living. Slayer. She’s not a demon, you know. Descended, maybe. And that’s the only way it can work. Fight fire with fire. Send a predator to hunt the vampires and kill the dark things. But that can only last for so long and now she is laying here with blood in her hair and the salty taste of copper on her tongue and her arms are so heavy that she can’t lift them. The tips of her fingers are cold and she can’t feel her legs at the wrong angle though she imagines the mess she must have made on the ground. Someone will have to clean her up before Dawn sees. end |