Okay, what with the spacing and the new code on this board this part might look bad but hopefully it can be edited later. Sorry for the delay but Kat wouldn't sign this one off without tweaking it a few more times (even though I had to take all the spaces out! My apologies for what I missed) Enjoy.
***
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle - Zippy-Rose-Tacular (Part 166)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome.
katslady@hotmail.com.uk Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe as set up in “The Wish” though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Nothing is referenced that occurs after S5 though. Guess why? Most “spoilers” would be for the first chronicle of this fic rather than the show and if you haven’t read that then much of this will make no sense but you can try and get round it by reading the preface to Part 104 which summarises most of what went before.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all of the Sidestep Chronicle)
Summary: The girls find out more about what was happening in Sunnydale.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories. You know the drill.
Rating: R – a general rating for occasional content. Individual parts might be less than this level.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever – others couples as necessary but nothing unconventional.
Notes: This part is the last that has been beta read. After this… well…
Thanks To: My own special woman Louise who helps me so much with this on top of everything else. Those other friends and family who’ve also helped us overcome everything that was put in my way. Celia and Kerry who shaped this story and continue to do so when I think back to what they told me in the past. Xita for keeping the story hanging around and continuing to give us TKTWATBW. Celia especially had much to do with this part as the long-suffering beta reader for it. Thanks.
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle
Zippy-Rose-Tacular
By
Katharyn Rosser
This was all really rather impressive. He had to admit he was more than a little surprised with how well things had worked out for him.
Ethan had tried rituals in the past to distract people from the things he’d really wanted to do but never anything like this turned out so successfully. Ultimately most had led to discovery and more than a few beatings.
Perhaps, he mused as he walked through the town, his past efforts had been a little too invasive, and, he was willing to concede, ambitious too. He didn’t need the streets to be clear to do what he was doing now. He just needed the people to
let him do those things. Where they were was of no concern to him. Just as long as they weren’t in his way.
This ritual was more personal than his usual manipulations, but he didn’t think a soul could reasonably object to what he’d done to them. The streets, after all, weren’t deserted. He knew he hadn’t sold enough roses to distract the
entire town – but those people who were out were, overwhelmingly, out being romantic towards each other.
Perhaps they were on moonlit strolls – and it was a lovely night for it. The queues for the romantic feature at the cinema went around the corner of the block and most of those people were still clutching at least one rose to them.
They were smitten with each other and the things they already loved.
Others, he could imagine, would be at home alone or – better for them – with company. Tonight, Sunnydale was a town in love and things had never looked better for him. There were no murderous obsessions to alarm people or to go spectacularly wrong. There were no high fat consequences and nothing people would want to punch him in the nose for. And still Chaos was served because no one was doing what they should be doing – no one except himself.
Perhaps ‘no one’ was a little strong but he really did seem to have the metaphorical keys to the town.
The best part of the whole thing was that the people of Sunnydale were giving the roses away to the people they already loved, making his ritual more and more effective as time went by. He supposed the bulk of the significant others would be home by now, which would mean the ritual should have been at its high water mark – and would stay there until the sun arose tomorrow morning. It gave him plenty of time for him to do what he needed to do but would cause minimal social disruption tomorrow morning.
There really was no bad here. No bad apart from a lack of free will, which might annoy some of the purists like Ripper, but then how much freedom did anyone in Sunnydale have? Or anywhere else in a city?
Most people went to work and lived according to rules. They paid taxes and felt they were free because they got to vote every four years for one candidate who was very much like another in practice.
People, in general, weren’t even free when they spoke to a loved one. There were topics they had to avoid – things they couldn’t say for fearing of losing what they had. All terribly tedious and absolutely constrained and restricted.
Living life by rules that weren’t even written down in many cases. They just
were.
He might, he supposed, have made things better for a good number of the people his ritual had affected. At least for tonight. And actually he had no problem with that. He was a worshipper of Chaos after all, not evil. Evil far too often involved structured hierarchies to be truly chaotic and Chaos was a part of the natural order of things. Part of the nature of his God was that, sometimes, things went well. Good and bad were opposite sides of the same chaotic coin.
Entropy was as essential as creation. Vampires and various types of demons might want to destroy the world but that wasn't his bag at all. He rather liked the world. He was simply the ultimate anarchist – at least he would have been if he’d believed in anything as structured as anarchy.
Humans tended towards structures and hierarchies that were based, at the simplest level, on the family. There was no fighting that part of nature. He just couldn’t see why structure should go beyond the family. It was a well-known axiom amongst worshippers of Chaos that you couldn’t do anything about natural selection – family units seemed to have worked well throughout evolutionary history – but ties of blood were enough.
Once you started getting beyond the people you were related to, things became too rigid and freedom was crushed under the heel of acquired power. Freedom to allow blessed Chaos its head. Governments, regulations… He’d like to tear it all down – and in time he would. If he had his way.
Which was ironic when he thought about what he was trying to achieve tonight.
He was being well paid though and whilst currency was the main tool of control which governments employed during these enlightened days when, as a rule, they didn’t beat people up anymore, it was also bloody handy. For one thing for getting a beer when you didn’t have your own yeast, hops and a few months to brew it all up.
His larger, personal, plan could wait a little longer. Besides, ‘plan’ was a little too much like ‘structure’ for his tastes. Also, he was having fun and, technically, he hadn’t been too ‘bad’ – all things considered.
Ripper would probably fail to see it that way if he ever found out, but then that man had always lacked the proper sense of perspective about such things. There had been a time when his old pal would have been a bigger force for Chaos than he had ever been – but then Ripper had never worshipped Chaos, just embraced it as a rebellious and self-destructive student.
Rebellion in the young was actually conformity to the structures of the young replacing the old. And then, eventually, the young became the old – holding their own structures as sacrosanct against their own children. Ethan had no time for youthful rebellion. Mature rebellion was much more his thing.
Old Ripper had been a bit of a failure in the self-destruction field – he hadn’t even managed to destroy himself, which was a trait Ethan
could appreciate. Self-destruction wasn’t high on his list of things to do and if Ripper had succeeded back then, it was doubtful he’d have been able to do what he needed to right now. Ripper was going to make this whole thing possible for him.
But then, without Ripper, this whole town might have been very different anyway. Causality and Chaos went hand in hand – it was the entire basis of Quantum theory. At least as far as the documentary he’d watched indicated.
So Sunnydale was quite possibly better for the presence of his old friend, but from whose point of view? Certainly not from the vampires perspective. He wondered if that view would change as a result of what he was going to do tonight?
Probably not.
At the current top of his list of things to do was a visit to the only source of certain texts that he needed that he knew to exist on this side of the Atlantic. He’d been through the local magic shops and as many internet antique book dealers as he could find – but only this collection was going to serve his needs. Thank you, Ripper old boy…
And oh look. ‘Enter all those who seek knowledge.’ In Latin of course, but the language, like so many others, was second nature to him now. The best rituals were never written in English even if it was one of the most Chaotic languages in existence. ‘I before E except after C?’ It was Chaos personified as a language.
Still it was bloody nice of them to give him such an open invitation. He was
definitely a knowledge seeker. Once he’d determined he needed Rupert’s – or rather this High School’s – library, he’d been aware he’d have to bring his trick with the roses forward a little. Just to ensure that the timing all worked out.
Aside from everything else he needed to do tonight, there had been a good chance he’d have found Rupert here at any time of the night. The last time he’d ‘visited’ this town he’d found Rupert had been here all night long, sleeping in his chair when he had to. Now that was dedication. But tonight it would have been rather inconvenient.
Ethan didn’t really fancy a chat with his old mate – not until he had what he needed at least. And to get that he needed some time – undisturbed time. Whilst he was certain Rupert’s cataloguing was absolutely impeccable, he didn’t actually
know what he was looking for. Neither title nor author. He wouldn’t know until he found it and it would have been tricky to search through the card catalogue whilst the librarian was kicking his arse.
This way was definitely better and Ripper might even be getting his end away. Lucky boy.
He had a good feeling about all this, not that anyone else in this town would know what he’d done, and he
knew it was all going to come together just fine. Once he found the right book and acquired a few other, trifflingly insignificant items, he’d be all set to start Stage Two moving right along.
The sign annotated with its Latin invitation might have been out front, but Ethan was rather fond of seeking his knowledge through the back door. It was his preference whenever possible. Besides, he knew a few tricks that would get him into this place – or rather he knew Ripper. He still knew tricks, but who needed tricks when you’d lived with someone for a few years?
He fumbled in the dark for the brick he was looking for, three to the left and one up from the top of the doorframe. Ripper had been hiding his spare key above doors in that position since they’d shared a flat together – a long time ago now. The first time it had just been that there had been a loose brick – and when they’d been forced to move out after an unfortunate incident with their rather religious landlady and a voodoun talisman – they loosened the same brick at another door. It had made getting inside after staggering home drunk a lot easier.
Some things you just remembered.
Ripper, evidently, had been continued to do so ever since and, with the key still being here, had obviously never figured out how his old mate had gotten in the last time he’d paid a visit.
It was pretty considerate of him to keep up with that tradition all things considered. Ripper should have known that only Ethan, now that old Eygon had slaughtered their other flatmates, knew about the key. Perhaps there was a soft spot for his old mate then? A desire to see him come into his world, perhaps to approve of the fabulous state of his library?
Whatever the reason, Ethan was grateful, because...
Now it was going to let him into the stacks of books he needed to severely piss Ripper and his friends off – and they were going to be pissed off. How considerate was that then?
More than ‘pretty considerate’ Ethan was sure.
Systems and habits… they made you vulnerable. Ethan didn’t like being vulnerable. The first thing Ripper did when he went to a new place was to find a chisel, even now apparently.
Vandalism against school property – naughty naughty. Plus, points on the chaotic scale for that but a big minus for being so damn predictable. A little chaos would go a long way to loosening his old mate up in a way not even his pretty wife had clearly managed.
Ah, Mrs Giles. For some reason Rupert had always been able to get the girls. As an angry student he’d been quite stylish in his own way – far, far from Mr Tweed as he was now – so it had been understandable back then. But he’d grown up to be such an old stick in the mud and still the delightful Jenny had fallen for him.
He’d never understand what she saw in Rupert when there had been more handsome English men willing to sacrifice her to a demon around.
They were even supposed to have children – though he’d never had an invitation to the Christening or any birthday parties – which could prove useful in the future. People with children were far more predictable than those without and it didn’t take much – and certainly no
actual threats – to manoeuvre a parent into a position where they would do exactly what you expected them to, and to the exclusion of almost all other concerns.
And here they were – all of Ripper’s painstakingly assembled books. As he passed by the various shelves, the standard school texts were in evidence but then so were the more esoteric choices required by a good Watcher – and Ethan had every reason to believe Ripper
was a good Watcher – and they all had their little Dewey Classification sticker affixed to the spine as well.
The last time he’d been in here he hadn’t really been trying to do anything but determine what his old chum knew about Eygon and its return to haunt them, so he hadn’t really stopped to examine the books on the school shelves.
He pulled one out of its place at random. ‘Rites and Rituals of the Sumerian Conclave.’ Difficult stuff to master and a little overblown in the writing, not to mention the fact this was an inferior translation into Latin. Ripper would be lucky – with books like this – if he wasn’t surrounded with amateur witches and warlocks who’d checked the books out just to look at the sacrificial engravings.
But not all those surrounding Ripper were amateur witches. Certainly not Ms Maclay and Ms Rosenberg. Though he hadn’t had the chance to witness Mr Rosenberg’s talents, he was fairly certain that she was no amateur by virtue of the relationship with the other, Ms Maclay, who certainly was a professional.
That aside, sacrificing the pretty – and naked for some reason – young girls and boys had always seemed a bit of a waste to Ethan. He could think of much better pastimes for them and the demons never
really cared anyway.
Not about clothes and not about anything else. A few had a craving for virgin flesh but he’d yet to meet such a demon who’d admit to actually being able to taste the difference.
The survey said eight out ten flesh-eating demons couldn’t tell and their standards of beauty were more than a little different to human ones. Why waste the roses when you could feed them the daisies?
He supposed some things were just traditional, but he rather thought that, in a great many cases, the young men and women sacrificed through the ages might have been virginal when they were taken from their families, but he rather doubted they were as they were being sacrificed.
That was sort of person who sacrificed people to demons – not generally the sort of person a young innocent was best left with.
He pushed the book back onto its designated shelf careful to avoid doing any damage to it. He was a great respecter of books and their good condition – he never knew when he might need to come and steal them for himself and then it wouldn’t be good to have dog-eared pages.
He wondered if all these books had come with Ripper or whether the school had been paying for them out of their budget? If it was the latter then someone really should be taking a closer look at the school accounts. It was a shameful waste of money except in the sense of Ripper actually being able to do his job as Watcher in this illiterate land. Was the library budget responsible for saving everyone in Sunnydale? Many times over?
He supposed that someone had to pay for the books because the gods knew the Council of Watchers wouldn’t. They were mythically skinflint – everyone in the dark worlds who knew about them knew that. He supposed that possibly the locals, realising at some level someone was helping them, could be turning a blind eye to the spending and the contents of the library.
If not… Well then, Ethan wanted to be librarian here. It seemed you could buy anything. Some of the texts were right out antiquity. Some of them… He’d thought they’d been lost entirely. Obviously there were better collections back home, but for the new world… Oh, this place was going to be extremely useful over time. And that very usefulness made it imperative that Ripper never knew he’d been here tonight. The urge to swap around a few cards in the catalogue was almost overwhelming but not terribly practical in terms of keeping a low profile going forwards.
After the pains he’d gone to in order to get roses to Ripper and his dear lady – today – and thus ensure that the librarian wasn’t here, swapping the cards around would be childish. Very satisfying, but ultimately childish and counter-productive.
The trick had been to ensure that neither Ripper nor his wife ever knew where the flowers had come from. They both knew him of course and for some reason seemed to be holding a grudge as well. He didn’t understand it but it was something he’d had to work around. His solution had been simple and effective enough to guarantee no one was in here tonight. Whether it was the roses or something else that had drawn the librarian away, he didn’t really care. Just as long as Ripper wasn’t here in the library tonight then everything was going according to plan.
All he needed now was to identify a few likely candidate texts that might provide the ritual he required, as well as a photocopier where he could break a few copyright laws and then he could move on. There was no shame in doing the reading. Doing the reading was what kept him fresh and allowed him to find new ways of doing things – or old ways as the case might have been. Sometimes the old ways were best.
Browsing along the shelves as he made his way back to the large desks where he could take a look at his prizes, he had to be impressed with Rupert’s collection. It was probably unmatched in any school apart from Eton – which had always been a little strange and the traditional haunt of Watchers’ children – not including Ripper. They’d turned his parents down, or so the local librarian had told him a number of years ago. Of course in those days being turned down by somewhere that was as ‘establishment’ as Eton was a positive start to an upper-middle class rebel’s school life.
Quite what the Principal of Sunnydale High School, not to mention the rest of the faculty and the students thought about the works on offer in this library was something he would have been interested in. Perhaps it really might even be fun to find out. There was nothing chaotic about a person who went to a job at the same time every day. Came home at the same time. Perhaps he should make a complaint and free Ripper from the drudgery of day-to-day working. Unemployed Ripper?
Perhaps later. For now Ethan needed him to be predictable – it made him easier to avoid. At least at the moment he knew where the Watcher would be five days a week between certain hours.
He put the index cards back in other drawers entirely. By the time anyone noticed things would probably be obvious anyway – and besides there was nothing to say it hadn’t been the students at this place of learning. One day his old friend was going to have to move into the computer age. For that matter so would he. Ethan knew he was being left behind…
Today there were kids, less than eighteen years old, causing
global chaos with computer viruses. Tearing the orderly, commercial systems apart with their actions – all without leaving their homes or breaking a sweat. There were groups paralysing the computers of the world with spam e-mail just to sell things that
no one wanted anyway.
Now that level of meddling just had to be fun, even if he couldn’t get over the feeling that it lacked the personal touch – and just how did you do the ‘stay and gloat’ when you were thousands of miles away from the scene of the ‘crime’? He’d have to rely on the newspapers and TV to find out just how well it had worked. But, on the other hand, the sheer scale, the damage to the world that man had created with his structures and his government would have been impressive. And the Internet was chaotic… Something for the future, he mused, before it was the past and he was even further out of date.
And here was the present, verging on becoming the future. He was, with these actions tonight, altering the future. But then, every single choice made in every single life altered that future – or rather shaped it.
In fact, though Ripper might be less thrilled to hear it, by having these particular books in his collection, it was really Ripper that was the one who was altering the future. Or making it possible, at least. He very much doubted that his old chum had read either of the works by Assala the Ottoman. If he had he certainly wouldn’t have left them on the open shelves like this. These were dangerous books, in the wrong hands.
More especially dangerous in the right ones.
The style of the writing was relatively inaccessible and there was a simple code in use there, which might have contributed to the feeling of security in leaving them on display. But Ethan was sure that any teenager with a computer would be able to break the coding in fairly short order. If they had a desire to…
Desire was always the key. If you had the desire then you were more than half way to accomplishing anything.
Considering the ease with which he’d found these books, he was a little disappointed in Ripper for his lack of care, and in the kids in this town who hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity they’d been given.
As a rule, necromancy, the opening of temporal vortices and trans-possession of insects and arachnids weren’t lessons you wanted highly hormonal teenagers, especially those with more than half a brain, learning about – let alone performing for themselves. Involvement in the darkest of arts wasn’t, typically, a part of the curriculum or after school activities.
When he’d been at school you’d had to sneak around to do that sort of thing – this was certainly a brave new world.
Still, if you did want to learn about that sort of thing then these were certainly text books to choose. Assala had some fine ideas and a rather lyrical writing style for all it was coded.
The best thing was that those ideas and the rituals to bring them to pass should suit
his needs absolutely perfectly. The funny part of it was, and he hadn’t read any of Assala’s work since he’d been at university, he’d already been complying with what he dimly remembered the requirements to be… There was some retention going on then but he wasn’t sure he remembered any of his actual lectures.
It wasn’t, he mused as he hunted in the stacks for the books he’d identified in the catalogue, as if he didn’t know how to achieve his goals. Nor was it the case Wolfram and Hart had just sent him here without any firm guidance on how
they expected him to achieve them. But he was nobody’s lackey. Never had been, never would be. Well-paid contractor, certainly. But never a lackey – even for an organisation with the connections of that law-firm.
He was the one who would be held responsible for the results, and that was a very unchaotic situation if ever there was one – responsibility. If the effects turned out to be short term by the methods advocated by the firm – as he expected they would be – rather than permanent, then he was the one at Ground Zero. He was the one taking all the risks.
So what were his options? Either to take the initiative or risk the fact that they’d hunt him down later – even if that was for failure earned by following their suggestions – and that wasn’t, really, something he was too keen on.
Besides, this way, he could twist things a little more into his favour. If he went ahead and used Assala’s rituals, which ought to ensure that there was a significantly greater chance of success, it would hopefully give him a little more control too. There was a whole lot of potential in those methods – if this was done right. More danger in the rituals themselves, but ultimately more control.
Assala’s fame was based on never having lost control of the results of his spells, and what necromancer had never been chased by one of his own zombies? For that reason alone, Assala would have been practically a legend, but his fame extended well beyond that. Mostly into other areas unconnected with the dead, or undead, which was good. Ethan hated nothing more than a one trick pony. Predictability was the antithesis of Chaos. Or one of them at least – there were just so many things that were the antithesis of that which he worshipped.
No, this had to be done right or there was a good chance Wolfram and Hart would activate any one of several penalty clauses in his contract which sounded, slightly painful and more than slightly terminal. The ‘right way,’ as usual, equalled ‘his way.’
He brushed his fingers along the shelves, admiring the feel of leather and the old, musty smell that lingered in practically every library he’d even stolen a book from. And there, in exactly the right places, were the translations of Assala’s two most respected, yet least known, works. Where in the world had Ripper found them? Collectors all over the western world, unfamiliar with the original language, would pay a tidy fortune for an original translation.
And Ripper had two, which would have cost at least the equivalent of a ten-year book budget for this place in open auction. Collectors weren’t something he was keen on though. They were useful to… liberate books from when the need was great, but he was a firm believer in free access and maximum use of dangerous books like this. It made the world go with a ‘bang.’ Or possibly a zombie-like groan.
As he pulled them off the shelf he had to admit to a moment of kinship with his old friend Ripper. There was certainly something about an old book. A sentimental attachment where there was no actual reason for sentiment. It was just something you felt.
And Assala…
I knew you’d show me the way, mate.
What were friends for, after all?
This was perfect. This was everything he needed to make everything not only go according to plan, but according to
his plan.
He’d never planned on this being an option when he’d been given this contract. But… yes, that would do very nicely. A measure of control over what he was creating was definitely going to come in handy. Just in case – especially if he chose to stay around and bask in his achievements.
Thank you, Assala for your foresight.
There was, perhaps, no one more qualified in this world about the need for insurance than a Chaos Worshipper, especially in the high-risk games he was playing here. Reputation would count for nothing without actual results. Results counted for very little without the ability to walk away, enjoy the payment and take advantage of the situation wherever you could.
Reputation had gotten him the interview and now he had to produce the results – without losing his own life in the process. Promises had been made and now he needed to deliver.
Phase one had been simple, phase two was underway but there was going to be no progress without the rituals described in these lovely books. This was more than progress, though. This was, and he had to try not to get too far ahead of himself on a twenty-second reading with only slightly shaky translation skills.
Control. He wasn't going to walk away from this one – he was going to dance away.
Except for how he didn’t do that. Unless there was alcohol and a pretty lady involved. He could, if he chose, be the puppet master. That was a tough decision, whether to sit back and enjoy the show or to pull some of the strings for himself? It was nice to have the option on a contract job like this.
He was going to enjoy himself either way, because the vampires were already starting to royally piss him off. Orders were orders and the lawyers were paying the bills, but as his colonial cousins sometimes liked to say, ‘shit happens.’ If he had to maintain a rather unpleasant, and typically American, metaphor, then far better to be the shitter than the shittee.
-----------------------
“It’s late,” Tara observed as they tried to peer through the window of the darkened store. She had her nose pressed right up against the glass and Willow wished she could have seen that from the other side. Tara had a pretty nose; it might have been funny to tease her about it later. It was usually funny because she took it so well.
Somehow, Willow found was having a little more trouble being really concerned about what had happened to them. Maybe that lack of concern was actually part of the ritual, spell or – she supposed she had to allow for the possibility – natural effect of the rose.
Maybe the wave of determination to be with the woman she loved was still rolling over her now. Well, here they were together. She just couldn’t… Okay, so they’d lost some of their free will, but they hadn’t been turned into zombies, attacked or made to eat… well, stuff she didn’t like to eat.
Like human flesh. Amongst other things.
She’d come pretty close to finding herself in a position where she might have eaten something else though. There were things that were
really good to eat. After dinner and all – and she wasn’t thinking about mints. Maybe they’d get back to a snack later… Maybe that pretty nose would press up against something else. Maybe…
Willow shook her head. Okay… either lingering spell effects or lingering desire…? It didn’t really matter. They’d get home in time to work some of that tension off, she hoped, but if not… Well, they were still together, still feeling the love. So the ritual, or effect, whatever it was had still done its job. It was just that they weren’t letting it distract them as it might have been intended to.
It might even have just been her natural desire for all things Tara that was affecting her now…
That was very possible.
Focus.
What they needed was in there, through the window and in the shop. Willow wondered if, perhaps, they should go in there anyway? There were ways to get in. They both knew ways. There was a neat trick with thickened air, carefully controlled, and the rapid, random movements within the lock mechanism – combined with a sharp twist – which would get them through most doors in a town like Sunnydale.
Maybe the bank would be tougher, places like that, but ordinary home or store locks? Relatively simple if you had some time and the inclination.
She’d figured that one out when she’d locked herself out of the room and Tara had been off on a trip to an art gallery in L.A. all day. It wouldn’t have been so bad except all she’d been wearing was a towel and all she had in her hand was a toothbrush. Not an outfit she chose to attend lectures in. So she’d broken into her own dorm-room – and without breaking anything. “Are we really certain it was the rose?” she wondered aloud.
Perhaps she just didn't want what had seemed perfect to be spoiled. Something she’d brought into their lives.
There was always the chance that either it wasn’t the rose that had caused the effect they’d felt, or there was something else going on. Even if it had been the rose, it could have just been that one, or it could have been a natural effect. Was breaking in, committing crime, justified if they didn’t know? Even if it was the rose, was breaking the law justified? Was it ever?
She had to ask herself that? She, who routinely broke into the databases of all sorts of public and government organisations for information they needed to help people? This seemed different though – this was something physical.
Also this wasn’t necessarily to help people. For all they really knew, not that they knew much, whatever was going on could maybe only happening to them. Yet it still could be justified. But maybe, in this case, they didn’t need to go in to confirm what they thought they knew.
“Not one hundred percent, no other option, an elephant never forgets certain,” Tara said, confirming Willow’s doubts.
She smiled, there was a time she’d thought her girlfriend was gently teasing her when she said things like that – but actually it was just how they’d been shaping each other over the years.
There were things that Xander, or her Dad, would have recognised as being uniquely Willow and now they were a part of who Tara was. Mannerisms, how she spoke, lots of little things. Looking back, Willow remembered a time when they hadn’t been so like each other – but there had never been a moment when they suddenly were more like each other either. It was something that had built up over their lives together.
“We could -” Willow started to suggest and allowed Tara to finish the thought for her.
“- Experiment,” Tara completed on cue.
“Yeah,” Willow agreed hastily. Oh no, her thoughts hadn’t been anything to do with breaking, no, not at all. The idea had never even crossed her mind. ‘Honest guv’nor’ as Jenny was known to say when she was teasing her husband. How could anyone think that about her?
Except no one was thinking it, except for her.
Just because experimenting hadn’t occurred to her until just now…
And now she’d agreed to the experimental suggestion, but what did that mean exactly? It was a bad habit, agreeing with something when you didn’t even understand it. She usually only did it when she was embarrassed or feared being shown up.
“Well,” Tara started slowly sounding a little embarrassed herself to be suggesting it. Whatever ‘it’ was. “We know what happened to our rose when our magic came into contact with them, and we ran out of the apartment before we looked at the rest of them, so…” She gestured at the roses inside, visible through the window.
Willow understood her then. The shelves, at least the ones in view, were maybe three-quarters empty but then again it was one quarter full. That was more than enough to test out the hypothesis. If the roses in there behaved like their own had, then first it would prove it was something to do with
all the roses. Secondly… “This is going to zippy-rose-tacular.”
Tara smiled. They knew something was going on, but it seemed that Tara, like Willow herself, was having trouble treating it like some sort of big end-of-the-world-type disaster.
They hadn’t been hurt; they’d been threatened with… well, spending more time with each other – finding the love they’d never misplaced for a moment anyway. It didn’t seem all that critical to stop it, or even find out how widespread it was. They needed some urgency.
“You’re all scientific method girl,” she teased and slipped her hand into Tara’s. Okay, so that was nice anyway, but there was a reason for it too. There had been a connection in the room – there needed to be one here. They needed the minimum number of factors to be any different to be certain whatever results there were would be valid.
Besides, holding Tara’s hand reassured her lover that there was nothing for her to be embarrassed about. They’d
both walked out without checking the other roses in the apartment and Willow had been the one who’d been looking to become a criminal as a way of finding out more. All in all Tara was doing better than she was.
What if nothing happened in their experiment though? Then they’d be back to square one – only knowing that there wasn't anything to the other roses. On the other hand, their rose had
definitely reacted strangely. Something was going on and they had to rule this out – if they could do – before they tried anything else. Then it might just be a question of scale.
If it was just their rose then it was probably targeted at them which was revealing in itself.
If it was all of the roses then it could be meant for everybody, especially since the store looked to be nearly empty of its inventory. Given what they did, she knew that, maybe, someone might prefer them to have something else happen to them. Something that wasn't healthy.
The rose, whatever had caused it to react strangely, might have hurt them somehow instead of exploding harmlessly against the floor after being all zippy. If a ritual had been attached to it then, really, anything could have happened. They could have been sick, felt the urge to throw themselves off the roof… Anything. All in all, feeling
so in love you couldn’t do anything else wasn't the worst thing in the world – unless something was taking advantage of that.
Or someone.
Now there was a thought…
She squeezed her girlfriend’s hand, signalling that she was ready. Momentarily she felt their connection snap, or rather slide easily, back into place. They were one again. They were each both of them. They were together and they were ready – pretty much all the time. Ready for anything.
They stretched out to the roses, and without a word or a signal selected one in their mutual connection, feeling the petals, the stem… even the gentle mental prick of the thorns.
Then another, and another until there were a number of them in the air and they were all swirling gently – but no more than they’d caused to happen back in the apartment. The roses were never touching despite the fact they weren’t even looking through the window. They didn’t have to look; they didn’t need to be like Tara had been before, noses pressed against the glass.
The entity, the TaraWillow they were when they were connected like this, could feel the roses and that was much better than trying to see them in the dark.
Willow knew that she, like Tara, could have felt the roses alone – if she’d turned her mind and her perceptions to it. Together though, linked as they were, the roses practically sang to them. It wasn’t an audio thing any more than it was visual. It was an awareness, and all they’d been able to compare that to – when they’d talked about such things – was singing. Or at least music. Not piano playing or any kind of public performance. Just… music.
Those stems might have been cut but there was still life in each and every flower. It wasn't, perhaps, what it should have been had they still been physically connected to nature, growing, but they were still strong and at an instinctive level they still had what a human would have called ‘hope’ even though there was no intelligence, no thought there.
Maybe it was a natural imperative, the Goddess knew those existed. It was a part of every understanding she and Tara came to with some aspect of nature, or maybe it was all that the natural world, especially plants, ‘knew’ what they were supposed to be.
Maybe life just wanted to go on? Or maybe it was a lesson… Where there was life, even fading life, there was still hope. Maybe it was only humans who’d forgotten that – or deluded themselves into thinking something was hopeless. Willow wasn't going to forget that. Where there was life, where there was Tara, there was hope.
Tara was life and life was Tara.
Life was hope and hope was Tara.
And… they knew what they had to do. They couldn’t do this to all of the roses, but as a part of their actions, they had to justify the ‘hope’ that was there. One rose, the most one they felt was the strongest, settled back onto the table. Later for that one. There was always a debt to be paid, because they could already feel that what they were looking for
was going to happen. The magic that had disrupted their own spell was still there, within these roses. It was latched onto them – rather than bound too tightly in what they were. It wasn't a part of their essence though.
Close… but no cigar.
Willow could understand why that might be; to integrate magic into the nature of the roses would have taken individual attention and hours and hours of work. And that was just for what was left here, let alone all the roses that must had found their way into the hands of the people in Sunnydale.
Instead it seemed that a blanket of magic, whatever its purpose was, had been laid over the roses, en masse, and had made them what they were in a single powerful motion. That would still take a lot of power and know-how, she was sure, but it was quicker and easier than the alternative.
And now they all would, bar that one of the table, end in the same way too. They’d burn bright and then they’d be gone. Roses knew nothing of ‘burning bright’ – life as a plant couldn’t be anything but sedentary. The instant they’d been cut, their future had been decided. All they could do now was offer one of those cuttings some sort of future by leaving it out of what they were going to do here.
Okay, now she had sympathy for cut flowers? She couldn’t help it. If you felt then you
felt and that was it. Feeling was an essential part of who and what they were. It was a lot like something it was also a part of – their love. Even the roses would have their moment though. Would they feel a thing? If they did would they understand? Probably not, they were flowers after all.
And then, with the magic being stepped up another notch, the inevitable happened.
Willow took a breath as everything went… well, she’d coined the phrase Zippy-Rose-Tacular and that
was the only way to describe it. She felt it before she saw it, but when she finally opened her eyes the interior of the shop was a seething mass of projectile flowers. Leaves fell from stems, and they deflected off each other as one crashed into another and altered the course. Petals fell, but broadly speaking, they stayed pretty intact – at least for now.
She hadn’t noticed it in their apartment but there was a faint glow as the roses darted around the shop, and it was getting brighter too. She had no idea when that might stop or subside again but it was certainly casting its light over them. Willow tore her eyes open and glanced at the woman she loved. Tara’s eyes were still closed, but Willow knew she was still fully aware of everything that was happening in there.
Tara by rose-light. It had to be a first. You’d have thought rose light would be pink, a combination of the overwhelmingly red and white roses in there, but it was a soft yellow instead – as flattering as it could be to the skin of her girlfriend. But gradually, as she watched Tara, the rose-light dimmed. Eventually everything was still.
Only then did she look back, the guilt filling her again. The roses had crashed and burnt out. All but one which was covered in a blanket of the petals of its fellows. ‘Fellows?’ What was the fellow of a rose? Was there a word for that?
“Now we know,” Tara said and opened her eyes.
“Do we?” Willow asked. She wasn’t sure what Tara thought they knew now. Which meant she didn’t actually know it and therefore Tara had better explain it to her. Not that she had any doubts. She just wanted to make sure they were on the same wavelength. They usually were, but sometimes you just needed to check these things before anyone made assumptions and said something that sounded… well, dumb.
Some things were a given, the flowers for example, were imbued with magic – but the rest? Was it deliberate or were they simply magical roses? It came down to blame… Had this been done by someone? Or were they naturally occurring? Even if nature had produced them, were they here now by coincidence or was it a scheme? And if there was blame, did it lie with the shopkeeper who’d cut her such a good deal or with his supplier?
Or neither of them?
“I think we do,” Tara suggested. “Don’t we?”
To Willow it was still a little circumstantial. After all… magic-imbued flowers, making her burn with love for what she already loved? What was the point in that on a wider scale? At least that was if everyone else had felt the same as they had.
And then to be sold to her by an Englishman who hadn’t known who was going to pass and come into his shop? Roses weren’t easy to come by in large quantities. At least she imagined that to be the case. They hardly grew on trees did they?
After Tara had met a powerful user of magic who’d had an English accent – and had been a man. Okay… So circumstantial was starting to stack up, but it was hardly a signed confession now was it?
They met each other’s gaze, and still holding each other’s hands, they could see and feel what the other was thinking. A little of Tara’s certainty impressed itself on Willow and she knew a little of her doubt had opened Tara’s mind to other possibilities. They had found a level… and broadly speaking they were both convinced.
For now at least.
“We need a way to dispel this,” Willow said as they departed from the front of the shop. That one remaining rose had already been caressed into growth by Tara. Something within it had remembered what roots had felt like and a bag of soil in the shop had burst open for it to grow into. It wasn’t ideal, and it wasn’t free – but they couldn’t break in as well as destroying the stock…
They’d be back for it tomorrow if they could. No matter who was at fault and who was entirely innocent. No one would object to them buying a rose that had fallen into a bag of soil and found its roots again. Would they? The shopkeeper would have bigger concerns if he was to blame for what had happened in town.
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” Tara announced after a moment’s thought. “I can’t see how anyone could have taken the time to align the spell that had been cast to the natural matrix of each rose.”
Willow considered that. She had to agree the roses wouldn’t have lasted long enough – unless sustained by the magic – to get that done. It was a simple overlay… well, not simple, exactly, but an overlay.
“You said there were hundreds in there?” Tara asked.
“More like thousands,” Willow countered.
Tara looked at her. The shop wasn't that big, but he had been selling for a few days… and if Willow had seen thousands earlier today… there was a storeroom out back too. Plus there was always the chance there had been new deliveries. That was a whole lot of roses.
“Lots anyway,” she said. Thousands might not be
so far out.
“Whatever we do has to work from a distance,” Tara decided. “We can’t go to every window in Sunnydale just to see if there’s a rose inside we can make fly around.”
Willow nodded. What if there was one in every home in the entire town? The roses would all have died off before they got around to everywhere. “But we need to test it,” she pointed out, “and figure out just how to go about it.”
Tara looked back towards the shop. There was a rose there, but she kept walking. A bargain had been made after all and Tara didn’t go back on those. It was the benign price of magic for them now. You made a bargain with nature – and then you stuck to it.
“And it needs to be on someone who’d going to let us in and not wonder why we’re stealing really cheap roses from them,” Willow went on. That just left a few candidates as far as she knew.
And one that was closest.
“Ira?” Tara asked.
“Ira,” Willow confirmed.
**************************
here when I consider that what I'm actually saying. An no, I don't think it violates the canon at all! (I'm meaning S4 of course here.)
L