Buffy Summers (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} slayer_comma_b) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} wariscoming,@ 2013-07-01 03:26:00 |
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WHAT: Whatever happens.
WHERE: A street.
WHEN: Evening.
A stray cat yowling in her ear woke Buffy. Consciousness dropped on her like an anvil. She fumbled for her stake and only then registered the cat. She'd fed it a bit of tuna earlier, probably it liked her now.
Sunset painted the sky in a subtle rainbow of colors, and from the back porch of the empty house, Buffy could see it all. Both this house and its neighbor were empty, foreclosed, with long grass and for sale signs in front and a true jungle of weeds in the back yard all the way back to the scraggly woods that bordered the subdivision. She'd found them a few months ago on a restless searching walk. Even before she left the complex she'd done that: walked around the town, or out of town until she found little dirt roads that led nowhere. Sometimes she just had to move, find nowhere and see what it looked like. Look for something that didn't exist.
She'd been back a couple of times since, because except for the cats, it was a good place to be alone. Nothing had really changed by leaving the complex; she still spent lazy afternoons in places where she could be alone.
Well, no. Everything had changed.
Buffy gathered up her empty water bottle, and stuffed it and the book she'd been reading into her pack. Too dark for reading now. She'd brought one of the Watcher's diaries with her when she left, she didn't know why. She really wasn't much of a reader, and she probably wouldn't find what she was looking for anyway. There were too many diaries, and without Giles to serve as index...
She sighed.
A bit later, she realized that the sunset had faded and the sky was dark. She hefted her pack and started off for her nightly appointment with being a target. She'd be early, but she didn't think it really mattered at this point. She wasn't sure why she even did it, except that it was something to do. A gesture toward finding herself and that moment of certainty -- stupidity, everyone said -- that had led to this mess. A gesture toward fulfilling what she'd started, for another day, as long as she was still here. She wasn't sure how much longer that would be.
As she walked, she thought about the Slayer she'd been reading about in the diaries. One of the short-lived ones, with strong dreams and a strong sense of purpose, which her Watcher had tried to encourage. She probably should have spent more time on stake technique.
She'd been strong in her way. Buffy stopped, thinking about that, and then moved on to a streetlight and pulled out the book.