Chapter 23—Across the Clouds

Across the clouds I see my shadow fly—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

Xander chuckled and broke the dumbfounded silence in the room. “No wonder you have always had a thing for the heartbeat-challenged, Dawnie.”

Buffy opened her mouth to pop off a smart remark, but was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. “Who can that be? We’re all here.”

Xander sobered immediately. “Not all of us, Buffster.” He picked up the phone, listened, and mumbled a short reply. As he hung up the receiver, he turned to the assemblage and said, “And that was the missing member. Seems that after a lot of fast-talking, they’re letting her go. I’m going to go get her.”

Buffy stole a look at Tara, and saw worry, sadness, and fear flit across her face and settle in the expressive curve of her full mouth, thinning her lips slightly. “This will turn out okay, Tara. We have to help her. We have to try.”

Buffy reached, and Tara took her hand across the tabletop. “I know, Buffy. But—when we…well, she said that she never wanted to see me again.”

Dawn gripped Tara's other hand tightly, and gave her a smile. “She was angry and afraid. She…understands more now.” Tara looked into the teenager’s eyes, and saw wisdom deeply reflected there in their blue depths that she’d somehow missed before. Opening her otherworldly senses slightly, she scanned Dawn's aura. It was the usual brilliant green, but there was a feeling of age, a texture of awakening ancient knowledge that was overpowering.

Still open, she scanned the others in the room; D’Hoffryn was surrounded by a maelstrom of color radiating in all the directions of the globe. She understood suddenly that he was connected in all ways to the demons of Arashmahar, knowing their every deed and choice, much like a god. A slender tendril of red stretched between his aura and that of Anya, who was sheathed in shades from the warmer side of the spectrum, from red to yellow to orange. Xander sided more to the shades of orange with a smattering of muted blue as he looked from one to another.

Giles flickered from bright blue to bluish gray, with streaked yellow lightning flashing from his head, crackling around him dangerously. When she looked at Spike and Buffy, her breath caught in her throat, and she gasped aloud and drew the stare of everyone in the room.

Separately, they would have been breathtaking; together, it was almost too much to process for the young witch. Their auras were, for lack of a better word, exact duplicates of one another. An aurora of color sheathed them, cycling through the rainbow in synchronized ripples, shimmering brightest over their heart chakras. Where he had his hand resting on Buffy's shoulder, there was a bright light surrounded by shadow, and she had enough presence of mind to stammer, “Spike, step away from Buffy for a moment.”

He did, and the light/dark bond stretched between them, an umbilicus that connected them even though they stood apart. She was startled out of her daze by Giles ever-questioning voice.

“Tara, what do you see?”

Tara shook her head, still trying to process everything she’d seen. “Their auras—they’re connected. There’s a band of…I can’t describe it…light and shadow between them. Dawn's aura has changed. So has Buffy's. There’s an age…a maturity there in them both that I never saw before…Buffy came back. D’Hoffryn—“

He raised his hand, and her voice stopped in her throat. “I don’t think that we need to continue, Sarhadai. I guarantee that I won’t underestimate you again, however.”

Anya looked up at D’Hoffryn, confusion on her face. “Why did you call her that? What does she see in your aura? D’Hoffryn, what are you hiding?”

“None of your concern now, Anyanka.” He waved his hand, and Tara found herself able to speak, but her mind whispered negatively in her ear. Filled with secret knowledge, her mouth curled in an enigmatic smile that prompted several glances between other parties that Tara missed noticing. Buffy, Giles, and Spike exchanged several pointed glances, and Buffy sighed internally as she realized this meant another topic to research on top of everything else.

Xander broke the mood, lumbering toward the front door. “I’ll be right back with our little invalid, folks. Don’t move.”

As the front door closed behind him, they turned their questing faces to Anya. “What did D’Hoffryn say, Anya?” Giles asked.

Anya shrugged. “It’s in Arashmaraii—it means ‘wise woman’, or ‘gifted woman’—it’s usually only used for those of power.”

D’Hoffryn’s voice echoed above her. “And you think it was wrongly used? Can you be sure, Anyanka?”

She looked up at the tall horned demon king, his skin glistening in the warm lights of the room, then turned to look back at Tara, her eyes wide and fearful. “You know that I didn’t get to retain anything when I was made human. I can’t see it.”

D’Hoffryn traced a sigil above Tara's head, and a bright light erupted from her. It throbbed with the rhythm of her pulse, and Anya gasped at the sight. “She’s a guardian!” she said, throwing herself behind the blue demon’s flowing robes.

Giles immediately grabbed one of the books from the table, and flipped haphazardly through the pages. “There was something in this one, I believe, about the guardian…. Ah, here it is. ‘The guardians protect the steward while on this plane, and provide the means for balance to maintain.’” He looked up, confusion wrinkling his brow. “None of these books are very clearly written, D’Hoffryn, if I may say.”

D’Hoffryn snatched the book from the watcher’s hand. “They are perfectly fine if you read the backprint.”

“Back print?” Giles squinted, and looked over the demon’s arm at the book. With another frightening smile, D’Hoffryn waved his hand over the book, and the print faded to be replaced by glowing letters. He handed the book back to Giles with a smirk. “See? Backprint.”

Giles took the book, stammering, “Oh, er, yes. Backprint. Well, er—‘the guardians are warded to protect the steward against harm and ill will. They have immeasurable power, and are known by the ability to literally see the intent behind the action. They are consciously unaware of their abilities and powers, and often protect the steward without thought of their own personal safety.” The glowing letters faded, and Giles closed the book, holding his finger to keep his place.

Buffy raked her fingers through her hair. “So my sister is a steward, my friend is a guardian, and I’m marrying a vampire. Can my life get any more strange?”

As if on cue, the front door opened, and Xander helped Willow inside. “Hey, Buffster, good thing you live so close to the hospital. What did we miss?”

His voice trailed off as they took in the scene around the dining room table. Tara was still bathed in a slowly fading effervescence, Anya still cowered behind her ex-boss demon, and Spike rubbed Buffy's shoulders in an effort to get her to relax, Giles with the large book in his hand, and Dawn….

Dawn was standing up slowly, her hair writhing like snakes in the mystical wind that surrounded her and affected nobody else. She gripped Tara's hand tightly, and her voice, when she finally spoke, echoed eerily in the stillness of the room.

“The witch. The proud one. You come before us now, after your judgement. You have been subtracted from the equation. You have been nullified for your pride. The judgement is sufficient, for there is no further recourse, and you will continue to exist knowing that your use of power for personal gain brought you to your downfall.”

Electricity crackled on the air, and a rushing sound filled the room suddenly. Willow yelled, trying to be heard above the wind. “I didn’t do it for personal gain! I was only trying to help you, Dawnie!”
“You were helping yourself. You abhor feelings of pain and loss. You dwell on others’ shortcomings, and overlook your own. You must learn to live with your emotions to attain balance. Without balance, there is chaos, and many of your actions perpetrated chaos.”

Tears streamed down Willow's face. “I didn’t mean to!” She turned, and buried her face in Xander's shoulder. “I didn’t mean to,” came her muffled sob.

The wind stopped as quickly as it started, and Dawn sat down, arms folded across her chest.

It wasn’t Dawn who replied to Willow's excuses, but Buffy. “You may not have meant it to come out that way, Willow, but it always does. It seemed like the spells that you do always benefit you first and foremost, and everything and everyone else is just secondary.” She moved closer to soften the blow that her next words would be. “I didn’t need your help to get back here. I didn’t want it. I got it anyway. Will, what if I hadn’t wanted to come back? What if I was happy and finally at peace? Would you have still done the spell?”

Willow threw herself at Buffy, and was grateful when she caught her. “Omigosh, I never thought of that! Buffy, I’m so sorry!”

Buffy's shirt was sticking to her skin, wetted by the profuse amount of tears the redhead seemed to be crying. She didn’t want to think of the other body fluids involved, and patted her friend’s back awkwardly. “Okay, Will…we’ve found some things out. About Dawn. And Tara.”

Willow dashed her tears away with her fingers, then wiped her face with the kerchief that Giles handed her with a soft smile. “Really? What?”

Buffy led her to a chair, and Willow sank gratefully onto the seat. Buffy moved behind Dawn, gripping her sister’s chair, and cleared her throat. “Dawn is…gosh, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Another deeper voice over Willow's shoulder interrupted Buffy. “Allow me. Greetings, Ms. Rosenberg. Although, you are not as well now as you were at our last meeting.”

Willow turned to see D’Hoffryn towering over her. She startled in the chair, and her hand flew to her chest. He chuckled, and it froze her blood. “No, Willow, I’m not here because of you. It’s because of her,” he said, jerking his beard at the sisters on the other side of the room.

Willow stole a glance at them, and found identically shaped eyes, one set blue and the other hazel, studying her closely. “Right then. Dawn?”

“It seems the Key took on another duty while her sister took the fall, literally. At the death of the former steward, she took on the stewardship for the Powers That Be, which, in effect, is an incarnation of the Egyptian goddess Ma’at.” He turned to Giles, and said, “Concise enough?”

“Amazingly concise.” Giles fiddled with his glasses, but refrained from what the Slayer teased him was his “nervous tic”. He folded his arms, and said, “Do continue.”

“Thank you. Tara, your mate, is the steward’s guardian. She will do whatever it takes, no matter what, to protect the steward from harm. She is also her mentor and guide, to assist her in protecting this plane from descending to chaos.” Again, the demon turned to the watcher, who pantomimed applause. With a slight bow, D’Hoffryn retreated slightly.

Willow looked around, wide-eyed. “And where do I fit in now,” came her quiet whisper.

Spike answered her, to her surprise. “Well, between the three of them, they are under constant attack. Magical spells and the like, Red. You can monitor them. If they act funny and you don’t, we’ll know that something’s afoot.”

He cringed. It sounded lame to his own ears, would she believe it? He watched the hope filling her face, and gave her a smile while sighing with relief. “See? You’re an important member of the team.”

Buffy picked up the thread. “Plus, big with the computers there, Willow. And liking the research? Always a big plus.”

Xander tapped her shoulder softly with his fist. “Couldn’t do it without you, Wills.”

She looked up at Giles, whose misty eyes and encouraging smile warmed her. “I’m afraid that Xander's right, Willow.”

Buffy grinned. Her face hurt from smiling so much, and all she wanted to do was crawl up the stairs and hide in her bed with Mr. Gordo. “See? Everything good.”

Willow nodded slightly. “Yeah, everything’s good.” It escaped no one that there had been nothing from Tara or Dawn. Anya noticed thin lips on both girls from her hiding place behind D’Hoffryn, and wondered what Willow had in store for them.

Willow was wondering as well. As the others busied themselves speculating on Dawn's and Tara's new or improved power, she looked down at her writhing fingers under the edge of the table and wondered where she would ever fit in with any of them again.

A low voice whispered in her ear, unnoticed by everyone else in the room. “You know, I’m only a chant away, Ms. Rosenberg. Only a chant away.”

Her mouth curled in a moue of self-disgust. “Not for anyone with no magic. A null.” Even the word made her cringe.

“The chant calls me, with or without power. It isn’t tied to magic at all, Willow.” The voice was seductively smooth, and she relaxed into its comforting burr. “Remember.”

“I’ll remember.”

Tara looked with her new awareness, and saw a tendril of D’Hoffryn’s aura twining itself into Willow's. It set off bright sparks in the witch’s aura, electric in their intensity, and Tara's eyes narrowed. Willow had a sleepy smile on her face, and she filed it in her mind to investigate later. No need to worry Buffy if there was a way for her to avert another disaster where Willow was involved.

She snapped to the present when D’Hoffryn announced that it was time for his departure.

“Although it was pleasant beyond words, I really need to return to Arashmahar. My best wishes to you and your vampire, Slayer.” He bowed slightly. “Consider me at your disposal, steward. Have care with whom you trust. Protect and serve, guardian.” He whirled, his robes moving around him, and Willow saw Anya for the first time in her hiding place behind him.

Anya gave Willow a guilty shrug. “Tara was scary.”

Willow gave her a weak smile in return, then looked at her ex-girlfriend. “I get that, Anya. I really do.”



A/N: Dedicated to slaymesoftly, for her precious *pout*--*grins*!