Blood and Roses Realm | Fan Fiction Site | Home Page
This page was last updated: 032499
(c)March 1999
URL: willow20.html(Also housed at Sharon Bower's Site!)
The following is a bit of alternative fiction based on certain characters from the Xenaverse It is not meant to infringe on anyone else's rights. If you don't agree or disapprove, please go read something else.
This story is part of an Altaverse based on Bite Me and the Fonder Heart. It can be found, along with other such stories, at The Realms of the Xenaverse, under Blood and Roses. Xena is Ares' Daughter and Gabrielle is Bacchus' Daughter
Characters from Buffy: Vampire Slayer have also been borrowed for the purposes of this story. All of this is written with the utmost affection and the no desire for renumeration (except for possible emails). The same above disclaimer is in effect. There are certain changes that have been made to accomadate this particular Xenaverse. Buffy's Vampires are really part of the Kin, renamed for purposes of this story
Xex Alert: Yes, there definitely will be, between two consenting immortal women even. Maybe even more
Violence Alert: Yes, probably, given that this is a story involving slayage and Xena.
The smell of blood-- Xena's blood, to be precise-- was driving Gabrielle nuts.
As she had suspected, her mate started cycling that morning, and the scent now poured over her immortal senses, teasing the Sunwalker with its essence. She bade her fangs back, stroking the points with her tongue, using the centuries of experience to control her urge. Watching her lover stalk angrily around the shadowy library, she forced herself to concentrate on the conversation at hand.
"I just don't get it... What in Hades' name have you been doing the last year and a half?" Xena's merciless blue eyes bored into Giles, who was holding up admirably underneath the onslaught. "I mean you are a Watcher, yes? The damn Slayer doesn't even know how to use a sword."
Giles whipped his glasses off and rubbed them with short, agitated strokes. "She seems to have done rather well with a stake so far. I hadn't seen the need..."
"There are some things that can't be killed with that stake of hers." Icy blue eyes bored into his. "And you damn well know it." She turned away disgustedly. "Do you want her walking into something like that?"
"Of course I don't," Giles snapped back. "Don't be absurd."
Before her lover could fire off another angry accusation, Gabrielle stepped between the two. "Calm down." She held out her hands supplicatingly, but her voice carried with it the unmistakable edge of command. "Both of you. Between the three of us, I'm sure we can rectify any... gaps... in the Slayer's education."
"Gabrielle, she doesn't even know what the Twilight is."
The Sunwalker's jaw rippled slightly, her reaction invisible to Giles-- but all too apparent to her lover. They exchanged an apprehensive glance. "Is that true?" she asked the librarian. "Buffy doesn't know?"
"What doesn't Buffy know?" The slayer in question strolled into the dimly lit room, accompanied by Willow. Xander had been suspicious in his absence, and both girls suspected he was just indulging in a little melodramatic sulking. "What don't I know?" she repeated, her eyes bouncing between the immortals and her Watcher. She jerked her thumb at Xena. "And why does it have Legs here so bunged up?"
The warrior rolled her eyes at the diminutive slayer, but said nothing.
"Buffy, Willow." Giles nodded in greeting to his students. He was feeling thoroughly put out-- and put down-- by the two immortals. Truth be told, he had avoided sword work with Buffy; but only because the slayer was the best natural warrior that he had ever seen.
Not to mention that he really didn't want to think about those occasions when a sword was the only weapon that would do the trick.
"Hi, Giles," Willow replied, ever the well-brought up young lady. "Hey Xena, Aunt Gabrielle." She managed to make direct eye contact with both women, although her face was lit with a blush charmingly visible to everyone.
"Good morning yourself." Gabrielle hugged her niece gently, mindful of what Willow had seen the previous night. "You doing okay?" she whispered into the girl's hair.
Willow nodded into the warmth of her aunt's embrace. "Yeah, it's cool." She slipped her arm around Gabrielle's waist as they parted, smiling as Gabrielle casually draped her own arm around the girl's shoulders. "I'm with Buffy. Why does Xena look so..." Blue eyes fixed on her and an inquiring brow lifted lazily. "Uh.... tense?"
"Xena is concerned about Buffy's lack of sword work," Giles replied succinctly.
"You and your big, pointy thing." The slayer shook her head. "What's up with that?" she asked the warrior. "I thought you'd be a little more, well, woman-centered. You know what I mean?" Buffy crossed the room and hopped up on the table where Giles had been sitting, crossing her legs Indian-style. The effect of aligning herself with her Watcher wasn't lost on any of the adults in the room. "We covered this. Hack-and-slash really suits you, but it's just not my style.
Xena snorted sardonically and shook her head. "It's not a matter of personal style, Buffy. It's a little more important than that. You do enjoy being the live part of alive?"
"As opposed to the dead part of dead?" Buffy mimicked her dark counterpart. "I'd say that of the two, I do have a preference."
"Good. Because one day a sword and how you use it is gone be the only thing that stands between alive and dead. Get me?"
Willow looked at her aunt anxiously. "She's being dramatic, right? Using hyperbole to make her larger point of the necessity of being a well-rounded slayer. Right? That's all she's doing?"
Gabrielle patted her niece's arm soothingly. "I'm afraid it's a little more important than that, Willow."
"Then will somebody clue me in here?" Buffy asked. "Because I am not getting this at all."
Blue and green met, locked, and held. Until Gabrielle nodded an imperceptible acquiescence and turned her attention back to Willow. "Have you ever heard of something called the Twilight?"
Pale brows knit together in thought. "I came across some mentions of it in Miss Calendar's computer. Not much. It's something about the fabric that separates us from the undid."
"Sort of." Gabrielle gestured to a chair at the table where Buffy was sitting. "Make yourself comfortable. And listen."
Intense blue eyes pinned Buffy firmly to her seat on the table. "Both of you."
"Okay. Not to simplify, but there's Light, there's Dark, and then there's the Twilight."
"Is that a fancy way of saying Day, Night, and Evening?" Buffy asked.
"No, Buffy, it's three dimensions of reality. The are subdimensions within each, but for our purposes we can just talk about the big three."
"Sounds like a basketball conference to me," Buffy shrugged.
A low, warning growl issued from Xena's throat.
"Touchy, isn't she?" Buffy blanched at the scathing look Willow shot her. "Sorry." To Gabrielle: "Please continue."
But Gabrielle wasn't content to lecture the slayer. Buffy had to see this for herself. "What do you think the dimensions are?"
Buffy pursed her lips. "Well, we live in the Light. The demons live in the Dark. And if I had to guess, I'd say the Twilight is a conduit between the two worlds."
"Very good, Buffy." Gabrielle smiled approvingly at the Slayer. "But you got one thing wrong."
"Which is."
"We-- well, humans-- don't live in Light."
"We don't?"
"No." Gabrielle shook her head. "And before we go any further, I do want to clarify. You know Light doesn't equal Good; and Darkness doesn't equal Evil."
"Sure, I knew that," Buffy replied with a look that said she hadn't known that at all.
"Think of it more as awareness. People who live in the Light are completely unaware than any other dimensions exist. Dark creatures haven't touched their lives at all. Think of Dorothy before the tornado hit Kansas. Most people live their lives in this state. For creatures who dwell completely in the Dark, their lives are very similar--"
"You mean there are demons who don't know humans exist?" Willow asked incredulously.
"They're not all demons," Gabrielle reproved gently. "They were simply created in another dimension. There are Dark creatures capable of great Good. Just like there are humans capable of great Evil. Don't confuse the two."
"Oh." Willow cocked her head. "I never thought of it that way. Then why is one called the Light and the other the Dark?"
"Why do you humans persist in thinking that Jesus was a blond-haired, white man?" Xena replied with a question of her own. "The fact of the matter is, the Dark was created by those who were exiled from the original realm-- which became known as the Light."
"So you're saying that the only real difference between the Light and the Dark is that the Light folks controlled the PR?" Buffy asked skeptically. "I don't think so. And I don't think humans from the Light regularly cross dimensions and try to end their world."
"No, you simply summon someone from the Dark realm," Xena retorted, striding across the room. "To do your dirty work for you."
Without thinking, Willow leapt to her feet, standing before the two increasingly tense warriors. "I sense a productivity issue here. As in, we're not getting anything accomplished. 'K?"
"Willow's right," Gabrielle interjected. "Can we get back to the point?"
"Which is?" Buffy asked. "I'm still wondering what that is."
Xena bit back the sharp reply that sprang to her lips and strode away.
"Aunt Gabrielle, what does this have to do with the Twilight?"
"At times during each dimensions' existence, it's easier for the creatures of both realities to... intermingle. That time is called the Twilight. It can be marked by great creative accomplishment-- because it represents a time when people are more willing to see things in a different way, to accept and embrace the unknown. The Age of Enlightenment was such a time. So was the Renaissance."
"The 1960s," Giles offered. "Oh think about it," he replied to the four stares fixed on him.
"Oookkkayy..." Buffy shrugged. "I still don't get it. Why do I care about the Twilight?" At the exasperated sigh emanating from her best friend, she added, "Aside from the incredible historical perspective it gives me, of course."
"I think what they're about to tell us is that we're in one of those Twilight thingies now," Willow answered her.
"Willow's right," Xena confirmed.
"Exsqueeze me, but I don't think Sunnydale in 1998 is the equivalent of the Age of Enlightenment," Buffy objected. "Or I'm really missing something here."
"I said such times can be marked by accomplishment. Not always," Gabrielle corrected. "In fact, the other times Twilight occurs usually are marked by great periods of repression when people so absolutely refuse to believe what's in front of their eyes."
"That's usually when the nasty stuff starts happening," Xena added.
"Like the demons are doing it to spite the humans?" Buffy asked.
"No one really knows. I think it's because of the balance of nature. The Dark and the Light realms need each other-- and when one dimension denies the other..."
"They're just asking for trouble," Willow finished for her aunt.
"Exactly," the bard nodded. And it doesn't help that times like these usually bring out the worst of the Dark realm's citizens. The ones who have real ambitions of sending everything into chaos-- like the Judge or the Master. I believe you've met them. And then there's Acathla."
"This is where the sword comes in, right?"
"I admit Acathla was the first one who came to mind when I found out you didn't use a sword," Xena conceded, exchanging glances with her soulmate.
"Is there something you're not telling us?"
"Acathla was the demon that helped Callisto destroy Xena the first time
around."
To be continued in Chapter 21...
Blood and Roses Realm | Fan Fiction Site | Home Page
This page was last updated: 032499
(c)March 1999
URL: willow20.html(Also housed at Sharon Bower's Site!)