Okay...here's a little interactive fun for this morning... you might not see the resemblence...but I think I do...
two are easy to find:
ftp.sunet.se/pub/pictures/tv.film/actors/Linda.Hamilton/lh-grden.gifftp.sunet.se/pub/pictures/tv.film/actors/Linda.Hamilton/lh-glow.gifand the real search with the better pay-off:
www.lhow.com/on this one you'll have to go to the Gallery...to portraits...to the early years... (pics 1,2...and four)
I hope It'll give you a mental image of Auntie...
(wink)
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Six: The Katzenjammer Waltz... Four vigilant warriors walk through the silent fair...Squirrel-Shoot rifles at the ready...little tufts of multicolored faux-bear carnage litter their hair...This has been an intrinsically interesting day indeed...and these four soldiers of the Fairgrounds walk without fear...(Okay...maybe with just a little fear...)
" This is really stupid..." Anya says, swinging her rifle from one side of the thoroughfare walkway to the other...the empty booths remain respectfully void of life...and reanimated life... " I still say we should be hiding...or running away...and THEN hiding.…..walking through the middle of a fair full of ballistic toys is just..."
" Stupid?" Buffy prompts from the point-guard position of our tiny troop. She decided to come back to the world of the sane with a vengeance...and of course now that she's stopped babbling nonsensically ...Slayer Interrupted has once again dubbed herself " The Boss of Us"...
" Anya, Honey...you've been telling us how stupid we are for about ten minutes now...I think we GET the point..." Xander says from his flanking position.
" No...the points will come at the end of little troll teeth when they capture us…burrow into our chests...as these types of trolls are known to do… and then eat out our still-beating hearts for dinner..."
Good old Anya...the only woman that can make any situation a little bit more visceral " There are worse things out here than trolls and bears...or even squirrels...this is the FAIR...remember...the click-scrape...." Buffy says scanning the eerily silent booths...
You stand corrected Spike..." Hence the idea of the running and hiding...or at least the crawling on one's belly out of sight until we reach the exit..." Anya admonishes.
" We aren't leaving until we find my sister, Willow, Tara, and Danger...." Buffy says defiantly, skimming over the dormant Gravitron ride to our left... the door is shut, and no signs of life seem to be milling around behind it...
I pull Buffy to a stop so fast that Anya and Xander bump into me from behind. We look like a Fagoria Version of Scoobie Doo…minus the Doo…
Which could be the stuffed pooch with Danger come to think of it…" Hey...what's the big..." Buffy starts...but snaps her mouth shut as I point to the figure walking down the long strip of the thoroughfare towards us.
" One down and three to go." I say, and point as the figure gets near enough to see. " It's Blondie..."
" Tara!" Buffy shouts and takes three running steps towards the blonde...then stops perplexed...
I'm not sure what is wrong with my eyes but Tara looks WRONG...okay…not WRONG...but...different...her face slightly more angular...her eyes a slightly darker shade...and it is a rare day that Tara would wear all black...and though sexy...I've never much thought of Blondie as a red ribbon around the neck type...plus the the gentleness is gone from her expression...it makes her look...older...
It strikes me suddenly that this is not OUR Tara at all...
I think it strikes Buffy a fraction of a second before that, because she takes a giant step back as the Tara-like woman advances on us casually...not with malice...but with a resigned interest...
Like she's looking at a group of exotic bugs she'd like nothing better than to squash...but knows better than to act on such a selfish impulse.….YET.She stops well outside of our personal space and looks us over...eyes ticking from Buffy's awe-stricken face... to me...to Anya...and lastly to Xander...
We four pay her the exact same respects with a brazen once over...
Up close she looks like that woman from the Terminator films....Laura...or Linda something..." It looks like you're missing a few of your friends..." She says with a generous look of concern. Her voice strikes me as what Blondie's would sound like years from now...but bolder...and without the restraints of a stutter...or genuine geniality for that matter...
" Who are YOU?" Anya says pointedly. " I mean you look like OUR Tara...but you're obviously not..."
The woman drags her gaze over Anya again...weighing the young blonde ex-demon with a look...
And then another disarming smile to cover up obvious irritation...
Like covering the mouth of hell with a pleasant-looking throw rug." I'm her aunt...Her mother's sister..." She says...with that plastic-pulled smile.
" Tara never told us she had an aunt..." Buffy says earnestly...taken in by her generous smile...
I'm not buying this lady's act for a minute...I can smell it on her...something sugary sweet but not pleasant ….more….pungent...like fear...and...rage....and something else...something...
" She was very young the last time we saw each other...back when she and her mother lived here...with me..." Her aunt said mildly...attempting to gain our trust through too much information...
" Tara lived in a Carnival?" Xander says wondrously.
" Tara was a very special little girl..." The blonde woman says.
" I'll bet she still is..." I say, gauging her expression...she appraises me off-handedly.
" Yes...yes she is...." She says to me.
" We're trying to find her..." Anya pipes in. " Her and our friends...and then get out of this crazy place...oh…and I'm not really sorry about calling this place that you call your home crazy, because it is..."
Xander places a stilling hand on his mate....
Blondie's aunt refurbishes her smile to it's original intensity...I had watched it slip a notch when Anya spoke...
Sure Anya rarely says the wrong thing at the wrong time...but it was no reason to DISLIKE her so." Then I think I can help you out...you see...Tara sent me to collect you..." She says.
" Where is she? Is she with Dawn and Willow?" Buffy asks quickly.
" Yes...they are all there...waiting for you..." She says amiably. " Come..." She starts to turn to lead us back down the thoroughfare...but I hold Buffy and the others back out of raw instinct...
" Where?" I ask simply...and she turns back to us...looking thinly obtuse and pleasant at the same time...
" I beg your pardon?" She says as though she hadn't heard me...
But she was barely holding onto her temper...I could feel it...boiling up to the surface...barely reigned in by the need for us to follow her like good little lemmings...
" Where are they?" I ask again...playing off as surreally stupid...she doesn't buy it...but pretends to...
" They're at the House of Human Marvels...I'll take you there..." She says vacuously.
We two are dancing a dangerous Waltz around One another's words...and it's my turn to take the lead...
...And one-two-three...one two three...one...As she turns to lead us again...I reassert my blocking the Scoobie's passage. They look at me as though I've gone mad...but I persist...
" Why?" I say aloud...and watch her stop this time...but not turn...the set of her shoulders and the cock of her head tells me that she is no longer into playing the game...
" Why
WHAT???" She says up into the air...still not turning to look at us...her voice shivers with impatience...
" Why would Blon...TARA… send someone we don't know to fetch us to a place like the House of Human Marvels?...Why not the Ferris Wheel…or heaven forbid…the Lost and Found Booth?" I prod...and now Buffy is catching on to my method...not only that, but Auntie over there really sounds peeved...very suspicious indeed...
" I really wanted this to be simpler..." Auntie says and turns...
Her eyes are the color of onyx...the expression on her face...unreadable...
Her true smile chills us all to our spots... She lifts her hands...and thick red ropes of raw energy snake over her fingertips...like live snakes...coiling...angry…roiling to be released...building up strength...
This woman CAN'T be of the same blood as our gentle...loving Blonde Wiccan...There can be NO WAY...
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul...
Well right now I think I'm peering right through the glass and into the House of Hell..." Do you even KNOW where you are??? Who you are talking to??? What is she to you...a FRIEND? Just another girl that smiles politely and listens to your complaints...and your silly babblings??? She's SPECIAL here... She has a PURPOSE... Tara is our KEY...." She says.
" Everybody's a fricken
key in Sunnydale..." Buffy says with a roll of her eyes and a mental rolling up of the sleeves… as she prepares to take on this new threat...
…She levels off her ‘air’ rifle in warning...
I’m thinking…..Soooo the WRONG move...TBC...
" I mock you with my Monkey Pants!" - OZ
" You're NOT the source of me" - Buffy
" Tremble!" - Gacknar
chucking these old fluffs and..and..and..* where's my lighter* 
at: 4/2/02 12:51:27 pm
at: 4/2/02 4:30:54 pm
