Wow BM... deep*S* God I love to be thought provoking... even if I don't understand the thought*S*
Nah, I get what you mean I think. What, I hope, this gives to the reader is the same thing it offered me as a writer. And you all expressed that much better than I could.
Anyway.
Part 12 Kittens. Back to Tara... no ickiness as far as I recall. Enjoy Kittens.
Katharyn
---------------
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Settling In/Dream States (Part 12)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Tara’s progress as time starts to pass. Set shortly after Part 11, approximately 2 weeks after Part 10.
Disclaimer: I still 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.
Rating: 15
Couples: Getting there… gradually. I did warn you this would be slow.
Notes: This is a note. I have nothing else to say.
Thanks To: Did I thank the writers of BTVS yet? Not sure… They put us through hell according to Joss’s vision. Then they send us to heaven. And back… Kerry, Jo, Louise. Bill Shakespeare who as Sass has pointed out already wrote elements of this story… hey I didn’t realise. Much too close.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Settling In/Dream States
By
Katharyn Rosser
SETTLING IN“So young lady, you’ve been here for two weeks or so now,” he paused as he took his shot though the windmill at the eighteenth. Straight through, avoiding the spinning sails and out to sink the ball. Hole in one. “I practice,” he told her seeing her slightly miffed look at her second straight defeat – even with a ten shot handicap in her favour after the first round.
The Mayor had been onto her for most of the last week to come and play mini-golf with him. At first she had assumed that he was after something. Perhaps he wanted to speak to her out of the office, but he could do that anywhere. Perhaps there was some undead fiend at mini-golf that required putting down – which, as she had quickly come to realise, was not beyond the realms of possibility in Sunnydale. Perhaps he wanted to appear the ‘caring’ employer concerned about his new member of staff. That last was kinda it, Tara guessed, but not the whole truth… The fact was, strange as it seemed, he actually wanted to try and be her friend. Which was disturbing… What was disturbing her more, on a level she had never known existed, was that she was finding that she sort of liked him too.
It wasn’t that he was trying to be a ‘friend’ in gross, dirty old man, way either. It was what he wanted to be. His ambition of being a demon and what he was willing to do to achieve that. And despite that he was the very soul of propriety.
Quite aside from his public image, which he took very, very seriously, the merest hint of anything actually being improper – rather than just looking it – brought him out in condemnation of society today. He would start looking back at the old ways of the world and bemoaning the assumptions that tended to be made when an older male employer socialised, alone, with a younger female employee. And the funny thing was that she couldn’t disagree with anything that he said. In many ways he was one of the ‘old-school’ in a somewhat younger looking body. He wouldn’t have seemed morally out of place in her grandfather’s generation… though he definitely had a better sense of humour than her grandfather had ever shown around her.
And a great deal more evil intent too.
It was easy to forget that though. What he really was. He made it so easy to forget. They would go days, talking about her hunting, the state of the town perhaps and his hopes for the people of Sunnydale. He was sincere too. It wasn’t just words. Not to him.
Then he would just casually remind her of his ultimate intentions. Years down the line. It was really strange… he obviously cared so much about the people of Sunnydale in some ways – he really did want them safe from all vampires, not just the removal of the Master. But he also wanted to use their children as the foundation of his ascension in a little under four decades. The time, she guessed, made it remote from her. There was a little more than twice the length of her life to go before all that happened…
It seemed to be so far off and that made it harder to keep a sense of urgency – to remember what he was.
What he definitely was though was a charmer, though sincere with it. That would be how he won his election – he charmed, but at the same time he was absolutely truthful. He didn’t tell his electors what he intended for the distant future – but he was damn proud of having never broken a campaign promise. She’d even looked some of them up – just to check. Ambitious promises too – and until the Master had risen he had never failed to deliver on them. It was too easy to like him.
Much too easy… and very hard not to. Just yesterday he been strongly suggesting that she return to school for the few classes that she needed so that she could say she had graduated… studying at home or at the office. Why? Because, he said, she needed something to fall back on… He was thinking of her future – even as he sent her out to patrol the centre of town. He knew she would very likely be killed in the pursuit of their one shared goal… but he, unlike her, was looking beyond that. He had more of her best interests at heart than she did. And so here she was… losing at mini-golf. Again. She wasn’t even getting better at it as the rounds went by.
Of course the fact that she had never even picked up a club before probably had something to do with that.
“Now where was I?” he asked her as she put her own ball down and grasped the club.
He had showed her that grip and then insisted that she maintained a proper grip on the club. ‘Might as well do something right if you are going to do it at all,’ he had told her. He sounded just like Daddy sometimes. That was someone else he reminded her of. “You were saying I had been here two weeks.”
“Oh yes. You know I’d forget my own head if I hadn’t had it stitched back on in ought-seven.” He waited for her reaction, recognising she was unsure whether to laugh or to think he was telling the truth. “Just kidding… It was ought-five actually. So… two whole weeks. It seems like just yesterday that you came into my office for the first time. How do
you think we are getting on?”
She took the shot, missed the entrance to the wind-mill entirely and saw her ball strike at the edge of the tiny building, bounce off the raised edge of the ‘course’ and roll back to nudge her foot. She sighed; she was going to worse in this round than the last one… even with the handicap he had gifted her. That was a strange question he had asked though. Not – ‘how are you settling in’ or ‘have you any problems.’ ‘How are
we getting on?’ But he had always stressed that. Their relationship was one based on three things. The first was trust in the other. The second was always airing concerns. The third… total obedience of instructions once given by him. It seemed to work too
She had been able to live easily with that last one so far because he hadn’t given her anything but the most basic instructions – leaving most of it to her discretion and judgement. She thought he was probably allowing her to ease herself in and gradually intended to up the ante on her. What he would do when she reached her limits she didn’t know, but she thought that he might just stop pushing – and let her exist at a level she was comfortable with before finding someone else to handle the things she wouldn’t do for him.
Tara hoped so anyway – besides if he went slowly she might have either fulfilled her aim or become something that didn’t care about what he ordered. For now though their needs meshed. The biggest problem that he had was the Master and his vampires, who took away his control of Sunnydale after dark. That was obviously the biggest problem for the people of Sunnydale too – and he was very concerned about them. And her own problem… the Master was all she cared about. All she had cared about. Her employer had infected her with his desire to help the populace of Sunnydale.
But her own long-term plans didn’t involve eating them.
“I-I think that we,” she gave him a little smile, “are getting on fine. Y-you know g-good even.”
“Outstanding! That’s as good a report card as I could have hoped for. And I must say that I am very impressed with your early progress,” he said to her. “You’ve already done a lot of good here.”
Good… she was doing good. Even if it was a person like him who was telling her that. It felt better than okay.
She had started out with random patrols in and outside of town, mainly to learn the layout of the place, get to know her territory as well the vampires – at least one of which she had never failed to encounter on those sweeps. In a town like Sunnydale, where the population knew about vampires and had learned to pretty-much avoid them or at least be out in large groups if they had to be, a lone figure wandering around the town was a gift horse most vampires wouldn’t fail be taken in by.
Easy meat. Ideal prey. She had shown them that wasn’t the case and she didn’t think that any had escaped her to warn others about her.
These last few days though she had shifted her focus to the centre of town, intensively patrolling certain streets and alleys – and vampires being the territorial creatures that they were there had been a drop off in deaths as she destroyed the owners of those territories. But vampires were also opportunists… new ones moved into the vacated hunting grounds. And she had killed them too…
She had hoped that maybe they would be smart enough to learn to avoid those areas. It was an experiment she had never tried before – never intending to stay anywhere long enough to make it pay off. Vampires - they weren’t caught up in evolution and Darwinism… but they might still learn at some basic level. And if they didn’t then she would have to keep killing them. Over and over. She just had to hope that they didn’t learn to cooperate more and come after her. It was a fine line between ambush and being ambushed, which was why she wouldn’t ordinarily have pursued these tactics. If they knew where you were going to be… badness would ensue.
But the Mayor had asked her to clean out the centre of the town. It was what she was here for and at least he seemed pleased. “Thank you,” she told him in reply to the compliment.
“You’re quite welcome and it looks like it is the people of Sunnydale who will be thanking you pretty soon too,” he suggested.
“S-Soon? This will take a while… you know.” There was a time limit now? She had only started clearing a few blocks and mainly the alleys that they liked to take their prey into. That had puzzled her for a little while – why in a town like this some vampires preferred to be out of the main streets when they fed. They controlled the whole place by night – why should they worry? She had thought it might just be some sort of unnatural habit but in fact it was to avoid losing their prey to more dangerous vampires. They would fight amongst themselves, feeling the pain but not killing each other. What damage they did would heal fast enough. It had taken her presence to put the pair that she had discovered fighting over a meal – a person - out of their damnation.
“As things get better they will appreciate – no actually people being what they are they will not appreciate you at all. What they will do is remember my promise to clean up this town – and see that it has happened. I’ll appreciate you though – I already do.”
There wasn’t much she could say to that really. He was right of course, even if people knew that you were helping them they rarely would thank you for it… people in general that is. The group mentality was that it should have been ‘safe like that’ anyway and you had just risked your life to return them to where they should have been. You couldn’t blame ‘people’ for human nature though. Or even vampires for their nature.
But vampires she would kill because of that nature.
She finally sank her ball on the fifth stroke, and he gave her a small round of applause that if she hadn’t known that he was always entirely genuine she might have thought was sarcastic. As Daddy and the Mayor both said though – ‘Sarcasm, Tara, it’s the lowest form of wit.’ And the scorecards?
Well there were professional golfers of which the Mayor was not one. But there were also, it seemed, damn fine mini-golfers too. She’d taken about three shots for each of his – but still he congratulated her and told her it would be better next time. No ‘Tara you really suck at this – just like everything else,’ that she would have got from Donny.
By the Goddess she even missed that sort of thing from her brother, and she hadn’t thought about him in ages either. Her mother… all the time. Daddy, each and every day she remembered him. But Donny… he didn’t have a large place in her heart, even if he dominated some parts of her memory. And that was sad in a way. Maybe it was a symptom of who she was now. Perhaps of what she was going to become?
“Hey, cheer up! The winner buys the milkshakes remember? And that would be me,” he told her. “You didn’t lose just to avoid paying did you?” he joked.
Always play to win Tara. Yes sir.
She gave him a little smile. “N-no. I just lost because I, you know, suck at this. It was fun though,” she reassured him when his expression briefly shifted to concern.
“What’s bothering my girl? – Sorry my young lady,” he was always having to correct himself like that.
She looked at him and he must have been reading her expressions. “I was just thinking of my brother.”
“You miss him?” he asked.
“Actually no… I just think that I should,” she admitted to him.
“Don’t go getting guilty on me, you feel what you feel Tara – that is one of the most important things that we ever have to learn. If you feel something then that’s it – you feel it. It’s what you do that matters… and you are doing very well indeed,” he smiled as he told her that… and despite what he was he sounded so reassuring.
That was the whole trouble though… lack of feeling was slowly killing her – and what she did feel, she shouldn’t. A thirst for revenge, justice. Whatever. A lack of concern about what this man was one day going to do to the town she was taking to her heart. But he was right about one thing – it was what you did that counted – and even working for him right now she was doing the right thing. She was helping the town as she helped him.
And she was furthering her own cause.
‘You feel what you feel.’
It was an important lesson, one she pondered over milkshake and chit-chat with a man who wanted to be a demon. That almost made her laugh – he so desperately wanted to become the thing that her destiny would not allow her to escape. Perhaps they could trade?
**************
DREAM STATES“You’re going to be there soon Tara,” her dream goddess told her. “Not long at all now.”
“Th-There?” she wondered. Where was there?
“There, here. What does it matter? As long as you
are?”
It was a dream, and that sort of logic was unassailable in dreams. They were walking, hand in hand through places. Places that she knew… places that were familiar to her because she had been to them recently – places that she was sure had always been the backdrop to other dreams, before she had even come to this place. Where was she?
Sunnydale?
Right now they were walking through the mini-golf course, stopping to watch as Mayor Wilkins knocked his ball along a long snake with it’s mouth wide open, out of the tail and into the hole. “Bullseye!” he cried and looked at them, grinning.
“You know,” the red haired woman asked Tara, “what he is?”
“I know,” Tara confirmed. “B-But…” she tailed off not wanting this woman to be disappointed in her, or disapproving. She didn’t know what to say though - that would make it right. She knew exactly what he was. The snake that had been part of the mini-golf was writhing around now, growing… and the Mayor was still grinning as it reared up and snapped its jaws around a family that was on the next hole. The Windmill. They hadn’t even screamed.
“Just trust yourself baby,” her partner said. “You’ll do what’s right.”
“Do
you? T-Trust me I mean?” Tara asked her, looking deep into the other’s eyes.
“Always,” and Tara’s hand was squeezed in return before the redhead came closer to her and laid her head on Tara’s shoulder as they walked. “Who else would I trust?”
“Yourself?” Tara wondered… after all the redhead had instructed her to do the same. And suddenly they were walking down a street, the main street of Sunnydale. But it all looked so different. The shops… they were all open. Lots of different businesses – even florists that sold more than just funeral wreaths. “How are we… you know… this?”
“It’s all part of the problem my love… why I can’t trust myself. I’m part of what makes this… well
not this. I don’t know really. I think it’s complicated, but I’m not sure. It might be really simple.” The redhead shrugged.
“You don’t know?” Tara asked her. Surely she should know whether it was complicated or simple.
“No, I mean I’m just a dream – your dream. I think. I don’t think that I know anything that you don’t… or won’t. Something like that anyway. Like I said it’s complicated and I’m babbling.”
“You b-babble nicely,” Tara told her.
In return she received a peck on the cheek as a gesture of thanks. It felt good to be kissed by a dream. Tara wanted more of that, but they had moved on again.
They passed a magic store, and Tara wanted to stop and look in the window… but her feet just kept moving of their own accord, until they found themselves in one of Sunnydale’s cemeteries and they stopped in front of a grave. But she couldn’t make out the headstone – though she couldn’t help thinking it was important. Or should be. Maybe it would be. She was gently turned away though by the other woman and led away from that place. She looked back at the receding grave but then found herself in another place again, looking back down some steps instead. She turned to see where she was.
The High School.
“It all started here you know… and you’ll be there soon,” the dream woman told her.
“At the school?” she remembered that she was supposed to be going there sometime? Tomorrow? Or had she already been? She just didn’t know.
“Yes. No. At the truth.” The redhead licked her neck, and traced a finger over her shoulder blades before slipping that hand back into Tara’s again.
“H-How will I know the truth?” Tara wanted to know wondering why her neck was getting licked. It was a weird sort of gesture… not even intimate. Just strange.
“You’ll just know… It’s your first stopping off point… on the journey.”
“Which journey?”
I’m going on a journey? But I just got here, I’m not finished yet, she thought.
“Ours silly,” the dream woman said, raising her head from Tara’s shoulder and once more kissed her cheek gently. And suddenly they weren’t walking anymore… they were on their backs, lying under the stars, looking up at them.
“See that one?” the other asked her, pointing. “That ones us baby…”
----------------
And then she was awake. Tara almost fell from the bed as she reacted to the dream. Shrugging off the effects of sleep on her stiff limbs she got up. Her unconscious mind had been given over to that young woman again and that meant… the dream carving. It was… the changes were so slight. She turned the light on, blinking as it shone, but it was definitely the woman in her dreams. The dream carving was finished… She was finished even if there was still no name. The face was just like she remembered her from the dream… What did that mean? What happened when the carving was finished?
And what was her name – what name went with the carved features that had emerged over the last years? Who was she… she must be in Sunnydale surely… those places that they had been in the dream. They were all Sunnydale, sort of. They always had been – before she came here they had been. This room. She looked around it… she had lain in this room with the dream woman. In that bed… under those sheets. That was why… it was why the place had seemed so comfortable the first time that she had seen it.
All of that, all of that had to mean something – if the dream woman was real at all. She
was real… then she had to be in Sunnydale surely. Her mind wouldn’t play tricks on her like that.
She was real… wasn’t she?
Who and where was she?
*****************
You hear that baby?
by Katharyn » Wed Apr 03, 2002 10:00 pm 
