A heartfelt THANK YOU to Rhi for her hard work. We also want to request that you not lynch us. We'd really like to finish the story, and if we are dead, it will be harder to do.
Enjoy the read!
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Reflections in Raindrops (3/?)
Authors: Shadowriter (shadowriter@kc.rr.com) and TrueXena (truexena@columbus.rr.com)
Rating: R
Couples: W/T
Spoilers: Through this season
Notes: This is us trying to get beyond the W/T rift, kind of.... a continuation of where the Letter challenges end.
Archiving: Sure, but please talk to us first.
Feedback: Please. Pretty please? Public or private, either one.
Copyright: The characters in the story are the property of Joss Whedon (much bowing in his general direction) and Mutant Enemy. We are borrowing them for a short time, but will return them in perfect condition. The plot, however, is ours.
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Reflections in Raindrops
Part Three
Willow stepped forward and grabbed Tara by the arm, pulling her back and out of the path of the doorway.
Tara closed her eyes tightly and whispered a spell. There was the noise of a small explosion inside the room. Reaching out, Tara grabbed Amy by the back of her shirt and pulled her away.
"Willow, close the door!"
Willow rushed forward and slammed the door shut. "What the frilly heck was that?" she asked Amy.
Amy just backed away, her eyes wide and staring at the now closed door. Her mouth kept moving, as if she was speaking, but nothing came out.
There was a bang against the door, and all three of them jumped. The witch light over Amy went out, and they were plunged into darkness.
Tara took a breath and felt for the doorknob. She quickly said a locking spell, then concentrated and brought to life a tiny orb of light, just enough for them to see by.
"Tara, are you all right, baby?" Willow asked in a whisper.
"Fine. W-we need to get out of here, like n-now. Amy?" They both turned to their companion, who was now on her knees, struggling to regain her composure.
There was another loud bang, and this time it sounded like the thunk of an axe. Tara had a bad feeling that was exactly what it was.
Willow went to Amy's side, pulling her to her feet. "Amy, come on. Where do we go? We have to go!"
Amy seemed frozen, still unable to process what she'd seen. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the map, opening it with shaky fingers.
Tara reached over and took it from her. "W-we don't have time. Come on!"
She yanked on Amy's arm and reached for Willow at the same time.
The three of them fled down the hall, Tara's small light leading them.
There was a crash behind them, and they heard a great roar. Amy squealed and increased her speed.
Tara grabbed Amy's arm again and pulled, taking the group down a side corridor. They could hear pursuit behind them, and Tara threw a spell of concealment at the entrance to the corridor. Then she stopped, pushing herself and Willow against a wall. Amy followed her lead. With a word from Tara, the ball of light extinguished itself.
They waited, their breaths coming in short gasps as they tried to control the panic. Tara kept trying to blink back the image she'd seen in the doorway. She found Willow's hand in the dark and clung to it.
Willow found it even more difficult to breathe with Tara pressing against her so close, but she wrapped an arm around her and hung on.
Noises from the outer hall made them shrink back even further, trying to blend in with the wall. Tara knew the concealment spell would hide them, but couldn't make herself believe it. She glanced at Willow, then down to the door.
Willow could feel her own panic grow as she saw several shapes passing by the doorway. The things were huge, and seemed to be wearing armor. They carried axe-like weapons of some kind and had long bodies with short legs, but that was the only detail she could see in the light of their torches.
After a moment, they passed on, and Tara was able to catch her breath. She gently pushed Amy ahead of her, further down the corridor, pulling Willow along behind her. She brought the light orb back, keeping it as small as possible, and looked for a place the three of them could duck into.
She finally found what looked to be a large storage closet of some kind, with several piles of large crates stacked around the room. Tara tugged on Amy's shirt and pointed.
Amy nodded and ducked inside. Tara followed her, feeling Willow's presence close at her back. All three of them dropped to the floor behind a crate.
Willow leaned in close to Tara's ear and whispered, "I don't think we passed that test." She pulled away slightly to look up at her friend. "What do we do now?"
Tara shook her head. "I'm not sure." She looked at Amy. "But I don't think we're going to try that doorway again."
Amy looked away, her eyes still showing her shock.
"Those things in the hall, were they -- they what you two saw?" Willow didn't move away, but began to look around the small room for anything she could use as a weapon.
Tara nodded. "Yes. Only there were a lot more of them. And I mean, a lot more." She kept her voice in a whisper, glancing every once in a while to Amy to see if she was coming out of her shock. "Somehow I don't think Amy was expecting that."
Tara called the orb over closer to her and pulled the map from her pocket so she could examine it closely. She could see that it was a reproduction, and there were engravings in some language she couldn't understand. Amy had made a mark in one room, putting a 'T' on it.
"Yeah, well, I won't say I didn't warn her." Willow spotted a crate with no lid and scooted towards it to see what was inside. It was empty.
"That must be where we teleported in to." Tara traced a line Amy had penciled on the page, following it down to where it turned into a room.
"And that must be where she thought the stairs were."
"Don't tell me. We picked door number one with the donkey, when we should have gone for door number three with the new car." Willow checked another crate to find it held little more than dust.
Tara peered again at the language on the page, trying to make sense of it. It seemed slightly familiar, but she couldn't place it, so finally she gave up.
"Willow? Can you come see if you can decipher this? You're better with languages than I am."
Willow rejoined Tara and took the map. "Let me see."
She studied the words for a few minutes. "Yeah, I think I can. It looks like Celtic, maybe Brythonic . . ." She trailed off. "Wait, I know that word, that's Gaulish, but... oh! I see. It is Gaulish, only it's backwards." Looking up she saw Tara's eyebrow rise. "No, see." She showed Tara the map again print side down with the light behind it.
"See, it's written backwards."
Tara shook her head. "Great, so you can only read it with a light behind it, or in a mirror. Very clever." She looked at it again. "But I can't read it anyway. Can you?"
Willow took the map and held it to the light again. "Well according to this, if we entered here..." She pointed at the marked 'T'. "We should have gone left from that point, but instead we went right." Her finger moved over the lines of script as she read, then followed it along the diagram. "We should find stairs here."
Tara nodded. "Yeah, I agree." She pointed at some words written next to the door they'd opened. "What does this say?"
Willow looked at the words, then at Tara. "Do not enter." They both peered over at Amy.
"Great. Just great." Tara rubbed her temples as a headache began to creep up on her.
"Aw, Baby, you okay?" Willow asked. She reached over and moved Tara's fingers out of the way, gently taking over the massage.
Amy had raised her head, but was still just staring at them both. "But... but, the book...." She pulled a small leather bound volume out of her purse. "I found it in the book. It was in this book and I followed the directions to the letter."
Tara glanced at the map, still resting where she'd placed it, with the orb behind it glowing through the page. "Right. To the letter. The backwards letter."
"What book?" Willow reached out and took it from Amy's hand.
As she flipped through the book, Willow noted that most of it was in Gaulish. A few pages here and there were written in another language she didn't know, though she suspected it was a Demon language of some sort. One page described the room in which the Grimoire was hidden, and a notation of which spell to use to free it from its resting place. She also found names of some of the castle's inhabitants, and where they liked to dwell.
Suddenly, Tara noticed something on the map that she didn't remember seeing. As Willow took the book from Amy and started flipping through it, Tara stayed focused on the crinkled diagram.
Willow mentally stored most of the information, then turned to Amy as a thought occurred to her.
"Amy, how did you read this? How did you know it had anything to do with the Grimoire of Salarion?"
"I cast a spell that let me read any language." She shrugged. "It didn't last long at all, but it was enough and I knew the map was the key."
"Right. You just didn't know how to use the key."
"Willow?" She didn't need to look up to know that it was Tara calling her.
"Yeah, sweetie?"
Tara reached over and picked up the map, keeping the light close behind it. "I think you should see this."
"What?" Willow crawled closer to Tara to see what she was pointing at on the map.
There were things that hadn't been there in the beginning. Large shapes that looked vaguely like the things they'd run into, and a few other creature types. Also, more words had popped up, and small arrows that glowed.
Tara pointed to the arrows. "I think we're supposed to follow them. They lead the way we would have gone if we hadn't turned the wrong way out of that room."
Willow closed the book to study the map and watched as the images faded. "Where did they go? What happened?" she asked.
Tara shook the map. It didn't change. "I don't know." She sighed. "Great, another mystery in this place. Did you happen to get anything out of the book?"
"Not much, just a few spells to use for parts of the castle. Where to find the book, and some stuff on things we might find lurking about." She admitted to herself that she was a bit unnerved by the appearing and disappearing images. "I'll keep looking. Maybe I'll find something about that map in here." She opened the book and leaned back against the crate, right next to Tara.
"Um, Will? They're back."
"What?" She reached for the map, discarding the book again. Once more the shapes and images started to fade. "Oh, give me a break! This is just sick wizardry practical joke time!"
Tara smiled. "Maybe not." She held the map up in the air. "Open the book."
Willow did as asked and watched as the shapes and images returned. "Oh." She smiled at Tara, feeling a little foolish for her outburst.
"So, the map and the book correlate. Who cares?" Amy asked. "We're sitting in a dungeon being chased by those... those.... things -- and you're having fun with parlor tricks."
"Hey!" Willow snapped. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be stuck in this dungeon at all. And we wouldn't be getting chased by those things if you had read the map right in the first place. So either help us, or shut up." She flipped open the book angrily, searching for the page that had mentioned the demons in the castle.
Tara glared at Amy, but had to admit she had a point. "Will? You study. Amy and I will look around to see what we might use as weapons, okay?"
Willow broke from her reading to look Tara in the eye. "Be careful. Don't go far. I think this book can tell us how to deal with those things. If I can only decipher it. I'll get it."
The blonde witch smiled at her. "I know you will." She leaned forward and kissed Willow's forehead, letting her lips linger for a moment.
Blushing, Willow took her hand and kissed it, letting Tara's fingers slide through her own as her friend stood.
Amy rolled her eyes, but got up when Tara motioned to her. She followed the blonde witch over to the stack of crates, watching as Tara reached up to pull the first one down.
"Are you gonna stand there or help?"
Sighing, Amy reached up and grabbed the opposite end of the crate.
Together, they lifted it from the pile and lowered it to the ground; the hinges creaked as they opened the top.
"Tara? Just how long is that spell going to last? Can they hear us? Cause that's making a lot of noise at the moment, and I don't know how to kill them just yet." Willow whispered louder than normal, watching the two women digging inside the crate.
Tara looked up. "I don't think they can hear us. And it should last until someone breaks the plane of the doorway, either on purpose or accident."
"So basically, we need to hurry, right?" There was a note of worry in Willow's voice.
"Well -- let's just say we shouldn't spend the night."
Willow chuckled. "Ha, ha. I have no intentions of doing that." She focused again on the book.
Amy was staring into a mass of tangled cuffs and chains. "Oh, this will really help."
Tara glanced up at her. "Keep searching. Otherwise we just might be spending the night. And tomorrow night. And the night after that." She dug through the chains and found a mace. "See? There are things that will help."
"I've got it." Willow exclaimed. "It's right here. They're called Goshti -- Goshtim -- oh hell, I don't know what they're called. But it tells here how to kill them." She looked up to see Amy holding a bunch of rusted chains and grimaced. "Bleagh."
Tara dropped the iron ball on the ground next to the redhead. "Very good, sweetie," Willow said with a smile.
Tara grinned at her lover, then motioned with her head. "Come on, Amy, next crate."
They pulled the next large box off the pile and put it next to the one they'd opened. Amy stood and looked at her hands in disgust.
"This one's filthy. What is this, oil?"
Willow didn't look up. "That could be useful for light." She pointed at the glowing orb that now hung over her head. "Tara isn't going to be able to keep this going forever, you know."
Tara rubbed one hand on her jeans while reaching for the top of the box with the other. She was surprised when her hand sank into the material.
It felt like she'd put it into a mass of liquid wax.
When she tried to pull it out, she felt something clamp onto her.
"Hey!"
Willow looked up to see what was happening. Her eyes widened as she watched Tara struggling, her face twisted in pain.
Tara felt something puncture the skin near her wrist. She bit her lip, then gasped as the sensation grew steadily worse. "Willow, help me!"
"Tara!"
End Part Three.
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Later dayz,
TrueXena
"I'm so evil, and skanky...and I think I'm kinda gay."
... hence the impatience)