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jedibuttercupPG-13; B:tVS/Dresden Files; 1500 words. Follows Part 1; in the Handle With Care 'verse.
Buffy spun and dodged, a focused avatar of destruction: dancing in the chain mail Charity had lent her as though it weighed less than tissue paper.
Title: Loaded For Bear - Part 2
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Buffy spun and dodged, a focused avatar of destruction: dancing in the chain mail Charity had lent her as though it weighed less than tissue paper. 1500 words.
Spoilers: Ending of "Proven Guilty" for Dresden Files; post-series AU for Buffyverse
Notes: Follows Part 1; part of the Handle With Care 'verse. Skims over much of the ending of PG, highlighting a few AU touches and character progression.
From the moment Buffy drew the thing she called the Scythe from the sheath on her back, I could hardly keep my eyes off her and on my own path through the battle.
It wasn't as though I'd never seen a blesséd weapon in action. I'd fought alongside Charity's husband more times than I could count, and I'd been within a bladeslength of the other Knights of the Cross when the Denarians had come to my city baying after the Shroud of Turin. The silvery light and humming aura each Sword emits in battle is unmistakable, imbued with a power wrought of the pure essence of belief that transforms simple steel into the glory of God-touched metal.
The difference was, though there was no denying Buffy's weapon worked along the same principles, it was equally clear it drew from another source of Power entirely. One that did not ask its followers to turn the other cheek.
An umber light radiated from the sharp edge of the blade, a color that left the taste of rich loam and withered leaves on the back of my tongue. Neither the frigid dearth of Winter nor the virile warmth of Summer, its glow parted the flesh of Mab's minions like wheat before the harvest sickle. It was clearly a weapon meant to oppose the shagnasties on their own turf: a blade meant for the guardians who stand within the Gates to the Nevernever, rather than stamping out intrusions on our side.
Buffy spun and dodged, a focused avatar of destruction: dancing in the chain mail Charity had lent her as though it weighed less than tissue paper, the polished edge of the blade licking along the Scarecrow's limbs to draw forth rivers of green-white fire. Wherever it moved, she was there first. Wherever the dark blaze and low murmuring tone of the Scythe touched grotesquely shaped flesh, the ancient fetch flinched away from it in pain.
I'd known what a Slayer's role was, intellectually, before that battle. Hells Bells, I'd seen her fight Black Court vampires before, and she'd sliced and diced the minions guarding the old theater on the other side without so much as breaking a sweat. But watching her wield that eldritch weapon in the heart of Winter's home, I began to get an idea of the true freight her title carried. The Scythe had flared into livid light as we broke free of the fetches below to follow Charity up to the parapet, illuminating a garden of Fae trapped in ice-- and limning Buffy's profile with the color of drying blood. She looked fierce, in that light: both more and less than human, and as far from the laughing girl I'd broken bread with as it was possible to be.
I wished I'd had her with me the year before, facing the Erlking; or even better, back when the former Summer Lady had lost the plot and tried to destroy the balance between Seelie and Unseelie. And no wonder, in retrospect. Had the heart of Faerie ever opened so near to the formation of a new Hellmouth before?
The hair standing up on the back of my neck as I whipped my blasting rod into position and unleashed another Forzare owed at least as much to the horrified speculations ticking over in the back of my mind as it did to the adrenaline-fueled exertion of the ongoing battle. Whatever was stirring in the supernatural world-- whether the apparent traitor in the White Council had caused it or was simply harnessing the chaos it provided as a natural amplifier to his work-- I had a sneaking suspicion we had barely begun to see the tip of the iceberg.
But mid-fight was not the time to be panicking about some distant future. I summoned every erg of energy I could get from the scraped-thin ache of my magical reserves as Buffy and a broadsword-wielding Charity fenced the thing away from Charity's daughter. As strong as they both were, even with Buffy's Chosen blade in her hands, the powerful fetch could probably endure long enough to outlast them. But they could keep the thing busy: intercepting lashes of vines aimed at each other, tag-teaming to hack at the downward arch of its foot when it moved to flatten Molly, and generally keeping it too distracted to focus on what I was doing.
Of course, by the time I realized I was too tired to feel wonder or fear, and connected that that calmness with a corresponding weakening of the Scarecrow's abilities, I was already running critically low on my own resources. But we were all still standing, thanks to the efforts of two of the toughest women I had ever known, and after I drew on the Summer fire in Lily's gift to blast the fetch off the parapet of Arctis Tor I managed to save enough back to hurry us out of the citadel in advance of the wave of slowed time that would have trapped us there as gift-wrapped presents for Winter's army.
Of such things-- nails disguised as hours preserved and wounds averted-- are kingdoms lost and princesses saved. If we'd been even a few minutes slower, caught in the edges of Maeve's 'helping hand' like flies in amber, I hate to think what the consequences might have been for us when we finally left the Nevernever. A little less rest, a little more desperation; who knows what fall-out for Murphy and the tiny flock sheltered with Father Forthill, and my own clarity of mind when the time came to face the Council.
Regardless, by the end of the next evening I had a new apprentice cleaning up in my shower; forty young wizards had been saved by her father's hand; and I stood in the open doorway of my apartment with Buffy, trying to think of a way to send her off that wouldn't trip off my tongue with a thud and drag down our 'acquaintanceship' with it.
I'd suspected she might pay a visit to find out how things had wrapped up, since she'd wanted nothing to do with any meeting of the White Council. I didn't blame her for that. But her timing could have been better-- and I had no clue what to say to her.
"So. Fun day, huh," she prompted me, weariness etching lines at the corners of changeable green eyes.
I tried to picture her again as the friend I'd been so glad to see when she'd arrived at Thomas' call; as the lively, bantering object of mystery I'd shared a table with at Mac's the first day we met. But I kept seeing the flat, grim curve of her mouth backlit by her unholy weapon instead, and feeling the strength of her grip on my arm as she'd pulled me past a crucified and groaning Lloyd Slate when I'd wanted to stop and investigate what had happened to the former Winter Knight.
Between that dissonance, and the left-over stress from my conversation with Michael about Lasciel after the meeting, I was too unsettled to smile at her half-hearted joke. I couldn't help but wonder what she saw when she looked at me, too, after everything; I knew she'd seen more of my own darker side that week than I'd shown her in the months since we'd met.
And maybe I should have realized it sooner, but it was the little thread of embarrassed worry that followed on the heels of that thought that really put the cherry on my sundae of squirming discomfort. I wanted her to think well of me. I wanted to think well of her. Stars and stones, I wasn't a teenager anymore, where the hell was this all coming from?
I flushed, heat prickling under the five o'clock shadow on my cheeks, and cleared my throat. "Yeah," I said. "Thanks for coming-- I have a feeling things would've gone a lot worse without your help."
"Oh, I don't know." She gave me a lopsided smile. "I think you would've made it through just fine. You're one of the stubbornest people I know."
"Still...." I said.
She shrugged petite shoulders. "No, I get it. I was glad to help." Then she stretched up to wrap her arms around as much of my shoulders as she could reach. "I can tell you have plans," she added, "at least I hope you do or I'll kick your ass later for not asking me in. I'll call you later, okay?"
That sounded alarmingly like 'I want to talk to you' to me. But I returned the farewell hug with equal intensity, and stayed in the doorway, watching until she passed beyond the limits of my wards.
Then I shoved the door closed, took a seat by the fire, and settled in to await Molly's inevitable attempt to seduce me.
...Which fairy tale am I living in again?
No wait, don't tell me. I think I'd prefer to be surprised by the ending.
(x-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
df_crossovers & AO3)
Buffy spun and dodged, a focused avatar of destruction: dancing in the chain mail Charity had lent her as though it weighed less than tissue paper.
Title: Loaded For Bear - Part 2
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Buffy spun and dodged, a focused avatar of destruction: dancing in the chain mail Charity had lent her as though it weighed less than tissue paper. 1500 words.
Spoilers: Ending of "Proven Guilty" for Dresden Files; post-series AU for Buffyverse
Notes: Follows Part 1; part of the Handle With Care 'verse. Skims over much of the ending of PG, highlighting a few AU touches and character progression.
From the moment Buffy drew the thing she called the Scythe from the sheath on her back, I could hardly keep my eyes off her and on my own path through the battle.
It wasn't as though I'd never seen a blesséd weapon in action. I'd fought alongside Charity's husband more times than I could count, and I'd been within a bladeslength of the other Knights of the Cross when the Denarians had come to my city baying after the Shroud of Turin. The silvery light and humming aura each Sword emits in battle is unmistakable, imbued with a power wrought of the pure essence of belief that transforms simple steel into the glory of God-touched metal.
The difference was, though there was no denying Buffy's weapon worked along the same principles, it was equally clear it drew from another source of Power entirely. One that did not ask its followers to turn the other cheek.
An umber light radiated from the sharp edge of the blade, a color that left the taste of rich loam and withered leaves on the back of my tongue. Neither the frigid dearth of Winter nor the virile warmth of Summer, its glow parted the flesh of Mab's minions like wheat before the harvest sickle. It was clearly a weapon meant to oppose the shagnasties on their own turf: a blade meant for the guardians who stand within the Gates to the Nevernever, rather than stamping out intrusions on our side.
Buffy spun and dodged, a focused avatar of destruction: dancing in the chain mail Charity had lent her as though it weighed less than tissue paper, the polished edge of the blade licking along the Scarecrow's limbs to draw forth rivers of green-white fire. Wherever it moved, she was there first. Wherever the dark blaze and low murmuring tone of the Scythe touched grotesquely shaped flesh, the ancient fetch flinched away from it in pain.
I'd known what a Slayer's role was, intellectually, before that battle. Hells Bells, I'd seen her fight Black Court vampires before, and she'd sliced and diced the minions guarding the old theater on the other side without so much as breaking a sweat. But watching her wield that eldritch weapon in the heart of Winter's home, I began to get an idea of the true freight her title carried. The Scythe had flared into livid light as we broke free of the fetches below to follow Charity up to the parapet, illuminating a garden of Fae trapped in ice-- and limning Buffy's profile with the color of drying blood. She looked fierce, in that light: both more and less than human, and as far from the laughing girl I'd broken bread with as it was possible to be.
I wished I'd had her with me the year before, facing the Erlking; or even better, back when the former Summer Lady had lost the plot and tried to destroy the balance between Seelie and Unseelie. And no wonder, in retrospect. Had the heart of Faerie ever opened so near to the formation of a new Hellmouth before?
The hair standing up on the back of my neck as I whipped my blasting rod into position and unleashed another Forzare owed at least as much to the horrified speculations ticking over in the back of my mind as it did to the adrenaline-fueled exertion of the ongoing battle. Whatever was stirring in the supernatural world-- whether the apparent traitor in the White Council had caused it or was simply harnessing the chaos it provided as a natural amplifier to his work-- I had a sneaking suspicion we had barely begun to see the tip of the iceberg.
But mid-fight was not the time to be panicking about some distant future. I summoned every erg of energy I could get from the scraped-thin ache of my magical reserves as Buffy and a broadsword-wielding Charity fenced the thing away from Charity's daughter. As strong as they both were, even with Buffy's Chosen blade in her hands, the powerful fetch could probably endure long enough to outlast them. But they could keep the thing busy: intercepting lashes of vines aimed at each other, tag-teaming to hack at the downward arch of its foot when it moved to flatten Molly, and generally keeping it too distracted to focus on what I was doing.
Of course, by the time I realized I was too tired to feel wonder or fear, and connected that that calmness with a corresponding weakening of the Scarecrow's abilities, I was already running critically low on my own resources. But we were all still standing, thanks to the efforts of two of the toughest women I had ever known, and after I drew on the Summer fire in Lily's gift to blast the fetch off the parapet of Arctis Tor I managed to save enough back to hurry us out of the citadel in advance of the wave of slowed time that would have trapped us there as gift-wrapped presents for Winter's army.
Of such things-- nails disguised as hours preserved and wounds averted-- are kingdoms lost and princesses saved. If we'd been even a few minutes slower, caught in the edges of Maeve's 'helping hand' like flies in amber, I hate to think what the consequences might have been for us when we finally left the Nevernever. A little less rest, a little more desperation; who knows what fall-out for Murphy and the tiny flock sheltered with Father Forthill, and my own clarity of mind when the time came to face the Council.
Regardless, by the end of the next evening I had a new apprentice cleaning up in my shower; forty young wizards had been saved by her father's hand; and I stood in the open doorway of my apartment with Buffy, trying to think of a way to send her off that wouldn't trip off my tongue with a thud and drag down our 'acquaintanceship' with it.
I'd suspected she might pay a visit to find out how things had wrapped up, since she'd wanted nothing to do with any meeting of the White Council. I didn't blame her for that. But her timing could have been better-- and I had no clue what to say to her.
"So. Fun day, huh," she prompted me, weariness etching lines at the corners of changeable green eyes.
I tried to picture her again as the friend I'd been so glad to see when she'd arrived at Thomas' call; as the lively, bantering object of mystery I'd shared a table with at Mac's the first day we met. But I kept seeing the flat, grim curve of her mouth backlit by her unholy weapon instead, and feeling the strength of her grip on my arm as she'd pulled me past a crucified and groaning Lloyd Slate when I'd wanted to stop and investigate what had happened to the former Winter Knight.
Between that dissonance, and the left-over stress from my conversation with Michael about Lasciel after the meeting, I was too unsettled to smile at her half-hearted joke. I couldn't help but wonder what she saw when she looked at me, too, after everything; I knew she'd seen more of my own darker side that week than I'd shown her in the months since we'd met.
And maybe I should have realized it sooner, but it was the little thread of embarrassed worry that followed on the heels of that thought that really put the cherry on my sundae of squirming discomfort. I wanted her to think well of me. I wanted to think well of her. Stars and stones, I wasn't a teenager anymore, where the hell was this all coming from?
I flushed, heat prickling under the five o'clock shadow on my cheeks, and cleared my throat. "Yeah," I said. "Thanks for coming-- I have a feeling things would've gone a lot worse without your help."
"Oh, I don't know." She gave me a lopsided smile. "I think you would've made it through just fine. You're one of the stubbornest people I know."
"Still...." I said.
She shrugged petite shoulders. "No, I get it. I was glad to help." Then she stretched up to wrap her arms around as much of my shoulders as she could reach. "I can tell you have plans," she added, "at least I hope you do or I'll kick your ass later for not asking me in. I'll call you later, okay?"
That sounded alarmingly like 'I want to talk to you' to me. But I returned the farewell hug with equal intensity, and stayed in the doorway, watching until she passed beyond the limits of my wards.
Then I shoved the door closed, took a seat by the fire, and settled in to await Molly's inevitable attempt to seduce me.
...Which fairy tale am I living in again?
No wait, don't tell me. I think I'd prefer to be surprised by the ending.
(x-posted to
df_crossovers & AO3)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 04:55 pm (UTC)And the glowing scythe? Genius.
I like!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 10:13 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed the fic! It's such an interesting fusion to explore, I doubt this will be the last of it.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 10:14 am (UTC)(I'll have to see if I can get more of her world involved the next time I pick this fusion up, though; it's been very Harry-verse so far.)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 04:39 am (UTC)That said, I absolutely love Harry's description of watching Buffy fight and the way the Scythe feels (perfect description there).
Here's hoping this bunny nibbles at your toes again at a future date so we can get more stories in this fabulous 'verse! Thank you for sharing!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 10:17 am (UTC)Butcher does a remarkably consistent and distinctive job of characterization, and mimicry's one of my talents. I don't think I'd have the stamina to keep whumping the characters as severely as he does, though! (How many months 'til April, again???)
It's been really interesting, trying to imagine how Buffyverse elements might present in Harry's world; and don't worry, this isn't the last of it. She's met some of his friends on-screen, now; of course some of hers are going to have to come to Chicago sooner or later....
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 01:03 pm (UTC)Yes, you just don't have the obviously sadistic streak that Jim Butcher appears to have! He takes entirely too much glee in not only tormenting his characters, but his readers as well. His Tweets of "Muaa-ha-ha-ha-haa!" when someone points this out are enough to make me blow him a raspberry, even though he can't see it. That said, the whump and angst can be prodded into a story by a beta team, but the character's voice is something that is far more difficult to achieve and you do that incredibly well.
YAAAY!!! I'm very glad to hear that more of the folks from the Buffyverse are going to find their way to Chicago and seriously hope Faith is among them. I can only imagine the reactions she and Thomas would have upon meeting!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-20 01:04 am (UTC)Heh, heh. I'll have to think about the Faith angle. That could be fun.....
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 02:41 pm (UTC)last line was classic. loved this update.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-20 01:04 am (UTC)