CAIRN

Author’s Notes:

1) Refer to Chapter 1.

2) It has been pointed out to me that I stated in my Author’s Notes that this story takes place in the summer after Season 3, but that the beginning of the story is before Season 3 ends. This is true. Chapter 1 is before the end of Season 3 but the rest of the of the story takes place shortly after the end of Season 3. Hopefully, I didn’t confuse too many people.

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The trees and bushes rustled in the crisp breeze as Buffy meandered through the greenery and up the hill. At the top of the hill, she stopped and took in the bright sun and the incredible view.

The sunrise’s colors rippled their reflections in the ocean and contrasted nicely with dark green of the trees. The morning dew shimmered on the grass and created a clean, fresh smell, which melded with a wind carried fragrance of some early blooming plant.

This is the way to spend your summer holidays, came the idle thought.

Suddenly, storm clouds began to cover the sun and the wind changed from crisp to cold. Sighing, she scolded herself for temping fate. Before running for her coat, she chanced a quick look around.

Lightening blackened white stone stood in stark contrast to the colors around. Gravel surrounded the four carved sides of the cairn and crunched under Buffy’s sneakers as she approached it. Cold shivers shuddered through her. Another might have thought the wind had picked up, but Buffy had long ago realized the feel of evil.

A man suddenly interrupted her view of the symbols. One part of her mind wondered how in the hell he had managed to get so close without her hearing while another part evaluated his potential. And there was definitely potential here, if in an older package. Very nice muscled body, wind-ruffled brown hair, nice features. In fact, the main drawback were the red, opaque glasses gleaming her reflected face back at her. Obviously, the guy didn’t have a clue that most women liked to see the eyes of the person they were talking to. Plus, they were definitely not in style.

Then she noticed the others quickly approaching behind the man. The red-headed woman laced her arm through Cutie’s arm and as they smiled at each other, Buffy reflected that he had apparently found someone who didn’t mind looking at herself when with him. There was a woman with a stripe of white hair going back across her head, another cutie with, waitaminute, red eyes?, a rough and tumble man who didn’t shave enough, an regal African woman with blue cat eyes and white hair - cool contacts and dye job - and a young woman about her age with long brown hair. She knew there others, could feel them, but couldn’t see them.

“Do you know who we are?”

Okay, glasses was talking. Finally! She had been starting to get creeped out, the way they just stared at her. As she opened her mouth to reply that she didn’t have a clue, he continued.

“Do you know what we are?”

Okay, back to being creepy again.

The darkening clouds suddenly began to swirl behind the group and, in the light of lightening strikes, saw them change.

Gasping, Buffy awoke to early morning sunlight and cursed the Whatever that had thought a Slayer needed prophetic dreams. Whoever they were, they obviously had no idea that a girl needed a minimum of three hours beauty sleep.

Giles watched as the young woman paced back and forth across his apartment, her arms waving as she emphasized her frustration. Apparently, she had been plagued in recent nights with dreams that refused to allow her as much sleep as she wanted. Luckily, a Slayer tended to need less sleep than other people.

And she wasn’t the only one who might be frustrated.

“Buffy.”

At her name, his student - and the person he considered to be his child of the heart - looked at him. He rubbed a thumb across his eyebrow.

“You have been having these dreams for the last week, or more. Correct?”

At her nod, he LOOKED at her.

“WHY is this the first I have heard of them?”

And she squirmed.

“Come on, Giles. I’m an adult now. I thought I could handle them by myself.”

Taking off his glasses with a sigh, he rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to hide his amusement. He remembered that reasoning.

“Buffy. Leaving aside the fact that I need to know that something is coming to prepare for it and ignoring that I am the person who has reference books that might shed some light on your dreams, haven’t you ever noticed that your dreams don’t stop until you either acknowledge them by telling someone else about them or until the event prompting it occurs?”

Then he sat back to watch the realization dawn on Buffy. It was quite amusing.

For her part, Buffy felt like someone had smacked her across the head with a board. She had always thought the damn things were only there to make her edgy.

Later that afternoon, Buffy lay on her bed and thought about the meeting with her ex-Watcher. After he had recovered from his not-very-well-hidden laughing fit, he had started grilling her about the details of the dream.

She now knew that the one-eyed monster that Cutie turned into was a cyclops, and the red and yellow bird of fire that the red-head changed into was a phoenix. Neither her nor Giles knew what the hell to make of the whirlwind of lights that the skunk-haired woman had turned into. She had thought it turned everything it touched wild. A kind of rebel wind. And the red-eyed cutie just had dissolved. But, somehow, she knew that overwhelming feeling of a strategy being played out had been what he had turned into. She had had the weird flash of a chess game. Mr. Bristly with the battered cowboy hat had turned into some kind of animal. It had looked like a cross between a rat and a bear. And she had gotten the impression of snow. Giles was trying to figure out what it was. The black woman had been very cool. She had kept the outline of her human shape, but it had had clouds, lightening, rain, and tornados whipping around in it. Almost unnoticed amidst all of the more dramatic changes, the young woman her age had slipped down into a cat. A cat shape made up of shadows, that walked though all the chaos around her unharmed. LITERALLY through, in some cases.

She didn’t know what Giles thought he would find in his books to explain all of that. None of it seemed related. Some was from mythology, some were impressions or feelings, some were animals, and some were completely unknown.

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that events were starting to move quickly and wondered what would happen next.

She really hoped Giles was right and she could get some sleep now.

The door banged downstairs and her mother called her name. When she replied that she was home, she was summoned downstairs.

When Buffy reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to the kitchen where her mother was putting away groceries, she felt the excitement in her mother’s grin.

“Oh, Buffy. You won’t believe it! I got a phone call from one of your cousins while you were out . He wants to meet you.”

As her mother came around the island, Buffy noticed that her eyes were sparkling.

“You’ve been invited to New York!! He said you can stay in the mansion that the school consists of or with him and his wife in their home nearby. It was quite the talk we had. He’s sending first-class tickets and he said that since I can’t come - I can’t leave at this stage of preparations of the new show - he said you can bring a friend, just so you feel safe! Oh, Buffy,” and her mom took her hands, “just think. A vacation away from the Hellmouth. Nothing usually happens during the summer, so it’s the perfect time. Plus, you were just saying that with everything the Mayor had been planning, most of the demons had left town so they wouldn’t get eaten or killed with all the humans. I know you’ll have a fantastic time. There is SO much to see in New York.”

And as her mother chattered on, Buffy reflected that she hadn’t been expecting this.

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End Notes: Could Booster1 e-mail me? I have some questions about the N’Gari, and can‘t seem to find the information I need. Thanks!