Training Day

[bratty_dawn]

Who: Dawn and Buffy
Where: Training Room of the Mansion
When: Mid-morning
What: Buffy and Dawn hanging, working on some training techniques
Status: Complete :)

Comments

[theslayer_buffy]

Buffy tied her tennis shoes and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. It was extra cold today and therefore, the perfect excuse to spend an endless amount of time in the training room. She saw a number of girls thinking the exact opposite, as they rushed to play in the snow or cuddle up with a book. But, instead of huddling under a blanket with, well, no one, she thought she would just keep herself moving. And what better way to do that than with a nice work out? Plus, she had been neglecting any sort of training lately.

She headed down to the training room and stopped in the doorway as she saw her sister wandering aimlessly through the training supplies. Arching a brow, she almost wanted to laugh at her clueless sister, who was staring so intently at the punching bag as though it might suddenly talk.

"What'cha doing, Dawn? Come down here to stare so hard at everything you'll magically know how to use it all?" she teased her sister, then paused, "Actually, that's probably possible in our world."

[bratty_dawn]

Dawn jumped a tad when Buffy asked her the question. She hadn't even heard her come in there, after all! "You know, we should talk to Willow about that. There's probably a spell for that somewhere or another, and we'd be all suped up and awesome at flinging swords around and stuff." Dawn thought on that. "That would probably be a spell frowned upon by Giles, though, wouldn't it?" Just her luck there.

"No, I'm...trying to figure out something to do in order to train for having a Slayer soon," Dawn said to her, still looking around the place. Really, she couldn't even decide what she should start with. If she tried a sword, she might take out a wall, and that's if she was lucky to only do that. Going after a punching bag would mostly just mean flailing at it right now. She should probably ask somebody.

"Buffy, what should a Watcher teach a Slayer, like, the physical stuff? Do I have to know judo or something like that? Can I just teach her which end of the stake to use, or is it more than that?"

[theslayer_buffy]

"Yeah, Giles is a bit old-fashioned. I think he'd rather we gained our knowledge from his endless supply of books," Buffy said. Not to mention, the last time Willow 'absorbed' knowledge, she went--no Star Wars pun intended, really--to the dark side. Oh god, she needed to not speak to Andrew. His nerdiness was rubbing off on her thoughts.

"Oh that's right," she said, "I totally forgot you were getting your own little slayer soon." She wondered how awkward that might be for one of the newbies since Dawn was so young. Of course, if the girl gave her sister any trouble, she'd have this slayer to answer to. Either way, it was a big task, but her sister was mature and bookwormy, so she knew she'd be fine

[bratty_dawn]

"Gaining knowledge solely through books sounds like it would be a lot easier right now," Dawn said to Buffy. "Books are good. Books don't usually leave bruises or broken bones, unless you're just swinging it around in a circle and trying to hit people with them, but that's a bad way to use a book and Giles gets really mad when you do that."

"Yep, my own Slayer. I think we got a new one, too." She knew that Xander had went to pick one up from the airport, but she hadn't seen the other girl yet. "So, that should be fun. I *think* I'll get Saskia, though. She's really nice, and we're already friends, so hopefully that will work." And, while Dawn was young, Saskia was still a few years younger than her, so, at least she wouldn't be trying to train a girl older than her.

"Well, now there's the option of getting you or even Faith to spar with a younger Slayer," Dawn pointed out. "Kind of lucky of us to have, really. I'd rather not turn into one giant bruise like Giles was, thanks."

[theslayer_buffy]

"Coming from someone who skipped the slayer handbook, I think there's a lot more you can learn not from books," Buffy said, "Except Giles should have probably cracked it open so I could have learned how to not die a little better. Twice is kind of a lot."

She nodded to her sister's words, "Saskia's great. But, I think she might be over-influenced by Andrew's geekiness, so be forewarned. At least he was trying to convert her when we all first met," she said, laughing slightly. "I can put my word in so you get her since I'm kinda sorta still the boss, you know. If you want me to, that is."

She shrugged her shoulders, "Yeah, I'd definitely volunteer for some of the training. I've been little miss avoidy lately with a lot of the training stuff for the newbies, but I'm trying to get more involved again. So, I'll help out with whatever you need. Just ask."

[bratty_dawn]

"Plenty that you can learn from actual experience rather than books," Dawn agreed. Well, Buffy had learned most of her stuff from experience rather than books. Buffy wasn't a book person. Nothing bad about that, really. Just kind of her style. Dawn just happened to be more of a book person, herself. Of course, Dawn had 'grown up' around this sort of stuff, sneaking books because Buffy wouldn't let her read them and such. Books kicked ass, in Dawn's personal opinion

[theslayer_buffy]

"Good," she said, "I doubt she'll give you any trouble, too." She knew Saskia would probably be just as nervous having Dawn as her watcher as Dawn was to finally be in charge of a slayer. But, oddly enough, Buffy figured that would actually be a good match-up.

She laughed lightly, "Yeah, I'm sure Giles can tell you some stories. But, I'm sure if your slayer accidentally wacked you with a large pole, she'd apologize instead of be all giddy about it." She was totally guilty of being smug and overly-happy whenever she bested Giles. Or proved him wrong with her skills, at least.

She perched on the pommel horse as she looked at her sister, "Is there anything else you need help with?" She had to admit that Buffy didn't know much of what was happening in Dawn's life anymore. "Or anything else going on with you? I feel like I have no idea what anyone is doing anymore."

[bratty_dawn]

"I'm not sure Saskia knows how to give much trouble," Dawn joked. Of course, it was kind of one of the things that she liked about Saskia was the fact that the girl was just so darn nice and non-trouble causing. Dawn had been in and caused enough trouble for a lifetime, and technically she was only about three or four years old. Of course, that was almost a sheer technicality at this point. No one mentioned it, anymore.

She laughed when Buffy told her about being giddy about whacking Giles with a pole. "Yeah, well, at least he let you play with the crossbow after that, right?" She remembered all about that. She was pretty sure he HAD given her the crossbow after that.

"Not much is going on in the life of Dawn, actually," she admitted to her sister. "Not really much to squeeze in between some school, some training, and some studying for being a Watcher. At least it's a good way to keep out of too much trouble." Being busy was a way to keep out of trouble. Maybe it was why she had grown to like being busy.

[theslayer_buffy]

"Even better," Buffy said, nodding with some satisfaction. She had never made it easy for Giles , but she didn't want her sister to have a hard time as a first time watcher. Of course, she'd been watcher junior for so long that it seemed ridiculous she didn't already have a slayer of her own

[bratty_dawn]

Dawn had been studying for this all her life, huh? Well, maybe not literally, but for as long as she had really been around, she had always been immersed in this life. She was born to be a watcher. One time she thought that she had been a potential slayer, but that was something that didn't quite run in the family, it seemed

[theslayer_buffy]

Buffy laughed at Dawn's sheer confusion at her contradictory sisterly advice. "I'm definitely your sister. And no, obviously I don't want you to go around and get drunk and do drugs and boink a bunch of boys," she said, "But, I mean, having the boyfriend thing is a good experience

[bratty_dawn]

Dawn actually giggled when Buffy said 'boink.' Such a weird word for sex, honestly. Not like she'd ever, you know, experienced it or anything, but it was still a weird word for something that was so intimate. "I'm sure having a boyfriend *is* a good experience if you can get out and meet a normal one, you know," she said

[theslayer_buffy]

"True," she agreed, "It is hard to manage the crazy life schedule, complete with a boy, schedule. But, somehow you find a way. With me, it was usually easy since I sort of combined the two. But, I so don't recommend it. It just leads to badness and well, more badness."

Buffy laughed lightly at Dawn's teasing, "Hey, Parker was an ass, he totally deserves the grudge holding and I suggested to Willow long ago that if I brought him to a cave that vampires just happened to inhabit, it wouldn't really be like I killed him. I could just, you know, not save him," she said innocently. "I'm sure he has some disease by now. Or maybe he impregnated half the freshmen class, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I already got all vindicated from dating Scott Hope in high school with him telling everyone I was a big lesbian since he's gay now. So, there's gotta be something big and karmic that hit Parker

[bratty_dawn]

"So not wanting to combine the two," Dawn said quickly. "I'd rather have to work harder at balancing the two than try to have a boyfriend that was somehow involved in all of this." It sounded kind of bad, but, after seeing how *not* well it had worked out for her sister time and time again, Dawn really had no interest in finding someone who worked in their field. OK, maybe another junior Watcher such as herself wouldn't be *too* bad of an idea, but she'd have to FIND a suitable one first

[theslayer_buffy]

Buffy didn't blame her at all for wanting a normal boyfriend. She used to crave that so much, but found that trying to hide her identity was an even more exhausting job than being the slayer. Luckily for Dawn, she wasn't the slayer, so it was probably easier for her to try out the normal life thing. Plus, she so didn't want her sister dating vampires.

She laughed along with her sister, "God, I hope so. He totally deserved whatever he got. Of course, giving him a pretty serious concussion when I was all cave slayer was some nice closure. And Riley told me he punched him in the face once," she said, smiling slightly to herself, wishing she could have seen it.

"Well, you should totally start filling out applications to places, then," she said, "Plus, I bet a lot of kids are going back out-of-town for classes after their winter break, so there's probably a lot of openings."

(OOC: Sorry! This one kind of got buried in the inbox!)

[bratty_dawn]

Dawn had only gotten the description of what it had been like to see cave!Buffy, since it had happened at the college while Buffy was off mooning over Parker and drinking her sorrows away. The story had been pretty funny. Of course, the other cave people had caused some trouble and apparently started a fire, and Buffy, still feeling her Slayer instincts, had managed to rescue them. Showed that Buffy would save people no matter what was going on in her head, even drunk on cave woman beer