Flash challenge 1: Ficlet
What happens at your first Watcher/Slayer training session? Clue: Giles has a book.
Characters: Giles, Buffy
Rating: G
A/N: Written for flash challenge 1 at Phantasmagoria.
“Vampyr. Ominous much? Also: vague. What about vampires?”
“You have to understand, Buffy: this volume is the distilled intelligence of thousands of years of the Watchers’ Council. The title is… um… perhaps a touch on the traditional side. But it deserves respect and careful study. If we renamed it ‘Everything you wanted to know about Vampires but were afraid to ask’ it might lose a touch of gravitas.”
“Giles, this isn’t a sacred scroll. Half this book is pasted in. It’s like an antique personal organiser. Well, antiquey-er. Who uses organisers now?”
“I think perhaps we’re straying from the purpose of today’s study session. And the reason for the… um… compilation effect, is that the volume needs regular updating. We get frequent mailouts of additional information.”
“Which come together to make a beautiful collection in this presentation binder. OK, I get it, it‘s a partwork.”
“It is a great deal more than that, and there‘s nothing clever about mockery. This single volume covers all you should need in basic mythology; history; slaying techniques from the traditional to the experimental; geographical distribution; population dynamics; feeding patterns and… um… a short chapter on pronunciation.”
“Because that’s a vital Slayer skill?”
“No. Because it’s excruciating when someone calls them vampyres.“
“Ah. You Watchers, you really go to the heart of things.”
“No, that would be your job.”
“Giles. Did you just mock me?”
Characters: Giles, Buffy
Rating: G
A/N: Written for flash challenge 1 at Phantasmagoria.
“Vampyr. Ominous much? Also: vague. What about vampires?”
“You have to understand, Buffy: this volume is the distilled intelligence of thousands of years of the Watchers’ Council. The title is… um… perhaps a touch on the traditional side. But it deserves respect and careful study. If we renamed it ‘Everything you wanted to know about Vampires but were afraid to ask’ it might lose a touch of gravitas.”
“Giles, this isn’t a sacred scroll. Half this book is pasted in. It’s like an antique personal organiser. Well, antiquey-er. Who uses organisers now?”
“I think perhaps we’re straying from the purpose of today’s study session. And the reason for the… um… compilation effect, is that the volume needs regular updating. We get frequent mailouts of additional information.”
“Which come together to make a beautiful collection in this presentation binder. OK, I get it, it‘s a partwork.”
“It is a great deal more than that, and there‘s nothing clever about mockery. This single volume covers all you should need in basic mythology; history; slaying techniques from the traditional to the experimental; geographical distribution; population dynamics; feeding patterns and… um… a short chapter on pronunciation.”
“Because that’s a vital Slayer skill?”
“No. Because it’s excruciating when someone calls them vampyres.“
“Ah. You Watchers, you really go to the heart of things.”
“No, that would be your job.”
“Giles. Did you just mock me?”