Fic: Through Carnival Mirrors; Willow/Tara; PG-13. 13/?
Title: Through Carnival Mirrors
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: Willow/Tara
Rated: PG-13
Warnings: femslash, character death, AU, angst.
Words: 1490
Summary: "And it just keeps going on and on, and these alternate universes are right here but we can't touch them or breach the gap between them." Except on a Hellmouth, sometimes you can breach the gap.
Disclaimer: This world and these characters don't belong to me.
A/N: Yayy, another one!
Willow stood firm on Kingman’s Bluff, facing the temple she had raised. The boundless energy rising inside her almost hurt, but she revelled in the sensation. “Proserpexa,” she continued her chant, “let the cleansing fires from the depths burn away the suffering souls... And bring sweet death.”
For a moment, foolishly, she wondered if it wouldn’t work. The air around her crackled but she felt nothing to signify that a spell had worked. But the energy built steadily and after the shortest of pauses, light began to swirl around her, and she threw her head back as a jet of green shot out of her chest and towards the statue and she was connected.
“It seems consistent with my theory. Willow, do you remember your look-alike vampire self, whom we sent back to her own reality?” All six heads in the room nodded. “I believe that the visions you have been experiencing are in fact true, in an alternate reality. For some reason, possibly due to the mystical energy from the Hellmouth, there has been a breach in the fabric of reality, causing you to be able to see into this alternate world.”
There was another moment of silence, and then the room erupted.
“Of course! Freshman year calculus, all those times we talked about -”
“God, I’m so stupid! How could I not realize…”
Anya was the most distressed. “Stupid, stupid! I should have known! Alternate realities, duh! I mean, I was the reason that other Willow was here in the first place. I’ve been around for a thousand years and we researched for hours and I couldn’t come up with alternate realities?”
Willow fell to her knees. The light connecting her to the statue was gone; the wind swirling around her died down. Alternate realities.
In this vision, and all the others, Tara was alive. There was a reality where Tara was alive, and in that reality, there was a different Willow who was having visions of this Willow. And if this Willow could see into that world, she could get there.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly from the doorway to the master bedroom. “You guys doing okay?”
Tara, lying awake and trying to soothe her fitfully sleeping girlfriend, shrugged. “That last one was bad. She hasn’t woken up.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Buffy offered. She stepped into the room. “She can sleep until we figure out how to block the visions, and then everything will be good again.”
Tara looked down at Willow and chewed on her lip.
“I called the cops,” Buffy added.
“Oh, god, did you need me to bind him?” Tara sat up as quickly as she could without disturbing Willow.
“Nah. Rope works good.”
The witch smiled in spite of herself and lowered back down to hold Willow again. She pressed a kiss to her girlfriend’s temple and waved silently as Buffy stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Willow was shaking - just slightly, but to Tara, noticeably - and sweating a little. Her lips moved almost continuously, forming words sometimes silently and sometimes out loud. The blonde held her a little tighter. “We’ll fix it, Willow. I promise. Just hold on a little longer for me.”
The redheaded witch whimpered and squirmed in Tara’s embrace.
“Hey, black-eyed girl. Whatcha doin’?”
Xander. Not now, Willow groaned mentally. “Get out of here.”
“You're not the only one with powers, you know,” Xander continued, apparently unfazed. “You may be a hopped up uber-witch, but this carpenter can dry-wall you into the next century.”
“Oh, my God, give it a rest,” she rolled her eyes.
“No,” he planted his feet firmly. “I won’t let you do this.”
With a deep sigh, she pretended to think about it. “Hmm... Okay. Fine. You win. I won’t destroy the world.”
“Willow, I... What did you say?”
“I said I won’t destroy this world.” Xander stared at her in shock. “I’m done with it.”
“Have you found anything?” Giles called down the basement stairs. Willow’s collection of books was quite extensive and heavy, so they’d decided to research downstairs instead of carrying everything up to the living room.
“Nothing,” Anya’s voice carried up hopelessly.
“Well, basically everything we’ve read confirms what you said,” Dawn added as Giles made his way down the stairs and set freshly brewed pots of tea and coffee on the table. “And there’s stuff on how to get to other dimensions, how to open portals, how to close portals, how to see into other dimensions... basically everything except how to stop seeing into other dimensions.”
Giles paused. “Find me one on how to see into an alternate reality.”
All three researchers flipped through their books, but Xander found it first. “Here.”
“Keep looking, you two, we might need a different version...” the Watcher muttered, becoming absorbed in the text. “This isn’t in a language I know... damn.”
“Oooh! Here! Latin!” Dawn cried out, thrusting her book across the table.
Eagerly, Giles took the book and ran his finger down the page with the spell on it. “Yes,” he nodded, looking as close to excited as any of them had ever seen him. “Just as I thought. I believe, as long as the spell is in a language we know, that we will be able to reverse it. It will take some work, and rewriting, and also we’ll have to figure out how to direct its effects specifically to Willow. But I believe it will work.”
“So... translating?” Dawn grinned; she was getting pretty good at the translating stuff.
Xander and Anya groaned.
“Anya.” Willow’s voice startled the vengeance demon, making her look up from her position on the floor of the Magic Box with Giles.
“Aww, grandpa’s not doing too good. Well, I’ll make this quick.”
Anya stood warily and placed herself between Willow and Giles.
“That’s cute. But I’m not after him. I need you. See, Anya, I didn’t want your help before. I wanted to kill Jonathan and Andrew myself. But now, I couldn’t care less about them. I’ve moved on.”
She stepped closer. “I could do it myself, of course, but this is faster, and I’m so done with all this boring work and everyone trying to stop me. You see, all I have to do is just say those two little words.”
“No,” Anya shook her head. She’d already been forced to help Willow once today, by the witch’s powers. But to be forced by her own...
“Anya,” the witch smiled. “I wish I was in the universe I’ve been seeing in my visions. Where Tara is.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected. The witch’s plans had changed, and the request somehow felt strange, but there was undeniably a thirst for vengeance mixed somewhere in there. Anya found herself powerless to resist.
“Done.”
“Whoa.” The witch brought her hands to her head, struggling momentarily to get her bearings. She was no longer in the Magic Box, but standing on the sidewalk in Revello Drive.
I wish I was in the universe I’ve been seeing in my visions. Where Tara is.
Tara was here. Inside this house. Maybe that was why Anya had brought her here. Willow cast out her energy into the house. She felt four presences in the basement, as familiar to her as if they were her own friends, from her own dimension - Giles, Xander, Anya, and Dawn. Giles was uninjured. Huh.
Buffy was alone on the first floor. Upstairs, Willow could feel herself - the weak, mousy version of herself, and in fact, weaker than ever. She felt Tara, so pure and beautiful she almost wanted to cry. She stepped forward, ready to force her way past Buffy and upstairs, when an eighth presence made her stop cold.
Warren.
Her anger came flooding back. She’d killed him in one dimension, wouldn’t two be even better? And it wasn’t like Tara was going anywhere. Willow could just get upstairs - she could fly up to the second story and use a window, and no one would even be the wiser - and she could find Andrew and Jonathan and kill them too. Then, once she’d had her revenge, she could come back for Tara.
Her mind made up, she floated silently around to the window of Buffy’s room.
It was too easy. A flick of her hand to open the window. Another to silence the scream Warren had just drawn breath to utter. A moment to pause, smile, take it in.
She was neater this time. No blood, no mess, no body left behind. When she flicked her wrist again, Warren simply winked out of existence. For the briefest instant, it was as if he were invisible. A moment later, the ropes that had bound him slid down to pile on the seat of the chair.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: Willow/Tara
Rated: PG-13
Warnings: femslash, character death, AU, angst.
Words: 1490
Summary: "And it just keeps going on and on, and these alternate universes are right here but we can't touch them or breach the gap between them." Except on a Hellmouth, sometimes you can breach the gap.
Disclaimer: This world and these characters don't belong to me.
A/N: Yayy, another one!
Willow stood firm on Kingman’s Bluff, facing the temple she had raised. The boundless energy rising inside her almost hurt, but she revelled in the sensation. “Proserpexa,” she continued her chant, “let the cleansing fires from the depths burn away the suffering souls... And bring sweet death.”
For a moment, foolishly, she wondered if it wouldn’t work. The air around her crackled but she felt nothing to signify that a spell had worked. But the energy built steadily and after the shortest of pauses, light began to swirl around her, and she threw her head back as a jet of green shot out of her chest and towards the statue and she was connected.
“It seems consistent with my theory. Willow, do you remember your look-alike vampire self, whom we sent back to her own reality?” All six heads in the room nodded. “I believe that the visions you have been experiencing are in fact true, in an alternate reality. For some reason, possibly due to the mystical energy from the Hellmouth, there has been a breach in the fabric of reality, causing you to be able to see into this alternate world.”
There was another moment of silence, and then the room erupted.
“Of course! Freshman year calculus, all those times we talked about -”
“God, I’m so stupid! How could I not realize…”
Anya was the most distressed. “Stupid, stupid! I should have known! Alternate realities, duh! I mean, I was the reason that other Willow was here in the first place. I’ve been around for a thousand years and we researched for hours and I couldn’t come up with alternate realities?”
Willow fell to her knees. The light connecting her to the statue was gone; the wind swirling around her died down. Alternate realities.
In this vision, and all the others, Tara was alive. There was a reality where Tara was alive, and in that reality, there was a different Willow who was having visions of this Willow. And if this Willow could see into that world, she could get there.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly from the doorway to the master bedroom. “You guys doing okay?”
Tara, lying awake and trying to soothe her fitfully sleeping girlfriend, shrugged. “That last one was bad. She hasn’t woken up.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Buffy offered. She stepped into the room. “She can sleep until we figure out how to block the visions, and then everything will be good again.”
Tara looked down at Willow and chewed on her lip.
“I called the cops,” Buffy added.
“Oh, god, did you need me to bind him?” Tara sat up as quickly as she could without disturbing Willow.
“Nah. Rope works good.”
The witch smiled in spite of herself and lowered back down to hold Willow again. She pressed a kiss to her girlfriend’s temple and waved silently as Buffy stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Willow was shaking - just slightly, but to Tara, noticeably - and sweating a little. Her lips moved almost continuously, forming words sometimes silently and sometimes out loud. The blonde held her a little tighter. “We’ll fix it, Willow. I promise. Just hold on a little longer for me.”
The redheaded witch whimpered and squirmed in Tara’s embrace.
“Hey, black-eyed girl. Whatcha doin’?”
Xander. Not now, Willow groaned mentally. “Get out of here.”
“You're not the only one with powers, you know,” Xander continued, apparently unfazed. “You may be a hopped up uber-witch, but this carpenter can dry-wall you into the next century.”
“Oh, my God, give it a rest,” she rolled her eyes.
“No,” he planted his feet firmly. “I won’t let you do this.”
With a deep sigh, she pretended to think about it. “Hmm... Okay. Fine. You win. I won’t destroy the world.”
“Willow, I... What did you say?”
“I said I won’t destroy this world.” Xander stared at her in shock. “I’m done with it.”
“Have you found anything?” Giles called down the basement stairs. Willow’s collection of books was quite extensive and heavy, so they’d decided to research downstairs instead of carrying everything up to the living room.
“Nothing,” Anya’s voice carried up hopelessly.
“Well, basically everything we’ve read confirms what you said,” Dawn added as Giles made his way down the stairs and set freshly brewed pots of tea and coffee on the table. “And there’s stuff on how to get to other dimensions, how to open portals, how to close portals, how to see into other dimensions... basically everything except how to stop seeing into other dimensions.”
Giles paused. “Find me one on how to see into an alternate reality.”
All three researchers flipped through their books, but Xander found it first. “Here.”
“Keep looking, you two, we might need a different version...” the Watcher muttered, becoming absorbed in the text. “This isn’t in a language I know... damn.”
“Oooh! Here! Latin!” Dawn cried out, thrusting her book across the table.
Eagerly, Giles took the book and ran his finger down the page with the spell on it. “Yes,” he nodded, looking as close to excited as any of them had ever seen him. “Just as I thought. I believe, as long as the spell is in a language we know, that we will be able to reverse it. It will take some work, and rewriting, and also we’ll have to figure out how to direct its effects specifically to Willow. But I believe it will work.”
“So... translating?” Dawn grinned; she was getting pretty good at the translating stuff.
Xander and Anya groaned.
“Anya.” Willow’s voice startled the vengeance demon, making her look up from her position on the floor of the Magic Box with Giles.
“Aww, grandpa’s not doing too good. Well, I’ll make this quick.”
Anya stood warily and placed herself between Willow and Giles.
“That’s cute. But I’m not after him. I need you. See, Anya, I didn’t want your help before. I wanted to kill Jonathan and Andrew myself. But now, I couldn’t care less about them. I’ve moved on.”
She stepped closer. “I could do it myself, of course, but this is faster, and I’m so done with all this boring work and everyone trying to stop me. You see, all I have to do is just say those two little words.”
“No,” Anya shook her head. She’d already been forced to help Willow once today, by the witch’s powers. But to be forced by her own...
“Anya,” the witch smiled. “I wish I was in the universe I’ve been seeing in my visions. Where Tara is.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected. The witch’s plans had changed, and the request somehow felt strange, but there was undeniably a thirst for vengeance mixed somewhere in there. Anya found herself powerless to resist.
“Done.”
“Whoa.” The witch brought her hands to her head, struggling momentarily to get her bearings. She was no longer in the Magic Box, but standing on the sidewalk in Revello Drive.
I wish I was in the universe I’ve been seeing in my visions. Where Tara is.
Tara was here. Inside this house. Maybe that was why Anya had brought her here. Willow cast out her energy into the house. She felt four presences in the basement, as familiar to her as if they were her own friends, from her own dimension - Giles, Xander, Anya, and Dawn. Giles was uninjured. Huh.
Buffy was alone on the first floor. Upstairs, Willow could feel herself - the weak, mousy version of herself, and in fact, weaker than ever. She felt Tara, so pure and beautiful she almost wanted to cry. She stepped forward, ready to force her way past Buffy and upstairs, when an eighth presence made her stop cold.
Warren.
Her anger came flooding back. She’d killed him in one dimension, wouldn’t two be even better? And it wasn’t like Tara was going anywhere. Willow could just get upstairs - she could fly up to the second story and use a window, and no one would even be the wiser - and she could find Andrew and Jonathan and kill them too. Then, once she’d had her revenge, she could come back for Tara.
Her mind made up, she floated silently around to the window of Buffy’s room.
It was too easy. A flick of her hand to open the window. Another to silence the scream Warren had just drawn breath to utter. A moment to pause, smile, take it in.
She was neater this time. No blood, no mess, no body left behind. When she flicked her wrist again, Warren simply winked out of existence. For the briefest instant, it was as if he were invisible. A moment later, the ropes that had bound him slid down to pile on the seat of the chair.