When Dawn Is Due [Spring Fling 2010 Fic Exchange, for larah33, BtVS]

[malinaldarose]

Title: When Dawn Is Due
Recipient: larah33
Author: malinaldarose
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character(s): Pretty much the entire later season ensemble
Prompt: "Watch them when dawn is due, sharing one space." -- Al Jarreau, Moonlighting
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,925 or so
Beta: Thanks to bethynyc for some excellent suggestions and the reminder that there is

Comments

"Sunnydale has an excellent bus station."

[brightknightie]

I enjoyed this. I found Tara's deflection of Dawn's spell a clever story complication, and this depiction of Tara entirely satisfying (she has been my favorite since the first episode in which I saw her -- which was out of order, and so not her first episode). I kept hoping that the story would veer entirely into AU and release the characters from sliding any further down the slope of canon... but slotting back neatly into canon is enjoyable, too. :-)

>"and I hope not really all that noticeable."

The massage of the timeline slipped by me entirely until I read your note; I've never rewatched this season, so the building blocks in my memory slid around smoothly where nudged by the story.

>"...Tara -- in collusion with Xander -- just chose something else"

This is my favorite line of the story. You pack a great deal of character exposition into this quiet action, for all four of the characters mentioned.

>"She sighed. She'd have to have a talk with Dawn about love spells, because no one else would. Willow would only be chagrined that she hadn't thought of it first."

This is the runner-up passage for me.

I enjoy that Dawn is acting as if in the place of a shipper, trying to reunite her favorite characters, as it were, while she is simultaneously acting as a child of divorced parents, certain that they must reunite and make again the home she depends on (and deserves), and yet again as a woefully uninformed child acting on impulse, with several things in the real world for her fantasy activity to parallel. And of course I enjoy Tara's maturity and responsibility.

>""Looking for Willow," he answered."

As soon as I read this statement, I realized what had happened to the spell. :-) Good storytelling move.

Thank you for sharing.

Re: "Sunnydale has an excellent bus station."

[malinaldarose]

Tara is also a favorite of mine. =)

I gave some serious thought to an AU story, because it's very difficult to get Willow/Oz and Buffy/Spike into the same story, because those combinations happen at different points in the overall timeline. (And I may still go back and write that other story idea I had from the same prompt, which was entirely AU.)

Re: "Sunnydale has an excellent bus station."

[larah33]

(And I may still go back and write that other story idea I had from the same prompt, which was entirely AU.)

YES PLEASE!!! ^_^

Re: "Sunnydale has an excellent bus station."

[malinaldarose]

So...you're not really interested, then? ;-)

Re: "Sunnydale has an excellent bus station."

[larah33]

See below. ;-P