if you can't love me, honey, go on just pretend.
I can honestly say that I wasn't in any way looking forward to seeing Dawn Summers again. Personally, I'm sure that I had indulged in her enough the first time. Between the warmer side I'd seen earlier and the true ice cold bitch routine, that I'm sure she could have practiced and gotten a little better at had she consulted her roommate, I'd had my
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"Fear is a tricky thing you know? It's healthy to fear things, otherwise you'd be in some real trouble. That twinge in the back of your mind when you're walking alone at night. Fear keeps you safe but being overcome by it is just wrong I guess. I mean it's ok to be afraid of the dark but are you going to sleep with the lights on all the time?"
I shook my head, "Not the best example but it's better than saying don't let the fear of falling keep you from making the jump."
Which was some advice I probably needed follow but whatever. I followed it in my life just not with people. People were no better than demons most of the time. Whenever I thought about trusting someone and letting them close I thought about Ben, a human with a soul who gave up a little girl to die, I thought about RJ who used people for his own purposes and those were just my expieriences, not even Buffy's or Spike's. People sucked and I had a really hard time trusting them.
He supplied some Latin phrases and I smiled again.
"Love is the essence of life, devil's advocate, Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even."
I was still floored that he knew any latin at all but I was slowly starting to remember that I'd known from the beginning there was more to him; I just hadn't expected to see it. I didn't want to see it.
I laughed to myself when he rhetorically asked what he'd need a dead language for.
"Nothing if you're lucky."
Which was true, I needed it because I got called on for translations from half the slayers in the states. I needed it because I was in the middle of translating a prophecy for Wesley because he was too busy and I needed it because well it saved my life on occasion when I was out patrolling with Leslie; but me needing it was different from anyone else needing it. Most people in my class took it for for pre-med or pre-law, I took it because I loved it and I wanted to improve. If UCLA had a Turkish class I'd be in heaven. Not like they'd offer any demon languages so I tended to study those on my own.
"I like languages," I said at the look he gave me, "I had to learn Itlian in two weeks when I moved to Rome with my sister. It's weird, I'm aware." I shrugged.
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Things in my life were almost always extremes. I could learn to bounce back from the impact, but every action taken was never subtle. It was always a scene. Always something more. There was no in between and there was no grey area.
Saying these things, implying the philosophy, had always been easier than actually doing it yourself. People used other people. Situations changed things. Hell, I'd been involved in more than one messy situation. Human nature was essentially fucked. In the end it would always be some form of survival of the fittest. Though living for the moment meant you were supposed to have lived instead of merely existing. I can't help but think of those in my life who lived for the moment and ended up with a deadly blow to the head. Lilly, for example, lived and died too young to the point I had wondered if she had lived at all.
I mirrored her smile briefly as she translated the Latin I had spoken. Nodding towards her briefly, I had a feeling that there was something major that I was missing when it came to her. "Words to live by," I said, though quietly and mostly to myself. Maybe not 'devil's advocate' so much.
I could tell that she liked languages. It wasn't a stretch to think that she loved words. There was a reason she was in drama and dance, they were just other languagues - other ways to communicate.
"I heard you lived in Rome," I said. I had never been, but my mom and dad had been. "Out any kind of move, that's pretty huge," I commented. My biggest move was Los Angeles to Neptune and back again.
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Though in my life maybe it was, who knew. I'd escaped hell demensions on more than one occasion and was sincerly happy about that. As much as I would have loved to be a child bride of a demon - not so much. I'd been doing alternate research on my own about my origins, but so far there was nothing I didn't know already. It was frustrating as hell.
I nodded when he said he'd heard I'd lived in Rome, I'd gotten used to it being a hot topic around campus. I was almost a celebrity, which was really strange to me.
"I'm originally from L.A. then Sunnydale before the big earthquake two years ago. My sister and I just decided we needed out of California and then I realized I missed it. Oxford, Harvard Yale, Stanford and I choose UCLA."
I shrugged not really caring that I'd just told him more than I usually did. I rarely told people I'd given up Oxford, Harvard and Yale to go to UCLA. I still questioned my choice.
"UCLA has one of the best Dance instructors in the country. I was less into Academics and more into just going to school. I figured it was an easy choice."
I responded because he gave me a look at the mention of those schools. Which is what I'd expected. Madison told me never to tell guys I'd been accepted to Oxford, they'd think I was boring and lifeless and a nerd - which I was all of those things so whatever.
Why I'd told him though I wasn't sure.
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There'd only really been one reason that I knew of Dawn - other than the fact that she was the only other good actress within our drama class - and it was because of her Rome trip. I'm sure she was sick of a multitude of questions about her life there and what things were like. I wasn't so very curious other than the fact that she'd gone with her sister, making her sister sound like her guardian. Maybe her sister was.
"I was born in L.A. too," I told her, nodding for a moment. "Then we moved to Neptune when I was like twelve and I moved back here for school." I'm not sure why I informed her of any of it. I remember hearing that news about the big earthquake the obliterated the whole town of Sunnydale when it left other towns without damage.
Weirder things have happened.
She lets out this soft sigh concerning the schools she was accepted to and the school she ended up going to - this school. Part of me almost wondered why she hadn't picked something like Oxford or Stanford. She almost sounds like she'd enjoy it more.
"UCLA has one of the best Dance instructors in the country. I was less into Academics and more into just going to school. I figured it was an easy choice."
I'd been accepted to Stanford, Berkeley and, though I hadn't applied to Oxford, Harvard or Yale, I was sure that I could have gotten in alone on my SAT scores.
"After school finished, I considered just putting my finger on a map and going where ever I landed," I started. It was something I still planned on doing one day, but I knew if I had done it then some sort of diaster would strike or I would end up alone and a hermit. "So, I just mixed up the acceptance letters and picked one instead. Life takes you different places," I said with a small shrug.
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