Ficathon fic: Triplicate (Willow, PG13)
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Triplicate
Characters Willow, Buffy, Dawn
Rating PG13
Word count 900
A/N For the Comics Covers ficathon, run by deird1, comic #19 Time of Your Life IV
A/N 2 As per ficathon instructions, no comics canon was used in the making of this fic. If you’d like to read this as Willow in the Rulesverse, you’d be very welcome to. It’s sorta-kinda-not-quite Rulesverse canon at present.
Dawn sounded tense. “Is she coming?”
“Of course she’s coming.” Buffy was so strong, so definite. “She wouldn’t let us down.”
“Okay. I’m leaving,” said Dawn.
“Don’t be mean.”
“I can’t take it. The way she looks at me now.” Dawn was creeped out.
Buffy didn’t get it, obviously. “It’s just a look.”
“She sees green. When she looks at me. She sees the Key.”
Couldn’t keep quiet at that one. “I’m sorry, Dawn.”
“Willow! Didn’t hear you come in!”
“No. I get that a lot now.”
*
Willow gets that a lot now. It’s like people don’t quite connect with her. Or else maybe they’re freaked that the teleportation is so quiet, so instant, so little like the thundercloud of power Willow used to use. It took a hell of a lot more power, of course, but discreetly. And if you’re working for an international mystical agency, discretion is good, and being able to travel long distances in an instant is even better. Greener too.
Green like Dawn. Willow hasn’t seen Dawn’s face for months. Just the green.
*
Now, I don’t think I have an actual mental health issue. Not the kind you can diagnose psychiatrically. I think it’s the magic.
Because I have this narrator now. Third person exposition in my head, whatever I’m doing. Not a nice narrator, either.
I first met the narrator years ago. Lots of people did. Willow doesn’t live here any more, it said. Kinda OTT, really. Supervillain mwahahaha and all that jazz. It’s calmer now. More discreet. Like the teleportation, in fact. Very like the way that went: more discreet, and ten times more powerful.
My narrator doesn’t use my voice any more. Just my brain. Willow-brain, submerging as the Witch rises.
(I call it the Witch. Seems like it needs a name. Naming the voices in your head... that’s not good, right?)
*
“Willow, we’re so glad you’re here.” Buffy was trying to cover for Dawn’s overheard words. Overdoing the enthusiasm.
It’s all right, Buffy. No one expects you to be cool with Willow. Not now. Not when she’s done so much.
“We really need you to-”
*
“We really need you to-”
This is where Willow went. Sunk under endless tides of “need you”. Need you to become the most powerful witch ever. To do what no other woman has ever done. To battle life and death.
Willow used to want that. Had ambitions and got ever deeper in. Until.
Until the dark days. And after that she held back, and feared, and lived with restraint. Until.
Until “we really needed” a miracle, to change the Slayer line.
Willow went dark, then Willow went light.
Willow finds this terminology problematic. Isn’t all power just... power?
(Giles finds that finding problematic. He avoids her too, these days. But she knows he’s watching. What else would a Watcher be doing?)
*
This time they needed me to confront the deepest mysteries of time. It was cool. Took a few days, sure.
Took a little more Willow-skin and Willow-bone. Willow-liver, actually, this time. Liver regenerates fast, so I like to use it. It’s a little disgusting, reaching through your own abdominal wall to harvest it, of course, but I almost never have helpers these days, so no one else need share the gross.
It worked, of course.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s where the gaps come from. The pieces of me that seem to get lost, I don’t know where. So there’s not so much Willow as there used to be. And the Witch creeps in to fill the holes.
But that would be a very literal interpretation of the magicks. So it’s probably just a coincidence. Right?
*
Willow gets the job done. Old Reliable, they used to call her - that was before the scary veiny phase, of course. The go-to gal. The big gun. More powerful than the Watchers, all by herself. That was after the dark magicks, but still they asked it.
That’s what they said of her. So it became the truth.
Thing is, what they were describing wasn’t a human being. So what does that make Willow now?
*
“Willow?” Buffy’s voice. Small, far away, insignificant.
“Willow, are you there?”
This is the real world, isn’t it?
*
Was she there when the spell was cast? How much time has passed?
Not sure. Been somewhere else awhile.
Sometimes it seems like between the narrator and the Witch and the people who want a piece of me... there’s not much left of Willow.
*
“Guys.... Get Giles. I think something’s wrong with Willow.”
*
Good one, Buff. Well spotted.
*
Such an unfriendly narrator, the Witch. Not good for friends, the dark magicks. It was bitter-sharp-sour enough, this time, to snap me out of it.
Whatever it was. Wherever I went. However the Witch got control this time.
*
“Buffy, no need to panic. I’m all here and totally with the programme. Just kind of a long refractory period on that one. Do I mean refractory?”
She was laughing. Silly Willow with her foolish babble. Thank the goddess, all back to normal.
She wouldn’t forget, though.
*
Buffy saw the Witch this time.
She knows I’m not all me any more.
*
Willow needs to do something about that knowledge.
*
Title Triplicate
Characters Willow, Buffy, Dawn
Rating PG13
Word count 900
A/N For the Comics Covers ficathon, run by deird1, comic #19 Time of Your Life IV
A/N 2 As per ficathon instructions, no comics canon was used in the making of this fic. If you’d like to read this as Willow in the Rulesverse, you’d be very welcome to. It’s sorta-kinda-not-quite Rulesverse canon at present.
Dawn sounded tense. “Is she coming?”
“Of course she’s coming.” Buffy was so strong, so definite. “She wouldn’t let us down.”
“Okay. I’m leaving,” said Dawn.
“Don’t be mean.”
“I can’t take it. The way she looks at me now.” Dawn was creeped out.
Buffy didn’t get it, obviously. “It’s just a look.”
“She sees green. When she looks at me. She sees the Key.”
Couldn’t keep quiet at that one. “I’m sorry, Dawn.”
“Willow! Didn’t hear you come in!”
“No. I get that a lot now.”
*
Willow gets that a lot now. It’s like people don’t quite connect with her. Or else maybe they’re freaked that the teleportation is so quiet, so instant, so little like the thundercloud of power Willow used to use. It took a hell of a lot more power, of course, but discreetly. And if you’re working for an international mystical agency, discretion is good, and being able to travel long distances in an instant is even better. Greener too.
Green like Dawn. Willow hasn’t seen Dawn’s face for months. Just the green.
*
Now, I don’t think I have an actual mental health issue. Not the kind you can diagnose psychiatrically. I think it’s the magic.
Because I have this narrator now. Third person exposition in my head, whatever I’m doing. Not a nice narrator, either.
I first met the narrator years ago. Lots of people did. Willow doesn’t live here any more, it said. Kinda OTT, really. Supervillain mwahahaha and all that jazz. It’s calmer now. More discreet. Like the teleportation, in fact. Very like the way that went: more discreet, and ten times more powerful.
My narrator doesn’t use my voice any more. Just my brain. Willow-brain, submerging as the Witch rises.
(I call it the Witch. Seems like it needs a name. Naming the voices in your head... that’s not good, right?)
*
“Willow, we’re so glad you’re here.” Buffy was trying to cover for Dawn’s overheard words. Overdoing the enthusiasm.
It’s all right, Buffy. No one expects you to be cool with Willow. Not now. Not when she’s done so much.
“We really need you to-”
*
“We really need you to-”
This is where Willow went. Sunk under endless tides of “need you”. Need you to become the most powerful witch ever. To do what no other woman has ever done. To battle life and death.
Willow used to want that. Had ambitions and got ever deeper in. Until.
Until the dark days. And after that she held back, and feared, and lived with restraint. Until.
Until “we really needed” a miracle, to change the Slayer line.
Willow went dark, then Willow went light.
Willow finds this terminology problematic. Isn’t all power just... power?
(Giles finds that finding problematic. He avoids her too, these days. But she knows he’s watching. What else would a Watcher be doing?)
*
This time they needed me to confront the deepest mysteries of time. It was cool. Took a few days, sure.
Took a little more Willow-skin and Willow-bone. Willow-liver, actually, this time. Liver regenerates fast, so I like to use it. It’s a little disgusting, reaching through your own abdominal wall to harvest it, of course, but I almost never have helpers these days, so no one else need share the gross.
It worked, of course.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s where the gaps come from. The pieces of me that seem to get lost, I don’t know where. So there’s not so much Willow as there used to be. And the Witch creeps in to fill the holes.
But that would be a very literal interpretation of the magicks. So it’s probably just a coincidence. Right?
*
Willow gets the job done. Old Reliable, they used to call her - that was before the scary veiny phase, of course. The go-to gal. The big gun. More powerful than the Watchers, all by herself. That was after the dark magicks, but still they asked it.
That’s what they said of her. So it became the truth.
Thing is, what they were describing wasn’t a human being. So what does that make Willow now?
*
“Willow?” Buffy’s voice. Small, far away, insignificant.
“Willow, are you there?”
This is the real world, isn’t it?
*
Was she there when the spell was cast? How much time has passed?
Not sure. Been somewhere else awhile.
Sometimes it seems like between the narrator and the Witch and the people who want a piece of me... there’s not much left of Willow.
*
“Guys.... Get Giles. I think something’s wrong with Willow.”
*
Good one, Buff. Well spotted.
*
Such an unfriendly narrator, the Witch. Not good for friends, the dark magicks. It was bitter-sharp-sour enough, this time, to snap me out of it.
Whatever it was. Wherever I went. However the Witch got control this time.
*
“Buffy, no need to panic. I’m all here and totally with the programme. Just kind of a long refractory period on that one. Do I mean refractory?”
She was laughing. Silly Willow with her foolish babble. Thank the goddess, all back to normal.
She wouldn’t forget, though.
*
Buffy saw the Witch this time.
She knows I’m not all me any more.
*
Willow needs to do something about that knowledge.
*