Fic: The Newest Potential
I thought it would be fun to combine prompts from several communities into a single challenge. Having done it, I'm not sure "fun" was the most fitting word for the experience. I felt more like a contortionist than a writer. :)
Prompts used:
* tamingthemuse: 456 - Consanguineal
* sb_fag_ends: two of the April Week 3 prompts: "trojan horse" and "female Pope"
* giles-shorts: April prompt: "sporting Giles"
Title: The Newest Potential
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 7
Word Count: 1241
Warnings: N/A
Rating: G
Summary: A new Potential arrives at Buffy's house.
Disclaimer: BtVS belongs to Joss, I own only my crazy imagination.
Dawn was vacillating between a Häagen-Dazs salted caramel ice cream bar and a banana for a snack, bogarting access to the freezer just in case, when Xander threw open the front door and with much fanfare, announced the arrival of the newest Potential. Next to her, Rona peeked into the same Häagen-Dazs box sheltering the last ice cream bar. Dawn grabbed it before she could choose the healthier alternative and come to regret it.
Instead of returning to her homework at the dining table, she followed a disappointed Rona and other Potentials making their way to the living room already bursting with the cacophony of heated discussion.
“Where?” Someone asked.
Dawn heard Xander’s grumble that this was the fourth time he’d had to repeat himself. Other potentials were clustered in twos and threes, stage-whispering and giggling with exaggerated body language. Craning her neck for a good look, she noticed a Asian teenager tucked into a corner of their over-sized sofa, hands neatly folded in lap, stealing glances at all the girls gathered around.
A boy teenager.
“Uhm.” Rona laughed. “That’s a dude.”
Xander let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, next time I’m waiting until everyone’s here before making announcements.”
He looked like he was about to continue when Buffy, who had been exchanging whispers with Giles from the side, stepped up and relieved him of the heat with a gentle tap on his shoulder. Xander slipped away to join Giles, who seemed anxious to talk to him in private.
“Listen up, girls,” said Buffy in her commanding voice, the one that tolerated no dissent. “This is Jeon Binchul, from South Korea.”
Dawn gave him another once over: hip sneakers, designer jeans, and a cool asymmetrical hairstyle simultaneously silky and spiked, like an anime character, which he flipped with a practiced casualness that was just too smooth to be accidental.
"He’s a Potential and your teammate, your brother in arms. Treat him as such. Am I clear?”
A smattering of girls mumbled their lackadaisical affirmation. A few were too busy batting their eyes to have been paying attention to Buffy. But the majority of them, Dawn noticed, looked more confused than ever.
“But how could it be?” Vi said in a small voice.
Rona was more brave. “You want us to step up, you want us to pull together, then don’t divide us with secrets.”
Kennedy added, “That’s not right. Slayer power is girl power.”
Buffy had “my work here is done” face. Dawn sidled up to her before she could join the Giles-Xander discussion. “Buffy? That’s a boy sitting over there. Imagine a boy Chosen One--that’s like having a female Pope, isn’t it? It’s against every code, every prophecy, every Council history book. You’re going to have to offer a better explanation than pulling rank.”
For a beat, Buffy only stared back. Dawn thought, watching her, how wigsome it was that Buffy could just put up an expressionless front and seal everything behind, bottle everything up. If Buffy had thought that being the Slayer was stripping her of her humanity, well, she should take a good look at herself today. Being the general of the Slayer army was turning her into a soldier and nothing else. Not a friend. Not a sister. And--she thought back to Spike’s expression of desperate longing, the way he still looked at Buffy when he thought nobody was watching--not a lover either.
Then, without giving anything away, Buffy said, “You’re right.” She turned to the group. “You need an explanation, and Giles and I will give you one.”
Giles stepped up. “Yes, erm, most unusual situation. Quite unprecedented, really. One which I myself would no doubt have puzzled over, if not for the thoughtful introductory letter Binchul had presented me, one penned by his Watcher, a Ms. Madeleine Thomas.” He pulled a letter out of his pocket and unfolded it.
“Fascinating! Absolutely fascinating!” Giles said, eyes pinging back and forth on the letter, absorbed in his private reading. It made sense that the former librarian would approach reading like a sport, one that required constant practice and dedication, and looked every bit as exciting and unpredictable as horse racing. Even a spectator sport, Dawn thought, watching Giles’ expression. He let the silence drag on as he shook his head in appreciation, the audience apparently forgotten. A girl in the back snickered.
“Uh, Giles? If you would please share it with the class?”
“Hmm? Oh, certainly. You see Binchul here”--he pointed to the boy now flipping his hair and smiling at one of the girls near by--“is one half of a pair of fraternal twins. His twin sister was, tragically, a stillborn.”
Binchul sniffed and Flirty Girl, now patting his shoulder, choked back a sympathetic sob.
“Now there is no Council record of Slayer power passing through consanguineal bonds--Ms. Thomas herself had researched extensively on the subject. However, she had a theory that I, with only superficial knowledge, cannot deny its merit. You have been told that a Potential is activated and elevated to full Slayer status when the previous Chosen One has fallen. That is true.” At this several Potentials cast a glance at Buffy in a way that made Dawn uncomfortable, as if Buffy was an obstacle that they had to, one way or another, overcome.
Missing the byplay completely, Giles continued, “There’s more to it, however. You see, some within the Council hold the belief that every Potential receives their Slayer power at birth, while their fate or potential to be the Chosen One is bestowed by the Powers That Be at conception. I’m sure you will all agree that this is simply fascinating--”
Dawn looked around the room. Flirty Girl was now holding hands with smooth K-popstar wannabe. Rona looked like the very image of not fascinated. Hard to impress, that one. Vi still looked confused. Chao-ahn was attempting to enter “consanguineal” into her hand-held electronic English-Chinese dictionary, and not having much luck with the spelling.
“--for the theory postulates that Binchul’s sister had been the intended recipient of the Slayer heritage. But before her fate could be written in stone, so to speak, at birth, her death robbed her of that potential, which then fell to Binchul. Thus, the cosmic balance that would have been upset by decreasing the count of potentials by one was restored. One has to hand it to the Powers That Be, the design is elegant and ingenious.” Giles looked relieved, as if the boy had single-handedly averted an apocalypse. Well, Dawn thought, who hadn’t?
Dawn supposed that it was a relief to no longer suspect the new Potential of being a spy--a trojan horse sent to them by followers of The First Evil in the disguise of a miraculous survivor--if only because any enemy would have come up with a theory more believable than the elaborate and improbable one just given by Giles. After all, the only thing stranger than fiction was life on the Hellmouth, so it had to be true. And thanks to Flirty Girl--and what was her name anyway?--they all knew he was corporeal, thus, not The First.
All the reassurance in the world could not convince Dawn to trust the boy Potential, though. She thought she’d keep an eye on him, as if there was any lack of eye-keeping on him. He acted like a player, not the newest soldier in the Slayer army.
And play time was definitely over.
~ The End ~
Related Entries the old fashioned way:
* Spuffy Fic: Here and Now
* Ficlet: A Glimpse into the Life of a Latchkey Kid (tamingthemuse prompt 455)
* Spuffy Fic: Chapter 3 of Edge of Sorrow, Heart of Truth
Prompts used:
* tamingthemuse: 456 - Consanguineal
* sb_fag_ends: two of the April Week 3 prompts: "trojan horse" and "female Pope"
* giles-shorts: April prompt: "sporting Giles"
Title: The Newest Potential
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 7
Word Count: 1241
Warnings: N/A
Rating: G
Summary: A new Potential arrives at Buffy's house.
Disclaimer: BtVS belongs to Joss, I own only my crazy imagination.
Dawn was vacillating between a Häagen-Dazs salted caramel ice cream bar and a banana for a snack, bogarting access to the freezer just in case, when Xander threw open the front door and with much fanfare, announced the arrival of the newest Potential. Next to her, Rona peeked into the same Häagen-Dazs box sheltering the last ice cream bar. Dawn grabbed it before she could choose the healthier alternative and come to regret it.
Instead of returning to her homework at the dining table, she followed a disappointed Rona and other Potentials making their way to the living room already bursting with the cacophony of heated discussion.
“Where?” Someone asked.
Dawn heard Xander’s grumble that this was the fourth time he’d had to repeat himself. Other potentials were clustered in twos and threes, stage-whispering and giggling with exaggerated body language. Craning her neck for a good look, she noticed a Asian teenager tucked into a corner of their over-sized sofa, hands neatly folded in lap, stealing glances at all the girls gathered around.
A boy teenager.
“Uhm.” Rona laughed. “That’s a dude.”
Xander let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, next time I’m waiting until everyone’s here before making announcements.”
He looked like he was about to continue when Buffy, who had been exchanging whispers with Giles from the side, stepped up and relieved him of the heat with a gentle tap on his shoulder. Xander slipped away to join Giles, who seemed anxious to talk to him in private.
“Listen up, girls,” said Buffy in her commanding voice, the one that tolerated no dissent. “This is Jeon Binchul, from South Korea.”
Dawn gave him another once over: hip sneakers, designer jeans, and a cool asymmetrical hairstyle simultaneously silky and spiked, like an anime character, which he flipped with a practiced casualness that was just too smooth to be accidental.
"He’s a Potential and your teammate, your brother in arms. Treat him as such. Am I clear?”
A smattering of girls mumbled their lackadaisical affirmation. A few were too busy batting their eyes to have been paying attention to Buffy. But the majority of them, Dawn noticed, looked more confused than ever.
“But how could it be?” Vi said in a small voice.
Rona was more brave. “You want us to step up, you want us to pull together, then don’t divide us with secrets.”
Kennedy added, “That’s not right. Slayer power is girl power.”
Buffy had “my work here is done” face. Dawn sidled up to her before she could join the Giles-Xander discussion. “Buffy? That’s a boy sitting over there. Imagine a boy Chosen One--that’s like having a female Pope, isn’t it? It’s against every code, every prophecy, every Council history book. You’re going to have to offer a better explanation than pulling rank.”
For a beat, Buffy only stared back. Dawn thought, watching her, how wigsome it was that Buffy could just put up an expressionless front and seal everything behind, bottle everything up. If Buffy had thought that being the Slayer was stripping her of her humanity, well, she should take a good look at herself today. Being the general of the Slayer army was turning her into a soldier and nothing else. Not a friend. Not a sister. And--she thought back to Spike’s expression of desperate longing, the way he still looked at Buffy when he thought nobody was watching--not a lover either.
Then, without giving anything away, Buffy said, “You’re right.” She turned to the group. “You need an explanation, and Giles and I will give you one.”
Giles stepped up. “Yes, erm, most unusual situation. Quite unprecedented, really. One which I myself would no doubt have puzzled over, if not for the thoughtful introductory letter Binchul had presented me, one penned by his Watcher, a Ms. Madeleine Thomas.” He pulled a letter out of his pocket and unfolded it.
“Fascinating! Absolutely fascinating!” Giles said, eyes pinging back and forth on the letter, absorbed in his private reading. It made sense that the former librarian would approach reading like a sport, one that required constant practice and dedication, and looked every bit as exciting and unpredictable as horse racing. Even a spectator sport, Dawn thought, watching Giles’ expression. He let the silence drag on as he shook his head in appreciation, the audience apparently forgotten. A girl in the back snickered.
“Uh, Giles? If you would please share it with the class?”
“Hmm? Oh, certainly. You see Binchul here”--he pointed to the boy now flipping his hair and smiling at one of the girls near by--“is one half of a pair of fraternal twins. His twin sister was, tragically, a stillborn.”
Binchul sniffed and Flirty Girl, now patting his shoulder, choked back a sympathetic sob.
“Now there is no Council record of Slayer power passing through consanguineal bonds--Ms. Thomas herself had researched extensively on the subject. However, she had a theory that I, with only superficial knowledge, cannot deny its merit. You have been told that a Potential is activated and elevated to full Slayer status when the previous Chosen One has fallen. That is true.” At this several Potentials cast a glance at Buffy in a way that made Dawn uncomfortable, as if Buffy was an obstacle that they had to, one way or another, overcome.
Missing the byplay completely, Giles continued, “There’s more to it, however. You see, some within the Council hold the belief that every Potential receives their Slayer power at birth, while their fate or potential to be the Chosen One is bestowed by the Powers That Be at conception. I’m sure you will all agree that this is simply fascinating--”
Dawn looked around the room. Flirty Girl was now holding hands with smooth K-popstar wannabe. Rona looked like the very image of not fascinated. Hard to impress, that one. Vi still looked confused. Chao-ahn was attempting to enter “consanguineal” into her hand-held electronic English-Chinese dictionary, and not having much luck with the spelling.
“--for the theory postulates that Binchul’s sister had been the intended recipient of the Slayer heritage. But before her fate could be written in stone, so to speak, at birth, her death robbed her of that potential, which then fell to Binchul. Thus, the cosmic balance that would have been upset by decreasing the count of potentials by one was restored. One has to hand it to the Powers That Be, the design is elegant and ingenious.” Giles looked relieved, as if the boy had single-handedly averted an apocalypse. Well, Dawn thought, who hadn’t?
Dawn supposed that it was a relief to no longer suspect the new Potential of being a spy--a trojan horse sent to them by followers of The First Evil in the disguise of a miraculous survivor--if only because any enemy would have come up with a theory more believable than the elaborate and improbable one just given by Giles. After all, the only thing stranger than fiction was life on the Hellmouth, so it had to be true. And thanks to Flirty Girl--and what was her name anyway?--they all knew he was corporeal, thus, not The First.
All the reassurance in the world could not convince Dawn to trust the boy Potential, though. She thought she’d keep an eye on him, as if there was any lack of eye-keeping on him. He acted like a player, not the newest soldier in the Slayer army.
And play time was definitely over.
~ The End ~
Related Entries the old fashioned way:
* Spuffy Fic: Here and Now
* Ficlet: A Glimpse into the Life of a Latchkey Kid (tamingthemuse prompt 455)
* Spuffy Fic: Chapter 3 of Edge of Sorrow, Heart of Truth