Day 5 - Waiting For A Spark
Title: Waiting For The Spark
Author: Grundy (jerseyfabulous)
Rating: FR13
Crossover: Hunger Games
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Buffy or Hunger Games. No money is being made here, it's all in good fun.
Summary: Dawn's the last one left. Related to The Games Never Stop.
Word Count: 1210
Author's Note: Taking a break from Tolkien today!
Dawn Summers envies people who say they don’t feel their age. She does - every one of her unnaturally long years. Most especially at this time of year, when everything begins to ramp up for the Hunger Games. It’s a month long assault, old scar tissue being torn open to bleed again.
She watches the Reaping every year, just as she watches the Games. For her sins. To remind herself that this is the price of failure. She owes it to each and every one of those doomed children to see their faces and hear their names, and know that it is her inadequacy that condemned them, long before they were even born.
Her name is Aurora now, Aurora Aestiva. She hides in plain sight, here in the Capital. No one would think to look for traitors or enemies here. It’s too dangerous. Coriolanus Snow is many things, but forgiving is definitely not one of them. If he knew anyone from the Watchers’ Council had survived, let alone one of its senior members, he would not rest until he had destroyed her.
Sometimes she wonders if she was wrong to come, to obey orders and abandon what was left of the Watchers and Slayers- what was left of humanity in North America. At the time, she’d had nightmares of what her sister would have said if she were still alive. Of course, if Buffy had still been alive, or Faith, or even Willow, things would have gone very differently. But special as they might have been, they were all still mortal, and wise enough not to try to make themselves otherwise.
Her, though- the Key had been given human form. It hadn’t been made fully human. Oh, she could be killed. But left to her own devices, she didn’t die. She just changed identities periodically. It’s gotten more expensive over the years, particularly now that she has to be able to convince the benevolent and all-seeing government of Panem that she is a good, loyal, and above all normal citizen. But it can still be done. She does it.
She does what she has to, she always has. Occasionally she wonders if Buffy knew, if that’s what that last dream was about before the disaster in Brazil put her back in the ground for good. She’d only told her sister pieces of it, but one thing she’d said has stuck with her ever since.
“You’re going to be the light in the dark days, Dawn. It’s not making the tough choices that’s the hard part- it’s living with yourself after. And you’re going to have to live with it. You’re going to be the only one left until someone sparks a fire. Without you, the fire won’t catch. Don’t you dare quit on me.”
The oldest Slayer on record had known a thing or two about tough choices by the time she hit fifty. She’d been the one at the top of the chain of command for nearly twenty years. She might still have held hard feelings against the old Council, but her time being the one who had to send those girls out- sometimes knowing that it was a one-way ticket, but also knowing that there was no other option- had taken its toll. The safety of the world had always been bought and paid for in blood, but the view was different when it wasn’t just your own blood on the scales.
Dawn’s had to make a lot of choices since the Rebellion, none of them easy, and few of them that have ended well. She’s still here, still alive. Still gritting her teeth and doing what has to be done to hang on until Buffy’s promised spark. Still watching District kids forced into a death match every year, a reenactment of the divide and conquer that had left the Capitol victorious and Snow in uncontested control of Panem.
Except for 13, of course. There was a time she’d been proud of the mutual assured destruction scenario she’d engineered that left both sides unwilling to risk an all-out assault. But that balance is a lot less stable than most people know these days, and if Snow ever finds out…
Dawn’s lived long enough to know things can always get worse.
So here she is. Hanging on. Bracing herself for her next annual torture session. She might think it was aimed at her specifically, except that Snow wouldn’t toy with her. She’d have been liquidated immediately. He knows better than to leave even a single Guardian still standing.
The bright side of her very advanced age and citizen status is that she’s bloody well loaded. She uses her hefty financial resources to try to help the ones she can. Sending that boy from 4 the trident a few years back, for instance. It was extravagant, but she’d known when she did it that she was practically handing him the victory. And she couldn’t help it- she knew just looking at him that he was a Summers.
He’s one of Buffy’s, as the other benefit to having assimilated into the Capitol when ordered to is that she’s been able to keep a close eye on her own descendants, and know that they’re mostly safe. Her great-grandson has actually just decided to work for the Games. The irony is eating at her guts.
It happens at least once a year - she’ll find someone familiar looking back at her from the screen on Reaping Day. Descendants of Slayers and Watchers, being singled out for destruction. Just to make sure the organization dedicated to fighting creatures like Coriolanus Snow can never rise again. Xander’s entire line has been wiped out, and Willow’s is hanging by a very thin thread that Dawn doesn’t dare check on too often, just in case. She’d managed to help one of Faith’s a few years back, but only the one in the arena. Saving the ones trapped back in their District had been beyond her. All the money in the world can’t buy her enough trustworthy people to have a solid network in all the districts.
The gentle chime of the doorbell warns her that it’s time. She hears his tread long before she sees him.
“Aunty,” he greets her, leaning down to give her a gentle kiss on the cheek.
He doesn’t know their true relationship. He thinks she’s just a friend of the family. If it’s ever occurred to him that she doesn’t seem to be getting older, let alone look old enough to be a friend of his grandmother’s, he has never said. It’s for his own safety, his and his family’s. If she goes down, she doesn’t want to take them all with her. They have good hearts. Even this sweet idealist who sits with her through the Reaping every year because he knows how it upsets her, and hopes he will be able to make the difference for some poor Tribute. He’s already told her he’s going to save one of them. For her.
She hasn’t the heart to tell him that ‘saving’ isn’t the word the survivors of the arena would use. Time and experience are going to bruise him badly enough as it is. It’s his first year.
“Good evening, Cinna, dear.”
Author: Grundy (jerseyfabulous)
Rating: FR13
Crossover: Hunger Games
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Buffy or Hunger Games. No money is being made here, it's all in good fun.
Summary: Dawn's the last one left. Related to The Games Never Stop.
Word Count: 1210
Author's Note: Taking a break from Tolkien today!
Dawn Summers envies people who say they don’t feel their age. She does - every one of her unnaturally long years. Most especially at this time of year, when everything begins to ramp up for the Hunger Games. It’s a month long assault, old scar tissue being torn open to bleed again.
She watches the Reaping every year, just as she watches the Games. For her sins. To remind herself that this is the price of failure. She owes it to each and every one of those doomed children to see their faces and hear their names, and know that it is her inadequacy that condemned them, long before they were even born.
Her name is Aurora now, Aurora Aestiva. She hides in plain sight, here in the Capital. No one would think to look for traitors or enemies here. It’s too dangerous. Coriolanus Snow is many things, but forgiving is definitely not one of them. If he knew anyone from the Watchers’ Council had survived, let alone one of its senior members, he would not rest until he had destroyed her.
Sometimes she wonders if she was wrong to come, to obey orders and abandon what was left of the Watchers and Slayers- what was left of humanity in North America. At the time, she’d had nightmares of what her sister would have said if she were still alive. Of course, if Buffy had still been alive, or Faith, or even Willow, things would have gone very differently. But special as they might have been, they were all still mortal, and wise enough not to try to make themselves otherwise.
Her, though- the Key had been given human form. It hadn’t been made fully human. Oh, she could be killed. But left to her own devices, she didn’t die. She just changed identities periodically. It’s gotten more expensive over the years, particularly now that she has to be able to convince the benevolent and all-seeing government of Panem that she is a good, loyal, and above all normal citizen. But it can still be done. She does it.
She does what she has to, she always has. Occasionally she wonders if Buffy knew, if that’s what that last dream was about before the disaster in Brazil put her back in the ground for good. She’d only told her sister pieces of it, but one thing she’d said has stuck with her ever since.
“You’re going to be the light in the dark days, Dawn. It’s not making the tough choices that’s the hard part- it’s living with yourself after. And you’re going to have to live with it. You’re going to be the only one left until someone sparks a fire. Without you, the fire won’t catch. Don’t you dare quit on me.”
The oldest Slayer on record had known a thing or two about tough choices by the time she hit fifty. She’d been the one at the top of the chain of command for nearly twenty years. She might still have held hard feelings against the old Council, but her time being the one who had to send those girls out- sometimes knowing that it was a one-way ticket, but also knowing that there was no other option- had taken its toll. The safety of the world had always been bought and paid for in blood, but the view was different when it wasn’t just your own blood on the scales.
Dawn’s had to make a lot of choices since the Rebellion, none of them easy, and few of them that have ended well. She’s still here, still alive. Still gritting her teeth and doing what has to be done to hang on until Buffy’s promised spark. Still watching District kids forced into a death match every year, a reenactment of the divide and conquer that had left the Capitol victorious and Snow in uncontested control of Panem.
Except for 13, of course. There was a time she’d been proud of the mutual assured destruction scenario she’d engineered that left both sides unwilling to risk an all-out assault. But that balance is a lot less stable than most people know these days, and if Snow ever finds out…
Dawn’s lived long enough to know things can always get worse.
So here she is. Hanging on. Bracing herself for her next annual torture session. She might think it was aimed at her specifically, except that Snow wouldn’t toy with her. She’d have been liquidated immediately. He knows better than to leave even a single Guardian still standing.
The bright side of her very advanced age and citizen status is that she’s bloody well loaded. She uses her hefty financial resources to try to help the ones she can. Sending that boy from 4 the trident a few years back, for instance. It was extravagant, but she’d known when she did it that she was practically handing him the victory. And she couldn’t help it- she knew just looking at him that he was a Summers.
He’s one of Buffy’s, as the other benefit to having assimilated into the Capitol when ordered to is that she’s been able to keep a close eye on her own descendants, and know that they’re mostly safe. Her great-grandson has actually just decided to work for the Games. The irony is eating at her guts.
It happens at least once a year - she’ll find someone familiar looking back at her from the screen on Reaping Day. Descendants of Slayers and Watchers, being singled out for destruction. Just to make sure the organization dedicated to fighting creatures like Coriolanus Snow can never rise again. Xander’s entire line has been wiped out, and Willow’s is hanging by a very thin thread that Dawn doesn’t dare check on too often, just in case. She’d managed to help one of Faith’s a few years back, but only the one in the arena. Saving the ones trapped back in their District had been beyond her. All the money in the world can’t buy her enough trustworthy people to have a solid network in all the districts.
The gentle chime of the doorbell warns her that it’s time. She hears his tread long before she sees him.
“Aunty,” he greets her, leaning down to give her a gentle kiss on the cheek.
He doesn’t know their true relationship. He thinks she’s just a friend of the family. If it’s ever occurred to him that she doesn’t seem to be getting older, let alone look old enough to be a friend of his grandmother’s, he has never said. It’s for his own safety, his and his family’s. If she goes down, she doesn’t want to take them all with her. They have good hearts. Even this sweet idealist who sits with her through the Reaping every year because he knows how it upsets her, and hopes he will be able to make the difference for some poor Tribute. He’s already told her he’s going to save one of them. For her.
She hasn’t the heart to tell him that ‘saving’ isn’t the word the survivors of the arena would use. Time and experience are going to bruise him badly enough as it is. It’s his first year.
“Good evening, Cinna, dear.”