herotypical | voice + action ✪ there must be some way to bring the hero home

[ after a week of agonizing combat, buffy summers returns home with only exhaustion on her mind. despite all the excitement and crisis, there's little left to do other than collapse onto her bed and fall into a sleep fit for a weary, worn-out soul. morning sees her feeling no less -- shudder -- zombieish. the horror of the last week is bone-and-marrow deep and has yet to fully make itself known in her system. the slayer is running on auxillery humanity, stringing herself along from second to second until she can find a friendly face. find willow and...

and all she finds is an empty room. an empty closet. empty drawers. her best friend is gone. deported while she wasn't even looking. come the afternoon, after she's gotten the first onslaught of emotions out of her system, buffy sits alone on the empty bed. she addresses her journal: ]

Willow and I have this game we like to play. Willow Rosenberg. She was in town...but now she's not. [ a pause allows buffy to catch her breath. to stay strong. ] We call it 'Anywhere But Here' -- self-explanatory, really. Pick a fantasty-elsewhere to be and a fantasy-someone to share it with. I'm not talking about the obvious ones: home or family or anything even remotely whiffing of responsibility. I'm talking about fun. I'm talking about pure escapism. I'm talking Daniel Craig on the beach or Amy Yip at the waterpark.

I'll go first. Show you how it's done. [ but which escape route from reality should she take? ] The '88 Winter Olympics. The Saddledome. Calgary, of all places. Brian Boitano is taking the time to personally skate me through his gold medal routine. Perhaps there's hot chocolate involved. I, being made entirely of my own imagination, copy each move perfectly.

Got it? Good. Because now it's your turn.

[ when her broken little tribute to an absent friend is finished, she'll be searching out her injured pirate (wherever he may be convalescing) and it's off to good spirits, where she can be found working a shift behind the bar. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It depends upon how much practice one has had at it, I think.

What angle do you approach it from?

I--

[ time passes. finally: ] I thought I knew. But now I think I don't know anything at all. I've been here so long.

Unfortunately I can offer nothing from the perspective of relatively fresh meat.

Do you still desire escape?

I desire...something different. Stability, maybe. Or a normal life. [ or a wholly abnormal one, instead. but nothing in the middle. the middle ground is too painful. ]

Still trying to figure out if 'escape' is the answer that provides those things.

You may have to define normal. Everyone seems to have a different view on what it actually is.

...I can tell you what normal isn't. That might be easiest.

All right.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that feeling helpless should never be a normality.

I think that is a point upon which we agree.

What a relief. Because I don't think I'm up to a handwritten debate, right now.

It is a rather longer discussion than I expected to have, in truth.

By all means, say goodbye if that's your preference. I think my hand's getting a cramp...

That isn't what I meant to imply at all. It has been quite interesting.

But I should not want to overstay my welcome.

You could always hazard another Anywhere But Here try.

I think it is a game I shan't be very good at. What seems extravagant and fantastic to me are things that involve a great deal of quiet and books.

Hm. Carnival in Alfheim with dancing, followed by tag through across the tree limbs. That would be fun. The Summer Queen could be along for the amusement.

Tree-limb tag. Inventive. I've never pl--wait. Maybe. Once. Sorta. It's hard to say.

Glad I've come up with something sufficiently interesting this time.

Hard to say? I'd think you either had or hadn't. Though it'd be difficult to accomplish on Midgard. The trees are quite small.

I chased a man, once. But I don't think it was tag. Not real tag. Not -- [ hah ] -- by the rules.

I think unless it was a merry and light-hearted sort of chasing, it probably oughtn't count.

...I think he found it merrier than I did. Possibly. At the time.

Rather uneven, that. Not so fun for you then?

I don't like it when ~~men~~people run away from me.

Is it a thing that happens often?

More often than I'd like to admit, really.

Oh dear.

Try a different toothpaste? ;-)

[Written]

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