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

[herotypical]

[ 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. ]

Comments

[ voice -> action ]

[talentsgirl]

Deal!

[And so it was that Molly Carpenter went to meet Buffy Summers by the fountain.]

[herotypical]

She wished she was in better spirits for this meeting. Molly was a nice kinda person -- fun to be around -- but it was difficult to drum up the requisite smile. Buffy compensated by wrapping a scarf tightly around her neck and mouth. Just for the time being. Just for the approach. After all, it was already pretty chilly out.

From a distance of a handful of feet, she raised her hand in a greeting. An attempted jaunty wave.

[talentsgirl]

Molly was on a mission. It was a small mission, but it was one she was fairly good at: the mission of being a distraction. She was far too observant to fall for Buffy's attempts at good cheer, but that also really didn't matter - she wasn't expecting good cheer.

"Hey, you made it!"

[herotypical]

"I had to wrestle a housemate or two to let me leave without a confab but..."

Buffy tore at her scarf, trying to unmuffle herself. "But I escaped. The wanted posters will be up soon, I imagine."

[talentsgirl]

"Well, I've got news. Though I'm not sure if it's good or bad." Dramatic pause. "The bakery has been taken over by Rapunzel."

And who would have ever thought she'd say a thing like that seriously?

[herotypical]

"...Huh."

She pursed her lips. Thinking. "That sweet kid whose name sounded like he oughta be served with hummous. He's gone, too?"

[talentsgirl]

"Guess so, yeah. Unless he just got tired of it."

[herotypical]

"...It never seemed like the sort of thing he'd ever get tired of. Still."

She can hope. Maybe he would be happier, home. Maybe he had a secure next few years -- like Willow. "I guess Rapunzel doesn't require half as much lash-batting."

[talentsgirl]

"Nope. So the question of your commitment to cheese-filled pastry is safe for another day."

[herotypical]

"What a relief. 'Cause I kinda thing the bakery boy was a little too young for me to be throwing my meagre charms around. There's a point in your life when you hafta accept the fact that your milkshake is only ever bringing older, morally ambiguous men to the yard."

[talentsgirl]

Molly glanced over at Buffy, "Like the one you're not-so-engaged to?"

[herotypical]

"Guilty as charged. It's not so bad once you resign yourself to such a fate. Inevitably, I will always be doomed to make faces at his past sins. I've come to terms with that. I'm okay."

Just about. And on that subject, alone. But there were so many other swirling sorrows right now.

[talentsgirl]

That was... a lot of information. Molly cast the girl a sidelong look and spoke slightly under her breath, "'If you should mark iniquities, who would stand?'"

She shook her head, smiling a little, "So. Cheese and pastry?"

[herotypical]

Perhaps Buffy had tackled it a little head-on -- but it was no more information than had already been given. She'd alluded to moral questionability and Molly had correctly pricked the position -- if not the name -- of her not-fiancée. So the Slayer felt honour-bound to exposit away the mental acrobatics required to live with that choice. Self-indulgent? Certainly.

But she was in a self-indulgent mood. So: "The meltier, the better." And with decisive action, she caught her coat around herself and made for the bakery -- visible from the fountain.