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

[herotypical]

[ the tale is horrible. buffy's disgust remains undisguised; she has no qualms showing just how distasteful she finds the whole ordeal. although, much of it remains to be mentally digested.

while she tries to process this knowledge about fruits and death, she responses with a simple sentence: ] You're underestimating Jack if you're thinking he was actually siding with Teach to begin with, but consider the warning noted -- however unneeded.

[fierybluebird]

I didn't. Only a very select few idiots really think they're siding with Teach, but uses everyone who thinks they're conning him.

Shiryuu, Catarina Devon, Sanjuan Wolf, they don't follow him because they like him. They're just trying to use him until something better comes along. To keep him close so he won't go after them first.

They're as much to blame as he is, however.

[herotypical]

No matter what the history? It doesn't matter. Jack's in a different place -- the reasons he had to do what he did back then? They don't even exist, now. So I wouldn't go worrying about him. If I were you.

[fierybluebird]

[Shrugs.]

If it's a moot point, it's a moot point. If he tries to con the Blackbeard of my world again, it'll be a problem. Until then he's done nothing to me or mine, and I'd simply like to keep it that way.

Che... sorry for getting you peripherally involved, eh? I haven't seen Teach since he left, but I guess it's not as far from mind as I'd like.

[herotypical]

[ buffy sighs softly. presumption on the part of other people tires her rather quickly, so she eyes up the bar and... ]

No apologies required. We're cool. But I do have other patrons to look after, so should probably...do that. We might be not-for-profit, but that's no excuse for bad service.

[fierybluebird]

Aye, I'll leave you to get back to it, eh?

[Waves.] Thanks for letting me talk your ear off.