FIC: Dance (BtVS/FF)
Oct. 19th, 2005 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mhalachaiTitle: Dance
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tth100 prompt: Dawn
Crossover fandom: Firefly
Characters: Dawn, River
Prompt: 004 -- Prophecy (master table)
Word Count: 424
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns all things Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and all things Firefly. Only the story is my own.
~~*~~
"Is that her?" Dawn murmured, her hand hovering over her mouth so that only her companion would hear.
The lanky young woman named Mai, a many-times descendant of Willow Rosenberg, leaned over casually. To an observer, the two women, sitting so close in the recital hall, were merely enjoying the performance. "That's her."
Dawn looked closer at the little slip of a girl dancing on stage. No more than ten, the girl moved effortlessly with the assured grace and skill of a slayer. She didn't dance to the music; she was the music.
Her movements were a heartbreaking echo of all the slayers Dawn had ever known and lost. Five hundred years of Watching, the Key energy in her keeping her young, keeping her alive, while generations of Slayers came and went. Most days, Dawn couldn't even remember what Buffy had looked like.
Tonight, however, the Tiger Dance of River Tam brought the memory of Buffy back to Dawn, in a wash of emotions and unshed tears.
Later, after the performance, Dawn and Mai walked arm in arm in the beautifully tended garden on Osiris, under the light of an alien moon.
"Are we sure that she's the one who fits the prophecy?" Mai asked in Etruscan, one of many dead languages the Watcher's Council kept alive through the ages.
"She's the one," Dawn replied. "The age, the skill..."
"But she is not a potential Slayer," Mai reminded Dawn. "We still have our magics, we would know."
"I know." Dawn patted Mai's hand. The women looked the same age, yet some days Dawn felt every one of her years, as if she was a stone that time was rubbing smooth, until one day, she would be worn away. "But the prophecies say that she will reveal truths, as a river carries water to the sea."
Mai shook her head, too impatient with prophecy to appreciate the pun. "But she's too young!"
Dawn stopped at the edge of the roses. So far away from home, the roses still bloomed, as stubborn as the humans that had transplanted them. Mai watched as Dawn slid her fingers over the blood-red petals that were almost black in the moonlight. "They are always too young," Dawn said.
She let her hand fall to her side. They were always too young, too green, too scared, too weak, in the end. Everyone died, no matter the prophecy on their head. Everyone but Dawn.
At least she would be alive to see what horrors this prophecy would heap upon young River Tam.
--fin
tth100 prompt: DawnCrossover fandom: Firefly
Characters: Dawn, River
Prompt: 004 -- Prophecy (master table)
Word Count: 424
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns all things Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and all things Firefly. Only the story is my own.
"Is that her?" Dawn murmured, her hand hovering over her mouth so that only her companion would hear.
The lanky young woman named Mai, a many-times descendant of Willow Rosenberg, leaned over casually. To an observer, the two women, sitting so close in the recital hall, were merely enjoying the performance. "That's her."
Dawn looked closer at the little slip of a girl dancing on stage. No more than ten, the girl moved effortlessly with the assured grace and skill of a slayer. She didn't dance to the music; she was the music.
Her movements were a heartbreaking echo of all the slayers Dawn had ever known and lost. Five hundred years of Watching, the Key energy in her keeping her young, keeping her alive, while generations of Slayers came and went. Most days, Dawn couldn't even remember what Buffy had looked like.
Tonight, however, the Tiger Dance of River Tam brought the memory of Buffy back to Dawn, in a wash of emotions and unshed tears.
Later, after the performance, Dawn and Mai walked arm in arm in the beautifully tended garden on Osiris, under the light of an alien moon.
"Are we sure that she's the one who fits the prophecy?" Mai asked in Etruscan, one of many dead languages the Watcher's Council kept alive through the ages.
"She's the one," Dawn replied. "The age, the skill..."
"But she is not a potential Slayer," Mai reminded Dawn. "We still have our magics, we would know."
"I know." Dawn patted Mai's hand. The women looked the same age, yet some days Dawn felt every one of her years, as if she was a stone that time was rubbing smooth, until one day, she would be worn away. "But the prophecies say that she will reveal truths, as a river carries water to the sea."
Mai shook her head, too impatient with prophecy to appreciate the pun. "But she's too young!"
Dawn stopped at the edge of the roses. So far away from home, the roses still bloomed, as stubborn as the humans that had transplanted them. Mai watched as Dawn slid her fingers over the blood-red petals that were almost black in the moonlight. "They are always too young," Dawn said.
She let her hand fall to her side. They were always too young, too green, too scared, too weak, in the end. Everyone died, no matter the prophecy on their head. Everyone but Dawn.
At least she would be alive to see what horrors this prophecy would heap upon young River Tam.