BtVS Fic: "Watcher's Burden" (1/1)
Apr. 29th, 2005 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiTitle: Watcher's Burden (1/1)
Rating: PG for suggestions of violence and drug use.
Characters: Dawn, Giles, Roger, Lydia
Timeline: Post-"NFA"
Summary: Sometimes preparing for the future requires sacrifices in the present.
Watcher's Burden
“I can’t believe you are the one suggesting this,” says Giles. “After what your sister went through—-what you went through-—I can’t believe you could possibly be saying this.”
“None of that matters,” I say.
“You could have died. She could have died.”
“She didn’t,” I point out, with more facility than I feel. “She was up to the challenge. And I didn’t even really exist yet, so there was never any danger of me dying. He couldn’t have killed me.”
“That’s not the bloody point and you know it.”
“You don’t have to like it, Giles,” I tell him. “I certainly don’t. But it needs to be done.”
“I won’t march those girls into danger,” he says, resolute. “I wouldn’t do it before and I won’t do it now.”
I walk up to Giles, put my hand on his shoulder. “You won’t have to,” I tell him. “I’ll do it.”
*****
It is put to a vote before the High Council. Giles votes against it, of course; Roger Wyndam-Pryce votes in the affirmative. Lydia Chalmers, the sole survivor of the Council headquarters explosion, abstains. It’s up to me, the youngest member of the High Council, to break the tie. Of course, I introduced the motion, so we all know how I'm going to vote.
“Aye,” I say, wondering how many girls I am condemning to death, and knowing in my heart that is necessary.
“The motion passes,” says Roger Wyndam-Pryce with a too-smug smile as he records the result of the vote. “The practice of the Cruciamentum is reinstated.”
*****
“Stare into the crystal and meditate, Beatrice,” I tell you. You’re barely younger than I am, your eighteenth birthday about a week away. “We need to work on your concentration.”
You gaze into the crystal, your face blank, in a trance. Knowing you no longer sense my presence, I reach for the case and open it, taking out the hypodermic.
*****
“Your Slayer has survived her test,” Giles says to me, coldly. “Congratulations.” He is still angry, I fear.
“Don’t worry about Rupert,” says Roger Wyndam-Pryce. “He is only upset that you passed the test that he failed.” Unsurprisely, I’m not comforted by Wyndam-Pryce’s words. I would think that there would be very little that man could ever say to me that I would find comforting.
“You made a difficult choice,” Lydia says. “Rupert understands that, I know. He’s made his own decisions he’d rather not have had to make. Just give him time.”
“Do you think I made the right choice?” I ask her.
“Does it matter what I think?” she asks, but then she sighs and looks to the side. I can tell she is thinking, and that she’ll give me an answer as soon as she comes up with one.
Her eyes fall on a picture of Quentin Travers, who had lead the Council before he died in the explosion—-the same explosion that Lydia had miracurously survived, although whether through intervention by the Powers, the First, or something else nobody knows. (Just as we still don’t know why Angel was brought back after Buffy killed him, I muse. And then I wonder—-where is Angel?) Travers had traveled to America to oversee Buffy’s Cruciamentum, and then again to review her performance before giving her the Council’s information about Glorificus. (Even years later, I shiver at the memory of the hellgod.) Giles and Buffy hated him with the deepest righteous anger. But Lydia has seen the other side of the man; had looked up to him as teacher and friend.
“Rupert loves the girls with the heart of a father, and it can blind him. Whereas Roger has no heart, could not even bring himself to love his actual son, he’s so blinded by his lust for power. It’s our job, perhaps, to see through these things. Quentin once told me that the purpose of the Cruciamentum was to teach the Slayer that we are not her friends, not her parents. It’s a cold truth, but history has borne him out. When it really mattered, the Council was not there for your sister. If Travers had not done what he did when he did, would your sister have been prepared to soldier on without us? He prepared for his own death, and it may have saved the world.”
Lydia puts her hand on the portrait’s frame, stares deeply into the painted eyes of her mentor’s simulacrum. “Let the men be blinded by love and by power,” she says. “We need to prepare for the future.”
“For the future,” I repeat, if somewhat tonelessly, then turn and walk towards my office. After all, a Watcher’s burden is never complete.
Rating: PG for suggestions of violence and drug use.
Characters: Dawn, Giles, Roger, Lydia
Timeline: Post-"NFA"
Summary: Sometimes preparing for the future requires sacrifices in the present.
Watcher's Burden
“I can’t believe you are the one suggesting this,” says Giles. “After what your sister went through—-what you went through-—I can’t believe you could possibly be saying this.”
“None of that matters,” I say.
“You could have died. She could have died.”
“She didn’t,” I point out, with more facility than I feel. “She was up to the challenge. And I didn’t even really exist yet, so there was never any danger of me dying. He couldn’t have killed me.”
“That’s not the bloody point and you know it.”
“You don’t have to like it, Giles,” I tell him. “I certainly don’t. But it needs to be done.”
“I won’t march those girls into danger,” he says, resolute. “I wouldn’t do it before and I won’t do it now.”
I walk up to Giles, put my hand on his shoulder. “You won’t have to,” I tell him. “I’ll do it.”
It is put to a vote before the High Council. Giles votes against it, of course; Roger Wyndam-Pryce votes in the affirmative. Lydia Chalmers, the sole survivor of the Council headquarters explosion, abstains. It’s up to me, the youngest member of the High Council, to break the tie. Of course, I introduced the motion, so we all know how I'm going to vote.
“Aye,” I say, wondering how many girls I am condemning to death, and knowing in my heart that is necessary.
“The motion passes,” says Roger Wyndam-Pryce with a too-smug smile as he records the result of the vote. “The practice of the Cruciamentum is reinstated.”
“Stare into the crystal and meditate, Beatrice,” I tell you. You’re barely younger than I am, your eighteenth birthday about a week away. “We need to work on your concentration.”
You gaze into the crystal, your face blank, in a trance. Knowing you no longer sense my presence, I reach for the case and open it, taking out the hypodermic.
“Your Slayer has survived her test,” Giles says to me, coldly. “Congratulations.” He is still angry, I fear.
“Don’t worry about Rupert,” says Roger Wyndam-Pryce. “He is only upset that you passed the test that he failed.” Unsurprisely, I’m not comforted by Wyndam-Pryce’s words. I would think that there would be very little that man could ever say to me that I would find comforting.
“You made a difficult choice,” Lydia says. “Rupert understands that, I know. He’s made his own decisions he’d rather not have had to make. Just give him time.”
“Do you think I made the right choice?” I ask her.
“Does it matter what I think?” she asks, but then she sighs and looks to the side. I can tell she is thinking, and that she’ll give me an answer as soon as she comes up with one.
Her eyes fall on a picture of Quentin Travers, who had lead the Council before he died in the explosion—-the same explosion that Lydia had miracurously survived, although whether through intervention by the Powers, the First, or something else nobody knows. (Just as we still don’t know why Angel was brought back after Buffy killed him, I muse. And then I wonder—-where is Angel?) Travers had traveled to America to oversee Buffy’s Cruciamentum, and then again to review her performance before giving her the Council’s information about Glorificus. (Even years later, I shiver at the memory of the hellgod.) Giles and Buffy hated him with the deepest righteous anger. But Lydia has seen the other side of the man; had looked up to him as teacher and friend.
“Rupert loves the girls with the heart of a father, and it can blind him. Whereas Roger has no heart, could not even bring himself to love his actual son, he’s so blinded by his lust for power. It’s our job, perhaps, to see through these things. Quentin once told me that the purpose of the Cruciamentum was to teach the Slayer that we are not her friends, not her parents. It’s a cold truth, but history has borne him out. When it really mattered, the Council was not there for your sister. If Travers had not done what he did when he did, would your sister have been prepared to soldier on without us? He prepared for his own death, and it may have saved the world.”
Lydia puts her hand on the portrait’s frame, stares deeply into the painted eyes of her mentor’s simulacrum. “Let the men be blinded by love and by power,” she says. “We need to prepare for the future.”
“For the future,” I repeat, if somewhat tonelessly, then turn and walk towards my office. After all, a Watcher’s burden is never complete.
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Date: 2005-09-22 06:41 pm (UTC)I like the gravity of this, the grown-upness of it. This Dawn is not the teen-aged girl we’ve seen on tv. But you haven’t gone into long explanations of her situation, you’ve shown us by the dialogue and reactions from other people. Starting with conversations between the characters plunges us right into the action and captures our attention. I like your sure handling of the present tense, too. It gives a sense of immediacy.
You introduce your other characters naturally, with, again, no tedious exposition. I would certainly be willing to follow this Dawn and read more about her life. In a very short piece you’ve set up a nice little world, with conflicts and loyalties and memories.
Having said that, I don’t think I understand why Dawn wants the test to be revived. I would have liked Giles to give more arguments against it; he’s certainly had time to think about it and some personal experience. If Dawn had to counter what he said, we’d know why she’d thinks it’s essential. Is it because she believes with Quentin that Slayers need this push to stand on their own? But she doesn’t say that, another character does, so what’s her reason?
This is not a long story and I feel the structure could be a little tighter. There’s that old playwright’s rule about how a gun being introduced in the first act has to go off in the last; when you introduce Angel into Dawn’s musings, there’s no payoff. You’ve send the reader off into a path that leads nowhere. The reader must pull her attention back to your story about the Watchers’ Council, back from wondering, where the heck is Angel?
I also have a quibble about the time frame. Dawn says to Beatrice “you’re barely younger than I am” meaning 18 or so. But the language Dawn uses is so much more sophisticated than that she used in Buffy, that I thought she must be at least 10 years older. The tone she uses in her internal speech is adult, she tells us that Lydia looks at her mentor’s “simulacrum”, and while I like this Dawn much more the one I’m familiar with, there must have been some sort of transition to shape her into this adult. I would rather have read about Dawn’s becoming this person than the review of Traver’s trips to America, which, again, sent me off on a tangent, away from the story.
I hope I’ve conveyed that I really liked your story and would enjoy reading more about Dawn in this world.