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DVD Commentary: "Facing the Shadows"
Nobody requested a commentary, but I'm egotistical and like to talk about myself, so I decided to write one on one of my favorite stories, "Facing the Shadows." The original fic without commentary can be found here.
Title: Facing the Shadows [DVD Commentary]
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Pairings: Faith/Kennedy, mentions of past Willow/Kennedy and Buffy/Immortal
Rating: PG-13
Timeline/Continuity: Futurefic. Spoilers for “Chosen.”
Summary: Years after Willow’s death, Kennedy returns to Sao Paulo with a new lover and a new mission. Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
femslash_minis. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mireille719 wanted macaws, cigarettes, and South America. She also didn’t want fluff, and while I’m not 100% sure what this is, Goddess knows it isn’t fluff.
“Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.”-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
American poet, 1807--1882
Facing the Shadows
Just as no one told her why she and Kennedy had been chosen for this mission. It couldn’t have passed the Council’s awareness that this was the very city that Willow and Kennedy had lived in for five years.* * * * *
Earlier that afternoon. . . .
She made an effort to stay close to the center of the city, to keep from wandering into the suburbs. The house she had shared with Willow was miles away, but still she wanted to stay far away from anything that might remind her of it. She had to be together, because any mistake could be the one which ended her life.
That was okay, though. Sao Paulo was a huge city, and so the metropolitan center provided plenty of space for her to hunt. She penetrated deeper into the darkness of the alley, then paused when she heard voices. “A Sombra procura um Assassino,” said a voice, “como o espírito deve ser zangado para ser acordado.” Kennedy’s Portugese was rusty, but he was saying something about A Sombra—the Shadow—needing a Slayer to anger some spirit or other.
The female waited for him to leave, then too walked past Kennedy. As she did so, however, Kennedy reached out and grabbed the woman’s hand. She hissed and attacked back, attempting to grab Kennedy’s wrist, but she quickly twisted the woman’s—the vampire’s—arm behind her back. The vampire tried to attack with her other hand, dropping the package, but Kennedy grabbed that one too, and pushed the vampire into the wall.
The vampire only growled and, with sudden move, succeeded in throwing Kennedy off her.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Kennedy, grabbing the vampire by the neck and dragging her to the end of the shadow. “I think you’re going to tell me what I know.” She held the vampire just an inch or so from the direct sunlight which would burn her to cinders.
The vampire spat out an address.
“Now.”
Kennedy threw the vampire into the sun, picked up the package, and began to run. As she made her way down the city streets, she ripped the covering off the package to reveal a box with a knife inside it. The knife’s hilt was wood, carved into the shape of a macaw.
The knife had been in their house, back when Kennedy and Willow had lived in Sao Paulo together.
It had hung on the wall of their bedroom.* * * * *
Now. . . .
Faith resisted the urge to light another cigarette. She only had the two left, and Kennedy would want one after the patrol that night.
Faith glanced at her watch. 8:00 pm. There was no way Kennedy shouldn’t be back.
Faith pulled out her cell phone and began to dial Kennedy’s cell phone number. “Hi, this is Kennedy,” her recorded voice recited aftter the recquisite number of rings. “I can’t take your call right now, but if you leave a message—”
Faith hung up. With a sigh, she began pushing the buttons to call the Council’s Brazil HQ.* * * * *
Earlier. . . .
The vampires standing guard didn’t even try to stop Kennedy from entering the warehouse. Whether it was because they didn’t care or because they recognized her for a Slayer, she didn’t know. She didn’t care.
“Quero encontrar a Sombra,” she said to one of the vamps, certain that her Portugese was ungrammatical. He just grunted and gestured with his head down the hall. Kennedy made her way down the hall, kicking in the door at the end of it. Always make a strong entrance.
“Ah, Slayer,” said a woman who had been reclining on a large chair suspiciously resembling a throne. She was draped in diaphanous black silk. “You honor us with your presence.”
“I am indeed,” the woman said, getting up from her chair. “And do you have a name as well, or should I simply continue to just call you ‘Slayer’?”
Kennedy helped up the macaw-hilted knife she had gotten from the vamp in the alley. “Where did you find this?”
“Oh, I see you have brought me my knife,” the Shadow said. “How kind of you.”
“You think I’m going to just give you this and walk away?” asked Kennedy with a laugh.
“Oh, no,” said the Shadow. “I wouldn’t dream of letting you walk away.”
It was then that Kennedy noticed the thirty-something vamps that had surrounded her. Oops.
* * * * *
Now. . . .
“Kennedy wouldn’t do that,” one of the two Brazilian Slayers the Council had sent over said. “Kennedy trained us, years ago. She knows better than to attempt anything on her own.”
“We know she is not in the best of places,” the other Slayer said. “That is why you called us, no?”
Damn the language barrier. Maybe she was better off stationed in Cleveland all those years. At least there everyone understood even idiomatic English. (And yeah, being on the faculty of a high school, even just as the P.E. teacher, had helped her pick up words like “idiomatic.”)
“How do we find her?” asked a Slayer. Faith supposed she should learn which was which, but right now she couldn’t care less. All she cared about was getting Kennedy back.
Faith sat back in her chair. “We’re going to look up an old friend who just happens to be in town.”* * * * *
Kennedy woke up in her bedroom, reassured by the familiar sights, smells, feels—until she remembered she didn’t have a bedroom, hadn’t had one for years. She was a wondering Slayer, moving from one mission, never putting down roots—
And now she was back in Sao Paulo, in the master bedroom of the house she had shared with Willow for five years. On the bed she had shared with Willow, her legs and arms tied to the bedposts, surrounded by vampires.
This was not a good thing.
The Shadow slipped to the front of the crowd. “Good,” she said. “You’re awake. We can start.”
“What do you want from me?” asked Kennedy, struggling against her bonds and finding them firm. “Why did you bring me here?”
The Shadow picked up the macaw-hilted knife from and hung it on the wall where it had hung so many years ago. Everything was set up exactly as it had been seven years ago. What was this?
“I only want one thing from you, little Slayer,” said the Shadow. “I want your pain.” She turned to a vampire next to her. “Are all the circles set?”
“Yes, your irreverence,” the vampire answered.
“Good,” she said. “You can begin the ceremony.” She smiled as she took a look at the weapons on the wall. “The Slayer who lived here certainly had quite a collection. So many beautiful weapons, able to cause such wonderful pain.”
Behind her, the vampires began to chant. In Latin, Kennedy thought, uncertain.
“But I think it would be best if we started small, don’t you?” The Shadow put a hand on Kennedy’s shirt and pulled it up, revealing the skin covering her abdomen. Then she pulled out what Kennedy recognized as her old Swiss Army Knife, and began to make shallow cuts into the flesh.
* * * * *
“Faith, mia cara,” the Immortal said. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”
Yeah, right. The Immortal was a champion flatterer, but Faith knew that not even a Slayer could go a decade without aging.
The Immortal looked pained. “You wrong me, Faith.”
“Yeah, sure. What are you doing in South America, anyway?”
“I have business to conduct here,” the Immortal answered. “Now tell me, how is Madelyn?”Well, at least he remembered to ask. “She’s fine,” Faith said. “No thanks to you.”
The Immortal said nothing, betrayed no emotion. “Well, how can I help you, Faith?”
“I know you have contacts,” Faith said. “Hell, you’re probably here to meet with the Shadow yourself. I need to know how to get to him, how to get Kennedy back.”
“You have your misplaced your love, eh? Well, let it never be said I failed to help someone in the name of love.”
The Immortal leveled a long stare at Faith. “Do you even know what l’Ombra wants, young one?”
* * * * *
Kennedy did her best not to cry out in pain as the Shadow cut into her.
“You see, the witch who lived in this house was rather fond of Slayers. Fell in love with one, even. They lived together in this house for many years.”
The Shadow didn’t realize exactly who Kennedy was. Kennedy knew she should be trying to come up with a way to use the fact to her advantage, but it was difficult to think at all through the pain.
They were going to kill Madelyn.* * * * *
Faith simply stood under his stare. She was discomfited, but damn if she was going to show it.
At last, the Immortal spoke. “She has come for the magic of your friend the witch. Willow Rosenberg, I believe her name was? She believes she can raise the ambient energy resident in Sao Paulo. To do so she will need a Slayer. Your lover will be ideal.”
“And then?”
The Immortal looked at her as if she were a schoolgirl who had answered a question wrong. “L’Ombra is going to torture your lover, hoping to anger that part of the witch’s spirit which remains in the place. Once that power is awakened, she hopes to control it. And then she will attempt to use it to gain control of the rest of the witch’s power.”
“You mean . . . ?”
The Immortal nodded. “Do not think I am without concern for my daughter’s welfare, Slayer.
Faith nodded even though she didn’t. “The other Slayers will know,” she said, already turning to leave. No time could be wasted.
“La fortuna buona, la mia ragazza,” the Immortal said softly as she left. “Per amore di mia figlia, la mia fortuna buona a lei. Good luck, Faith.”* * * * *
Kennedy wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of her shivering and her vision blurring, or if the house was shaking. When the Shadow looked up, however, she realized that it was an objective phenomenon.
“The witch is angered,” the Shadow said, a large smile on her face. “It is almost time.” She hit Kennedy in the jaw, then again, then again. The bone wasn’t broken, but it wouldn’t certainly leave one hell of a bruise. Monster swelling.
And then panic broke out behind the Shadow. It was painful for Kennedy to lift her head to see beyond, but then it was painful for her to leave her head where it was too, so she did her best to raise her body. She watched as Faith entered the room, followed by two of the Slayers she had trained when she had lived in Brazil. Dust trailed in their wake.
Vamps rushed towards the Slayers, meleeing with them. Judicious blows from their stakes lowered the vamp count in the room.
“I don’t think so,” said Faith, staking another vamp. “I think I’m going to take my girlfriend and then we’re going to get out of here.”
“Faith,” Kennedy called out, her voice hoarse and her jaw screaming out in pain. “They’re going to kill Madelyn.”
Presumably having given up on ever getting to finish her ritual, the Shadow turned to Faith and the other Slayers. Entering the combat, she pushed two vampires out of her way to get closer to Faith, easily blocking two of the Slayers' attacks and then backhanding her into the wall.
One of the other Slayers moved in to fight back the Shadow while Faith pulled herself to her feet, while the other used the distraction to slip over to Kennedy and cut her bonds. Not that it was anything but an empty gestured, as Kennedy was far too injured to be able to fight herself, but she appreciated being free.
The Slayer facing off against the Shadow was on the losing side of the battle, but Faith quickly moved back in, creating more of an even match. The two Slayers concerned themselves with the still considerable number of vampires, even as the Shadow grabbed Faith by the neck and pushed her against the wall. “You were a fool to think you could stop me,” she said. “And once I gain the power to seek, there will be no one left at all who will be able to stop her.”
And it was in that moment, as the Slayers were busy fighting vamps and Faith was pushed against the wall, that Kennedy watched a knife-the knife, the same knife she had unwrapped in the alley earlier that day—flew from the wall and lodged itself in the back of the Shadow’s throat. The Shadow paused, took a step back, and then the knife slid around her neck, decapitating her. Dust.
“Well,” said Faith as she easily staked two of the remaining vamps.
* * * * *
“It wasn’t Willow,” said Kennedy as the Slayers watched the remains of the old house be engulfed in flames. They had doused the entire structure in gasoline, then threw a match in one of the windows. “Not really. All that power has passed onto Madelyn. It was more of a poltergeist, born of the strength of all the emotions Willow had while we lived in that house.”
“Does it matter?” asked Faith. “It was shaped by Willow’s feelings, her love for you. Even seven years after Willow’s death, that love lives on. It saved all our lives.”
Kennedy nodded. Her wounds were bandaged, and since most of them were superficial, intended to cause pain rather than inflict actual damage, her Slayer healing should have them mostly under control in a couple of days. As it was she lay, propped up against a tree, watching her old house burn to the ground.
And Kennedy smiled, and let unconsciousness take her as she lay in her lover's arms.The End
Intentional Fallacy: [1] The judging of the meaing or value of a literary work against the external context of the author's stated intentions, deduced purpose, or presumed attitudes. Such a judgment is mistaken from a formalist critical perspective because it mislocates meaning and privileges evidence external to the text.
[2] The dubious critical practice of seeking to decipher a text's meaning by determining the author's intentions. [. . . T]he author s intentions can never be properly determined, but even if they could, a text should in any case only be analysed in its own terms, ignoring any extra-textual information.
[3] A literary term that asserts that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is not the only, and perhaps not the most important, meaning of the piece.
Title: Facing the Shadows [DVD Commentary]
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Pairings: Faith/Kennedy, mentions of past Willow/Kennedy and Buffy/Immortal
Rating: PG-13
Timeline/Continuity: Futurefic. Spoilers for “Chosen.”
Summary: Years after Willow’s death, Kennedy returns to Sao Paulo with a new lover and a new mission. Written for
femslash_minis. mireille719 wanted macaws, cigarettes, and South America. She also didn’t want fluff, and while I’m not 100% sure what this is, Goddess knows it isn’t fluff. “Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.”
American poet, 1807--1882
Facing the Shadows
Hi, I'm Alixtii O'Krul, and I wrote "Facing the Shadows." Right now you're reading the DVD commentary. (You can find the original fic without comments here.)Year: 2015
I recieved Faith/Kennedy as my assignment in theKennedy hasn’t returned to Sao Paulo since, Faith knows.
Since when? From the very first line in this fic, I'm elliptical, keeping my cards close to my chest. Part of this is because this is set in my Watcher!verse, and so--despite having the entire chronology planned out in minute detail (Dawn's birthday is in August)--I don't exactly want to spoil all the surprises I have in store. But also, I like leaving things ambiguous, forcing the reader to imagine things. It makes the worls seem richer, more real.Why should she have? It’s not like Buffy and her Scoobies ever had camping trips at the Sunnydale crater, hiking around it, panting through the dryness of the desert or shimming in the cool weather of the ocean at what once was Sunnydale's beach.
As a canon whore, I force myself to keep Sunnydale's crazy geography, with one half on the beach (per "Go Fish") and the other half on the desert (per "Chosen" and other eps). They only have one Starbucks, and the good half of town isn't all that far from the bad half, but somehow they have a hospital, a University of California campus, a mall, and an international airport.They scattered to the ends of the world, Buffy to Italy, Giles to England, Xander to Africa, running from the past, from a truth no one wanted to face.
I set up the theme of running from the past and having to face its truth as early as possible, because this is what the fic is about. See also the epigraph, which is about the same thing as well.And Willow and Kennedy came here, to South America, to the suburbs of Sao Paulo. Faith never knew why exactly they came here, but why did any of them go anywhere? Now Giles, going to England, that made sense. And she had been pretty much stuck in Cleveland for the first few years after Sunnydale because, well, she was a wanted fugitive. Leaving the country wasn’t exactly an option unless Willow or someone teleported her out. But what allure did Rome have for Buffy? Why was Xander sent to Africa? No one had ever deigned to inform Faith of the answers.
Just as no one told her why she and Kennedy had been chosen for this mission. It couldn’t have passed the Council’s awareness that this was the very city that Willow and Kennedy had lived in for five years.
I have this image of Willow and Kennedy living together in domestic bliss for a very long time. My main motivation in wanting this is to be contrary against all the Willow/Kennedy haters. Yes, sometimes I can be very shallow.Faith guessed that Dawn had assigned them this mission on purpose, had decided that it was time for Kennedy to begin the next stage of some healing process.
Note the shift in tense from present to past here. It wasn't originally intentional, but it works because Faith's musings on the past immediately after "Chosen" make it not particularly noticeable.She didn’t like the Council playing with Slayers’ minds like that, not really, but knew that Dawn wasn’t exactly fond of it either. She did it because she felt she had to, because it was what was necessary to save Slayers’ lives and hold off the next apocalypse. And as much as Faith didn’t like it, she could respect it.
This fits in with Dawn's role as High Watcher, which I establish in Divine Interventions. Of course, I knew most of the people reading this--one of my earlierSao Paulo itself was a busy metropolitan cosmopolis. Full of people, bristling with activity, it was the type of city that Faith liked. The type of city one could get lost in—just a single, nameless person in a sea of over twenty-five million. The fourth largest city in the world, after Mexico City, Mumbai, and Calcutta. But on the outskirts, in the suburbs, Willow and Kennedy had known a very different type of existence.
Also, I like the unique perspective Faith's POV gives to Dawn's Watcher-ness. Dawn is becoming a Quentin Travers in front of everyone's eyes, but as Faith watches it happen she realizes that Dawn doesn't, in the end, have any choice. She also, I think, sees how heavy the burden is on Dawn's shoulders, something nobody ever recognized in Travers.
The list of the four largest cities in the world--Mexico City, Mumbai, Calcutta, and Sao Paulo--is not the list in the present real world. I knew nobody would probably recognize the discrepancy, but if they did it would be a little thing to remind the reader that this is taking place in 2015, and many things have changed.Faith pulled out her box of Newport Lights and took a cigarette. There were only three left within, which meant that Kennedy had smoked half the carton in the last three days. Not a good sign.
I did some research on Sao Paulo, but didn't really come up with much information beyond the fact that it was a huge metropolis, near Rio, and had a few different landmarks. I place Willow and Kennedy in the suburbs because I assume that every metropolus has to have suburbs, and I wanted to picture Willow and Kennedy in an environment that was more than a little Stepford Wives-ish.
I show Faith smoking because I want to keep her morally complex, rather than "redeemed" in some two-dimensional sense, and her smoking is a shortcut towards that end. Just because she's fighting on the side of right doesn't mean she's not still a bad girl. Kennedy's adoption of her bad habit is supposed to be a sign of the depression she's fallen into after Willow's death--a death I still haven't explicitly alluded to yet in this fic, notice.Faith slipped out of the motel room, lighting the cigarette once she was outside. She took a drag, then exhaled it slowly as she thought. Kennedy wouldn’t be at her best on this mission, could be prone to mistakes. Faith would have to be extra careful, have to watch out for both of them.
Here I'm trying to highlight the fact that returning to Sao Paulo is painful to Kennedy. I'm going to keep on hammering on that point, because I think it's important enough that it's not possible to overemphasize it. We still don't know if Willow is dead or if they just had a bad breakup, though,Not that the mission was supposed to be all that difficult. A new figure had appeared on the scene of the demonic underworld, a figure known only as the Shadow. Whoever he was, whatever he was, he was still just a bit player. Small chips. But the Council wanted him dealt with before he had the potential to cause even bigger problems. He was reputed to be working from Sao Paulo, so that’s where Faith and Kennedy were sent to find him.
Note the he pronoun. I think this type of unconscious sexism is probably natural for all involved.
This first section is mostly exposition and introspection: in terms of action, nothing happens beyond Faith smoking a cigarette. But I think the thought process is one that feels right for Faith, and I like the way I make the reader work for the information. Think how horrible it could have been if I put everything upfront: "Willow died in 2008, and Kennedy was inconsolable afterwards." (Besides, I'm still planning on writing that story. It's going to be called To Live in Hearts. But even then I won't start the story until five years after Willow's death, in 2013.)
Earlier that afternoon. . . .
I finally decided to tell the story out of sequence when I realized how much more had to happen in the Kennedy storyline then the Faith one. Kennedy finds out information, acts on it, is kidnapped, and wakes up hours later in her storyline while Faith smokes a cigarette and gets worried in hers. Still, I wanted to present the two storylines in tandem, as if they were happening at the same time, and to open the fic with Faith's introspection. So Kennedy's first couple of scenes become flashbacks, explainging what happened earlier that afternoon, leading up to Faith thinking the thoughts she was thinking in the previous section.Kennedy made her way through the streets of Sao Paulo looking for something to kill. It was still only late afternoon, not nearly dark enough for vampires to be about, but if she stuck to back allies where the sun did not shine she might find something. Not to mention the host of evil creatures which did not need to fear the sun. She was sure to find something. Anything.
This is vintage Kennedy, thinking like a Slayer, wanting to kick ass.Kennedy slipped into a back alley, scanning it for potential threats. Even seven years later, she still knew the city of Sao Paulo like the back of her hand. Five years of patrolling every night had taught her every nuance, every characteristic which made the great city what it was.
Cities have characteristics and nuances? I suppose so, but I don't like that phrasing very much in retrospect.The city had a bristling night life, with many restaurants not even serving until nine or ten in the evening and staying open until three in the morning.
Research!A veritable vampire feeding ground.
She made an effort to stay close to the center of the city, to keep from wandering into the suburbs. The house she had shared with Willow was miles away, but still she wanted to stay far away from anything that might remind her of it. She had to be together, because any mistake could be the one which ended her life.
That was okay, though. Sao Paulo was a huge city, and so the metropolitan center provided plenty of space for her to hunt. She penetrated deeper into the darkness of the alley, then paused when she heard voices. “A Sombra procura um Assassino,” said a voice, “como o espírito deve ser zangado para ser acordado.” Kennedy’s Portugese was rusty, but he was saying something about A Sombra—the Shadow—needing a Slayer to anger some spirit or other.
My Portugese is non-existent. I use an online translator for almost all of my translation needs, which I'm sure results in hideous grammatical constructions. Because of that, I try to use translators only when the characters are casting a spell or something and not actually communicating information. Here, however, I rationalized that the "Bad Portugese" I provide might be simply what Kennedy hears and not what the vampire actually said.“Só então possa o herdeiro da feiticeira ser matou,” another voice, this one female, replied. Something about killing the witch’s heir, whatever that meant.
I knew that probably no one would know who or what I meant by "the witch's heir" and, again, that's part of what I like about this fic: the hidden meanings provide levels within levels. Even now, does anyone really know what I mean when I say the Madelyn is Willow's heir? Don't worry, To Live in Hearts will make it clear.Kennedy stepped forward, and in the darkness she could make out the two shadowy figures exchange some sort of package. Then the first one, the one who had given the package to the other, walked past. Kennedy froze, and the figure passed her, completely oblivious to her presence. From the sound of his footstep, Kennedy figure that one must have been the male.
The female waited for him to leave, then too walked past Kennedy. As she did so, however, Kennedy reached out and grabbed the woman’s hand. She hissed and attacked back, attempting to grab Kennedy’s wrist, but she quickly twisted the woman’s—the vampire’s—arm behind her back. The vampire tried to attack with her other hand, dropping the package, but Kennedy grabbed that one too, and pushed the vampire into the wall.
I'm not very good at describing action, and I think it shows here.“A Sombra,” Kennedy said, menacing. “How can I find him?”
The vampire only growled and, with sudden move, succeeded in throwing Kennedy off her.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Kennedy, grabbing the vampire by the neck and dragging her to the end of the shadow. “I think you’re going to tell me what I know.” She held the vampire just an inch or so from the direct sunlight which would burn her to cinders.
The vampire spat out an address.
Did the vamp really think Kennedy would let it live if it told the truth?“When?”
“Now.”
Kennedy threw the vampire into the sun, picked up the package, and began to run. As she made her way down the city streets, she ripped the covering off the package to reveal a box with a knife inside it. The knife’s hilt was wood, carved into the shape of a macaw.
Having a macaw in the story was one of my prompts. I wasn't sure how to work one into my plot, and then just decided to make the knife macaw-shaped. Since the knife is pretty important in this fic, I think it was a pretty good compromise.Kennedy’s inertia kept her going even as she stopped running. Not watching she was going, she had to fall into a roll to keep from crashing completely.
The knife had been in their house, back when Kennedy and Willow had lived in Sao Paulo together.
It had hung on the wall of their bedroom.
I toyed with making this the knife that Dark!Willow uses to rape Kennedy in Divine Interventions, but Divine Interventions was already written and I didn't feel like making changes to it. I could have made the connection here, but that would have bogged the story down with a lot of backstory that it didn't need. If you've read both stories and want to imagine it's the same knife, however, feel free to go ahead.
Now. . . .
Faith resisted the urge to light another cigarette. She only had the two left, and Kennedy would want one after the patrol that night.
And by "patrol" she means "hot lesbian sex," right?Speaking of Kennedy, where was the girl? She should have been back already.
Faith glanced at her watch. 8:00 pm. There was no way Kennedy shouldn’t be back.
Faith pulled out her cell phone and began to dial Kennedy’s cell phone number. “Hi, this is Kennedy,” her recorded voice recited aftter the recquisite number of rings. “I can’t take your call right now, but if you leave a message—”
Faith hung up. With a sigh, she began pushing the buttons to call the Council’s Brazil HQ.
This entire scene doesn't do much other than further the plot, although I guess it does so in a way that characterizes Faith and Kennedy a little bit. But the scene is necessary for the plot, and I couldn't think of a better way to do what needs to be done here, so this is the scene that was written.
Earlier. . . .
The vampires standing guard didn’t even try to stop Kennedy from entering the warehouse. Whether it was because they didn’t care or because they recognized her for a Slayer, she didn’t know. She didn’t care.
“Quero encontrar a Sombra,” she said to one of the vamps, certain that her Portugese was ungrammatical. He just grunted and gestured with his head down the hall. Kennedy made her way down the hall, kicking in the door at the end of it. Always make a strong entrance.
“Ah, Slayer,” said a woman who had been reclining on a large chair suspiciously resembling a throne. She was draped in diaphanous black silk. “You honor us with your presence.”
Having the villain everyone assumes to be male turn out to be female is an old joke, but it hasn't lost its relevance. I tend to prefer villainesses over male villains, probably for the same reasons I prefer female protagonists.“You’re the Shadow?”
“I am indeed,” the woman said, getting up from her chair. “And do you have a name as well, or should I simply continue to just call you ‘Slayer’?”
Kennedy helped up the macaw-hilted knife she had gotten from the vamp in the alley. “Where did you find this?”
“Oh, I see you have brought me my knife,” the Shadow said. “How kind of you.”
“You think I’m going to just give you this and walk away?” asked Kennedy with a laugh.
“Oh, no,” said the Shadow. “I wouldn’t dream of letting you walk away.”
It was then that Kennedy noticed the thirty-something vamps that had surrounded her. Oops.
Now. . . .
“Kennedy wouldn’t do that,” one of the two Brazilian Slayers the Council had sent over said. “Kennedy trained us, years ago. She knows better than to attempt anything on her own.”
To me this is pure Kennedy: when acting as an instructure, she's a paragon of responsibility, but once she's assigned to field work, she becomes as impulsive as we all know she truly is.“Do you know the English saying ‘Do I as say, not as I do’?” Faith asked. When the Slayer just stared at her blankly, she continued, “Apparently you don’t know Kennedy as well as you thought you did. She’s not in the best of places right now.”
“We know she is not in the best of places,” the other Slayer said. “That is why you called us, no?”
Damn the language barrier. Maybe she was better off stationed in Cleveland all those years. At least there everyone understood even idiomatic English. (And yeah, being on the faculty of a high school, even just as the P.E. teacher, had helped her pick up words like “idiomatic.”)
Here's a place where I draw on Watcher!verse backstory--mostly yet unwritten--to justify a language choice. Hopefully it works as some throwaway information and doesn't distract too much with thoughts of Faith's history.“”No, I don’t just mean that Kennedy’s in trouble,” said Faith. “I mean that coming back to Brazil has upset her. She’s not thinking clearly. We can’t trust her to do the smart thing.”
“How do we find her?” asked a Slayer. Faith supposed she should learn which was which, but right now she couldn’t care less. All she cared about was getting Kennedy back.
Faith sat back in her chair. “We’re going to look up an old friend who just happens to be in town.”
I like that transition. It feels like it should be followed by a commercial break, just as if on a show self-conscious of its genre roots, like Buffy.
Kennedy woke up in her bedroom, reassured by the familiar sights, smells, feels—until she remembered she didn’t have a bedroom, hadn’t had one for years. She was a wondering Slayer, moving from one mission, never putting down roots—
And now she was back in Sao Paulo, in the master bedroom of the house she had shared with Willow for five years. On the bed she had shared with Willow, her legs and arms tied to the bedposts, surrounded by vampires.
This was not a good thing.
The Shadow slipped to the front of the crowd. “Good,” she said. “You’re awake. We can start.”
“What do you want from me?” asked Kennedy, struggling against her bonds and finding them firm. “Why did you bring me here?”
The Shadow picked up the macaw-hilted knife from and hung it on the wall where it had hung so many years ago. Everything was set up exactly as it had been seven years ago. What was this?
“I only want one thing from you, little Slayer,” said the Shadow. “I want your pain.” She turned to a vampire next to her. “Are all the circles set?”
“Yes, your irreverence,” the vampire answered.
“Good,” she said. “You can begin the ceremony.” She smiled as she took a look at the weapons on the wall. “The Slayer who lived here certainly had quite a collection. So many beautiful weapons, able to cause such wonderful pain.”
Behind her, the vampires began to chant. In Latin, Kennedy thought, uncertain.
“But I think it would be best if we started small, don’t you?” The Shadow put a hand on Kennedy’s shirt and pulled it up, revealing the skin covering her abdomen. Then she pulled out what Kennedy recognized as her old Swiss Army Knife, and began to make shallow cuts into the flesh.
“Faith, mia cara,” the Immortal said. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”
Yeah, right. The Immortal was a champion flatterer, but Faith knew that not even a Slayer could go a decade without aging.
I think I've read a fic somewhere in which Willow says, "Have you seen the Immortal?" with the implication that anyone who has would fall for him. I think this sums up the Immortal for me--a charisma so strong that it is irresistable and, although it is not magic, it might as well be. Of course Faith can resist him here, but there's already plenty of bad blood between the two.Especially not a Slayer. Faith remembered the degree to which the years had taken their toll on Buffy right before she died.
It seems to have developed as fanon that Slayers, once capable of living out normal lifespans, age slower and stay young longer. I decided to challenge that by making Slayers age faster, burning out much quicker than normal humans.Only the Immortal was able to go through the years looking as young as ever. Well, the Immortal, and vampires, and some demons, and--well, the point was the list didn't include Slayers.
It's always fun to use the POV to spice up the narration.“Spare me the sweet talk.”
The Immortal looked pained. “You wrong me, Faith.”
“Yeah, sure. What are you doing in South America, anyway?”
“I have business to conduct here,” the Immortal answered. “Now tell me, how is Madelyn?”Well, at least he remembered to ask. “She’s fine,” Faith said. “No thanks to you.”
The Immortal said nothing, betrayed no emotion. “Well, how can I help you, Faith?”
“I know you have contacts,” Faith said. “Hell, you’re probably here to meet with the Shadow yourself. I need to know how to get to him, how to get Kennedy back.”
“You have your misplaced your love, eh? Well, let it never be said I failed to help someone in the name of love.”
I try to keep the Immortal offstage as much as possible, in keeping with the spirit of "The Girl in Question," but I have to admit that he was a blast to write here.“Just tell me what I need and I’ll get out of your hair. Neither of us wants to prolong this any longer than we have to.”
The Immortal leveled a long stare at Faith. “Do you even know what l’Ombra wants, young one?”
Kennedy did her best not to cry out in pain as the Shadow cut into her.
“You see, the witch who lived in this house was rather fond of Slayers. Fell in love with one, even. They lived together in this house for many years.”
The Shadow didn’t realize exactly who Kennedy was. Kennedy knew she should be trying to come up with a way to use the fact to her advantage, but it was difficult to think at all through the pain.
I couldn't come up with a way to allow Kennedy to use the knowledge to her advantage without making the fic even longer than it was, so I didn't.One thought, however, did manage to come to the forefront of her mind. O herdeiro da feiticeira, or whatever it had been that the vampire had said. Fuck her rusty Portugese. The witch’s heir. And if the witch was Willow, that meant. . . .
They were going to kill Madelyn.
And I begin to give out enough information to let the reader put together the pieces.
Faith simply stood under his stare. She was discomfited, but damn if she was going to show it.
At last, the Immortal spoke. “She has come for the magic of your friend the witch. Willow Rosenberg, I believe her name was? She believes she can raise the ambient energy resident in Sao Paulo. To do so she will need a Slayer. Your lover will be ideal.”
“And then?”
The Immortal looked at her as if she were a schoolgirl who had answered a question wrong. “L’Ombra is going to torture your lover, hoping to anger that part of the witch’s spirit which remains in the place. Once that power is awakened, she hopes to control it. And then she will attempt to use it to gain control of the rest of the witch’s power.”
“You mean . . . ?”
The Immortal nodded. “Do not think I am without concern for my daughter’s welfare, Slayer.
This is the second fic I wrote in which I mentioned Madelyn--which may be a surprise consider how often she shows up in more recent ficlets. In Divine Interventions she was introduced as an adult, Madelyn Summers, an incredibly powerful witch capable of travelling through time. Here we learn she's the Immortal's daughter, which implies that Buffy is her mother--and we learn that that is true in subsequent ficlets, for example Eve of All Hallows. I still haven't made completely clear her relationship to Willow, although Triangle provides some more clues. Stay tuned for To Live in Hearts!I came here to Brazil in an effort to prevent l’Ombra’s plans. But now that she has captured a Slayer, there will be no stalling her. In all likelihood they have already begun the ritual. They will be performing it in your friend’s old house, where the energies will be most strongly concentrated. You know where that is?”
Faith nodded even though she didn’t. “The other Slayers will know,” she said, already turning to leave. No time could be wasted.
“La fortuna buona, la mia ragazza,” the Immortal said softly as she left. “Per amore di mia figlia, la mia fortuna buona a lei. Good luck, Faith.”
The point here is to retain the moral ambiguity that was attached to the Immortal in "The Girl in Question." He's abandoned his daughter (after Buffy's death), but now we see that he's taken steps behind the scenes to protect her.
Kennedy wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of her shivering and her vision blurring, or if the house was shaking. When the Shadow looked up, however, she realized that it was an objective phenomenon.
“The witch is angered,” the Shadow said, a large smile on her face. “It is almost time.” She hit Kennedy in the jaw, then again, then again. The bone wasn’t broken, but it wouldn’t certainly leave one hell of a bruise. Monster swelling.
Yes, Kennedy is getting tortured. This was originally supposed to be a relatively hurt/comfort, but I felt I needed to come up with an entire plot with conflict, crisis, and resolution to explain the hurt and by the time I had written all of that I had spent several days writing a fic I had planned to write in a single morning and I didn't have strength to go on. But here's the hurt half of the orginal hurt/comfort.The shaking got stronger. “Willow?” asked Kennedy. Already the swelling was beginning, making it difficult to talk.
And here Kennedy sacrifices the advantage she had, presumably not thinking clearly due to the torture.“Oh,” said the Shadow. “So you know of her. That is even better.” She stepped back and raised her hands to the sky. “Power of vengeance, strength from anger, I bind thee to my will. Let—”
And then panic broke out behind the Shadow. It was painful for Kennedy to lift her head to see beyond, but then it was painful for her to leave her head where it was too, so she did her best to raise her body. She watched as Faith entered the room, followed by two of the Slayers she had trained when she had lived in Brazil. Dust trailed in their wake.
Vamps rushed towards the Slayers, meleeing with them. Judicious blows from their stakes lowered the vamp count in the room.
Note how careful I am to do whatever I can to actually avoid describing the combat.“Fools!” shouted the Shadow. “Hold your ground! We must finish the ceremony!”
“I don’t think so,” said Faith, staking another vamp. “I think I’m going to take my girlfriend and then we’re going to get out of here.”
“Faith,” Kennedy called out, her voice hoarse and her jaw screaming out in pain. “They’re going to kill Madelyn.”
She doesn't already know that the Immortal has already figured this out and has told Faith.“Hush, love,” Faith said, blocking another vampire attack. “We’re not going to let it get that far. This ends here.”
Presumably having given up on ever getting to finish her ritual, the Shadow turned to Faith and the other Slayers. Entering the combat, she pushed two vampires out of her way to get closer to Faith, easily blocking two of the Slayers' attacks and then backhanding her into the wall.
One of the other Slayers moved in to fight back the Shadow while Faith pulled herself to her feet, while the other used the distraction to slip over to Kennedy and cut her bonds. Not that it was anything but an empty gestured, as Kennedy was far too injured to be able to fight herself, but she appreciated being free.
The Slayer facing off against the Shadow was on the losing side of the battle, but Faith quickly moved back in, creating more of an even match. The two Slayers concerned themselves with the still considerable number of vampires, even as the Shadow grabbed Faith by the neck and pushed her against the wall. “You were a fool to think you could stop me,” she said. “And once I gain the power to seek, there will be no one left at all who will be able to stop her.”
And it was in that moment, as the Slayers were busy fighting vamps and Faith was pushed against the wall, that Kennedy watched a knife-the knife, the same knife she had unwrapped in the alley earlier that day—flew from the wall and lodged itself in the back of the Shadow’s throat. The Shadow paused, took a step back, and then the knife slid around her neck, decapitating her. Dust.
“Well,” said Faith as she easily staked two of the remaining vamps.
“It wasn’t Willow,” said Kennedy as the Slayers watched the remains of the old house be engulfed in flames. They had doused the entire structure in gasoline, then threw a match in one of the windows. “Not really. All that power has passed onto Madelyn. It was more of a poltergeist, born of the strength of all the emotions Willow had while we lived in that house.”
“Does it matter?” asked Faith. “It was shaped by Willow’s feelings, her love for you. Even seven years after Willow’s death, that love lives on. It saved all our lives.”
Kennedy nodded. Her wounds were bandaged, and since most of them were superficial, intended to cause pain rather than inflict actual damage, her Slayer healing should have them mostly under control in a couple of days. As it was she lay, propped up against a tree, watching her old house burn to the ground.
I originally decided they needed to burn down the house as a point of logic: they can't have this poltergeist-Willow flying around haunting things if there's a chance that evil people could tap into that power. But it also works on a thematic level, thankfully. Kennedy is leaving behind the old life she had with Willow and standing ready to begin a new one with Faith. That's where the title comes from, of course: Kennedy has to face the vampire named the Shadow, the mystical shadow of Willow, and the shadow of her past life all at once.After a few strokes of the Swiss Army knife, the tears had flowed from Kennedy’s eyes freely. Apparently Slayer tear ducts could hold an awfully large amount of liquid, though, for she could still feel the tears stream down her face. “Faith?” she asked. “Hold me?”
As brazen as she can be, and as justifiably confident as she is in her Slaying ability, Kennedy always seemed just a little insecure in her relationship with Willow. Just like anyone, Kennedy needs to be loved, and that's part of what endeara her to me. Here she exhibits the same behavior with Faith, and I just want to reach out and hug her. But I can't, so I make Faith do it for me.Faith found a clean spot on her forehead and kissed it, then wrapped an arm around Kennedy. “I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.”
And Kennedy smiled, and let unconsciousness take her as she lay in her lover's arms.
And that's the comfort part of the hurt/comfort. Indeed, I was so eager to end this fic (I had schoolwork I was supposed to be doing) that I considered ending with the crack!tastic line "And then they had great sex." Honestly, however, in retrospect I think it's far more powerful than any sex scene (especially immediately-post-torture sex scene) I could have written, and this moment of loving and being loved is one of the many things I really love about this story.
Intentional Fallacy: [1] The judging of the meaing or value of a literary work against the external context of the author's stated intentions, deduced purpose, or presumed attitudes. Such a judgment is mistaken from a formalist critical perspective because it mislocates meaning and privileges evidence external to the text.
[2] The dubious critical practice of seeking to decipher a text's meaning by determining the author's intentions. [. . . T]he author s intentions can never be properly determined, but even if they could, a text should in any case only be analysed in its own terms, ignoring any extra-textual information.
[3] A literary term that asserts that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is not the only, and perhaps not the most important, meaning of the piece.