eachdraidh | First Stanza - [Video] (both courts)

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First Stanza - [Video] (both courts)

[The locket opens up to showing him in a bar. It's a well run place that seems fairly busy. Spike can be heard over the conversations in the background, but only just. Behind him is a pig-faced bartender who is probably less than pleased by a locket conversation in his bar, but hasn't gone to the trouble of turning it off. Spike hasn't been causing much trouble in Daonna since he arrived weeks ago to start living medieval style. He patrolled with the Slayer and though beasties weren't always common, there was no shortage of crime. It was work that didn't always pay well, but they'd collected one bounty that was keeping them fed and a roof over their head at the Sweet Sow.

And when he was peckish... well, the town was full of people that would never be missed, so long as they were never found. Spike was glad to be back on human blood again.]

This boon business is a big load of bollocks and I can't be the only one who thinks it. Collecting feathers for the king and queen? Here we are, shards rammed into our chests, and this is the best use they have for us? Bugger that and bugger them as well. Bootlicking might suit others, but it's never been the life for me, no matter what Crackerjack prizes they're offering.

So what I want to know is where we can get our goods without kissing their royal asses? There's got to be some witch or demon or the like handing out discount boons for a fee. Anything will do: it's got to be better than the cheap shite they threw at me last time. [A pouch of tobacco! For dealing with shadow beasties! Is it any wonder he didn't bother bending down to pick any feathers up?]

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"Suits me just fine."

One of the barmaids arrived to give him a plate of sauce-drenched chicken wings. The sauce was not really sauce so much as it was a thick and gloopy gravy with bits of more chicken meat in it. He poked a fork at it unhappily.

"Well. That settles that."

"--Doesn't look much like a winner."

But what did Buffy care? She was not near so invested in this narrative of chicken wings as he was. She had other bees in her bonnet: indoor plumbing; hair dryers; diet coke. As it was, the proprietor saw fit to put a squat tankard of something by Buffy's elbow and she pulled a face before she even sipped. And he informed her with a snorting laugh that it would be generously added to their tab.

They were haemorrhaging coin.

But! On the subject of food: "Find a town butcher yet?"

Spike had relented to fork a piece of the food and try it out. While it was certainly not what he asked for it, the food wasn't bad. They had gone heavy on the pepper to add spice, but it not ruin the taste. Indeed served as it was (and not under the pretense of hot wings), it would make for a good dish.

He did not look at her as he answered. "Already taken care of. I've got a nice steady supply now."

"Good," she answered with a firm and certain nod.

The trust was heartbreaking, really. It was given thoughtlessly and naively. Buffy questioned a lot about his placement here at her side but not (it seemed) this. She believed too strongly in his desire to change. In his would-be aim to be a man instead of a monster. And although that faith manifested itself as a cool and detached affirmative, the mere lack of suspicion was telling enough.

"Let's just hope it's not pig, huh?" A smile that did not reach her eyes.

"Trust me, love. I was sick of pig before we found this town."

The pig-faced man shot him a look and Spike greeted it with a cheeky smile and gave his mouthed praise of the meal as sarcastically as he could manage. He then went back to eating his meal, having decided to forgo any effort to have them try again.

Her gaze swung from Spike to the pig-faced man. And back again.

"Cool it on the swine snark." She said, though she'd kicked off the event with a (admittedly slightly more harmless remark). "Or Wilbur here is gonna find creative new ways to add charges to our tab."

Buffy was not as brave as Spike. Culinarily-speaking. She took one look at the 'wings' and thought even the beer might be preferable. She gave it a sniff -- noted it did smell weaker than even the cheapest of cheap canned beers -- and had to remind herself that the beer was cleaner than the water on offer.

Spike shook his head. "Snowball's not the type. The bloke is fond of me, whether he shows it or not."

He washed his food down with his own tankard of beer. Fortunately he hadn't been drinking enough to get drunk, but that could perhaps be credited to a growing tolerance for the stuff thanks to adopting it as standard beverage (besides blood).

"You've got a funny way of measuring fondness."

Understatement of the century. Buffy let the words sink in and then she took a mid-sized drink. Ugh.

"It's all those cold shoulders you give me. Easy to mistake those for fondness, isn't it?"

"Puhlease," her voice dropped down to a tense whisper. Not because she had a secret to share, but because she didn't want the rest of the bar hearing her little drama. "If I was in the business of giving you cold shoulders, do you really think I'd have let you tag-along this far?"

"And go off solo? The lone rider thing isn't your style." He knew she insisted on it and that the job of the Slayer was a lonely one. But it was when she was alone that he was around the most. It was when she needed him and he obliged her. She'd never acknowledged it in words, but she hadn't needed to. She'd entrusted her sister's safety to him, even if he had failed.

"And this is?"

She made a rapid gesture between the pair of them. Pointing at him. Pointing at herself. Pointing at him again. "This? This isn't my style." Not now. "Letting some vampire ride shotgun through a whole continent's worth of Medieval Times? Nah."

Some vampire. Shotgun. She spat her venom into the words, trying to belittle what was in fact a great deal to her. She would never say it aloud, but she needed him here.

Spike gestured vaguely to his head and the black roots in his hair. "This isn't exactly my style either. But I'm making an effort to make it work, aren't I? Even if the results aren't coming out right."

Case in point, his gravy drenched meal.

Making an effort. Right. Those were the words that stopped her hysteria-train in its tracks. That was what Spike did, now: make efforts. Improve. Progress. Prove himself. She'd watched that crazy spiral once and -- noting the roots -- she wondered if it was going to happen again.

"We need to do better." Not at being them. They were horrendously efficient at being them. But the larger picture! "Like...way better. Better than running small-time bounties. This is humiliating."

"I'm open to ideas. But I'll tell you now I don't fancy myself fitting in with the gleaming Seelie types."

They were the seeming heroes in this conflict. But that didn't prove anything in the end. A holy order had tried to kill Dawn because of their dedication to the side of good. Being all filled with light and pretty didn't keep them from being any less of assholes than the side they already had forsaken.

"You? Yeah. No. I can't see it."

But me--! Her protest lingered. Buffy didn't want to say it aloud. She didn't want to invite his mocking down upon her head. Or worse yet, his insistence that she did not gleam. That she was for darker tones. The thought drove her to take another drink. Pull another face.

"But there's something to be said for the Seelie wooing practices. Apparently their shard-folk get asked."

"Yeah?" He asked in casual interest, but offered no time for an answer. "Well they didn't ask us, did they? So they can bugger themselves."

"Yeah. But don't you wanna know why they didn't ask us? I mean -- we have shards, too. What makes us so unaskable?"

He gave her a look and tilted his head that way he often did when he was trying to figure her out. "Should be bleeding obvious. We're both creatures that hunt in the night. Not very Seelie-like."

"I don't hunt."

But saying it now...! It held so much less conviction than when they'd both of them assured Javik of a huntless state. It was simple to lie to strangers with strange faces. Harder, she found, to lie to him. And yet she tried regardless -- almost like a wilful rebellion against his assumptions.

"Maybe you do. I don't. Keep your labels to yourself."

"Call it what you like: prowling, stalking, or graveyard loitering. It's not exactly daytime activity, is it?"

Her lies didn't convince him, nor her attempt to distinguish herself as different. Even if she wasn't evil, he thought they were more alike than they were different. The Unseelie suited them, even if he felt no allegiance to them.

"Nocturnal happenings does not a predator make, thank you very not much."

Another drink. Another glare. "Besides, there's plenty of the slaying biz that happens while the sun's up. I'm not so night-owl as you want me to be."

"You've got it all mixed up, love. You're the one wanting to be some daytime superhero. It's just not in the cards for you."

They were Unseelie. Rebellious Unseelie, but they were connected to the darkness. They owned that. Or at least he did. He could not be bothered if she failed to do the same.

"So maybe it's time I start stacking my deck."

"Stack away." He turned to watch her, eager to see just how she planned to change around what he already thought of as fact.

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