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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[ oh. sure. she could have waited until she got back to the sweet sow. buuut she didn't. buffy is just outside daonna, returning from a stroll out to a farmer's small settlement to ask about a follow-up bounty. she'd wanted to strike will the proverbial iron is still hot, but that also meant going out during the lingering late-fall heat of the day. and that meant leaving spike behind.

and as she walks back she pulls out the locket, both surprised and unsurprised to witness spike's opportunism finally showing its face. she left her locket dangling, so all its video feed picked up was the rhythmic sway of tree-canopy and the path ahead. at times the occasional arm lifted to rake through her hair. ]

Question the first: what are you hankering for that you'd risk a budget shelf boon-conjurer?

A bit of daylight exposure, perhaps. I should never have turned down that offer from the queen.

[He'd been paranoid of such gifts and rightly so. But it bugged him knowing that such a solution might be around and perhaps even common and he was sticking around in a tavern letting Buffy do the footwork. It had never bothered him back in their own world, except for that brief time he knew of the gem that could let him walk in the day and spent so much time trying to find it.]

She offered?

[ news to the slayer. not that she necessarily expected spike to tell her everything. except...apparently she did expect that. and felt unreasonably touchy that she was only learning it now. as if she had some sort of viable claim on what had or hadn't been offered him. ]

She did. I turned her down, too. Bloody stupid of me, that.

[But well the past was the past. He still would like to find a solution around that. It was not that he was particularly keen on watching a sunset or anything, but he would like some improved mobility in life.]

You turned her down 'cause you didn't want to owe her one. [ she doesn't ask; she tells. at least buffy is halfway certain she understands spike's part in the refusal. ] Power's great, except for when it comes with a catch--

[ she'd refused her own upgrade of sorts. but not in these lands. back in sunnydale, when the shadowmen offered to...no. ]

You hit the nail on the nose with your big question: we're bargain-hunters. There's no selling away a piece of my soul for a little razzle-dazzle. [but... ] Sun-walking. Is that something you really want? Like, really really?

I think I might look good with a nice tan, don't you?

[He did want sun-walking, even if he would remain a creature of the night. But the truth was, she was the one woman who could make him brave the sun to see her. He didn't go running around Sunnydale with a coat over his head because it made him look attractive. Loving a human was awful because he only had access to half of her life.]

Nope. Sorry. Can't even begin to picture it. It's like I try and there's this Spike-shaped blank in my imagination. [ rapid-fire. protective. defensive. spike with a tan isn't a thing she's actually ever considered, but it's his calling upon her opinion of his appearance that makes her jumpy. ]

Maybe you should just invest in a good beach umbrella. [ because that'd work. sure. ]

A lot of use that would be dealing with beasties. It's either let them rip me a new one or get dusted by the sun. No thank you.

[Utility. That was his cause for the request. Buffy had them running around playing hero, then he needed to be able to do it more properly and more frequently.]

I dunno. It's -- weird. You. Sunlight. You in the sunlight.

[ aside from that one day -- and god, that had been a fight -- she couldn't conjure it to her mind. spike is equal to the shadows. and at the same time, she likes that divide between them. she likes that there is a place she can go that he cannot follow. ]

Not really wrapping my mind around it.

I've lived under the sun a bit longer than you have, love. It was a daily habit of mine.

[Living with the Slayer and her friends was as close to being human as he had been before he died. He lived practically like a human these days. He did not want to become William Pratt, but was there harm in claiming those simple things he missed?]

Yeah. But in England. Really don't think that counts as sunny.

And this place does? With the names of these places, we might well be in bloody Ireland.

[He was only passingly familiar with Gaelic from his days as a bookish poet and scholar, but he recognized the tone of the names, if not the meanings.]

Fine. Whatever. Just don't expect to blow our bounty money on your vanity project.

[ so touchy! so very obviously opposed to the idea, despite the good sense it made. ]

Some of that bounty money is mine. [And he wasn't spending as much as she was on luxuries like food! That is, he was eating food, but only because it tasted good.]

Yours, sure. But not so you can throw it at the first charlatan who promises you an all-access pass to the daylight only to actually just give you skin cancer.

[ it's hard to tell whether the concern is genuine or feigned at this point. ]

We don't really do the cancer thing, what with already being dead and all.

Magical cancer, then. It'll give you magical cancer. For magical beings.

[ she huffs and rounds her way through daonna's front gate and-- ] I'm almost back.

You know where to find me.

[Like he could go anywhere else...]

I know the where. Sure. But what about the how I'll find you?

[ will she find you drunk, spike? because she's so not prepared for that again. the first day spike had been penned up in daonna during the sunlight hours had not ended prettily. ]

With your own two legs, I'd think.

[He knew she didn't mean that. But what did she expect, leaving him in a tavern with nothing to do BUT drink? It's not like there were soap operas to keep him busy. He'd been better since then, but he still disliked being cooped up in this one place while she ran around all day.]

Har. Very cute. [ only not at all.

she props the locket a little higher in her palm now that she's navigating the city streets. its frame catches a corner of chin and then -- pulled back -- her whole face is seen. ] What's Babe serving up for lunch today, huh?

[ read: order me some food i'm famished after a whole morning of dead ends. ]

Anything but bacon. I convinced him to do some chickens in sauce, but I don't have a lot of faith he'll get it right.

[They hadn't gotten hot wings right in Caer Scima either. He had little more faith that the huge pig man's cooking staff could do better.]

My kingdom for a low fat yogurt.

[ yes. because that's exactly what she wants. ]

You can put that on your boon list.

I don't have a boon list.

[ check out miss self-sufficient over here! she totally as a boon list. a secret boon list. ]

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