eswareinmal | (no subject)

Characters: Giles and Benu
Where: Between the Old Castle and the Mountains.
When: RD6
What: After getting scrambled by the barrier around the Old Capital's castle, Giles winds up in the middle of nowhere and is greeted by the Voice of Chaos.

The land had once been a farm. Quite recently been a farm, if the condition of the farmhouse was any indication. But the fields lay plowed, but untended, weeds starting to reclaim the land once so carefully ordered. There were many farms like this, some left abandoned after then younger generation fled to the towns to find escape from farm life, others where the well had dried up and the entire farm moved to a more fertile area less prone to dragons. Land was only as valuable as the resources near by, after all.

This farm, however, had met a different fate.

The Hero of the Mountain had passed by this farm, breathing new life into it with her magic. The well, on the verge of drying up, had sprung back to its former glory, the encroaching woods pushed back and the soil returned to it's most abundant.

But it hadn't lasted more than a day after the Hero had continued on. The well had fully died out, the woods rushing forward, worse than before, and the soil grown more rocky and arid. The miracle withdrawn, the farmers had left, their last hopes destroyed.

It was a good place, Benu reflected with an idle smile as she sat on the roof of the farm house, legs kicking back and forth lazily. Nature growing to reclaim its lost land, chaos overwhelming the painstaking order that humans had tried to force on it. Soon the wilds would devour every sign of order, turning the farm back into woods and grass.

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Her smile grew, looking almost predatory like a cat at his observation.

"A whim may have reason, it may not. But to say which would be so dull, would it not?"

"And beings like you are all about excitement, aren't they?"

And if Benu gets bored...well, things could go a lot harder on all of them than they already are.

Even so...

"This...it, um, i-it wouldn't be a favor, would it? I mean, I've, I've done nothing to warrant a favor from you."

"Would you reject it if I said it were? Not that it matters... The world will come as We wish it. A seed sown matters not in a field already overgrown..."

"I'd, um, be more likely to accept it, actually."

'Favor' carried less implication of requiring a return...

But, viewed that way, he was already in debt to her. A few minutes, yes, it had just been a few minutes, but it had been a stab at the laws of nature and reality all the same. How much power did she have? How far did her infleunce spread? What, exactly, was her sphere of influence?

...all questions he could answer if he could pick up a damn book.

"Fine."

Again, that predatory smile. "Take my hand, lost Spirit... and through Fire, be reborn..."

She held out her hand with a flourish.

There's a second, just a second longer of hesitation, as Giles weighs what he's due to gain versus what he's due to lose. He's made deals with demons before. Sometimes they end well. Sometimes they really, truly don't.

It's all a matter of getting away in time.

And only because he's done it before, only because he has all the confidence in the other heroes and none in himself, does Giles take her hand and grasp it tightly.

Her fingers curl around his hand, her smile growing before she dissolves into flames, the fire rapidly twisting out to envelope Giles, sinking into him.

It is not a kind transformation and the flames carry with them their deep heat as they engulf the spirit, racing down and wrapping themselves around to sear that which has no flesh into that which does.

I will walk through the fire. 'Cause where else can I turn? I will walk through the fire, and let it burn...

Oh, Buffy...

And that's the last thought Giles has, as he watches the hot, all consuming, life giving flames race up his arm and along his body. After that, the pain blots out everything. He can't even scream, because when he opens his mouth to do so the flames race down into his chest to restart his heart to beating.