trainingwings | Buffy is gonna kill her.

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Buffy is gonna kill her.

Player Name: Val
Are you new: Yes!
Character Name: Dawn Summers
Character Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[text]

[The icon shows Dawn surrounded by wilderness.]

Diary of an Expedition: The Barrier. Part 3.

Three days into our journey, we still have not reached the barrier. The climate is pleasant; we have been blessed to be spared by rain. Today's lunch consists of preserves and fish from a nearby stream. They appear to be trout, but as I never went fishing, I really cannot say.

Last night, we were surprised by a bear at the camp. We chased it away by banging pots. It might have been looking for food. Sorry, bear, but you'll have to catch your own. You're programmed to do it, it can't be that hard. Lazy bastard.

While fishing (and let me tell you, that was not an easy task for a suburban girl like me), I observed a pair of squirrels facing off. It was kind of cute in a gruesome way. They really went down and dirty with it. Luckily both came out of it alive, so no squirrels were harmed in this process. Today.

I would also like to inform you that corn meal, water, and wild blackberries roasted over a campfire do not a tasty impromptu treat make. Especially since whatever herb we picked to put in the mixture, it was decidedly not peppermint. One can only hope it is not poisonous.

This is the end of today's report. If nothing more exciting happens today, you shall get another update tomorrow. If no report comes forth, I can be presumed to have been eaten by bears or poisoned myself.

Have a nice day,

~ D.S.

[HI EVERYONE HERE IS DAWN also the "we" is totally a lie, she's out there alone. She just thought it would sound cooler. ~~And perhaps make Buffy-strangling less likely.~~]

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... do I have to come and get you?

[Dawn is pretty sure she could, at least. After all, she's the nerdy one between the two of them.]

I've lived here for ages. I don't think I need...[ yeah. she'd probably need her new feather baby sister's help. dammit. and at some point she would have to explain the part where dawn had been here once before -- a long long time ago. ]

No matter. Me? I've got a magical compass on my side. You'll see.

[ and so the pockets the item and heads for the door. ]

Edited 2013-07-23 14:37 (UTC)

Magical compass? You've got to show me that!

... uhm. I really hope you'll find here. I don't want to you to get lost and eaten by bears. Or stung to death by hornets.

Puh-lease. I've fought bears before.

[ bear. a bear. singular. and it wasn't really like fighting a real bear and...

well. no matter. give it a few hours and buffy comes a-striding along with a small wooden box cradled in her palms. she seems to be consulting it often and -- sure enough -- she glances up at the lost possible minute to find dawn and her little solitary encampment.

the slayer doesn't look all that surprised. at least not to the casual observer. but those who know and love her well can see the slight relief flood her expression and the softening at the edges of her severe look. ] You've managed quite the -- uh -- hike.

Hey!

[Dawn turns to her from her seat at the campfire and waves, smiling brightly. Then she decides to get up and give her sister a bear hug (haha) after all.]

You didn't get eaten!

Getting eaten sits at about -- oh -- number four on my list of things to avoid, you know. [ she tugs the sister into her arms and offers her a firm (but non-rib-breaking) kind of hug. but not before dropping a backpack of necessary supplies onto the needle-strewn ground. ] When you left a note about being gone, Dawn, I kinda didn't anticipate you'd be going full on Survivorman.

Survivorwoman!

[Dawn rubs Buffy's back a few times before drawing back and coming face to face with her sister.]

Hey, a trip to the unknown needs to be done in style!

...Checking out our bespoke prison walls, huh? [ although buffy had made the trip herself years before, she never begrudges anyone else the desire to see it for themselves. to investigate. to check for any unforeseen chinks in the barrier armour. after all, she isn't so far up her own ass as to think that dawn -- clever, precious, albeit pain-in-the-backsidey dawn -- couldn't find what she'd missed: a way out. ]

Well, yeah. That's the plan.

[She bounces back over to the campire and plops herself down.]

Come sit!

It came down. The barrier. [ she continues as she grabs herself a seat-like log. ] Just the once. About a half a year after I got here.

[Head whips around!!]

What? How'd it happen? Did anyone get out?

[ a slow shake of her head -- but she continues to speak while dragging graham crackers out of her backpack. ] No. But something got in: an invading army.

Whoa.

[Dawn takes the crackers and sets them aside so that Buffy may have hands free for the rest of her stuff.]

I guess there was carnage?

Lots and lots. You may think the Malnosso are creeps but the cultists -- their enemy -- make them look downright hospitable. Think Bringers, but with giant functional wings and a mean SOB for a commander. We fight them, still, but...no longer on our own ground. Thank God.

[ she doesn't want to imagine dawn being exposed to that level of disposable violence. certainly, it's a bit of an inevitability back home. but here? some people actually manage to live peaceful lives. she wants that for her sister. ]

[You still think that is gonna work? Really, Buffy, you should know better by now.]

Can I help?

No. A thousand times no. I cannot say it with any more possible emphasis: no. [ were dawn to ever run into the general -- the leader of the cultist army -- buffy might have a legit fit. because the tortures and horrors the general has inflicted on the slayer in the past...

well. she's still recovering. ]

I have valuable skills, though!

[Buffy. ;; Alas, here we go again.]

Mmhm. And they're incredibly impressive and unbelievably precocious for a girl your age. As a high school freshman, I could barely stumble through the Latin in some of Giles's books. But...

They're not the sort of skills that should take you anywhere near these battlefields. [ not that they had a choice. drafts were drafts. the lists of people sent out to fight often included children. ] If something happened to you? Dawnie...[ i could never forgive myself. ]

[Dawn casts her eyes down. What does one say to that, really? She hates this, hates always just being protected, but she can't exactly say anything against Buffy's fear of something happening to her.]

... I know.

[ here happens the steady pop of a marshmallow bag being opened. buffy grabs a metal skewer and impales a marshmallow or three. ]

When it comes to the Cultists and their General? [ a shuddering sigh; she might as well be honest. ] Even I've learned to tread lightly. Around him.

[Dawn was watching the ritual skewering of marshmallows, but Buffy's words make her eyes turn sharply sideways towards her sister, full of apprehension.]

Did -- did something happen? To you?

I killed him -- [ she speaks so matter-of-factly, doing her best to veil some dark emotion. ] He didn't take so kindly to that. Who would, really?

[That sideways glance turns into a full head-on stare.]

So he sought revenge. ... and took it.

Death's hardly permanent here, but after he went down he didn't show his face for a long, long while. And when I saw him next? Well -- [ how can she explain it? the way the general had made shallow cuts along her arms and poured his own blood into her veins, thereby netting himself the ability to control her very limbs? to freeze her? puppet her? ]

The Cultists are beyond dangerous, Dawn. I don't want you to have to deal with them. Not if I can't help it.

[Gulp, swallow. Dawn knows there is something there, something massive, that Buffy isn't telling her. Isn't willing to tell her. Dawn kinda wishes she would.]

I understand that, but -- Buffy, you know I worry about you too, right?

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[ action ] ... I have no real smile icons active, sob

[ action ] oh, inactive icons. they trick us up every time.

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