Buffy stopped inside the entrance to Guadosalam. To her shock, she was suddenly two storeys above ground on a wide branch-like path which ran downwards, leading to several doors and eventually to the ground. Lulu took charge at this point.
“This way.”
She led them to an inn, similar to the one Buffy woke up in earlier. A few minutes later, she was relaxing in a hot bath. The door suddenly opened and a strange woman came into the room. She was obviously not human, though she was definitely female. She bowed to the shocked slayer as she came in, picked up Buffy’s clothes and walked out.
“Hey!” Buffy called. “Wait, I don’t have any other clothes! Wait! Come back!” She looked around the room, no longer enjoying the feeling of the warm water healing the bruises of the day.
The woman came walking back in, placing a thick towel and several items of clothing on the clothes peg before leaving again. Buffy sighed, leaning back in the tub. A few minutes later, cleaned and refreshed, Buffy pulled herself out of the tub, wringing water out of her golden blonde hair. She would have stayed longer but she could have sworn she heard a loud and pointed ‘hmmf’ outside the door.
She grabbed the towel off the hook and her eyes fell on the ‘clothes’. A long white skirt with a waist-high slit hung from a thick black belt. It wasn’t just a slit, Buffy realised, putting it on. It was a three-inch wide section that left her right leg exposed at the slightest movement. This was accompanied by a pair of tight black shorts. A tiny lavender halter neck midriff top came with a long white coat, with one button just above her stomach. The coat had some sort of thick grey fur around the neck and at the ends of the arms. Kirrel sat on a chair, scrubbing its face intently with tiny white paws.
Buffy laughed. “They can’t be that bad.” She put on the clothes, laughing at her reflection. The look wasn’t terrible and at least she fit right in now. She grimaced as every movement exposed a bare stretch of leg.
She tentatively stepped out of the bathroom, finding the other two girls dressed similarly, with Rikku in a much shorter skirt and Yuna in a flowing skirt with no slit at all. Lulu walked into the room wearing a long black off-the-shoulder dress. It was a surprise. Buffy had gotten used to the strange dress Lulu had been wearing. The entire front of her other dress, from just below the waist to the floor, was comprised entirely of belts, crisscrossing one another and not doing a good job of hiding her stockinged legs. The dress she now wore was made from cotton or something similar, whereas her other dress had been leather with floral patterns at the end of each large, open sleeve. Lulu sat at the small table, her hair still in its many braids pulled into a knot at the top and hanging down to around her knees. The knot was impaled with six different chopsticks.
The Guado that had stolen her clothes came walking out with a large platter of fruit, nuts and bread. Buffy’s stomach rumbled when she saw the food.
Buffy sank onto the bed. It represented something to her like a sanctuary; she
could have normal Buffy sleep and Buffy dreams no matter where she was. She
closed her eyes and the last thought that flashed through her mind was, I
wonder how the Scoobies are?
…
“Oh Buffy, the Buffster of Buffland. I bid you hello,” a voice called out cheerfully, stepping through the front door.
“He means hello,” Anya called up. “He’s just cheerful because we--”
“Anya? Xander?” a sleepy voice asked.
“Dawn?” Xander looked surprised. “Shouldn’t you be going to school, the place of education and learning goodness?”
Dawn frowned. “I thought Buffy would wake me. I was out kinda late last night and I thought… I wonder why she didn’t. Buffy?” Dawn padded off into the kitchen, coming back out a moment later looking puzzled.
“You should check upstairs,” Xander said, beginning to get worried.
“Okay,” Dawn said meekly. Trust Xander to be calm in a situation like this. She’d seen from the look in his eyes that he totally understood why she’d been out late. She stepped into Buffy’s room, looking inside in shock. The bed was unused, the clothes Buffy had been wearing yesterday lay discarded near the door.
Dawn ran downstairs. “Buffy… She didn’t come home.”
Xander’s eyes widened. “I’ll go get Giles and Willow.”
“You should ask Spike,” Anya said, matter-of-factly. “He can track her down.”
“Ahn, it’s full daylight. He would...” A thoughtful look came over Xanders face. “Oh, I like it. Let’s go ask him.”
Anya ignored him. “Should we go ask Riley?”
“No!” Dawn waved her hands. Xander frowned curiously at her. “No, umm, Buffy and Riley aren’t really speaking at the moment. People think I don’t know this stuff but I know.” Dawn remembered the problem at hand. “So, we shouldn’t ask him now. Giles can find her though, right?”
…
Spike sat back in his chair. He had been provided with an apartment, given blood, and now he sat in his chair looking absently at the large blue screen showing rematches of the day’s blitzball games. He didn’t mind playing a bit of blitzball, although the two hundred or so games he was supposed to play was bloody ridiculous, but he had no interest in sitting around. He looked around. His room didn’t have anything of great interest in it: an information console sat in one corner, glowing with a blue light like everything else around Spira. He pursed his lips. He hated that he was here and not out looking for Buffy and Dawn. Sitting around in his little room was only making things worse. It was like he was truly trapped and as the minutes dragged by, the walls became closer and closer and Buffy and Dawn slipped further away.
Spike cursed to himself. “There’s not much point sitting around here, hey, Spike?” he said to himself, getting out of the chair. He grabbed his coat and stopped to push the button for the door. It opened upwards with a slight creaking and the vampire stepped out into one of the long halls of Home.
It was incredible where a vampire’s sense of smell could get you, Spike reflected, over his glass of some obscure alcoholic liquid. After only half hour of wandering, his nose had picked up the scent of liquor. Minutes later, he was handing over borrowed ‘Gil’- the currency throughout Spira- and downing glass after glass. He stared at the yellowish/brown liquid before sucking in his cheeks and swallowing it.
He managed to find his way back to his room where he lay down on the small bed and dreamed of Sunnydale.
…
Willow sat on the floor of the Summers house, surrounded by candles and a map in front of her. She sprinkled some powder on the map, chanting as she did.
Anya was talking. “I saw someone killed by an Iimah demon before. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Anya,” Xander said. “We’re hoping to find her not dead.”
Giles was cleaning his glasses and looked up. “Yes, well, it would be preferable.”
Willow frowned. Giles noticed this. “What is it?”
“Umm, I… Well, it’s Buffy. She doesn’t... Well, the spell says she doesn’t exist.”
Xander raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t exist as in...” A note of panic filled his voice.
“Not dead. She simply doesn’t exist. It’s like she--” she stopped, shaking her head.
“What?” Xander asked, his eyes full of concern. “Like she what?”
“Like she’s in a different world,” Willow looked at the ground.
“Good Lord,” Giles said.
“I second that,” Xander offered.
“Will she be okay? I mean, she’s not... dead. We can get her back, can’t we?” Dawn looked on the verge of tears.
Tara looked at Willow, then back to Dawn. “Of course we can Dawnie. We’ll just have to work out where she went. Then we can get her back.”
“…and which spell was used. If you don’t use the same spell it won’t work,” Anya added, receiving a glare from Willow.
“So you see, we’ll get her back. It’s okay,” Tara reached to put a comforting hand on Dawn’ shoulder.
“I can’t... I can’t be here with all of you. Just leave me alone!” Dawn shrugged off Tara’s hand, running up the stairs and slamming the door. Tara looked apologetically at Willow, then the others.
“I didn’t mean… I hope she’s okay.”
“But who would have done it? Why? And, who has that much power? Temporal folds are powerful spells and hard to control,” Willow said, remembering a run-in she’d once had with her vampire self.
…
Ethan Rayne poured himself a cup of tea, looking over the spell books. He shrugged. The slayer was gone. It didn’t matter where. He just had to make sure she didn’t come back and since he was the only one who could, it wasn’t a problem. He grinned in satisfaction. With the slayer gone, Ripper wouldn’t be staying for long. With Ripper out of the way, Sunnydale would be his. He chuckled at the thought of the chaos he could wreak using the enormous seat of energy that Sunnydale was seated on. He sipped his tea, chuckling.