Dawn doesn't mean knowledge as in crisply written words on paper. She doesn't mean the knowledge evident in Giles' every word or the way Buffy expertly dusts one creature of the night after the other without breaking a sweat. Not does she mean Xander's kindly imparted words or Tara's (who is surely part of the dust mass rising up to fill her lungs) gentle reassurances.

Anya never reassures and she swings clumsily with whatever is handy if her life is threatened by something as dead as she will be if she does not fight. And of course her words are always blunt. But Dawn thinks that maybe Anya knows more than all of them put together, because Anya has lived. Not just one lifetime but several. From the stories Dawn has heard (and greedily organised in her head in the order Dawn thinks they happened) she doubts that any of these lifetimes were pretty or simple or easy. That must be why Anya knows though.

She has lived and there has been blood, there has been loss but she lives. Surely she realised the futility of this (when it all. Ends) long ago. She carried on for reasons Dawn doesn't understand (Because she is just red blood and green swirls. Deck the halls.). So Anya is jaded. Dawn sees that and maybe that's why she's so fascinated (captivated, enthralled). She is cynical and blunt and stronger than the wind that sweeps through Dawn's tangled hair in this aftermath.

Her hair feels coarse against her skin and she is regretful of this fact as she remembers the way Anya dances. In the Bronze, her hair tousled (but velvety soft), sticky against skin that has a faint sheen of sweat on the surface. Pink glitter clings to her. She is hot and uncomfortable (and impossibly captivating to Dawn) but she doesn't care because she is alive. Dawn watched her and longed to say that “I know that you know”. As though it was some big secret and maybe it is because while it is glaringly obvious to Dawn nobody else seems to see.

Anya loves and she has lost. And then she loves again. Dawn sucks on her cherry lip gloss and longs to heal. She doesn't know if Anya heals or if Anya is perhaps half nerve endings and scar tissue that twinges every now and then. Some scars must have healed over though because Dawn remembers Anya (dancing, the thin fabric rising above her waist and smooth perfect skin swaying to the music) smiling and loving again. But it hurts. Dawn gets that it hurts and so does Anya so why can't she tell Anya this?

She is stunned to silence sometimes. Anya, however, is rarely stunned to silence because she is all vivid noise and loud colour. She is paint that spills into everyone else's worlds and maybe it makes a mess, maybe she goes too far and says the things that nobody else would say but Dawn thinks honesty is a good thing. People are rarely honest with the Key turned little girl turned out of place teenager and, she gets that. She gets that it's hard and that she is not exactly a part of this world. Not the way everyone else is.

Anya isn't either because Anya has been around since basically when the world began and Dawn was around then too so maybe they met or maybe not because Dawn is obsessing and knows it. It doesn't matter anyway. Dawn will never mention any of this to Anya although she thinks that if she did then Anya would actually listen. She wouldn't look away from her or avoid the issue because she just hasn't learnt how to do that (and she won't learn. Not now).

Dawn smoothes more lip-gloss on. It's a reflex action because she doesn't know what else to do. She makes her lips all shiny and new to match the world that is so unfamiliar now. The bright sun in the sky is new to her, the way little pink clouds creep up on the horizon is new to her and it would be beautiful if it wasn't so inexplicably and impossibly changed. Implausible, she corrects herself. Not impossible. It is clearly possible.

She stands in the soft (harsh) light of a new world and can't help but think how much Anya knows. She lived and she…died. She knew. Dawn thinks that this brave (and she was) new world will be something entirely different without her.