Title: Becoming Real
Author: Carol A. Clarke
Email: Carol.Clarke@mail.state.ky.us

Chapter 1
Shaking the Tree


[The Year is 2008]

Willow was peacefully asleep in her bedroom. Even in her sleep she was aware of Tara’s quiet snoring and Duncan’s ever present purring. She was even aware of the feel of the fur barely brushing her arm from Duncan’s stuffed dragon. Even Ms Kitty Fantastico’s shallow breath did not go unnoticed from the cat’s post curled above Tara’s head on her pillow. These were the reasons Willow could sleep soundly. Her family other then Buffy were asleep near by, cuddled together in one bed waiting the return of their wayward slayer who patrolled in the night, protecting the innocent.

And if things went normally, some time in the wee hours between 3 and 4 Buffy would return and quietly pull Duncan out of bed. Duncan had developed the habit of not liking to sleep alone so generally she slept in bed between Tara and Willow until Buffy came home at night. Oddly neither Tara nor Willow minded that much. But Duncan knew when it was a good time to sleep in her own room and let the witches have their fun alone. Willow sometimes wondered at the sanity of letting the girl sleep each night in a thin tee shirt with her stuffed dragon next to her. It was one thing when Duncan was only chronologically five but the girl was twelve years old and Duncan had not truly been a child since a little after her 6-month marker. But Duncan wasn’t human; her body aged and changed at a pace of it’s own volition.

Not that Duncan actually followed the normal Reinfield map of growth. Reinfield’s normally didn’t begin speaking until they were at least fifteen years of age. And it normally took them until they were twenty to learn to speak simple sentences. Sure, one hundred to one hundred and twenty-year-old Reinfields often worked as Lawyers or Accountants. At one hundred years they were usually ready to work in fields that had rules written down in detail. In general Reinfields had little creative thought and needed clear detailed instruction. Their Vampire masters found it endlessly funny to send Reinfields off to prestigious law schools, knowing that the creatures were lost without guide lines.

Duncan on the other hand was nothing like most Reinfields. She had learned simple words by 3. Complete sentences by 5. And at twelve could hold complete conversations. She also had a creative streak. She had taken her love of crayons and was now quite talented with pen and inks as well as colored pencils. She was actually pretty good with wood. Along with making all of Buffy’s stakes she made all of the teams cross bow bolts and carved small animals out of the left over wood. Willow had helped her sell many of her animals and some of her drawing at the annual art show in Bernard last year. It was the first time Duncan had made money for anything she had ever done. It was exciting to the slave to say the least. And her three mistresses had been pleased. That had excited Duncan more then the money she made.

Duncan while still seeing herself as Buffys property, saw both Tara and Willow as her mistresses as well. She also had an order for following their instruction. Willow ruled the house. Willow was Buffy’s wife. Getting spanked by Willow meant getting spanked by Willow, then by Buffy for making Willow mad, and then sometimes by Tara for making Willow mad. There had been a number of times Duncan had not been able to sit down after the three elemental beings had finished spanking her. So Duncan had learned not to piss Willow off. Next was Buffy. Buffy her owner, her reason for living, her life. Buffy was everything to Duncan. She never complained about anything Buffy chose to do to her. She was Buffy’s to play with. Though Duncan was more then aware that Willow often punished Buffy for hurting her. Duncan really didn’t know what to do about that, it simply confused the Reinfield.

Willow of coarse only punished Buffy when she really hurt Duncan not just for daily play. Buffy still spanked Duncan at least once a day. Willow normally didn’t interfere with Buffy’s abuse of her slave outside of making sure Duncan ate properly, her wounds were bandaged and magic ointments used on them, and most importantly, Buffy was to always use lube. The last part Duncan had been extremely grateful for. Buffy was still anally obsessed, or for a clearer translation, Buffy’s lust monkey couldn’t make it through the day without spanking Duncan’s bottom bright red and fucking her ass for at least an hour a day.

Duncan was use to being fucked by Buffy several hours each day. That was her main reason for existing, the reason why Buffy owned her. So none of Buffy’s mates took any of the usual abuse Duncan received as anything other then 'business as usual'. But sometimes Buffy’s lust got the better of her and she would really hurt Duncan. Whip her too hard, tear her or just fuck her too long and hard. When that happened or more often when it started to happen, Willow and her bullwhip were there. Willow could literally whip the lust out of Buffy. No one else on the planet could manage that feat.

Then there was Tara. Tara belonged to Willow though Buffy would borrow her sometimes. Tara also held a higher position in the house then Duncan and Duncan understood this from the beginning. Of all three of her mistresses Tara was the one that scared her the most. Understanding Buffy was easy for Duncan they had been together almost all of Duncan’s life. Buffy was a hero with an addiction. She wasn’t that hard to figure out.

Then there was Willow. Willow was a little harder for Duncan to follow, but not impossible. Willow was honest, and loving. She generally cared for people. And Willow was good. Ok so she had a hell of a temper but even at the height of her worst outburst Duncan never feared Willow would punish her more then what she could take, more then what she deserved. Strangely Buffy felt the same way about Willow, which was odd when you consider it was Willows ability to beat Buffy in to submission that insured the control of the Angel of death’s lust problem. And Willow could and would whip the hell out of Buffy for the smallest infraction. Fortunately Buffy’s merged body and soul with the angel of death had given her much improved healing abilities. Willow could whip her back open twenty or thirty times and it would be completely healed in four hours. Though it would itch like crazy most of the next day.

But Tara was a wild card. Duncan at some level understood that Tara was not always the same person, but it was more then Tara being the vessel for the living Goddess Kali. Duncan always saw Tara as a husk for the goddess and since Duncan didn’t fear the goddess; it never frightened her when Tara became the vessel. No it was really Tara that scared Duncan most of time. Not that Duncan wouldn’t run and hide behind Tara in a heartbeat when she was frightened. Duncan trusted Tara completely. It was just that Duncan felt the non-linear aspects of Tara’s existence and couldn’t understand them.

Not that Buffy or Willow understood Tara’s life any better. Tara now lived solely outside of linear time, so sometimes it was the shy girl that stuttered who set the table for diner and other times it was the thousand year old Hindi goddess, no longer Kali's apprentice, that turned Duncan over her knee and spanked the girl for leaving the house.

Leaving the house was something Duncan had started to do a lot lately. They had even threaten to start keeping her chained up again, but Duncan just couldn’t help herself. She was curious about the world around her. She was also going into her rebellious adolescent phase. So even though her mistresses told her not to leave the house she would sneak off while they were at work and walk around town. If she was careful she could get back before they got home from work. Still sometimes even being careful wasn’t enough; Tara had caught her several times in the last month. Buffy had caught her twice and Willow had caught her once. All three of them spanked her for it, each time she was caught.

Willow was sleeping soundly with her mind extended out to protect her mates. Which was a good thing since seconds later Buffy was thrown through the bedroom window by two very large blue demons that had been waiting for the slayer to return home. Willow managed to put up her magic shield in time to block the glass and Buffy from hitting the bed. Buffy like most of the glass was not so lucky and bounced off the shield back into the first demon jumping through the window.

Somehow in her bounce off the demons chest Buffy managed to land on her feet. Two steps later as glass fragments fell to the floor off of Buffy she managed to grab demon number one by the neck and ram it into Willow and Tara’s dresser. Demon number two was coming through the window just as Buffy smashed the demon through the dresser and broke the mirror over it’s head. Willow, now furious over her dresser, eyes began to glow with power. Buffy turned to attack demon number two but stopped when she looked at Willow. Wind began to blow through the room gathering all the broken glass from the window and the mirror. Buffy dove across the bed and huddled together with Duncan and Tara. The slayer had to laugh at the way Duncan was protecting both Tara and Mr. Dragon.

Willow’s mind made the wind swirl and with the power of one who has completed a ‘my will be done spell’ demon number two along with all the loose glass in the room was blown hard against the sidewall. Then the larger pieced of glass from the window impaled him on the wall. When the wind settled Buffy moved off the bed and broke demon number two’s neck.

“Yuck, I hate the clean up portion of demon slaying. Vampires, dust and it’s over but demons. Ow blue blood stains, gross just gross.” Buffy announced.

“At least you have help with the clean up, so don’t complain too much.” Tara stated as she tried to pry Duncan’s fingers from her. Duncan really had a limited knowledge of how to protect someone. Mostly it involved staying between them and trouble or covering them with her body. The little Reinfield really wasn’t very aggressive.

“You're right about that, I have my family. So Willow got any idea’s or better yet magic to make clean up a snap?” Buffy asked as she pulled the recovering redhead into her arms and kissed her.

By the time Buffy had released Willow’s lips Tara and Duncan were already sweeping up the loose glass. By morning the demon bodies would be safely burned in a nearby furnace at the university. They had a lot of experience at cleaning up demon parts over the years, unfortunately Willow’s dresser could not be saved.

Duncan’s bottom hurt. That was nothing new. Buffy had been a little over zealous after last night’s events. Demons rarely threw the slayer through her wife’s bedroom window. So after the demon clean up was done Buffy had taken Duncan into their bedroom and played with the girl until well after 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Then Buffy left to meet one of her couples. Buffy had not needed to sleep in a long time. And Duncan had been left to rest for the remainder of the day. Duncan did need to sleep and should have been sleeping mostly because Buffy had been bit rough on the girl. But Duncan needed something else, something she couldn’t name or explain. So when Buffy was safely out of the house she had slipped out of the house and caught the bus that took her directly to the new Sunnydale High School. It had been the high school that had been drawing her like a bug to a light. Duncan was unable to resist its call.

It had all started about a year after Buffy had married Willow. Legally married Willow in Vermont no less. Duncan was about 6 and half. Willow had made Buffy stop chaining her up all the time. Slowly Duncan was allowed to play outside. She loved chasing her own bugs for diner. Her mistresses had to train her to be more discrete when bug hunting. From there they had allowed her to go for walks on her own. Then she was allowed to go to the store. At first just the 7 – 11 but later to any store in Sunnydale when the women needed things. Duncan was an excellent shopper. But the best thing was her mistresses’ let her go to the movies. Duncan loved the movies. It was her favorite thing in the world to do.

On Friday nights Duncan was allowed to go out to the movies when she was good. And that had been when the trouble really began. At the movies on Friday night Duncan bumped into other teens. Duncan had never been around any other teens besides Buffy. She had spent very little time with people who treated her as anything other then a hole to stick things in. Outside of her time with Buffy, Duncan had been either training to be used by a slayer, or tied down and used as a sex object at Beth’s club. So one day while Duncan was playing a video game at the arcade in the movie center two teenage boys spoke with her. Her first response was to move away from the machine thinking the boys wanted the machine but when they stayed with her and not the machine she had been confused. And also excited. Part of her brain registered that they thought she was human and that pleased her. And the more she went to the movie center the more teens spoke with her. And the more she wanted to be around people closer to her own age. Themore she wanted the pretense of being human.

So in time Duncan had started running away from home and following the teens to places they hung out; the Bronze, the Mall, the movie center, the arcade and the high school. It was about an hour before school let out and about two and half-hours before Tara came home. It gave her time. Duncan quietly made her way on to campus. It wasn’t the first time she had snuck into school. If it had been earlier she would have gone to the cafeteria, but since it was late afternoon Duncan would need to choose between the library and the student center. Neither sounded that great so instead Duncan decided to roam the halls and see if there was anything cool happening.

It was a big mistake. Duncan’s wandering led her down the science wing. She liked the science wing. It reminded her of two of her mistresses. Tara was a botanist with the California Botanical Institute and Willow was a chemical engineer with CIM. A research firm. They may both have been witches or goddesses in training and they may both have been able to suspend the laws of physic but that didn’t mean they didn’t respect those laws.

So Duncan found herself standing outside of the chemistry classroom while a young teacher was demonstrating the 3 states of matter. Duncan was totally fascinated. Before she realized what she was doing she found herself standing inside the classroom. In truth she came by this class a great deal. She liked the teacher, Mrs. Williamson, a great deal. So when the teacher pointed out an empty seat Duncan graciously took the seat. And when Mrs. Williamson handed her, a textbook she happily followed along with the lesson. And she almost jumped for joy when the class began doing a lab experiment at their lab tables. She was so excited that when class was over she was still going over her notes on the experiment. Who knew ice was that exciting? So in her excitement she forgot to be careful and run away like she normally did when school authorities saw her.

“You seemed to enjoy class a great deal today.” Mrs. Williamson said. It had been a long time since one of her students had been that happy in her class. The girl almost purred. Well at least she imagined she purred.

“Fun, your class was a lot of fun.” Duncan said. She still had not registered the need to run away.

“Why don’t you sign up for the class. I see you standing outside of my room a lot.” The teacher asked

“Ah” that was the most Duncan could manage. She and words still were not on the best of terms at times.

“You know I can’t just let you come in here without being signed up for the class.” Mrs. Williamson stated realizing there was something wrong. She had no idea what but her teacher senses were going off. “If you like I can speak with one of the counselors about getting you transferred into the class. “

When Duncan began backing herself literally in a corner Mrs. Williamson knew there was something really wrong. “Are you in one of the special Ed classes, I can talk with your teacher about mainstreaming you. From what I saw today I don’t think the work is too hard for you." Mrs. Williamson offered. Duncan only kept walking backwards until she walked into the wall. Then she fought her instinct to get down on all fours and growl. Her mistresses had been working with her to make her act more human.

After several minutes of silence Mrs. Williamson said, “I think you probably should tell me what is going on here. Do you even go to Sunnydale high?”

“No” Duncan whispered.

“No you don’t go to Sunnydale high or no you won’t tell me?”

“I don’t go to school,” Duncan said with a deep sadness.

“You don’t look old enough to have graduated yet.”

“I have never been to school, I can read though.” Duncan said the last part with a lot of pride, not many Reinfields learn to read. And none in her race memory learned as young as she had.

“But you don’t go to school?”

Duncan just shook her head.

“Would you like to go to school?”

Duncan took a moment to think about that question. She wanted to go to school more then anything in the world but was it possible. She knew she should answer no but something inside her rebelled and she said, “More then anything in the world.”