Spoilers: This story contains spoilers upto the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Becoming, Part 2"
Content Rating: 15
Type: Drama
Characters: From Buffy: Willow, Giles, Oz and a few others who will be revealed as the story goes on. From my twisted imaginings: read on and see.
Summary: America, 1861: a slave suffers a fate worse than his bondage, the consequences flowing down the centuries to a small Californian town named Sunnydale ...
Status: Completed (finally!)

Disclaimer: All characters and concepts from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer are the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, and other relevant parties. No profit is being made from their use here, no endorsement from their creators is claimed, and no infringement of copyright or trademark is intended. All original characters and concepts are copyrighted to myself.

Story contains racist and homophobic language in order to accurately depict certain characters and historical periods

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African West Coast, 1794

Silence.

The sun dawned gradually over the vast African plains, slowly turning the vegetation and desert beneath brilliant ochre. The sky shifted from the red-streaked azure surrounding the dawn sun to a shimmering blue wash.

It was an awe-inspiring sight to those who saw it, but the overwhelming feature of the morning was the silence, as the plethora of nocturnal wildlife returned to their slumber. The sense of peace was unyielding, save for the occasional sound of a gazelle’s hooves.

Then the slavers came.

* * *

Sunnydale, California, United States of America, June 1998

“Miss Rosenberg?”

Willow’s eyes fluttered, and then opened. To her horror, the entire class was looking at her.

“Miss Rosenberg!” Mr Clay, her Biology teacher, was standing before her, the exasperation more than evident in his small, piercing eyes. “I would appreciate it if you would not take a nap in my lesson.”

“Sorry,” Willow murmured, her face turning crimson. “I’m just … I mean –”

“You were sleeping,” he cut her off. “I find that fact to be fairly incontrovertible.”

“I didn’t … It won’t happen again,” Willow assured him, her voice wavering.

“Not if you wish to end the term concurrently with the other students, it won’t,” he said caustically, and returned to his diagram of the Periodic table.

Willow slumped backwards dejectedly, her arms falling against the wheelchair’s armrests. She fumbled in her lap for her pen, only to discover it had leaked blue ink onto her skirt. For only the second time that year, Willow swore.

Only a month previously, falling asleep in any class would have been inconceivable to her. But that was before a bookcase had fallen against her backbone. The doctors had assured her there was no permanent damage to her spine, but at the present that served as scant consolation. She had still had to endure the remaining few weeks of term in the wheelchair, her legs currently too weak to support even her small frame.

And then there were the painkillers. Twangs of agony regularly shot up her spinal cord, and only a heavy dose of drugs allowed her to persevere through the day. The unavoidable side effect, however, was the drowsiness; something Mr Clay’s biology lessons did little to counter.

The bell rang its shrill indication that the lesson was at an end, and the students gradually filed out. Willow, as she had become accustomed to doing, waited until the doorway was clear, and gradually began to push herself forwards.

She waited outside the room, avoiding the maelstrom of activity until Oz finally appeared.
“Wil, sorry,” he said. “The test sorta ran on … and then kinda ran on a bit more.”

“Hey, no problem,” she lied, desperate for the self-recrimination to leave his features. “It’s not like I had anywhere to go without you.”

“Crazy they scheduled the thing for the last day of term,” Oz frowned. “I don’t think I did so well, Wil.”

“I’m sure you’ll have done fine,” she assured him.

Oz took the handles of the chair, and began the slow journey to her next lesson. “So, how was yours?”

“My what? Oh, lesson. It was –” she looked for a non-committal word, but decided none to be appropriate “ – awful.”

“Oh, Wil.”

“Hey, it’s no big,” she lied transparently. “And it’s the last day of term. I never actually thought I’d look forward to it.”

“Wil, it’s just a bad spot,” Oz reassured her. “You can hardly blame yourself, what with that whole being nearly squashed by an over-amorous bookcase deal.”

“Oh, Oz, you’re incorrigible!” Willow giggled. “And a darned good thing too. How’d I manage without you?”

“Well, you’d probably be making me jealous with that football hunk who keeps his eyes on you.”

“He does not!” Willow rebuked him playfully. “Anyhow, I can’t help my natural magnetism to your half of the species.”

“As I so readily proved,” he grinned, rounding the corner onto the corridor adjacent to her history class. “Now, I’ve got to do the leaving thing for the Seniors’ leaving hootenanny. Hootenanny of course being a somewhat inadequate a word for what they’ll have planned.”

“I’ll be fine,” Willow said, pre-empting Oz’s routinely asked question.

“Hey, a few hours and I’ll give you a lift to the Bronze,” he promised. “Big end-of-term celebration.”

“Sounds good,” Willow replied, trying to sound positive. “See ya, boyfriend.”

“Au revoir, Wil,” he grinned, and left to participate in whatever Machiavellian plans the soon-to-be erstwhile Seniors had afoot.

Willow rolled the chair into the room and hoped this lesson, her final as a Junior, would run smoothly.
The kindly smile by the teacher, despite her lateness, assured her that it would.

* * *

‘Henry Plantation’, Virginia, United States of America, April 1861

“You, cuffee! Get to your feet.”

Kundra Keffri squinted up into the sun’s glare, silhouetted against the overseer’s large brimmed hat. A cloud of brilliant white rays of light surrounding him in a shimmering halo. For a second, it looked to Kundra like the illustrations he had seen in the town’s church he had cleaned as a child.

But then, even Lucifer was as an angel before he fell, thought the slave scathingly.

“I said to you feet, cuffee!” the gaunt, sweating man repeated.

Kundra stood up, his battered boots scraping against the fine earth underfoot. “Yes massa,” he muttered sycophantically. “What’d you be wanting, massa Sir?”

“ ‘What I be wanting’?” mimicked the overseer. He had descended from his horse, his spurred boots making a brief clink as they caught the stirrups. “I’ll tell you what I be wanting, you miserable cuffee piece of beaver-filth – I’d be wanting you to move your worthless black hide to my stables and bring over my good saddle. I’m riding into town and I don’t want to entrust my safety to this sorry excuse for a seat.”

“Yes Sir, massa Sir.” Kundra nodded obediently, already moving to leave. “I’ll be back right away, massa.”

“You’d better be, cuffee,” the overseer warned him. “Otherwise, whatever you have for brains will be decorating the cotton plants.”

“Yes Sir.” Kundra was already running, his cheap boots hot on his feet under the baking sun. Beads of sweat glistened down his brow, congealing around his dark eyes. He brushed the liquid from obscuring his vision and went about completing his allotted task.

It was a good fifteen minutes before he returned, heaving gulping breaths of sheer exertion and carrying the heavy saddle.

“Your –” he paused a second to take another breath “ – saddle, massa Sir.”

“What on God’s earth is this?” the overseer demanded, swiping against the mount in Kundra’s arms.

Kundra, despite the heat, shivered. “Its you saddle Sir, just like you asked me.”

“You ignorant great cuffee ox!” screamed the overseer, striking out with his riding crop against Kundra’s face. “This is my wife’s saddle! You’re suggesting I ride sidesaddle into town, cuffee? Would you be mocking me, you worthless great nigger?”

Kundra cursed himself for not seeing the obvious difference in the types of saddle, but his natural attentiveness had been lost to his urgency. “I’ll go get the right saddle right now massa,” he hurriedly offered.

“You think I’m about to waste another fifteen minutes while you piss away the afternoon?” the overseer growled. “Stupid, worthless, slack-jawed nigger!”

In a flurried, well-practiced motion, the overseer delivered a brutal kick to Kundra’s crotch. The black man screamed in agony, allowing the saddle to fall as he sprawled back, hands grasping between his legs.

“Nigs are only good for giving cheap whoring, shovelling manure and picking cotton.” He kicked Kundra again, his expensive boot jarring horribly against the recoiling man’s ribs. “Give them anything worth a damn to do and they’ll balls it up as sure as anything.” The boot again struck Kundra’s ribs. “Get back to picking your cotton, cuffee. I’ll get the saddle myself.”

Kundra sprawled helplessly in the earth, the pain constricting his lungs, forcing the air out in choked, intermittent bursts.

“You piece of horseshit,” he spat through clenched teeth as the overseer rode away. “I’ll slaughter you where you stand, one day soon. As Christ is my witness, I will.”

Riding twenty miles to the south was someone who would ensure this would be so much more than just another slaves’s futile yearnings for vengeance.

* * *

Sunnydale, 1998

The car pulled to a grinding halt, jarring sharply as the front wheels hit the curb. The occupant cursed and reached to switch off the ignition.

She would, by anyone’s account, have been described as beautiful, chestnut-blonde hair contrasting perfectly with a smooth, slender face. Her bright blue eyes complemented the picture. It was only when people looked back against her cheek the vision would be interrupted, by a fine, white scar running along her jaw. Even so, this did little, if anything, to lessen her attractiveness.

“Hey!”

The woman looked up to see Mr Clay irritably tapping his foot against the concrete. “I thought I told you students not to park in the disabled space. I know we never use it, but it’s a Federal regulation.”

“I see,” the woman replied dourly. “Normally, I’d not bother. But seeing as the students have hijacked every other one, there’s not exactly anywhere else I can stick my vehicle.”

Mr Clay noticed, surprised, that the accent was distinctly British.

“And besides,” the car’s occupant continued, opening the door, “the two limp legs I’m currently shoving onto the tarmac kind of qualify me.”

“Oh God,” Mr Clay breathed. “I’m … I had no idea.”

“Why would you?” the woman asked savagely. “Do you see a tattoo saying ‘cripple’ stamped on my forehead? ’Cause I sure don’t!”

“I never … I mean I –” Mr Clay was visibly flustered.

The woman took a deep sigh, collecting herself after her long drive from LA Airport. “Look, no harm done,” she said in conciliation. “Didn’t have that stupid orange badge stuck in my window, my fault really.”

She had reached over to the passenger seat and shifted her wheelchair out of the vehicle. It was a lightweight device, far more agile than Willow’s clumsy hospital-provided variant. It had been custom-made, sleek aluminum curves providing the minimal mass possible.

But it was still a wheelchair.

“Who? I mean –” Mr Clay fought for composure.

“The name’s Sam – Sam Lawrence,” the woman offered as she eased herself into the chair, adept in the task from all too much practice. “I’m here to see Rupert Giles.”

* * *

Virginia, May 1861

The rider tied his mount against the wooden rail provided and entered the town’s tavern.

“What’ll it be, Sir?” inquired the bartender.

“Wine, continental.” The rider made his way across the room, his spur-adorned boots beating a gentle rhythm against the wooden flooring. “Do you serve such things?”

“Sure thing, Mister,” smiled the bartender. “This ain’t the Western frontier, this is the good civilized state of Virginia.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” replied the rider, and for the first time the bartender noticed the slight Italian twang to his dulcet tones.

“You’ve done a lot of travelling, eh?” he asked, reaching down for the wines.

The rider replied, “Indeed. Over greater distances and greater times than you could ever imagine.”

“Yeah, you could say I’m something of a homeboy myself,” said the bartender. “Guess I’m fair contented with round these parts.” The bartender poured out the wine into the appropriate glass. “That’ll be twenty cents please.”

The rider produced the coinage and reclined laxly against the bar. He was here, the night was cool, and America was about to be cleft in twain by the bloody slaughter of civil war.

Life, he ruminated as the wine passed his lips, was good.



© Byron, 2000