Primitive

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xx. TWO .xx

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Roll into it, roll into it, I coach myself. Roll into it, and you'll be fine. I let out a loud grunt as I belly flop to the ground, forgetting what I'd just told myself. Everything goes white for a minute and I don't even bother trying to breathe. Then slowly, things began to come into focus. Light, a few bare trees, and sand. Lots of sand. Sand in my mouth. I spit a few times, rolling onto my back and taking a deep breath.



Buffy leans over me menacingly, her brow doing that furrowed, pissed-off thing it does. "You're an idiot."



I close my eyes again, hoping I can make her disappear, but when I open them, she's still there looking all stern and righteous. "Coulda said the same about you." Did, in fact. I just had the tact to not say it out loud. Until now, anyway.



She leans closer, and I could totally see down her shirt if she wasn't wearing that god-awful ugly-ass turtleneck. "What happened?"



I groan. "Shoulda rolled into it."



Is that a smirk? She reaches down and I take her hand, letting her help me up. "For a Slayer, you really lack grace."



I shrug. "Grace isn't part of the package, as I understand it. Strength, the ability to sense vamps, and a crappy retirement plan. That's the Slayer deal. Nowhere in the handbook was I promised grace."



She gets a funny look on her face. "You got the handbook?" I pause, looking back at her confusedly. She shakes her head. "Never mind. Where are we?"



I look around. Yep, just as I thought. Desert. In the middle of nowhere. Adjacent to nothing and just slightly south of Fuckedville. "Definitely not Woodstock," I mumble, only to get another funny look from her.



She sits on a nearby rock, sighing heavily. "I really gotta stop jumping into big swirly lights. Never ends well." My turn for a funny look. She glances up and shrugs. "You don't wanna know."



"You're probably right about that." Too far. She looks pissed off again. "I just meant--"



"Forget it." She waves her hand. "It's fine. Let's just.. figure out where the hell we are."



"How?"



"I don't know," she snaps, "Look around, see if anything's familiar."



I sigh heavily, looking around. "Oh, sure. How did I miss that before?"



"What?" she whirls, trying to see where I'm looking.



"That big old sign over there that says 'If you lived here, you'd be home now.' The one above the one that says 'We're in the middle of the fucking desert and we're both gonna die because you're an idiot!'" I sink onto the ground, putting my hands over my face.



"Screw you," she whispers unconvincingly.



"You wish," I respond, probably just as unconvincingly.



We sit like that for awhile before she groans in frustration and stands, hiking her skirt up a little to keep it from dragging in the sand. I look up, waiting to see what she plans to do. Her brow furrows a little and she takes a step forward.



"I've been here before."



I suck air through my teeth. "What are you talking about?"



She gets a dazed look on her face. "In a dream. There was.." she points to a few scattered rocks. "There. Tara was there. She spoke for her.."



"For who?"



Her voice lowers to a whisper. "The first."



I stand up. "The First? The First is a her?"



"What?" she looks at me, confused. "No, the first.. of us."



"The first.. Slayer?" Wow. I never really thought about it. I guess the line had to start somewhere.



Buffy nods, biting her lip. "I've seen her twice. Senaya, is her name."



I swallow hard. "So.. should we look for her or something?"



At that moment, three men holding long staffs approach us, and instinctively we back up against each other, waiting for an attack, but they just stand in a semicircle, quietly staring at us. I tilt my head a little to whisper in her ear. "What's with the three wise men?"



"No clue," she responds, her back pressing against mine in a way that makes me feel suddenly warm. Great time to think with your libido, Faith. When you're about to get clubbed to death by Moses and his desert-wandering homeboys.



"So," she glances around at them, her voice raising a little as it does when she's nervous and trying not to show it. "Which one of you has the myrrh? Cause I always kinda wondered what that was."



They circle us slowly, thumping their sticks against the ground in a way that's at once entrancing and unnerving. They start speaking, in a language I can't even identify, and Buffy responds. And again, I feel like second string because I can't understand them and apparently she can.



Second string. The spare Slayer. Just an extra one, lying around in case the first one gets broken or lent out and not returned. Whatever.



That's my last thought before a staff is swung on me, and everything goes dark.