Lesbosian Mistake

As mentioned before, Pogo, the disjointed, choppiness to the story is mostly from me randomly putting the chapters down to writing. I’m still not sure how far I’m going to take the story, but I am starting to revise it. I’ve finished re-writing the first chapter, and will be expanding and rewriting the others at random.

Miss Calendar was pouring through something on the computer, and the teenagers all buried in books they both could, and couldn’t read. Giles was, of course, buried in a book himself, and mumbling as he read. “I think I can try another spell.” Everyone looked up, Buffy actually jumping in surprise. Willow stared at the teacher turned from her laptop, blinking in startlement. Hadn’t she… he… already told Miss Calendar that too many spells might be too risky?

“E… excuse me?” Giles was cleaning his glasses again, confused by the sudden exclamation as well.

“Not a counter-spell. I found another identifying spell.” Miss Calendar offered. “It should at least tell us what type of magic was performed. I know that it’s not much, but it should narrow the search.”

Buffy smiled, turning to Willow to see what her friend thought of it, and nearly growling when she saw Xander passed out over the book he was supposed to have been reading. Willow seemed up to it, despite the earlier reluctance for more magic, and Buffy quickly turned to see Giles’s opinion. He was, quite typically, cleaning his glasses, but gave a tentative nod. “That shan’t be too risky. After all, as we have determined that dark magic was not involved, there is not going to be an add on to the spell saying that something identifying it will cause a negative effect. Do you need more materials to prepare for the spell, Miss Calendar?”

“No, I shouldn’t really. In fact, if Willow wouldn’t mind, we could probably do the spell immediately, with what we have here.” The woman looked directly at Willow, raising both of her eyebrows in askance. Nervously, the now-young-man nodded, standing. Buffy could actually feel the nervousness radiating off of her friend.

“Is there anything we can do to help set up or anything like that?” Buffy asked, standing and setting aside her other worries.

“Just make sure that no one comes in. It’s going to be flashy.” Jenny smiled, nudging Xander awake as she and Giles tried to clear off the table for Willow to lay down on.

There had been chanting, a bit of sage being tossed over her, and candles being lit. In the end, Willow was still just laying there, a sensation of warmth spreading over his body. Opening his eyes, he was readying to sit up and ask if it had worked, but doing so brought something else into focus. Willow was glowing. And he wasn’t just glowing, but glowing a bright, almost star-like silver. His mouth dropped open and he turned to stare at Ms. Calendar, who was quickly referencing something, looking just as shocked. “All-NASA alert, the Willow has reached critical mass.” Xander joked, shielding his eyes and trying his best to figure out if this was a good thing or not.

“This… this can’t be right. We had to have done the spell incorrectly.” Jenny was saying to Giles at the same time, shaking her head and scowling at whatever it was she’d been looking up. Willow cleared his throat and swung his legs off of the table, sitting up fully now. “It… for the body to glow in result indicates it being a… well, a divine spell. But to glow silver? It’s supposed to mean a divine spell of the goddess, of Diana… Artemis if you prefer her Grecian name.”

“Divine? There’s no way that something like this could be godly.” Buffy grouched, squinting as she looked at Willow’s still very male form. “When’s she supposed to stop glowing?”

“It should stop shortly… how could we have possibly done it incorrectly enough to cause a false reading…” Jenny was mumbling, frowning as she went over the steps of the spell again. “The Goddess Artemis?”

“Who’s Artemis?” Xander asked, moving to look at the notes she’d taken and the pages pulled up on her computer still. The computer display was in a different language, and he had no clue what it said, but the notes she’d jotted down looked pretty clear cut.

“One of the Greek goddesses, of the moon and hunt.” Giles babbled absently, also frowning over the notes and computer display. “Common to be called upon in magic as a representation of the goddess. The Amazons worshipped her.”

“Amazons? Like the sexy wild women in tiny leather outfits?” Xander practically drooled, recalling old episodes of Xena.

“Like the tribes of women that didn’t like men and would kill them for trespassing into their villages.” Jenny corrected, smirking at the squeak the boy made at her response. “They weren’t very friendly to outsiders.”

Xander’s nervous giggles that followed were drowned out by Willow’s exclamation. “Ooh! Ooh ooh!” The boy, glow starting to fade finally, quickly shuffled over to the stacks of not-quite-catalogued books, the task unfinished from the sudden need for research. Everyone stared as the redhead swiftly dug through the volumes, attempting to find something. “Artemis. I remember something about Artemis. Where is it? We should have finished this, it’d be easier to find… here! This one.”

The mention of the goddess, and the moon being one of her emblems, had finally triggered his memory of that nightmare that had assailed him the first night. Staring down at the book that had been chasing him in the dream, he smiled and offered it hesitantly to Giles. The man looked a bit baffled at being handed one of the personal journals, but began to flip through the first few pages. “It’s mostly personal accounts about failed and useless spells… when the Witch Matthew Darkinn traveled the Mediterranean in search of some mythical island… Lasbosia?”

“Lesbos!” Jenny exclaimed correcting him. Xander’s giggles returned full force and Buffy stared at the woman. Shaking her head, Ms. Calendar quickly moved through the pages, scanning each line excitedly. “No, he was searching for the isle of Lesbos. It was where the Amazons were said to reside, or their homeland at least. The primary subjects and worshippers of Artemis. Willow how did you even know She was mentioned in here? I haven’t seen a thing about her yet, oh here!... No, not this.” The redhead blushed and shrugged, looking anywhere but at the book.

It wasn’t long, of course, before the computer teacher found the spell, nor even a moment after that before Giles was looking at her strangely. “Willow… why, perchance, were you reading through this journal enough to know what was in it in the first place?”

“Er… it wasn’t titled… so I was… um… trying to see where to catalogue it?” Willow shrugged softly and bit his lip, edging over toward Buffy slowly.

“I think she read more than just that much, Rupert.” Everyone looked over at Ms. Calendar. “Willow, do you know why that spell was painful and useless to the man that wrote this journal?” Willow coughed a bit. “Only a woman can properly perform it.”

“I beg your pardon?” Giles was cleaning his glasses again, approaching to look at the book and spell as well.

“The old fool.” Jenny shook her head, and then looked at Giles. “The majority of Amazonian spells, Rupert, were gender restrictive. This particular spell… don’t tell me that you took in with the old farce that the Amazons actually kidnapped men to mate with so that they could continue their line…”

“How else would they do it?” Xander asked, scratching his head and smiling at the thought of a jungle-woman having her way with him.

“They turned themselves male.”

TBC

Eeh, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, I’ve been busy, and people weren’t really reviewing. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the story, what little there is of it. As mentioned above, I’m starting a rewrite so that its not quite as disjointed and choppy, but I don’t know how long it’ll be before I really finish that. So please, Read and Review to motivate me ^.^