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Post by Willow Rosenberg on Mar 1, 2010 1:50:31 GMT -5
The breeze was cool as it wound across the the tree tops, making the virgin leaves sing with joy to the dawning of the new day. Beneath her toes, the grass, heavy with morning dew, silenced her steps, allowing her passage to go unnoticed by those still slumbering within their abodes of stone and mortar.
Kennedy was one of them. The Slayer had a penchant for sleep, and it wasn't uncommon for half of the morning to tic and to tock itself into history before she decided to grace her girlfriend with her rising. Course, she thought, with a devilishly sly sneer quirking her lips, with what our extra-curricular activities entailed last night, I suppose she has an excuse to be a big sleepy-head, just this once.
As she neared an elder oak, its massive branches sagging heavily with pre-dawn humidity, her steps faltered and she lifted her gaze to the east. As she did so, a moisture-laden wind wove its way through her cotton threads, lifting her skirts and caressing her flesh with soft, gentle kisses. Her warning was simple; A storm was coming.
Lowering herself to the ground, Willow Rosenberg waited for The Goddess to make Her appearance. She needn't wait long, for the first rays of the new day were already peaking over the far hilltop, spreading fingers of life over the valley.
Soon, the light reached her, and closing her eyes, Willow felt The Goddesses warmth flooding her veins. Breathing deeply, she filled her body with the scent of the springs blossoms, allowing herself to become one with Her.
When she felt that she was ready, Willow relaxed her body, releasing pent-up tension that would pollute her prayer, and began the chant.
“Fire growing, Sun is glowing; Glowing, flowing Down on me”
She took a breath and released it slowly before continuing with her prayer. As she began again, she could not help but allow a grin to play at the edge of her lips.
“O Gracious Goddess, Lend me health, strength and love During this day. Assist me with the challenges ahead. Share Your divine wisdom. Teach me to respect all things. Remind me that the greatest power of all is love. Blessed Be.”
Upon finishing, she glanced around her, taking in the sight of a butterfly landing upon a bright blue flower. She smiled and was about to call a greeting to the delicate creature when the ground beneath her shook.
Willow planted her arms, attempting to stabilize herself against the jolting earth. Birds and insects and the little butterfly took to the air as the ground lurched back and forth, rattling nearby homes and uprooting smaller trees. Thinking that The Goddesses lesser creatures had the right idea, Willow grabbed at the trunk of the old oak, and hauled herself to her feet. She struggled to maintain her balance, nearly falling before she was able to use the flight incantation to lift herself from the violently shaking earth.
As she hovered just feet above chaos, Willow briefly wondered where Buffy was, and if the earthquake had reached her as well, for surely the quake encompassed the whole world. Before she had time to ponder it any further, the ground beneath her heaved, belching as a wide rift was torn through its rich earth. Roots and all matter of debris became visible, and the acrid stench of decay stung her nostrils.
A hand grabbed her ankles, a cold hand, with fingers of ice that stabbed into her flesh and burned her to her bones. She cried out, kicking at her invisible attacker with all her might while trying to propel herself far from this unholy act. Despite her efforts, the hands continued to pull her down, dragging her beneath the smelly dirt and into oblivion.
Sucking in a last breath, Willow was able to cry her lover's name before mud filled her throat, and the world went black.
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Post by Whistler on Mar 4, 2010 4:18:21 GMT -5
It’s funny how the world works sometimes. Just when you think all the crap is behind you, life throws you another surprise. When Willow Rosenberg woke up that morning, getting sucked into the ground probably wasn’t on her to-do list. Nobody ever plans for their life to change. But it does. Luckily, Willow’s sort of a VIP as far as the Powers That Be are concerned. It’s not always a fun list to be on, but it’s useful. When something big happens to a VIP, it doesn’t go unnoticed. When Willow got sucked underground like that, it didn’t go over too well with the people upstairs. See, the Powers had other plans for Willow. A powerful witch was a good weapon to have against a Hell-god with an entourage. So, the Powers stepped in and pulled her out of that nasty situation. Don’t ask me how – they don’t tell me their secrets. All I know is when I showed up where they told me to, I found a semi-conscious redhead lying on the ground covered in dirt. “Woah. That is not a good look for you,” I muttered as I crouched down beside her. “Willow Rosenberg, right?” I didn’t know how out of it she was, so I decided to give her a second to recover before I told her the crappy morning she was having was about to get worse. See, we weren’t exactly in her world anymore. “I’m Whistler,” I said. I stood up and scratched my head. Another thing about getting noticed by the Powers – they always have some big job for you. And it’s never really the kind of thing you say ‘no’ to, you know? Willow just got pulled out of one nasty situation and dropped right into another one. See, the Powers didn’t know what Glory was doing with this new world, but she was collecting champions – or trying to. Now the Powers were sending in a few of their own to even things out. CANON LISTING | FACECLAIMS | THREAD TRACKERS( Congratulations! Your character has been fully approved. If you're playing a canon character, please claim him or her in the Missing Persons list if you have not already done so. Please claim your character's celebrity play-by in the Photo Database. Once you start posting, please remember to keep track of your threads with a thread tracker. ) ((If you want to reply to this and have a little back and forth with Whistler you can. Or you can leave this thread as is. Up to you. Have fun!))
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Post by Willow Rosenberg on Mar 22, 2010 0:32:55 GMT -5
((Sorry this took so long! Bad me! *slaps wrist*))
Light assaulted her eyes.
After the oppressive blackness of the earth, the change was downright painful. So too were the release of pressure off her ribcage and the resulting intake of air that she instinctively gulped for. Dirt and fine pebbles which had burrowed themselves into the sensitive flesh of her throat scratched and tore mercilessly as she lay gasping for breath.
Rolling to her side, Willow heaved her mouthful of grit before collapsing to the ground. What the... With the adrenalin wearing off in her system, exhaustion took hold, causing her immediate surroundings to fall to the back of her consciousness.
She didn't know how long she laid there, panting for air with the sun drying the mud on her skin. But with the sound of a male voice, Willow gently blinked her eyes open. Before her kneeled a strange looking man with a peculiar smirk plastered on his face.
Clearing her throat, Willow squeaked, “Hiya Whistler.” Stifling a cough, Willow braced her sore muscles, slowly manipulating her body until she was in what passed as a sitting position. “You have any idea what in the Hell is going on here? What just happened?"
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Post by Whistler on Mar 26, 2010 13:55:01 GMT -5
Man, as beat up as Willow looked, she sounded worse. She was a trooper, though. Gotta give her that.
“Hiya Whistler.”
She did what she could to sit up, but she didn’t really look like she was up to it. I was kind of worried she was gonna fall over, but she held her own.
“You have any idea what in the Hell is going on here? What just happened?” she asked.
I sighed.
“Well, I don’t know all the details,” I said, “but, long story short, somethin’ tried to suck you into the ground, the Powers That Be intervened, and dropped you here.”
I looked around, giving her a second to process the fact that she’d just been ripped out of wherever she’d been. We were on the side of a lonely road in what passed for Sunnydale in this dimension.
“Unfortunately, they didn’t exactly do you any favors. This place isn’t exactly a Hell dimension, but it ain’t paradise either. Well, unless you’re Glory.”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to throw too much at her at once, with the whole ‘being unconscious and hacking up dirt’ thing. It was better to give her information in small doses. After all, she was a badass witch who could probably turn me into a toad stool or something. Who wants that?
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Post by Willow Rosenberg on Apr 7, 2010 23:03:47 GMT -5
The mud was beginning to dry, caking over her exposed skin. She rubbed her arms, causing russet colored flakes to sprinkle atop of the more bronze-hued earth she now found herself sitting on.
"Well, wow. I guess another big 'hurrah' for the big PT...B...wait..."
Willow became quite still, unmoving and barely breathing. Brows furrowed, her expression became one of alarm. No. I must've heard wrong...
With minute, calculated movements, Willow warily tilted her head until she was able to gaze directly into Whistler's beady eyes. She held the pose for several moments, staring at the little man, trying to decipher just what it was that he'd said, and if he was perhaps lying to her.
When she finally found her voice, her words dripped with warning, "What? What did you say? Whose dimension is this?"
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Post by Whistler on Apr 12, 2010 22:28:09 GMT -5
Woah. Willow might not look like much, but she’s scary when she’s mad. Not that I expected hugs and kisses for mentioning the Hell-God, but I didn’t expect to get zapped into oblivion or something either. I held up my hands.
“Hey, don’t obliterate the messenger,” I said. “Yeah, like I said… they didn’t exactly do you any favors.”
I sighed. Sometimes I really hate this job.
“I don’t know everything, but I do know the Hell-God, Glorificus, isn’t gone. She’s here, in this dimension, which looks a lot like yours did before you, the Slayer, and all your pals turned the Hellmouth into a giant hole in the ground. Kudos for that, by the way.”
I took off my hat and dusted it off, again, giving her a second to process everything – and because my hat was dirty.
“Apparently even a God can’t create her own little slice of the universe without the higher-ups noticing something’s up. Looks like Glory’s trying to collect some champions. We don’t know why. At least I don’t.”
I shrugged and put my hat back on my head.
“So, the Powers are bringing in their own champions. Being one of their V.I.P.’s like you are, I guess you’re one of their first round draft picks.”
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Post by Willow Rosenberg on Apr 16, 2010 23:10:19 GMT -5
Oh no. Oh, dear Goddess no. Willow buried her face in her hands, feeling a major headache playing at the side of her temple. Glory!? Hell dimension of Sunnydale!? Powers That Be!? Champions and V.I.P.'s!?
Willow's mind was a whirlwind of panic-stricken thoughts jostling for position. Ben had been killed. They'd all seen his body. With him dead, Glory should've been no more. But no, somehow she had survived. Or maybe she was “released” once Ben died, allowing her to go anywhere she wanted.
She shook her head, clearing that particular issue from her thoughts. It doesn't matter how she got here; she's here now.
A wave of nauseousness gripped her gut. If Glory was gathering so-called “champions” to aid her, what could the Hell-God be planning? Was she gathering troops for an inevitable war? Or was she throwing the baddest-of-the-baddies and the goodest-of-the-goodies together into the pot and giving it a good stir, just to see what would happen?
A groan escaped Willow's throat as she imagined Glory reclining into her tub of bubble-bath, a glass of wine caressing her giggling lips as she congratulated herself on a job-well-done of screwing up everyone's lives. I wouldn't put it past her. She's crazy like that.
“Okay,” Willow stood, her nausea forcing her to move delicately. “If Glory is alive, and if she's here and brining in people that she likes...” Willow glanced around herself, seeing not much more than brush and mountains in the distance and a faint, hazy village that, if this Whistler was telling the truth, could be the new Sunnydale. “Then who are the Powers That Be brining in? What's Their plan, and what are...we,” Willow motioned to herself, a skeptical look etched upon her face, “supposed to do about it?”
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Post by Whistler on May 17, 2010 23:53:46 GMT -5
I just kind of stood there while Willow wrapped her head around the whole thing. Sometimes being a V.I.P. was a tough gig. I took a step closer while she stood up in case she fell over or something.
"Woah, take it easy," I said.
"Okay, If Glory is alive, and if she's here and brining in people that she likes... Then who are the Powers That Be brining in? What's Their plan, and what are...we supposed to do about it?"
I scratched the back of my neck. Jeez, they always had so many questions.
"Hey, beats me. This messenger gig doesn't exactly come with an instruction manual. All I was supposed to do is tell you where you were, and I did that, so..." I shrugged, "My job's done for now."
Really, I should've taken off then, but that would've been a crappy thing to do, messenger or not.
"Look, some people you know might be around... Is there anywhere you want me to take you? It's gotta be in this dimension, but I could, you know, magic you someplace if you want."
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Post by Willow Rosenberg on May 22, 2010 22:25:45 GMT -5
Willow sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. Tension had gradually been building up in the muscles at the base of her neck and beneath her shoulder-blades, making her stiff and sore. Whether the soreness was from her recent plunge into the depths of the earth or from the psychological loop-de-loop of this latest predicament, she could not say.
Promising to treat herself to a long, hot, bubble-bath as soon as time and circumstances allowed (if not before, she mused, flashing a mischievous grin that lasted but the span of a blink of the eye), Willow nodded to Whistler. “Yeah, I suppose. If there are any more scoobies popping up here, I think that The Magic Box would be a good meeting place. We all will filter down there, I would think. It was kinda the center of our little family."
Willow hesitated, wondering if maybe Buffy's house would be a better bet. She was about to ask Whistler to take her instead to Buffy's home when she shook her head, deciding against it. No, I don't even know if Buffy has been brought here or not. The Magic Box is a place that we're all familiar with. She at least, hoped that her friends would come to the same conclusion and make for the magical supply shop as soon as they were able.
Willow stood up straighter, steeling herself for the magical ride. "Well, if you know where you're going," she flicked her hands in a shooing motion, "then by all means, whisk us away to The Magic Box. I mean, if The Magic Box exists in this dimension. It does exist, right?"
((If there was someplace else you think that Will should go before meeting Tara at the shop, by all means suggest it! I kinda forgot what the exact plan was supposed to be.))
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