Joined: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:16 pm
Posts: 88
Location: WNY
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Destiny
Except for the rustling of pages and the periodic clacking of computer keys, the library was quiet. After she and Angel had found the others yesterday, they'd all convened in the library and had spent yesterday and this morning sifting through the myriad of things the old Romany had given to Angel. After a brief lunch break, they'd all trooped back into the library to continue their quest to discover the secret of Angel's apparent humanity. The doctor had pronounced Angel to be a perfectly healthy, perfectly normal thirty-five year old man, albeit with rather high cholesterol. He’d advised cutting down on the bloody meat and advocated more salads. Angel had assented with nothing more than a smile.
Sighing, Tara stretched and rolled her neck and shoulders. There was so much to go through and the only thing they knew for sure they were looking for was the Aberjian Prophecy or a copy of it anyway. Wolfram & Hart had been the last known holders of the “shanshu” information and The Scoobies were all pretty sure that The Dark Side’s lawyers wouldn't give it up willingly. They figured that somehow the Romany had gotten a hold of it in the good-guys-lostverse that Tara and Angel had come from. They’d collectively decided that it could be the only reason that the Rom had demanded Angel take the trailer full of magical library cast-offs.
Tara had developed a habit of watching Willow surreptitiously anytime the redhead wasn't looking or was deeply engrossed in something else. Tara was fairly certain that Willow could pull the relevant document out of the mountain of paper and was a little surprised that, not only didn't Willow majick the document out of the piles, no one even suggested Willow try to extract it. Willow also walked across the room to get whatever she needed instead of just summoning it. It was little things like that Tara had been noticing. Willow was almost always barefoot now, which made Tara grin a little wondering if it was because she wanted to be in touch with the ground and nature - or wood floors, as the case may be, or if it was because Tara wasn't around to keep track of the redhead's shoes and no one else had been able to either. There were times when it seemed like Buffy and Willow were talking without saying a word and Tara was sure she'd seen the same thing with Xander and the two young women. Will was a little more serene now. Still funny and sweet, sexy and beautiful and still a complete spaz when she'd had one mocha too many but she was much quieter and even more reflective than she had been. In Tara's opinion, life had aged Willow beyond her years and Tara couldn't help but think that while Willow had accepted that the majick was part of her, she wasn't really comfortable with it yet.
Sighing as thoughts of Willow ran away with her – again – Tara grabbed the next parchment in the pile she'd put in front of herself. Aramaic. They were looking for Sumerian.
“Everyone?” she said quietly as a sudden thought struck her. The sound was loud in the quiet of the room and she blushed as they all looked at her. “I-I know we're l-looking for the Aberjian Prophecy, b-but is there anything else? I mean, we know of the Aberjian Prophecy and shanshu but is that going to give us all the information? Maybe there’s another document with the same stuff or, like, similar stuff on it? Or are we just going to be looking through all these puzzle pieces again?”
“Oh, good Lord,” Giles said. “I hadn't even considered that but it would seem to make sense. Why else would the Romany have sent all of this with you if all we needed was a copy of the Aberjian Prophecy? But until we find that we don't know what else we might be looking for.” He sighed heavily, running his fingers through his hair and looking completely frustrated. “Damn!”
“Okay, we've already gone through a bunch of these but,” Buffy interjected, “why don't we start making notes and attaching them to the documents – you know, a highlights of this document type thing. So when we need to look back through it, we've got cliff notes.” As she'd been talking, Buffy had crossed over to the supply cabinets and grabbed seven spiral notebooks, several pens and pencils, some sticky notes, and two boxes of paper clips. Handing everyone a notebook and a sticky pad, she tossed the pens, pencils and paper clips on the table.
“Good idea, Buff,” Willow said, grabbing a pen.
“This is also a wonderful way to begin cataloging all of this for incorporation into the library,” said Giles with a triumphant smirk.
The others collectively rolled their eyes and followed Willow’s lead. Tara again noticed that Buffy had gotten the supplies and Willow had stood up to get a pen instead of just summoning everything to her as she once would have.
Tara grabbed a pencil and started jotting notes about the parchment in front of her. Her mother and grandmother had taught her to read several of the ancient languages, such as Aramaic and Sumerian, as she was growing up. It had served a dual purpose; Tara knew several of the languages that many older majick texts were written in and her studies had helped keep her mind off the fact that she had no friends to play with. She thought about how her life had changed so much since meeting Willow. She looked around the room at her friends – no, family – and thought again how lucky she'd been to have found this wonderful, if quirky, bunch of people not just once, but twice. She smiled softly to herself then turned back to the parchment in front of her. Reading through it, she jotted down 'The Resjendian Prophecy. Mostly Aramaic. Highlights: true champion in the darkness, twin sorceresses, fire and ice, torn asunder. Hm, that's interesting,' she thought.
She stretched and looked across the table at Willow, who was deeply involved in whatever she was reading. Tara smiled. For all of the changes she'd gone through, Willow still chewed the end of her pen and tucked her hair behind her ear when she was deeply engrossed in something.
It was about an hour later when Dawn gleefully announced she had found a copy of the Aberjian prophecy. Between Tara, Giles, and Dawn's translator program, they found the relevant passage.
“All right, here it is, the vampire with a soul, once he fulfills his destiny,” Giles frowned, “will Shanshu. The word Shanshu has roots in many different languages. The most ancient source is the Proto-Bantu and they consider life and death to be the same thing, part of a cycle, only a thing that's not alive never dies – can't die.” Giles paused for a moment as he concentrated over the passage, the arm of his glasses tucked in his mouth. “Wesley was right, it does seem to be saying – that you get to live until you die. It does seem that you become human.” Giles frowned, “There's something here about surviving the coming darkness, the apocalyptic battles, a few plagues, and some fiends that will be unleashed. It also says your connection to the Powers That Be will be severed.” He looked up at Angel, “But it does seem that your reward is to become human.”
Angel frowned, “Okay, that's what we know but what are we missing? I mean, if I signed away my right to Shanshu in this plane, and I had twin destinies – what does that mean?” he closed his eyes for a moment before saying, “Okay, we know what happened in the reality I was in with Tara – I was cut off from the Powers, I did survive the darkness and battled some fiends. Apparently, I did that here, too. Battled fiends and Cordy died,” he shook his head, “does that mean my connection to the Powers here was severed as well? Or did Cordy ascend? We know what happened, sort of, on my last day here and we know what happened in the world Tara and I came from.” He started pacing, his forehead creased in though.
“Well,” Giles said, “I think it's reasonable to assume that you averted the apocalypse since L.A. is still . . . well, then again.” He quirked a brow as if in thought.
“Funny, but yeah, probably,” Buffy added
“So it seems like everything in the prophecy came to pass, but I signed away my right to shanshu here,” Angel looked at Giles, “why didn't I shanshu in the world Tara and I came from?”
Tara frowned at the copy they were all huddled around and noticed something about the paragraph above the relevant passage. “Look here, Giles,” she said, pointing it out, “it says something about the vampire with a soul 'preserving the ice until the fire is found' connecting destiny to destiny, completing the cycle of shanshu, ending the journey of The Chosen.”
Giles nodded and picked up the parchment, studying it intently. “I think there was a deliberate mislead here,” he finally said. “The wording is such that one wouldn't necessarily understand them to mean 'twin destinies' but perhaps meaning connecting the vampire with a soul's destiny to that of the ice.” He glanced at Tara. “How did you catch that?”
“I was looking for it,” she said, looking down and flushing with pleasure. “The old Romany said twin destinies. Why would anyone think to look at that as two destinies of one being instead of two destinies of two beings? How many people have two destinies? I mean,” she thought for a moment, “doesn't destiny sort of imply one?”
Willow giggled and they all looked at her. Blushing, she said, “Prophecies are tricky things.”
Everyone chuckled, except Giles who merely said “Indeed,” and Tara, who grinned at Willow and felt her heart skip a beat when Willow flashed Tara a bright smile in return.
Angel stopped pacing and looked at Giles. “How does shanshu end the journey of The Chosen? Who is 'The Chosen'?”
Giles frowned and studied the page again. “It could be the vampire with a soul, I suppose – erm – you.”
“But I'm not the only one. There was Spike, too.”
“It kind of makes sense,” Willow spoke up, “he couldn't do it all here, in this plane. Twin destinies, the one here and the one there. So he did them both, here he signed away shanshu and averted the apocalypse but didn't survive the coming darkness,” frowning for a moment, as if trying to put the thoughts together, she continued, “there he didn't avert the apocalypse but did survive the coming darkness. So he did all of that – just in two different planes.” She took Angel's place in pacing as she thought out loud. “Okay, so he needed the planes to connect but they don't just connect by accident, something had to cause them to connect. Probably fire and ice,” She frowned, “does that make sense?”
Giles nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, actually, it makes a lot of sense. Ice is the catalyst. In order to shanshu, Angel needed to preserve the ice.” It was his turn to frown again as he looked at Angel. “So, the ice needed to be preserved until the fire was found and it was up to you to make sure that the ice was preserved, but it was up to the ice to cause the connecting of the destinies.”
Dawn chimed in, “But what are the fire and ice? What did Angel preserve? I mean, it was hotter where they were, wasn't it? Gates of Hell being open and all.”
“Right, and England – not really known for its heat waves,” Buffy added.
“Does fire have to mean heat?” asked Xander. “Love, passion, firetrucks, tempers are all . . .” he trailed off as they all looked at him, “what? Fire doesn't have to be FIRE! Right?”
“Xander, much as it pains me to admit, has a good point,” Giles said, “we're reading prophecies not novels. Fire could be anything having to do with fire, heat, passion, power, light. The ice could be cold, controlled, cool, calm.”
“Okay,” Willow said, heading to the supply cupboard, “let's start with what we do know.”
Tara watched as Willow grabbed a whiteboard and an easel and set them up. At the top of the board she wrote:
SHANSHU
WILLOW'S WORLD | TARA'S WORLD
Then placed what they knew under each world.
“Why's it gotta be Willow's World?” Xander asked. “Could be Xander's World.”
Willow glared at him, eyes blazing. “Xander! It's Willow's World,” she said carefully, in an obvious attempt to control her irritation at the interruption of her thoughts, “because there was no Tara here.”
“Oh, right. And Tara's World 'cause . . . right – got it – shutting up now,” he said but continued in a mutter “geez with the random act of redhead temper.” When Tara looked confused, he continued without trying to hide it, “If looks could kill, I'd be toast.” He shook his hand as if it burned.
“Sorry, Xand,” Willow said, blushing, “touchy subject.”
“Yeah, I get that,” he said, smiling and glancing at Tara.
Tara watched as Willow returned to the board and thought about that uncharacteristic show of anger. 'Well, I'm not used to it but maybe – no, Xander said it was unusual for this Willow, too,' she sighed to herself. 'This Willow. My Willow. I need to accept that this is my Willow. She's changed but she'd have changed over the two years even if we hadn't lost each other. Maybe the Willow of my world would have eventually lost control and become the Willow of this world.'
Willow had added several things to the board; fire under Willow's World, ice under Tara's, The Chosen with a question mark between the two worlds. Tara noticed the small wrinkle between Willow's eyes as the redheaded witch puzzled over the board.
“Willow?” she asked.
“Hm?” The redhead turned and looked at Tara.
“We know the ice was in m-my world, but are we sure the fire was or is in yours?”
Willow's frown deepened as she looked around the room. “I . . . I guess I just assumed since Angel had to preserve the ice until the fire was found that fire would be found here but maybe fire had something to do with an event there?”
“Does anyone else's head hurt?” Xander asked.
The group all nodded and murmured their assents.
Tara had been thinking while they'd all been talking. She sighed and they all looked at her. “I just read something about an hour or so ago about fire and ice. I think,” she smiled wryly, “the reason the old Romany sent all of this stuff through with us is because we're looking for more than one prophecy. Like, a bunch of them that are linked. Fire and ice and the vampire with a soul and The Chosen,” she frowned, considering for a moment. “Like maybe as things shifted and changed and elements fell into place, the prophecies were made. Different elements in different prophecies,” she looked at them uncertainly. “Does that make sense?”
Giles again nodded thoughtfully and went to his personal bookshelf. Browsing for a moment, he pulled a thin volume out and brought it back to the table. “This is the Pergamum Codex,” he said, “it prophesied Buffy's death at the hands of the Master and is considered one of the most accurate of the prophetic texts dealing with Slayer lore.” He began thumbing through the pages. “Perhaps, if the prophecy has anything to do with the Slayer line, the blueprint is in here, a checklist of sorts.”
He settled in to go through the Codex as the others went back to wading through the rest of the parchments and texts. Once again silence settled over the group with the sounds of pens and pencils scratching paper joining the rustle of the ancient pages.
Angel's voice was the next one raised in excitement. “Giles! Look at this,” he said, waving a text that had definitely seen better days. “It's the Tiberius Manifesto!” The others looked at him with bewilderment. Tara was again surprised at Angel's level of animation. Maybe becoming human had something to do with it.
“What? But, but,” Giles sputtered, “that's been lost for thousands of years.” He came over to Angel and looked at it, a grin splitting his face. “Oh, this is a find,” he cooed in answer to the questioning looks of the others. “The Tiberius Manifesto, along with the Pergamum Codex, is considered to be one to the most comprehensive and reliable prophetic texts. May I?” he begged Angel, extending a hand that looked like he was desperately trying not to snatch the book away.
Angel handed him the book and Giles greedily began looking through the pages. “Oh, oh, here's something,” he said, “Twin sorceresses, fire and ice, eternally joined too soon parted. Re-joined, or reunited, by the divinities and,” Giles paused and frowned at the text before snatching up the Pergamum Codex and scanning it while muttering and flipping pages furiously, “well, this is odd,” he said as he looked at the group, “ Twin sorceresses, fire and ice, eternally joined too soon parted. Re-joined, or reunited, by the divinities and the star-crossed lovers of time.” He frowned, clearly puzzled by the text. “The Codex has an interesting passage referencing the vampire with a soul and his journey to shanshu and points to the Tiberius Manifesto and three other prophecies; The Aberjian, the Resjendian and the Star of Quazinal Diaries for the rest of the puzzle.”
“I just had the Resjendian Prophecy!” Tara exclaimed as she began rifling through the mass of papers on floor next to her chair. After several moments she held up the document in triumph. “Here it is. It talks about the true champion in the darkness, twin sorceresses, fire and ice, torn asunder.”
“Which repeats what's here in the Manifesto,” Giles said, frowning. “Well, I think we need to translate that, what is it? The Resjendian Prophecy?” Tara nodded that that was the name and he continued, “Tara, if you and Willow can work on translating that, I'll start work on the Manifesto and the rest of you,” he looked at the others, “can try and track down the Star of Quazinal Diaries.”
Tara nodded as Willow came around the table and sat next to her. As the others began looking in earnest for the remaining puzzle piece, Giles settled in with the Codex on one side and the Manifesto on the other, lovingly stroking each text.
Tara and Willow put their heads together as they worked on translating the document with the help of a laptop and several obscure dictionaries. Tara had to smile as she was close enough to smell Willow’s ‘cinnamon and sunshine' scent. Little pulses of electricity zipped through Tara every time her and Willow's hands touched as they worked slowly through the document; discarding passages that had nothing to do with the shanshu prophecy, jotting down notes about the twin sorceresses and the true champion until they finally came to two passages that dealt exclusively with the three people in question.
“Tara, do you see this?” Willow asked, pointing to a phrase. “Twin sorceresses, fire and ice, eternally joined too soon ripped asunder creating the darkness navigated only by the true champion. He alone will find the fire in the dark, releasing her to await the return of the ice.” Willow frowned and looked at Tara. “You don't think . . . I mean . . .could this be us?”
Tara gaped at her and tried to remember the other bits and pieces they'd found. “Oh, gods, Willow.” Tara couldn't form a thought. It made sense. It all made sense. Fire and Ice, power and control, impulsive passion and calm reason. It fit them perfectly. She giggled as she looked at the fiery colors in Willow's hair and thought of the cool blonde of hers. “It makes sense, Will,” the blue-eyed witch said grinning, “right down to our hair.” Eternally joined. She and Willow were supposed to be together. Prophecy – destiny – was telling them that they were meant to find each other, meant to be torn apart and meant to be reunited.
Tara tried to decide how she felt about that and realized it didn't matter. She loved Willow, had from almost the moment they'd met. Time, space, distance, planes and dimensions hadn't changed anything. She looked at the beautiful redhead, “Oh Willow,” she said softly, before throwing her arms around the redhead's neck and hugging her tightly, feeling Willow's arms tighten around her.
Pulling back slightly, she looked seriously at Willow. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, baby,” came the soft reply. “Welcome home.”
Tara wasn't sure who made the first move but it didn't matter. They were kissing, deeply, full of love and passion and hope. Tara got lost in the kiss reveling in having found Willow not once, but twice in her lifetime. She held on to Willow, enjoying the taste, feel, and scent of the beautiful redhead.
A soft cough reminded them they weren't alone. They broke apart and looked up, both of them blushing furiously and muttering their “sorries.”
“Sorry, everyone,” Tara said, the blush still gracing her cheeks, eyes bright with unshed tears, “it seems the Resjendian prophecy has given us some of the answers and I got a little over excited.” She grinned and filled the others in on what the prophecy said.
“Well, then,” Giles said thoughtfully, “if that's true then . . . Xander . . .” he looked at the young man who was, Tara noted, watching Dawn.
“What?” Xander said, “I didn't do it.”
“Yes, actually, you did,” Giles said, a small smile playing at his lips. “You're the true champion.”
“I'm the what now?” Xander asked, looking stunned.
“The prophecy the girls just read, about the fire and ice and the true champion being the only one to navigate the darkness. You're the one who brought Willow, the fire, out of the darkness.”
“Huh?”
Giles looked at him with a vaguely amused grin that hinted at 'duh'. “When you told the yellow crayon story . . . you brought Willow . . .” he trailed off as Xander interrupted.
“Oh, well, yeah, of course I did. I'm not just some Zeppo here,” he thumped his chest with a delighted grin, “I do hero stuff, too, you know.”
Buffy and Willow grinned at him. “See,” Buffy said, “we told you.”
Angel chuckled and looked at Xander. “Welcome to the club,” he said before turning to Giles. “Okay, we've got two thirds, then? We've got the shanshu and we know about the fire and ice. We just need whatever it is that ties it all together. We're missing the middle?”
“I'm not sure if it's the middle,” Giles picked up a notebook and starting making notes as he talked. “We know that the vampire with a soul will shanshu, become human, after fulfilling both his destinies. One of those is to avert the apocalypse, the other is, oh, good lord,” he stopped and looked at Tara and Willow, “to preserve the ice until fire is found. Your second destiny was to help reunite Tara with Willow,” he said, turning to Angel. “Your destinies have connected. Angel, you're human. Again. I mean mortal. Erm, it seems as though you may have done it.”
Angel just stared at him and Tara couldn't begin to imagine what was going through his mind. The whole room was silent until Buffy launched herself at Angel, hugging him tightly. Then the room exploded with noise – laughter, talking, crying – every sound wrapped into one.
“But wait,” Angel choked out above the cacophony, “how? I mean, I signed it away, didn't I?”
“No, you didn't. The you of this dimension did. And he's gone. Apparently, the universe isn't differentiating the you of here from the you of there except in that the you of here signed the document. He averted the apocalypse, but died in the process so was unable to shanshu. You kept Tara safe until she was reunited with Willow so you shanshu because both destinies were met.”
Tara looked at Angel, “That's why it took us a year to get through. The 'you' of here hadn't met his part of the destiny. We had to wait until, well, you weren't here anymore.”
“Ow,” Angel shook his head, “I'm just going to accept that you two know what you're talking about. So we know most of what we need to know, then. We just don't know how shanshu ends the journey of The Chosen. Or why, or even who The Chosen is.”
“You know,” Xander said, “if I'm the true champion and Willow is the fire, doesn't it make sense that Buff is The Chosen? I mean, we know she's 'Chosen' because she's 'The Slayer,' but can't she be this 'The Chosen,' too? What?” he asked, his fingers still up in quotation marks, as they all gaped at him. “Sometimes I have thoughts.”
Giles grinned and shook his head, “Yes, Xander, you do. And I think that may be the right thought. I think we need to find the Star of Quazinal Diaries to put the final pieces together.” He looked at his watch. “It is rather late, perhaps dinner first?”
They all agreed, though there was a definite pout on Dawn's face at having to stop for some measly meal, and went to the kitchen to assemble a quick supper, the excitement palpable. Willow and she were meant to be. Angel was human. What more was there?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Over the course of the next several days, Willow felt the barriers between her and Tara melt away. It seemed as if the prophecy had given Tara permission to relax. The atmosphere of the house was expectant and excited as they sifted through the piles of stuff the old Romany had sent with Angel and Tara.
It was just after lunch on the fourth day of searching that Buffy finally held up a thin volume and asked, “Is this it? There's a Q in the middle of a Star but I can't read the language at all.” Giles took the book from her and smiled broadly. Tara recognized the book as one she’d read while in the basement.
“Yes, yes this is it,” he said, opening it carefully. The pages were brittle and Willow was afraid they might turn to dust under Giles' fingers, but the paper held together. It was several moments before Giles smiled softly then looked up at Buffy. “You are The Chosen. I've not got it fully or even well translated but I've read enough that it definitely points to you. 'And The Chosen will stand with the true champion and fire by her side, creating an army of warriors to push back the dark tides of evil.'”
“Ohhh, see Buff, you were wrong,” Xander said.
“About what?” Buffy looked puzzled.
“When we got into that big fight with each other before Adam – you said you were beginning to understand why there was no ancient prophecy about the Chosen One and her friends,” he grinned at her, “see, there is one after all.”
Willow looked at her two best friends and saw them looking at her and each other. They'd been together nine years and had seen every imaginable hell together. If the prophecies were right their journeys, though probably not their adventures, were at an end. They'd found their places in the world – with each other. The Fire smiled as The Chosen and The True Champion converged on her, enveloping her in a hug.
Home. They were all finally home.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Next Week: Happy Ever After & Epilogue
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Willow? I got so lost...
I found you...I will always find you
Willow's Promise on Myspace
Willow's Promise: the happy ending Willow & Tara *should* have had
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I hope that Angel and Buffy can finally be together and that the human aspect of Angel's life right now remains so! 
but that leaves out how she's bonded individually with Dawn, Buffy, and Angel.
