Leave-taking.

[DoS Archive]

Date: 1/4/98 10:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BuffyWntrs


The Challenge match had ended. The last vestige of responsibility had come and gone. As she made her way back to the house, Buffy felt the lifting of a great weight from her shoulders. She unlocked the heavy, oaken door of the estate house, and shouldered it open. The young woman did not bother to hang her jacket, but merely unzipped it, and took the stairs two at a time, as she headed for her bedroom. The bags were laid out, neatly, on
the large bed, as she had left them before making her appearance at the Annex. She touched one of the canvas duffels lightly, and took a restless seat at the tiny writing desk that stood along the wall. Swiftly writing, she sent a brief letter to those who she knew would be concerned with her absence. For one fleeting moment, Buffy considered a general post for the patrons to read, then shook her head. She wasn't on display, and they would find
out about her vacant shift soon enough.
The writing slowed, then stopped, her green eyes fixed vacantly on the wall before her, pen tapping her lower lip in thought.
How to conjure emotion she did not feel?
This uncomfortable thought flitted across her mind. She gathered it, examined it, probed at it, like it was a loose tooth in her mouth. She did not feel. That was about the whole of it, and the reason for her swift and silent departure from RhyDin. Buffy called the faces of her friends to mind, holding mental images of them before her. She loved them all, it was true, but the thought of leaving them caused nothing more than a gentle,
nostalgic pulling of her heartstrings. She sighed, and tossed the pen down on the desk.
"Enough.", she murmured. "Time to git."
Tossing her ponytail over a shoulder, Buffy stood in the middle of her bedroom, and took a final look about. Confident that the house would be safe in her absence, for she did intend to return, the young woman sketched a rune in the air before her, and a shimmering curtain split the air with a tinkling sound.
With a bag in the hand, and a bag on the shoulder, Buffy paused a moment in front of the rift, looking through it at the other side. A wavering image, seen as if through water, bespoke one word to her.. -Mall-. And she stepped through.