Return of the Key, chapter Seven.
4 Sep 2008 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatHere is chapter Seven of my Buffyverse/LotR crossover, starring Dawn.
Chapter 8 will be ready by Monday.
Previous chapters are here.
Return of the Key, Chapter Seven.
PG
2,600 words
Beta read, as usual, by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
speakr2customrs
In which our heroine discusses weaponry with elves, and worries about someone's behaviour...
Beautiful banner by Kazzy-Cee.
Chapter Seven.
It was now ten days since the closing of the Hellmouth and things in Sunnydale were starting to get back to a semblance of normality. Some families were moving back to their houses, there were some police on the streets, and the electricity supply was now almost constant.
Robin Woods was still recovering in a hospital nearly twenty miles away, but almost all the injured slayers were now back at Revello Drive – although, in theory, they should have only been transferring back to the re-opened Sunnydale hospital.
Giles had managed, with help from both Spike and Andrew, to contact four retired Watchers who were not in their dotage. Those Watchers, in turn, knew the whereabouts of a number of the younger men and women who had been in training before the attack on Council Headquarters.
After some firm ‘Do Not…’ speeches from Faith, now happy to leave the bedside of Robin Wood, and from Buffy, following a few stern words from her own Watcher, a number of those girls with understanding families were being sent to cope with their new-found powers at home for a few months until training, and Watchers of some sort, were available.
Decisions needed to be made about how to keep the other girls in somewhat less cramped conditions than the Summers’ house, and whether this should be in Sunnydale or somewhere else.
Giles needed to be able to access the Council bank accounts and it really seemed as if a little magically enhanced computer hacking, giving power to withdraw money to Giles and a couple of the other older Watchers straight away, would be much simpler than going through the proper channels. The amount of legal work required otherwise, to reconstitute the relevant committees and officers, could well take months or even years.
Willow, therefore, had been busying herself for the last few days on doing the financial stuff. Whenever Buffy came near her she went on and on about finding Dawn. Xander wanted her to be his best friend and help him over the loss of Anya. No-one seemed to care that Willow had performed probably the greatest piece of magic since the creation of the First Slayer only ten days before; no-one seemed to have said much more than a brief ‘Thanks’ and then found more for her to do. She was tired, she wanted to sleep for twenty-four hours, and then to spend some quality time with Kennedy.
Finally Kennedy approached Giles and put this to him. Kennedy was not Giles favourite person but he had to admit, when she pointed it out to him in very firm terms, that Willow should, indeed, have some down time and a chance to rest. He suggested that, now that there was so much less risk to being in small numbers and Kennedy was a fully-fledged Slayer, Willow and Kennedy could move into Willow’s parents’ empty house and Willow should only do things for pleasure (most of which he preferred not to think about); at least for a day or two.
Buffy was now bending his ear about this decision. “You don’t care about Dawn. Nobody cares about Dawn. You are just glad that the stupid Hellmouth is closed, and you can’t even be bothered to bring my sister back to say ‘thank you’ to her!”
Giles felt himself longing to say ‘Spike appears to care about Dawn, and from what I hear, you haven’t been all that bothered about her yourself in the last year or two. She is one very brave young lady, but she is probably one very dead young lady, and I have possibly hundreds of other people to care about.’ But he knew it would make matters worse.
“Buffy,” he said instead, “Willow has been under a great deal of pressure and if she does not get a break I am afraid that she will collapse or break down. Allowing, or even causing, this to happen would be a very poor way to show our thanks for what she has already done. However, I will contact my friends in the coven in England and ask if they can give us any advice on finding out where Dawn might be.”
“Good idea, Rupert,” came Spike’s voice from the doorway. “Come on pet, let’s get you something to eat, or else you’ll crack up even if Willow doesn’t.”
The vampire steered the Slayer out of the room and Giles found himself thinking that Spike really was turning out to be an asset after all.
…………………………………………..
The twins did indeed arrive the day after the coronation to look at Dawn’s sword. After taking one look at her Elrohir disappeared for a while and then returned with a potion for her to drink.
“Even elflings suffer when they have too much wine,” he commented, with a sympathetic smile.
The twins, she thought, were rather like slightly older male cousins; if Buffy turned up to take her home she would really miss them.
Elrohir’s potion was remarkably effective; it took only about fifteen minutes for her to feel able to drink some tea and eat the bread and cheese that Rumil, his face deadpan, removed from the drawer of the end table.
From somewhere Orophin produced not only Dawn’s sword but also her stake.
Elladan picked up the stake.
“I know you said that you fought vampires in men’s bodies, and killed them with a wooden stake, but the simplicity of the weapon, and the proximity to the enemy required, had not fully come home to me,” he said. “If your sister is magically enhanced to enable her to slay these beasts, and yet you also carry such a basic weapon for the same task, then you are indeed a little warrior. It would take bravery to wield such a close-combat weapon in the face of an enemy with great strength and murderous teeth. I fear we do not have a warrior braid to signify such a brave combat style!”
Dawn was almost struck speechless as Orophin and Elrohir nodded in agreement, obviously impressed, and then translated for Rumil, who also looked impressed. She had been used to Buffy making her stay back, keep out of the way, be protected, because she wasn’t a Slayer, but here were warriors calling her brave for being able to use a stake if she had to.
Despite the terrible homesickness of the previous day she once more thought, as she had in the past, that this was not a bad place to be. Given time she could probably teach someone how to make pizza.
When Legolas, Gandalf, and Gimli arrived, and pondered attacking ‘such a fell being’ (‘they don’t seem to use the word ‘demon’ here,’ Dawn thought) with a ‘crudely carved piece of wood’, they also looked impressed.
Then they all three entered the conversation together.
“Some sort of delivery system for the wooded stakes would be practical,” said Gimli.
“Why do you not use a longbow from a distance? A wooden shaft through the heart would surely be successful and less dangerous to you?” queried Legolas.
“The dimension you have come from is most certainly a more dangerous place than Middle Earth is now,” Gandalf said slowly, “and, with one young woman and her companions against beings such as Sauron or Morgoth himself, it is no less dangerous than Middle Earth was when it relied on one young hobbit and his companions. I am glad to have you here.”
Eventually the workmanship of Dawn’s sword was discussed. They agreed that it was high quality metal, and high quality workmanship, forged in a different way to elven, or dwarven, weapons.
“Not beautiful, but effective,” concluded Elladan.
“Should a weapon be beautiful?” Dawn asked.
In reply Elladan produced his own sword, which Dawn had not seen him carry before; he had obviously brought it for comparison purposes. It was, indeed, a work of art; the handle was black wood, inset with silver, and the blade was slightly curved and engraved with swirling patterns and inscriptions.
“The weaponsmith takes pride in his work, and makes it a thing of beauty in honour of the Valar, whose work it then does. An elf’s sword is only ever used against the forces of evil; no elf would use his sword against another elf, or against anyone who honours the Valar,” Elrohir said from beside his brother.
“Uh – doesn’t the gore get into the engraving and make cleaning it hard, guys?” Dawn asked.
Whilst the elves all looked slightly shocked at the question, Gimli nodded his head sagely. “Aye, you certainly are a wee warrior,” he said with a chuckle. “None of these Gondorian women would have asked such a question; they would just have made eyes at the swordsman.”
The elves all made noises of agreement, before Elladan answered the original question in the negative, and Dawn considered the snippet that they were being hit on by the women of Minas Tirith as well as by the men.
‘I wonder,’ she thought, ‘if they take those offers up?’
…………………………………………..
The twins left a few days later, in the company of the Rohirrim, to meet up with their father and his people coming to Minas Tirith for midsummer celebrations.
“Will your sister be coming too?” Dawn asked, when they came to say goodbye.
“Most certainly,” Elrohir answered, “but we have not yet told Estel how certain this is. We are leaving him to wonder, as he does not ask for fear of the answer, although he should know in his heart that she will come.”
Dawn had learnt from Gandalf of the long-standing betrothal between Aragorn and Arwen, and now she remembered a comment of Elrohir’s, the day she had her casts removed, that midsummer was ‘an auspicious time for… things,’ and began to wonder if she would be invited to the wedding.
The family were meeting in Lothlorien, and travelling back to Minas Tirith together; not only Lord Elrond and Arwen but also her grandparents who were the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim. Dawn wondered what an elven grandma would look like. Gimli had said she was the most beautiful being he had ever seen but that didn’t sound like any grandmother Dawn had ever met.
The twins, before leaving, had examined Dawn’s broken leg very carefully and concluded that, like her arms, it was healing more slowly than an elf’s would, but faster than they would have expected for a young woman. Another two weeks in the splint should be sufficient, they thought, and then she should be able to exercise the muscles for a few days before attempting to walk; probably with a stick. They would leave Aragorn to make such decisions.
…………………………………………..
Things were quieter once the twins had left.
Aragorn called to see her only on rare occasions. He had an awful lot of ruling to do, Dawn reckoned, as well as being her new consulting physician. She had read about ‘The Royal Physician’ in an historical romance once, she remembered, but she thought that having actual royalty as your personal physician was about as cool as it could get!
The hobbits still visited frequently and gave Dawn news of the city outside; they had witnessed the impressive sight of the Rohirrim éoreds all departing together – some 3,000 warriors and horses now fit to travel. She had tried to interest Sam in the concept of pizza but decided that it was unlikely to appeal to him unless she suggested adding bacon and eggs and frying it. The burger might be more to his taste, she had decided, and his first attempt had been pretty good. Perhaps, she thought, he could set up a chain of ‘Gamgee’s Burgers’ – or, hey, ‘Samburgers’ – when he got home to the Shire.
Gandalf called in most days, frequently bringing her books ‘to entertain and educate’, often talking of Sunnydale, other times to simply sit and describe something he had seen that day or some day in the distant past.
Gimli was working with the masons of Minas Tirith to better rebuild the city walls whilst Legolas was involved in planning the replacement of trees, and other green spaces, as well as acting as an unofficial councillor to the new King, having been involved in ‘princely things’ in his father’s realm.
Legolas had also received long letters from home. They told of major battles fought by the elves of Mirkwood and Lorien against hordes of orcs from Dol Guldur. His father and brother were well but he had lost friends in the fighting and was somewhat subdued for a while.
But most noticeably Orophin and Rumil were not themselves.
Orophin was quiet; he spent more time sitting out on the balcony gazing into the distance, or out exercising the horses he and Rumil had kept at the Rohirrim’s insistence, than he had done before.
It occurred to Dawn that the brothers must also have lost friends in the battles with the Dol Guldur orcs; perhaps they even felt guilty that they hadn’t been there themselves. She was sure that they would have returned to Lorien with the twins if it wasn’t for her and, when she had asked Orophin why he and Rumil had stayed in Minas Tirith, he had taken a moment to answer, and then had, indeed, said “We stay for you.”
But, where Orophin was quieter, Rumil was almost invisible.
He still sat with Dawn for an hour each day, learning Common and teaching Sindarin, but otherwise he seemed to be completely avoiding her.
When she thought back she realised that it had started the day after the coronation. Dawn remembered being sick all over one of them, and talking rubbish, and she wondered what she could have said to him to have this effect. She hadn’t blurted out how sexy he was, or declared undying love, had she? How could she ask? How could she make it like it had been before?
Then she remembered Gimli’s comment about the women of Minas Tirith making eyes at the elves and she began to think that maybe some Gondorian woman was taking up his time. The very thought made her feel sick in the pit of her stomach.
…………………………………………..
“Yes, I think I can say, Althanea, that Willow did very well channelling the power of the Slayers’ Scythe, and it seems to have had no ill-effects, apart from some weariness. I must admit it did take her current, um, girlfriend to point this out to me. Things have been very busy. But I would greatly appreciate any help you or the other ladies can give in determining if Dawn is still alive somewhere and, if she has survived, if there is any way of returning her safely home.”
Giles listened to the clear, firm, voice on the other end of the line for a few more minutes.
“Yes, I quite appreciate the possible problems that could cause, and I will try to explain it clearly.”
“Yes, I think that is a reasonable analogy, although there is no need to consider those possibilities unless either yourselves, or those of us on this side of the Atlantic, are able to find some trace of her.”
“Thank you again, I will simply wait until I next hear from you, and I shall reassure her sister that we are doing all we can. Goodbye.”
He put the phone down, slowly, and removed his glasses to polish them thoughtfully. He felt a degree of relief. The decisions on the problem of Dawn were now, to a large extent, off-loaded for a while and he could concentrate on other things with a clear conscience.
…………………………………………..
The ’BtVS’ characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only and all rights remain with Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the writers of the original episodes, and the TV and production companies responsible for the original television shows. The 'LotR' characters also, for whom all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkein, and the production company responsible for the LotR movies.
…………………………………………..
I have been busy teaching all day, which I always find tiring. But Daughter-dear and her boyfriend are cooking steak for dinner - I do like it when someone else cooks!
E.T.A. - the steak was very, very good!
Chapter 8 will be ready by Monday.
Previous chapters are here.
Return of the Key, Chapter Seven.
PG
2,600 words
Beta read, as usual, by
speakr2customrsIn which our heroine discusses weaponry with elves, and worries about someone's behaviour...
Beautiful banner by Kazzy-Cee.
It was now ten days since the closing of the Hellmouth and things in Sunnydale were starting to get back to a semblance of normality. Some families were moving back to their houses, there were some police on the streets, and the electricity supply was now almost constant.
Robin Woods was still recovering in a hospital nearly twenty miles away, but almost all the injured slayers were now back at Revello Drive – although, in theory, they should have only been transferring back to the re-opened Sunnydale hospital.
Giles had managed, with help from both Spike and Andrew, to contact four retired Watchers who were not in their dotage. Those Watchers, in turn, knew the whereabouts of a number of the younger men and women who had been in training before the attack on Council Headquarters.
After some firm ‘Do Not…’ speeches from Faith, now happy to leave the bedside of Robin Wood, and from Buffy, following a few stern words from her own Watcher, a number of those girls with understanding families were being sent to cope with their new-found powers at home for a few months until training, and Watchers of some sort, were available.
Decisions needed to be made about how to keep the other girls in somewhat less cramped conditions than the Summers’ house, and whether this should be in Sunnydale or somewhere else.
Giles needed to be able to access the Council bank accounts and it really seemed as if a little magically enhanced computer hacking, giving power to withdraw money to Giles and a couple of the other older Watchers straight away, would be much simpler than going through the proper channels. The amount of legal work required otherwise, to reconstitute the relevant committees and officers, could well take months or even years.
Willow, therefore, had been busying herself for the last few days on doing the financial stuff. Whenever Buffy came near her she went on and on about finding Dawn. Xander wanted her to be his best friend and help him over the loss of Anya. No-one seemed to care that Willow had performed probably the greatest piece of magic since the creation of the First Slayer only ten days before; no-one seemed to have said much more than a brief ‘Thanks’ and then found more for her to do. She was tired, she wanted to sleep for twenty-four hours, and then to spend some quality time with Kennedy.
Finally Kennedy approached Giles and put this to him. Kennedy was not Giles favourite person but he had to admit, when she pointed it out to him in very firm terms, that Willow should, indeed, have some down time and a chance to rest. He suggested that, now that there was so much less risk to being in small numbers and Kennedy was a fully-fledged Slayer, Willow and Kennedy could move into Willow’s parents’ empty house and Willow should only do things for pleasure (most of which he preferred not to think about); at least for a day or two.
Buffy was now bending his ear about this decision. “You don’t care about Dawn. Nobody cares about Dawn. You are just glad that the stupid Hellmouth is closed, and you can’t even be bothered to bring my sister back to say ‘thank you’ to her!”
Giles felt himself longing to say ‘Spike appears to care about Dawn, and from what I hear, you haven’t been all that bothered about her yourself in the last year or two. She is one very brave young lady, but she is probably one very dead young lady, and I have possibly hundreds of other people to care about.’ But he knew it would make matters worse.
“Buffy,” he said instead, “Willow has been under a great deal of pressure and if she does not get a break I am afraid that she will collapse or break down. Allowing, or even causing, this to happen would be a very poor way to show our thanks for what she has already done. However, I will contact my friends in the coven in England and ask if they can give us any advice on finding out where Dawn might be.”
“Good idea, Rupert,” came Spike’s voice from the doorway. “Come on pet, let’s get you something to eat, or else you’ll crack up even if Willow doesn’t.”
The vampire steered the Slayer out of the room and Giles found himself thinking that Spike really was turning out to be an asset after all.
…………………………………………..
The twins did indeed arrive the day after the coronation to look at Dawn’s sword. After taking one look at her Elrohir disappeared for a while and then returned with a potion for her to drink.
“Even elflings suffer when they have too much wine,” he commented, with a sympathetic smile.
The twins, she thought, were rather like slightly older male cousins; if Buffy turned up to take her home she would really miss them.
Elrohir’s potion was remarkably effective; it took only about fifteen minutes for her to feel able to drink some tea and eat the bread and cheese that Rumil, his face deadpan, removed from the drawer of the end table.
From somewhere Orophin produced not only Dawn’s sword but also her stake.
Elladan picked up the stake.
“I know you said that you fought vampires in men’s bodies, and killed them with a wooden stake, but the simplicity of the weapon, and the proximity to the enemy required, had not fully come home to me,” he said. “If your sister is magically enhanced to enable her to slay these beasts, and yet you also carry such a basic weapon for the same task, then you are indeed a little warrior. It would take bravery to wield such a close-combat weapon in the face of an enemy with great strength and murderous teeth. I fear we do not have a warrior braid to signify such a brave combat style!”
Dawn was almost struck speechless as Orophin and Elrohir nodded in agreement, obviously impressed, and then translated for Rumil, who also looked impressed. She had been used to Buffy making her stay back, keep out of the way, be protected, because she wasn’t a Slayer, but here were warriors calling her brave for being able to use a stake if she had to.
Despite the terrible homesickness of the previous day she once more thought, as she had in the past, that this was not a bad place to be. Given time she could probably teach someone how to make pizza.
When Legolas, Gandalf, and Gimli arrived, and pondered attacking ‘such a fell being’ (‘they don’t seem to use the word ‘demon’ here,’ Dawn thought) with a ‘crudely carved piece of wood’, they also looked impressed.
Then they all three entered the conversation together.
“Some sort of delivery system for the wooded stakes would be practical,” said Gimli.
“Why do you not use a longbow from a distance? A wooden shaft through the heart would surely be successful and less dangerous to you?” queried Legolas.
“The dimension you have come from is most certainly a more dangerous place than Middle Earth is now,” Gandalf said slowly, “and, with one young woman and her companions against beings such as Sauron or Morgoth himself, it is no less dangerous than Middle Earth was when it relied on one young hobbit and his companions. I am glad to have you here.”
Eventually the workmanship of Dawn’s sword was discussed. They agreed that it was high quality metal, and high quality workmanship, forged in a different way to elven, or dwarven, weapons.
“Not beautiful, but effective,” concluded Elladan.
“Should a weapon be beautiful?” Dawn asked.
In reply Elladan produced his own sword, which Dawn had not seen him carry before; he had obviously brought it for comparison purposes. It was, indeed, a work of art; the handle was black wood, inset with silver, and the blade was slightly curved and engraved with swirling patterns and inscriptions.
“The weaponsmith takes pride in his work, and makes it a thing of beauty in honour of the Valar, whose work it then does. An elf’s sword is only ever used against the forces of evil; no elf would use his sword against another elf, or against anyone who honours the Valar,” Elrohir said from beside his brother.
“Uh – doesn’t the gore get into the engraving and make cleaning it hard, guys?” Dawn asked.
Whilst the elves all looked slightly shocked at the question, Gimli nodded his head sagely. “Aye, you certainly are a wee warrior,” he said with a chuckle. “None of these Gondorian women would have asked such a question; they would just have made eyes at the swordsman.”
The elves all made noises of agreement, before Elladan answered the original question in the negative, and Dawn considered the snippet that they were being hit on by the women of Minas Tirith as well as by the men.
‘I wonder,’ she thought, ‘if they take those offers up?’
…………………………………………..
The twins left a few days later, in the company of the Rohirrim, to meet up with their father and his people coming to Minas Tirith for midsummer celebrations.
“Will your sister be coming too?” Dawn asked, when they came to say goodbye.
“Most certainly,” Elrohir answered, “but we have not yet told Estel how certain this is. We are leaving him to wonder, as he does not ask for fear of the answer, although he should know in his heart that she will come.”
Dawn had learnt from Gandalf of the long-standing betrothal between Aragorn and Arwen, and now she remembered a comment of Elrohir’s, the day she had her casts removed, that midsummer was ‘an auspicious time for… things,’ and began to wonder if she would be invited to the wedding.
The family were meeting in Lothlorien, and travelling back to Minas Tirith together; not only Lord Elrond and Arwen but also her grandparents who were the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim. Dawn wondered what an elven grandma would look like. Gimli had said she was the most beautiful being he had ever seen but that didn’t sound like any grandmother Dawn had ever met.
The twins, before leaving, had examined Dawn’s broken leg very carefully and concluded that, like her arms, it was healing more slowly than an elf’s would, but faster than they would have expected for a young woman. Another two weeks in the splint should be sufficient, they thought, and then she should be able to exercise the muscles for a few days before attempting to walk; probably with a stick. They would leave Aragorn to make such decisions.
…………………………………………..
Things were quieter once the twins had left.
Aragorn called to see her only on rare occasions. He had an awful lot of ruling to do, Dawn reckoned, as well as being her new consulting physician. She had read about ‘The Royal Physician’ in an historical romance once, she remembered, but she thought that having actual royalty as your personal physician was about as cool as it could get!
The hobbits still visited frequently and gave Dawn news of the city outside; they had witnessed the impressive sight of the Rohirrim éoreds all departing together – some 3,000 warriors and horses now fit to travel. She had tried to interest Sam in the concept of pizza but decided that it was unlikely to appeal to him unless she suggested adding bacon and eggs and frying it. The burger might be more to his taste, she had decided, and his first attempt had been pretty good. Perhaps, she thought, he could set up a chain of ‘Gamgee’s Burgers’ – or, hey, ‘Samburgers’ – when he got home to the Shire.
Gandalf called in most days, frequently bringing her books ‘to entertain and educate’, often talking of Sunnydale, other times to simply sit and describe something he had seen that day or some day in the distant past.
Gimli was working with the masons of Minas Tirith to better rebuild the city walls whilst Legolas was involved in planning the replacement of trees, and other green spaces, as well as acting as an unofficial councillor to the new King, having been involved in ‘princely things’ in his father’s realm.
Legolas had also received long letters from home. They told of major battles fought by the elves of Mirkwood and Lorien against hordes of orcs from Dol Guldur. His father and brother were well but he had lost friends in the fighting and was somewhat subdued for a while.
But most noticeably Orophin and Rumil were not themselves.
Orophin was quiet; he spent more time sitting out on the balcony gazing into the distance, or out exercising the horses he and Rumil had kept at the Rohirrim’s insistence, than he had done before.
It occurred to Dawn that the brothers must also have lost friends in the battles with the Dol Guldur orcs; perhaps they even felt guilty that they hadn’t been there themselves. She was sure that they would have returned to Lorien with the twins if it wasn’t for her and, when she had asked Orophin why he and Rumil had stayed in Minas Tirith, he had taken a moment to answer, and then had, indeed, said “We stay for you.”
But, where Orophin was quieter, Rumil was almost invisible.
He still sat with Dawn for an hour each day, learning Common and teaching Sindarin, but otherwise he seemed to be completely avoiding her.
When she thought back she realised that it had started the day after the coronation. Dawn remembered being sick all over one of them, and talking rubbish, and she wondered what she could have said to him to have this effect. She hadn’t blurted out how sexy he was, or declared undying love, had she? How could she ask? How could she make it like it had been before?
Then she remembered Gimli’s comment about the women of Minas Tirith making eyes at the elves and she began to think that maybe some Gondorian woman was taking up his time. The very thought made her feel sick in the pit of her stomach.
…………………………………………..
“Yes, I think I can say, Althanea, that Willow did very well channelling the power of the Slayers’ Scythe, and it seems to have had no ill-effects, apart from some weariness. I must admit it did take her current, um, girlfriend to point this out to me. Things have been very busy. But I would greatly appreciate any help you or the other ladies can give in determining if Dawn is still alive somewhere and, if she has survived, if there is any way of returning her safely home.”
Giles listened to the clear, firm, voice on the other end of the line for a few more minutes.
“Yes, I quite appreciate the possible problems that could cause, and I will try to explain it clearly.”
“Yes, I think that is a reasonable analogy, although there is no need to consider those possibilities unless either yourselves, or those of us on this side of the Atlantic, are able to find some trace of her.”
“Thank you again, I will simply wait until I next hear from you, and I shall reassure her sister that we are doing all we can. Goodbye.”
He put the phone down, slowly, and removed his glasses to polish them thoughtfully. He felt a degree of relief. The decisions on the problem of Dawn were now, to a large extent, off-loaded for a while and he could concentrate on other things with a clear conscience.
…………………………………………..
The ’BtVS’ characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only and all rights remain with Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the writers of the original episodes, and the TV and production companies responsible for the original television shows. The 'LotR' characters also, for whom all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkein, and the production company responsible for the LotR movies.
…………………………………………..
I have been busy teaching all day, which I always find tiring. But Daughter-dear and her boyfriend are cooking steak for dinner - I do like it when someone else cooks!
E.T.A. - the steak was very, very good!
