"Unto Every Generation..."
Written by Sara Poe
June, 2003 Outside London, England
"The castle is old, and in need of a good cleaning, but it's quiet livable. The council used it as a training center before...well, before they were destroyed." Giles picks up an open book laying on the table in front of him and reads the title.
"This was the library. They abandoned it months ago, but left so quickly that all the referance material was left behind. We have more knowledge at our fingertips than we've ever had before." He smiles as he looks around at all the books lining shelf after shelf.
"And the money is still there?" The slayer stands in the doorway. Her face hidden in shadows.
"Yes. All Watchers had access to the account in case of an emergency. There's enough to keep the school running for some time." He tries to look at her but she turns away.
"Good." She says, her voice giving her away to the man that knows her the way a father knows his daughter.
"Buffy? Is something the matter?"
A brief pause, then she steps into the light. "I'm leaving."
"Leaving?" Giles walks toward her. "But...where? Now is hardly the time..."
He stops. She won't look at him. Giles realizes that she hasn't looked at him in days. Since the destruction of Sunnydale.
"Buffy, talk to me. You've never..."
She looks at him, and for some reason he can't explain, when their eyes meet, it startles him into silence.
"Willow will be finished with her protection spell soon. You won't have to worry about evil existing on the entire 1,500 acres of this place. The castle and the grounds surrounding it will be safe. You'll all be safe."
She won't stop looking at him now. He tries to speak but no words will come.
"You'll have Faith and Robin to help you out. Plus the coven. And when Xander is finished with his "personal business," whatever that is, he'll be here, too."
She turns away from him again and walks back toward the door.
"Buffy..." Giles barely manages to rasp out the word. He knows.
"I can't..." She stops at the doorway but doesn't turn around.
"You betrayed me."
Now she turns to look at him again.
"Twice. You betrayed me twice."
Giles is the one looking away now. He has no defence against her words.
"You used my trust when you tried to distract me and have Spke killed. I can understand Robin's reasons, but you..." A look of discust crosses her face. "Then you sided against me. Eight years together and you...you helped throw me out of my own home."
"You were..." The words come out of Giles' mouth quickly, but stop mid sentence.
"I don't hate you..." Buffy pauses. "...but I don't trust you anymore."
Her words grip his heart like a vise. He fights back tears and a sound that tries to escape from his throat. Buffy turns away again.
"Dawn and I will be leaving in a few days. I'll take Andrew with me to act as a liason between us."
She walks out the door. The last thing Giles hears her say is, "I need a vacation," And she's gone from his life.
The sound he was holding in finally escapes. It's followed by tears.
==============================================
This is the opening to the Buffy story I'm writing. I need HONEST opinions on it. You can post without leaving your name if your opinion is bad as long as it's honest.
And in case anyone hasn't seen them, here are the designs for the upcoming Buffy cartoon.
7 comments:
WOW...ANGEL LOOKS BAD ASS!!!
holy crap....these are awesome...the character designs are so close to the real thing...wow, that art is amazing..
lol...that last pic of buffy makes her look like she has a big butt
HUGS!!!!!!!
Jim, you can be honest. As a writer I need to be shown my flaws.
~Sara<3
that's pretty cool. where and when is the rest gonna come out? am i late again looking for stuff on an old post?
The 'castle' looks like Cliveden (pronounced cliv-den) which is a famous country house perched above the Thames between Maidenhead and Bourne End, just a handful of miles from me.
It's difficult for me to comment much on the embryonic story knowing so little about btvs (seen only 2 or 3 episodes, ever) and some familiarity is required to properly understand it.
A couple of spellings:
vise -> vice
referance -> reference
The writing style is a bit too like a film script in shape and feel (without screen directions) for my liking but that seems to be the way many books are written nowadays :(. I suppose too much is packed into such a short piece - well done for managing that but it's perhaps too abrupt and brutal for me.
This felt wrong to me: "Leaving?" Giles walks toward her. "But...where? Now is hardly the time..."
"But... where" doesn't sound a likely first reaction. I think you overdo the use of ... btw (I think it's called ellipsis).
Instead of: Giles is the one looking away now. He has no defence against her words.
I would say: Giles is the one looking away now. Her words leave him no defence. / Her words leave him defenceless.
As a brief episode I think it is good, would like to read a couple of rough chapters and a synopsis of the whole thing. My minor criticisms above are all I could quibble with after two readings :)
L&K&BB, Ag
Thankx Agric. That's the kind of help I needed. I would have posted it at your board but you're away so often lately that I didn't know when you'd see it.
The sentences are definately meant to be brief ones. Most people will look at a long paragraph and not want to read it. So I try to keep them as short and direct as possible.
Thankx for the advice. :)
~Sara<3
Wow. Really, your scene is fantastic. I've been writing for a few years now, and my main influence is Joss Whedon. What I love about what you've done is that it's not just fanfic drivel -- you're not aping Joss, but actually intelligently carrying forth untapped themes and potential from the final season. I'm looking forward to the rest of it... I just wonder, can you write the funny, too?
Thankx Tibbittz. I watched all seven seasons on dvd before starting this and found several loose plot threads that were never wrapped up. I'l be working them into the first four chapters.
Funny will be hard but I definately will be doing it. Joss said that(And Bendis said this, too.) a good episode has to have a little of everything in it(Horror, humor, saddness, ect.)for it to truly stand out. And, well, he's JOSS so...:)
~Sara<3
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