Freedom (Of A Sort)

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

To Buffy Anne Summers, it seemed like the only reason she'd been podpopped in the first place was to have been placed in GLaDOS right away, forced to run mazes and the like. It was an experience that had somewhat reminded Buffy of her eighteenth birthday, when Giles had secretly sedated her powers away so that she'd have to fight a vampire all on her lonesome. The Cruciamentum, the Council of Watchers had called it.

Okay, so it wasn't that unfortunate of an experience, but still. Forced testing does not a happy Slayer make.

She brushed back her hair and stared up at the statues in the art hall. As much as she did not want to be, she was mystified by them. Buffy hadn't run across them before, but she was quickly figuring out that they depicted the scenes from one's life. At the moment, it was showing Buffy when she was powerless and running away from some thugs, on the night of her Cruciamentum.

Because that's something I definitely wanted to be reminded of, she thought dryly.

Finally, though, the Slayer forced herself to turn away from the statues. Enough taunting. I need food. Or something.

Comments

[bonnypiperlad]

Jamie doesn't like the Art Hall much. The shifting of the statues itself isn't quite so bad, but that fact they insist on showing parts from your life that you'd prefer others not to see is something he doesn't care for. Not to mention, it's more than a little unnerving being faced with your past without asking for it. He tends to avoid the place.

Sometimes, though, he passes by on his way elsewhere, and it's during this that he happens to glance in and spot the wee blond watching one of the statues. Curious, he steps inside, hooking his thumbs behind his sporran and peering over at her for a moment. There's something there that's tickling at the back of his mind when he sees her, but he can't quite place what exactly it is. Oh, well. Maybe it'll come to him if he talks to her for a bit.

"Hello?"

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

"It's weird," Buffy says out loud. "You'd expect there to be an echo in here...but there really isn't. It kind of kills the whole museum-ness of it all." Buffy turns around, then, to see a vaguely familiar looking man standing there. "Hi." And then she remembers when she'd met the man. Way back when she'd been podpopped. "Jamie, right?"

[bonnypiperlad]

"Aye, well, this place is bad enough without making it feel like a museum on top of it," Jamie comments, then tilts his head to look at her again, trying to place where he had seen her. It takes him a minute, but then he does remember a conversation from a long, long time ago, and the vaguely puzzled expression on his face clears.

"Hey, that's right. And you'd be...Buffy." Once he says the name, more of his missing memories of her snap into place, and he scowls up at the ceiling briefly. He'd forgotten, and doesn't like that fact at all. "So did GLaDOS get ye or have ye come from the pods again?"

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

"GLaDOS," Buffy says. "I was rat-in-a-maze-girl. Which isn't all that much fun, considering that I was a rat this one time a long, long, forever ago." She cracks a smile. "I'm guessing you haven't had pleasant hijinks in here either?"

[bonnypiperlad]

"Aye, ye could say that." That's a bit of an understatement on Jamie's end. Depending on how long GLaDOS has had her, there could be quite a lot of those 'hijinks', as she put it. He thinks she might have still be here for the Nightmare King, but he's not quite certain, and he frowns a little while trying to sort through his thoughts.

"What was the last thing ye...wait, did ye say you were a rat once?"

[justoutrunyou.livejournal.com]

Sandy had never been in the art hall before, but as her wanderings around the ship became more daring she was finding all sorts of strange places she'd never found before.

She would not be too eager to return. It took only seconds for the inky black substances to reform into another inky black substance Sandy was all too familiar with. She still saw it in her nightmares.

The monsters from the sky. Huge and black with rows of razor sharp teeth.

The more human monsters, a massive man murdering a child with a huge knife through his back and out his chest.

But what was most frightening and left the poor girl transfixed was the image of a man, holding a little girl in his arms. The mans arms and hands were much larger then his body should be, and the little girl was in pieces and bore a striking resemblance to Sandy.

Quivering, Sandy backed away slowly, then faster, not watching where she was going.

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

Sandy was lucky that Buffy had the reflexes of, well, a Slayer.

She sidestepped Sandy easily, but that was the only easy thing about it. The fact that Sandy was quivering kicked Buffy's hero complex into action.

"Hey...are you okay?"

[justoutrunyou.livejournal.com]

"Gyah!" Sandy jumped startled that she wasn't the only one there and instantly her flesh, hair, clothes all turned to solid stone. She looked up at Buffy with big startled eyes, then shot a glance back to the statues which were even now starting to shift again.

"Fine!" She squeaked and then coughed and repeated in a more solid voice, full of fake confidence "Fine!"

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

Now that Buffy hadn't been expecting. Still, if she was at all fazed by it, it didn't show on her face. Buffy knelt down so that she was closer in height to Sandy. "I didn't mean to scare you," she apologized. "I'm sorry." And then she smiled. "I'm Buffy."

[birthmural]

"Ah, the Slayer, correct?" Looks like someone remembered her.

Daimon had changed since their last encounter. For one, he was no longer wearing a plant suit but loose fitting clothes. The shirt he was wearing was not fully buttoned and it parted just enough so that she could see his hot rippling abs that the "tattoo" he'd had before was gone.

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

"The one and only," Buffy replied. "Well. On this ship anyway. Back home, you have to go with the not so much, now that...it's a long story." She took a step back and studied Daimon. He had a...glow...about him. And she wasn't talking about his hot rippling abs, either. Buffy narrowed her eyes. There was something different about him.

"What's with the open shirt? Showing off your chestmur...oh." Buffy squinted. "What? They opened up a tattoo removal place while I was running mazes?"

[birthmural]

Daimon reflexively touched his chest- and even after several weeks the feel of smooth skin there was still alien. He started to button up the rest of his shirt. "No and it was not a tattoo, as I explained. The reason for its absence is complicated."

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

No Daimon, let Buffy stare at your bare chest for awhile longer.

"Birthmural. Whatever," Buffy waved Daimon's correction away. "Wanna share? Me and complicated go way back to the time a seemingly creepy man told me I had a destiny."

[thexanwhosees.livejournal.com]

The thing was, Xander was running mazes as well. Or possibly drywalling them, he wasn't sure, it got weird at times.

Still he was now a sort of married man. To a guy. And somehow, it still wasn't the weirdest thing to ever happen to him.

He was on his way to go get food as well, but he was walking past the Art Hall, and noticed the familiar face.

"Buff? Hey! Scary AI lady paroled you too?"

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

That voice brought the brightest, sunniest smile to Buffy's face in months.

"If by parole you mean running mazes, then yes. There was a moment where I wondered if Amy Madison had ratted me again." She hugged Xander, tightly. "I heard you spent some time there too?"

[thexanwhosees.livejournal.com]

He hugged back her happily.

"Yeah so much so I didn't know if I was still in my furniture store or there. Got out just in time for the last mission though."

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

"You mean the crazy group wedding thing?" Buffy asked. "...you didn't...did you? Because the last time you almost got married, your ex-fiance went back to hating men full-time." And doing nasty things to them, at the behest of wronged women.

Well, not as nasty as before, but still...

[governorkang]

Kang didn't even realize that his wanderings had lead him to the Art Hall until he noticed one of the statues shift into the form of a hobgoblin out of the corner of his eye. His hand immediately went to his belt out of reflex, but he relaxed when he realized it wasn't real.

Damn creepy statues.

He snorted, and looked away, spotting the woman up ahead. She looked vaguely familiar, but he knew he'd never gotten a chance to talk with her before. She'd probably been in the tavern once or twice.

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

Buffy noticed him looking at her. He was on the ship, so she was pretty sure he wasn't, you know, about to bite her head off or anything.

Besides, wasn't he at that party she'd been at some time ago? Before being maze-dropped?

"Uh. Hi?"

[governorkang]

Kang nodded in greeting, ignoring the Hobgoblin!statues. "Ma'am. I don't think I've seen you in months."

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Buffy froze. No one had ever ma'amed her before. She reached up, wondering if she'd somehow managed to have mom hair again. "It's Buffy. Please."

[potentialmonkey.livejournal.com]

The statue flowed as another person entered, displaying an image that was regularly on the intruder's mind, even if he never really showed it. A teenage girl (http://images.wikia.com/kimpossible/images/f/f6/6a00d8341c801b53ef00e54f16b1838833-800wi.jpg) with hair that ended mid-back, a geeky-looking teenage boy (http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/2/24406/447190-ron_stoppable__01__large.jpg) with a determined look on his face, and a naked mole rat. All three were posed, ready for combat.

"Oh, Hey! Uh, Buffy, right?" said the same teenage boy that the image was based on, the naked mole rat riding on his shoulder.

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

Buffy looked between the statues and the boy with the naked mole rat.

The name was on the tip of her tongue. He looked familiar, and she knew she'd spoken to him around the time she'd first arrived on the ship. He'd reminded her so much of Xander.

"Ron, right?"

[potentialmonkey.livejournal.com]

"That'd be me." Ron said, looking at the statue with a slightly bewildered look. "Okay, that thing just weirds me out. And I say that as a guy who was once turned into a giant beaver."

[i-died-twice.livejournal.com]

"..." Buffy considered that for a moment. Honestly, the giant beaver thing made her feel better. Well, as long as the beaver he'd been turned into was... Oh, so not going there. "I was once turned into a rat. But not, you know, all ginormous."