trans_9 | Freedom (Of A Sort)

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Freedom (Of A Sort)

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.

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"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?"

"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?"

"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?"

"Long story," Buffy says. "It was a love spell gone awry, mixed with my punching a witch in the face." She shrugs. "If you've ever met Xander Harris, you can ask him about it. He was pretty much the cause of the issue at hand." Yeah. Her life back home? Nothing close to normal.

"Oh." Well, if Buffy punched a witch in the face, then that almost makes sense, oddly enough, and he accepts it rather easily. "I've met Xander, but we've not talked much recently. GLaDOS may have gotten him for a wee bit, too, but I'm not sure."

It's hard to keep track sometimes. The only reason he remembers Xander is because he caught a glimpse of him milling around with the others in Orongo. That eyepatch of his is hard to miss.

"I think I saw him just before the weddings on that last mission we were on," he adds, thoughtfully. "I was a wee bit distracted, though."

"GLaDOS does this grabbing of people thing a little frequently, doesn't it?" Buffy asks. She hopes she's not pulled in for anther round any time soon. Once was enough. "The...weddings?" What? The last time the word wedding had come up in relation to Xander, it had not ended well at all.

"Aye, it seems that way to me," Jamie replies with a small nod. He's never been grabbed himself, but he's seen it often enough that he definitely agrees with that statement. "But there's supposedly this reason to it now."

Which he will be happy to fill Buffy in on eventually...but there's the weddings to discuss yet, and a rather strange expression on Jamie's face all of a sudden. "I take it you've not talked to anyone yet, then. We got sent down to get an artifact that's supposed to help us with the Ohm, but in order to do so, ye had to get married."

"There's always a reason," Buffy states. "Usually, it's not a good one." She shrugs in a matter-of-fact manner. "I was just released a couple of hours ago. Or minutes." Buffy shakes her head. "I'm bad enough with time without having to be able to guess how much of it has passed." She listens to Jamie's explanation, still confused. "Does the marriage actually last?" Pause. "Did you marry anyone?"

"Recently enough, anyway." Hours or minutes, it's a bit hard to say either way. If only he had his watch - but he doesn't. So, instead, he shrugs. "As far as I know, they were just another test to see if we were worthy to get that map thing we wound up with, and they don't count."

Unless you wanted them to, but Jamie doesn't think too much of the crew actually wishes for theirs to stick...well, with one or two exceptions. He knows he wasn't one of those.

Still, his mouth pulls off to the side for a moment before he nods, a little reluctantly. "Aye. I did. I guess it wasn't so bad, but I'd not care to do it again anytime soon."

Buffy thought back to Spike, and Riley, and Angel. Briefly, Scott Hope and Pike. The men she'd dated, and the men she'd loved, or cared for at the very least.

She smirked.

"Marriage was never on the cards for me," she said after a moment. After all, Slayers usually didn't live that long, and even if they did, what kind of life could she possibly have had with either Angel or Spike? "Clearly, Stacy agrees."

"Well..." Jamie hesitates for a moment, then admits, "Not everyone got married. Some of them didn't pass the Ritual of Judgment, but some of the others decided not to bother with it at all."

Things still worked out in the end, and he has to concede it was a nice enough place. And since he hasn't run across anyone yet that wound up outside the city, he doesn't realize it wasn't quite as nice for them. So, in his mind, it's not right that Buffy got stuck running mazes for this particular mission.

"It doesn't seem fair that GLaDOS kept ye long enough you didn't even get a chance to go down to the planet, though. It turned out much better than the last time, marriages or no."

Buffy brings a smile to her face. "Well, its not like that was the last planet we were going to stop on." The ship didn't quite work that way, did it? "At least I'm free."

"Aye, that's true." Jamie gives Buffy a smile in return. "So now that you're free, what do ye want to do?"

There's a few options, if you ask him. Of course, if you ask him, anything is better than standing around looking at the statues. He's very pointedly not paying attention to them as they shift around.

"I'm guessing ye may want to avoid anything resembling mazes for a wee bit, though."

"Just a wee bit." She sighs and shrugs. "I honestly don't have much of a clue. I mean, it's not like there's a mall here where I can get some retail therapy, you know?" She paused. "Not that malls aren't maze-like sometimes. There isn't just a wide open field anywhere is there?"

"A mall? No, there's not one of those yet." At least he has an idea of what one is now, so he's less puzzled about it than he might be otherwise. "Although there is a wee shop in the city where ye can get clothes made, if ye like."

Which isn't the same thing as an entire place with multiple stores for clothing, but it's something, at least. Jamie can help with the other question too, more or less.

"There's a place ye can go for that as well. Look for the clear walkway on this level and follow it through to Hydroponics. There's quite a bit of open space there, although ye may want to mind the beasties that are roaming about."

Edited 2011-02-26 08:52 (UTC)

"You mean, beyond this thing?" Buffy pointed down to the plantsuit that she wore beneath her leather jacket. "Because...I mean. It still hasn't gotten cute." The statues behind her started a review of Buffy's old closet back home. Lots of leather jackets, miniskirts, and boots. "What's...a hydroponic?"

Jamie nods rather animatedly. "Aye. Stormwind Clothiers. You'll want to talk to Reinforce Zwei, there." He plucks at the sheepskin vest he has on over his own plantsuit and the ever-present kilt. It's a rougher looking garment, but it's what Jamie wanted. "She made this exactly as I asked her to."

He's momentarily distracted from continuing by the clothing-on-parade, but pulls his attention away from it after a few seconds. Hydroponics, right. "Sorry. I don't know what the word's supposed to be, but I guess where it's where the old crew used to grow plants and food and the like. It's the closest thing ye can get to being outdoors on here, even with the City and the Sensoriums about."

Buffy listens carefully. Stormwind Clothiers. She'll need to find that place. The sheepskin vest does not look bad at all, and she could use something new.

Even if she could still faintly smell Angel in the jacket she wore.

"The old crew?"

"Aye, one of them, anyway." He still sounds a little uncertain about that. "At least, if what the Rom said on the planet was true then there's been more than one crew on Stacy before us."

And they're not here now, which...well, Jamie doesn't really think he needs to bring up something that's probably quite obvious, but the look on his face speaks volumes.

"Do ye remember the Daligig?"

Buffy didn't want to think about the implications of their having been a crew that was no longer around. Because, really, none of the implications were all that present.

"Pretty sure I wasn't around for the Daligig, actually. And, really, if that was a party thrown by the Dalai Lama, I think I really missed out."

"Oh." That makes things a little bit trickier, and he frowns as he tries to remember.

"It was after the zombies, so ye might not have been, at that. The Daligig say they're the ones who saved us when the Ohm destroyed our worlds. The Rom come from the same place the Daligig do, but they don't see eye to eye."

He tilts his head, giving Buffy a rather confused sort of look, then. "Why would a llama have a party, anyway?"

"..." Buffy frowned. Seriously, this GLaDOS thing had become ridiculous. On the bright side, at least she hadn't been shoved back into a gooey pod, though?

"Oh. That's...okay." She brushed back her hair. "No no, the Dalai Lama. He's this...guy." Yeah, because that totally explains it. "He's not a llama llama. He's a person Lama. With one L."

Maze running certainly sounds better than waking up covered in slime all over again, but either way has its drawbacks. At that frown, his expression shifts to a rather more sympathetic one. He can't imagine that situation not being extremely frustrating. Even he would be hard pressed to just nod and accept it all.

"Aye, there's been a bit we need to catch ye up on." Jamie's certainly willing to help with that, but too much all at once might be a bit much, he thinks, and he goes back to the Dalai Lama for now.

"So, this person lama. Where's he from that he has a name like that?"

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Freedom (Of A Sort)

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