sunnydalealum | The Wells Farm

Entry tags:

jordie,
spoon

The Wells Farm

Jordie's learned a lot of things since the woman from the Watchers' Council first found her and told her what she was. Not all of them were learned at the Slayer Academy; and of those that were, not all of them were part of anyone's lesson plan.

This week, she's learning how to muck out goats.

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He snorts, "Y' both, Jordie. An' that's the problem. You can be as powerful as anything out there, but you don't have the time to get y' head in the game firmly before they send you out. Being a Slayer doesn't mean you aren't still a teenage human girl."

The memory's too strong to push down: red eyes looking into hers, and a calm voice saying You hide behind that title, why don't you.

"So what's so great about being a teenage human girl?" she demands.

"Apples." Spoon says, "An' walking down the street with someone chattering in your ear. This'd be easier if my teenage human girl had skin, but I can talk about being just a human teenager. Hanging out with people and talking about films and people y' want to date. Dating. Fumbling around in back seats and dark corners. Dancing like idiots. Long phone conversations about nothing at all. Wondering what's out there, good and bad. Learning for the sake of knowing things that don't matter in day-to-day life...I used to have stupid amounts of sports scores memorized. Cooking an' talking to people an' deciding that you want to be like them later."

"I had a lot of that." Very soft. "At the Academy. Not all of it, but ... I had that. I had someone I wanted to be like later."

Her eyes are dry, and burning.

"I had someone I wanted to be like, and she's dead now."

Spoon looks back at her with calm, placid eyes. Eyes that she knows hide something far, far worse than just a goat farmer with two daughters, something much darker than any Slayer, much more dangerous than any vampire.

"So that's it, then? Kennedy died, so you've got to put aside everything that isn't death an' killing?"

"It's not like that." Shaky. "It's not like that at all. You don't get it."

"You're right." he says, nodding, "I don't. But I'm trying to, Jordie, despite the fact that I'm not a girl, I'm not a teenager, I'm not a Slayer, and I'm not human."

Jordie swallows.

"She would've done this for me. For, for any of us."

"What would she have done for you?" he asks, tilting his head just like one of the dogs.

"Hunted down whatever killed us. Or whoever."

Her grip on the pitchfork handle has changed again; she's brought it closer to her chest, almost hugging it.

"...But what next?" Spoon asks, "Y' did that."

"I know. I did that. I'm done. It doesn't have to be just, just killing and death now."

Her voice is still unsteady, and she doesn't sound at all sure of herself anymore.

"So what next?" Spoon asks again, relentlessly, "What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know!" She hurls the pitchfork aside, sending it clattering against the side of the bin of straw. "I don't know, okay? Stay here and shovel goat crap till they say I get to be a Slayer again, I guess --"

She wraps her arms around her midsection and turns her face away, eyes pressed shut.

Relentlessly he picks up the pitchfork and says, "You can spend your time here bemoaning how bad it is to spend some time in my life, or you can spend it trying to decide what more than a Slayer you're going to be. Thinking."

She's quiet again.

"More than a Slayer?" she repeats finally, sounding a little doubtful.

"More than a Slayer." Spoon says, firmly, "Slayer is a bloody calling, but it isn't everything. It can't be everything, because if all you are is a Slayer than you can be taken away from yourself. Hell, it might not even be a genuine calling, it's a bleeding duty tossed on you by a bunch of fanatic gits who want to save the world and hadn't a clue how to go about it past dump the responsibility on a bunch of girls an' then send them out like weapons."

He's got Issues against sending little girls into battle, okay? It's a thing.

"You're a person, Jordie. Not a bloody weapon. Weapons, tools, people. Weapons kill shite. Tools fix shite. People decide what needs to be done an' collect whatever weapons and tools are needed to do it, then go do it. The Council trained you into a weapon. Up to you to decide that you're going to be more than that."

Long silence, this time.

"There isn't anything else I want to be," she whispers, finally.

"Need to figure something out, luv." he says quietly, "Because that's part of the beauty of being sentient. You get to be a lovely, multi-faceted, whole person instead of a one-trick animal. Lucky for you, you've got a whole farm full of people struggling with the same question; what else is there for me?"

Not you. Never you.

The thought's so clear in her head that for a moment she's horribly certain that she's said it aloud.

Considering that the calm, clear look doesn't falter, no. She kept it silent.

He'd agree, though. He's not for her. He's a one-woman wolf, and even if he was once a more wild human...well, she met him long after that wasn't an option any more.

Jordie looks down at the muddy straw at their feet.

"I should get back to work," she says, very low.

Spoon nods and says, "You can finish without me. Wash up when you're done and we'll all eat." He insists on set meals for everyone. It's better for Cora that way.

She nods. "Okay."

One thing the farm has in common with the Academy: there's no privacy anywhere, unless you can find a place to hide. Right now she's missing that little corner by the overgrown herb garden, behind the rosemary bushes.

There's solitude here for a while, at least, once Spoon's gone back inside; and there's work to do with her hands that leaves her mind free to go back over what he's been saying.

Up to you to decide you're going to be more than that.

Something to think about.

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The Wells Farm

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