The Wells Farm

[sunnydalealum]

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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[sunnydalealum]

Another blank look.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

"Means everything." Spoon says, slowly, as he tries to put something he just knows on a bone-deep level into words, "It's easy to stop...being part of something...if you don't know who you're part of. It's easy to become what you fight if all your time is spent looking only at the monsters. If you're going...if you're spending your time thinking that normal people are less just because they can't fight, it's an easy slide to thinking that fighting is more important than all the things normal people do.

"Not saying you're there. Saying that it's easy. Seen soldiers fall down that path, and soldiers are just trained, they don't have the kind of power that you do. Great power means greater difficulty keeping y' head on straight is what it means.

"Got to be part of humanity to stay humane. Got to have ties to people, strong ties to people, who won't ever lift a weapon. Got to have them near the centre of your heart because the innocent is a really easy thing to hold up but a really hard thing to hold onto. How do you know how far is too far if you can't pull a face out of your heart and say this would horrify her?

"An' if you don't have strong ties right now then you've got to think the innocent through a bit more. Does innocent mean people who have never hurt other people? If so, you're probably only defending people under the age of two. Does it mean kind people? That's a lot of humans left demon-bait. What does it mean? What are you fighting for, really?

"Knowing that will mean that when you go out an' fight you'll have sommat to come back to. Even if only in y' heart. Having a calm place, a quiet place, inside is what keeps you from burning out.

"This is me calm place." he spreads his arms to take in the farm, from little trees to house, salle to barn, every goat and carrot on the property, "Every bloody thing I do is so that this bit of Yorkshire stays peaceful, one way or another."

[sunnydalealum]

Jordie stands there for a long moment, blinking.

"I don't have a calm place," she says finally; it comes out as a mumble, sounding far too young for her years. "And I don't even know any normal people."

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. He doesn't usually end up talking like that. Or at least not that much.

"Guess we need to work on that, then." he says, patting her shoulder a bit, "See, thing is? The Council is fanatic. They have to be, because they have to send little girls to do things they can't. Can't be entirely sane to send girls half your age to fight an' die before they get to be your age. Means that it's up to all of you to keep the balance, but they forget to teach you that."

[sunnydalealum]

Jordie's shoulder goes taut under his hand, before she jerks it away and takes a step back.

"We are not," and her voice shakes with suppressed anger, "little girls. We're Slayers."

Her knuckles whiten on the handle of the pitchfork.

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

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."

[sunnydalealum]

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.

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

"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."

[sunnydalealum]

"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."

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

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?"

[sunnydalealum]

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

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

"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."

[sunnydalealum]

Jordie swallows.

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

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

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

[sunnydalealum]

"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.

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

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

[sunnydalealum]

"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.

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

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

[sunnydalealum]

"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.

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

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."

[sunnydalealum]

She's quiet again.

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

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

"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."

[sunnydalealum]

Long silence, this time.

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

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

"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?"

[sunnydalealum]

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.