A Few Key Sunnydale Alum

Historically, as a rule, the funeral of a Slayer has been a quiet affair. On occasion there have been families to make the arrangements, but most of the time, the parents and (if any) siblings have long since lost all contact with their daughter, whether deliberately or not. The Council has always seen to it that the Slayer is given a decent burial: a hardwood box, and six feet of consecrated ground, and someone to say the words, and the Watcher as sole mourner.

This, like so many other things since the Call, has changed.



It's the first time they're all back together again in over a year, the women who came to Sunnydale as Potentials and fought the First Evil there as Slayers. Caridad and Chao-Ahn, Rona and Vi and Shannon, half a dozen others. Many of them died in the battle at the Hellmouth ... but Kennedy is the first of them to have died since then.

So they're here, and so are newer Slayers who had Kennedy as their first combat instructor, and field Slayers who had her as their team leader. And so are at least one ex-lover, and at least one current one. About four-fifths of the Slayers are in somber black; the rest are in equally somber white.

Kennedy's parents and her half-sister are here somewhere too, in the crowd. Buffy and Giles are talking to them.

Soon someone's going to stand up front and start the memorial service.

Gossip spreads pretty quickly in any women's dorm.

No one's seen Beth Lehrer since lights-out last night, and she wasn't at breakfast this morning. It's still early yet, but ... it's not like there are a whole lot of places she could have gone.

By ten o'clock, speculation's running rampant: maybe she went home for Christmas after all is the commonest suggestion, though without telling anybody? does make that seem less likely. It's not quite reached the level of worry yet.