strangetrip | Sunnydale Halloween part 2

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Sunnydale Halloween part 2

Buffy had seen the box of costumes appear in the inn but she just assumed that it was for the party. Just like with Ethan, her 'Slayer sense' didn't tingle at all. If it had, she so wouldn't have chosen the blow up centaur outfit but she'd thought it was funny. The joke was on her apparently.

~*~*~*~

Out in the area by the stables, a blonde centaur stood, completely confused at being solo without her herd. Her hooves pawed at the ground in nervous energy, before she began to explore the landscape. Maybe she would find her family and friends.

[Note: Buffy looks like this]

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Jack had seen a lot of things - Centaur woman was not yet one of them until now. He wasn't exactly avoiding the party, but he was waiting to show up a little later so as to hopefully avoid questions as to why he wasn't dressed up. His stroll through the fresh air had definitely yielded interest results.

"New here?" It was a day early for new arrivals, wasn't it?

It was only years of training to not rear in surprise with the arrival of the new voice. "I am. I think I've lost my herd. I tried to find their trail but the tracks I saw weren't deep enough for them."

Huh. Definitely must be a new arrival.

"I hate to be the breaker of bad news, but I guess you've been pulled into this crazy place along with everyone else here... so your herd is probably not here. Sorry... but, good news! There's a lot of booze? Or... salt licks?" He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. He wasn't sure what centaurians did.

Buffy felt her muscles tighten with tension. She hated dark magic and clearly that's what this was. Her lips quirked slightly with his question about salt licks, "ale would be preferable to a salt lick." She gave it thought and added, "unless the ale is enchanted."

"Nope!" He paused. "Well, as far as I know. I could be drinking the kool-aid too, but it hasn't helped me get any younger, so we're probably okay."

He made a sweeping gesture toward the hotel and a little bow. "If M'Lady will follow me?"

Buffy began to walk toward the rather pink building. "Is kool-aid another beverage of this land?" There was a niggling thought in the back of her mind at the familiarity of that phrase.

"Sometimes. It's often bestowed upon us by a big red man who prefers the phrase 'Oh Yeah'. Children sometimes worship him on hot summer days." Jack couldn't help it. He knew Daniel would be annoyed with him. He knew Daniel would encourage him to ask question about culture and race and language.

Jack was not Daniel.

"Ale is my preference. A little less sugary and no worshiping required."

"Perhaps not required, but many people do." Buffy smiled slightly. She also had to admit to herself that she would like to try the sugary drink of Kool-Aid one day.

"This is true." He meant to the worshiping of ale as he held the door open for Buffy!Centaur to enter the lobby. "So, what's your name? Where you from? We don't get too many centaurs around here, so I'm curious."

See Daniel? He knew things.

"I'm .." she paused which wasn't like her at all but her name suddenly felt off but she couldn't explain why. "Willow" Buffy continued as she walked into the lobby. Her hooves muffled on the carpet. "I'm from a sunny dale." Her brow furrowed, "but we do most things at night.

That sounded right and not right at the same time. It was confusing. Maybe it was suddenly finding herself in a new place.

Her confusion seeped into Jack and he paused, but decided maybe Willow was just a sort of air-headed Centaur - or maybe all Centaurs were air-headed, who was he to judge?

"Well, interesting things do seem to happen more at night. I'm partial to the stars myself."

"Are you a navigator?" Buffy asked him, "our leader follows the signs in the stars for our herd." She had a flash of a memory of an older man, telling her of a prophecy, and how she had to proceed.

"More like a follower, but I have my own navigator. She's the one who uses the stars to tell us where to go. Most of the time she brings us to places that don't want us dead." Or maybe it was the other way around, but right now he mostly just missed traveling in general.

"That is like our leader." She smiled over at Jack. "He tells us and we follow." Buffy's smile turned a little wry, "I prefer the adventure and battles to learning the stars."

"Me too. never been one for books." Except that one time when he was really smart. "You go on a lot of adventures?" It took everything in his power not to make a My Little Pony reference. He was being polite - Daniel would be proud.

Buffy was about to answer, but she stopped herself. "Many battles." That sounded more right than adventures. "Except for here, I haven't really gone very far from my home."

"Yeah. There aren't exactly that many places to go here, even if you tried." He nodded. "But it's not so bad. The people here are mostly enjoyable. They'll probably be happy for a new face."

Buffy felt her lips pull into a smile at that. "Mostly enjoyable? Are there some here that I should avoid?" She didn't mean that seriously, but it wouldn't hurt to learn more about the people at the inn.

He shrugged, his expression one of a little bit mischievous. "Just like everywhere else. Some people are more fun than others. No one will probably hurt you or anything, but bore you to tears? That's a big danger."

"That's easy for me. A lot of people bore me." She'd meant humans that didn't understand the life of a centaur. Buffy realized what she'd said and added quickly. "Not you! Back home in the Sunny Dale."

"Oh, don't worry. Not offended. I'm a old fart who can definitely be boring at times." He winked to her.

He continued to remind her of the herd's leader, Giles. "I don't think you could be boring." She smiled wide at him, just as Giles wasn't. Well at times he was when he would try to teach her something.

"Flattery will get you most places." The smile sparkled in his eyes. "Come on, let me buy you that beer."

(ooc: Fade with them drinking for some time and chit-chatting?)

[ooc: Fade!]

Jag had definitely been avoiding the party. Things tended to go batshit at Halloween, if his experience the past few years was anything to go by. So he might as well skip the party, and hope that whatever was going to hit would either hit him, and leave everyone else alone, or the other way around. He wasn't quite sure which option he'd prefer.

So he'd been hanging out by the stables, just spending a little extra time with the horses that evening. When he stepped out to have a cigarette, his gaze immediately landed on the centaur. A fucking centaur. A white coat, and a shitton of lace was draped on her, and shit, that looked like some Victoria's Secret level of bra, just there. It took him a few moments to recognise her as someone from the hotel - someone he was certain wasn't usually half-horse.

Pack back in his pocket, cigarette unsmoked, he stepped towards her, hands raised in harmlessness as she pawed at the ground, the picture of a scared horse. "Hey there. Y'all right?"

Buffy turned her body around as gracefully as she could with nerve ends jangling. She shook her head, "I think I'm lost. I was with my herd but we got separated. I tried to find their tracks." Her front hoof pawed near a track of another horse's hooves, "but they aren't the right depth for a centaur. Have you seen them?"

"These are horse tracks," Jag explained. So she'd turned into a centaur, and proper believed she was one, complete with no memory of this place. "We haven't got any other centaurs around." There was a bit of a questioning lilt to the word, centaurs; for all he knew that wasn't what she would call herself. "The horses are in the stable, though," he added, jerking a thumb to indicate the building he'd come out of.

"Would this magical place have turned my herd into horses?" There was confusion and a healthy bit of anger in her voice that it would do that or leave her out of the magical transformation.

"Does an evil wizard live here?"

"Fortunately, no," Jag shook his head. All magic users seemed to be decidedly unevil, which was for the best, since they were all stuck here together. Someone had fucked with Buffy, though, unless this was another Madonna Inn surprise. The memory of Coby with his memory blank was still recent, and something uneasy had settled in the pit of Jag's stomach, but he ignored it. "People just show up here, but no one evil. And you're... you're not usually a centaur." Better go with the truth, right?

Buffy looked at him a little confused. Of course she'd always been a centaur. She could remember --- except she couldn't. Why couldn't she remember? Was she cursed?

"What do you think I usually am?"

"Human?" Jag offered. "I think?" She'd seemed quite strong for a human, and she definitely knew how to fight, but he had never asked, because it didn't really matter, and it was none of his business. "You're called Buffy."

She opened her mouth to protest that, but something stopped her. There was some small doubt but it was also foreign. "Buffy?" She said the word to see how it sounded on her lips. Before he could respond, she added almost subconsciously after she heard it, "that sounds familiar."

It felt like someone had called her that but also like a dream, rather than as part of her herd.

Oh, good. So she really was Buffy, and not an alternate centaur version of her. "What did you think was your name?"

"I'm Willow." Buffy said easily and as soon as she said it, it sounded both familiar and not familiar to her.

"Nice to meet you, Willow," he told her with a small smile. He glanced about, as if hoping someone would be around to help. "Look, I... don't really know what to do. D'you want to come in with me, see if anyone has more of a clue what's going on?" He nodded towards the main building, where he knew people were celebrating Halloween.

"Sure!" Buffy smiled, and began to walk, "I don't know a lot of what goes on in my herd either. I usually just hear blah, blah, blah, until they get to the good part and tells me where the next adventure is."

She was pretty sure that no one in her herd knew about pocket dimensions, except maybe the wise Giles, their leader.

"Sounds like a good life?" Jag ventured, as he fell in stride with her.

"It is." Buffy nodded, she did enjoy her life. That felt bone deep right.

"Our leader, Giles, he trains with us for battles and keeps us safe." She smiled slightly, "he's more of books than battle, but he tries hard."

"Centaurs have a lot of battles to fight?" Jag asked, angling a curious look her way.

"We do." Buffy nodded, "Many magical creatures attack our home in the Sunny Dale. My friends and I defend it."

There was a flash of a memory using a wooden stake, but she knew that wasn't right and it was probably a spear.

"So you're a guard, are you?" Jag asked with a small smile.

Her shoulders straightened somewhat at the question. She liked that term, "I am a protector." Buffy agreed and had a flash of a pink umbrella given to her but the memory was fuzzy.

"Sounds good," Jag stated.

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Sunnydale Halloween part 2

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Buffy & Jag

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