In a Corner of My Soul: The Pack: No More Pencils; No More Books

[dragonyphoenix]

I'm working on chapters for this story as part of my Taming the Muse prompts. Recently I mistakenly forgot the lock one of these posts to the Taming Mods and got a few comments which suggests that some people would prefer to read my stories here to AO3. So I'll be posting stories here again. I'm not going to go back and post all that's gone before with this story, but you can read it on AO3 and/or there are notes to catch you up on what you need to know.

Masterlist for In a Corner of My Soul

Notes to remind readers of what's happened so far:

• The spell that removed Eyghon from this plane, killing Randall, left a mental connection between Rupert Giles and the demon. This means that Eyghon has been in Giles' mind for the past two decades. This has caused a split in Giles' personality: Giles and Ripper have split off to protect Rupert.


• Willow has an unusually high level of magic. Giles, in order to control that power, has put magical hooks into her that allow him to call on her magic at will. But, because she's unskilled, the magic does not flow as easily as Giles would prefer. Thinking that she, as a teenager, would be drawn to anything to do with sex, and wanting her to engage in meditative practices more often, Giles has led her to a book on Tantra. Willow, intrigued by the sex magic but a little too innocent to want to delve in, has decided to follow the books example of breaking taboos instead.


• When Merrick was Watcher to Buffy, it was decided that the next to Watchers to be assigned to the Slayer would be Roderick Ashworth and Rupert Giles, in that order. Giles, to get a Slayer sooner, invoked Eyghon to kill Roderick Ashworth. Cecil Ashworth took it upon himself to invoke a Council ceremony to call for vengeance. Quentin, brother to Cecil's mother, Antonia Ashworth, exiled Cecil to the Ashworth family mansion. Antonia set Cecil to investigate Rupert Giles' past. Quentin confronted his sister but, unable to get her to back down, now hopes she'll turn any information she obtains over to the Council, allowing them to take down Rupert Giles rather than having him killed herself.


• While investigating Giles' past, Cecil took up with Isla, an artist who lives across from Diedre Page. Isla filled in background info for him and took Cecil to her bed.


• Kris Mansfield, Principal Flutie's administrative assistant, has been investigating supernatural events in the school. Buffy, suspicious, knows that Kris had been kidnapped as a child and not discovered until her late teen years, but Buffy does not know that Kris is aware of Slayers and Watchers.


• Eyghon wants Tucker as a minion, much to Giles' frustration. The kid is real annoying.


• Giles, wanting his privacy from Rupert and Council spies (if any), has bought a mansion under an assumed name. Because of Eyghon's interest in the boy, Giles has allowed Tucker into the mansion. Andrew tagged along one night and inadvertently spilled the beans to Rupert. However Rupert has investigated Giles' actions in the past, decided they weren't too damaging, and is ignoring Giles' mansion.

When she'd been twelve, Willow had bought a longer cord for her phone so she could flop down on the bed and still chat with Xander or Jesse. Four years later, it was still one of the best things she'd ever bought even if she didn't get to talk to Jesse anymore. Willow shook her head. Thoughts like that led to temptation – just like being stressed led to eating a whole pint of ice cream – and she had enough temptation at the moment. So, should she just switch to a shorter cord or call Xander back from the kitchen where she couldn't be tempted by the nearness of her computer? It really couldn't be calling out to her, could it?

Not studying for one day should have been easy, a piece of cake even. That Tantra book had talked about expanding your consciousness by breaking taboos, and Willow had been all-aboard the whole taboo-breaking train except choosing had been kind of tough. Smoking, that was a big taboo, but then she might become addicted to tobacco and come down with emphysema or lung cancer. Plus, the stink. There were things to smoke that weren't tobacco, you know, "weed" and stuff, but even if she wanted to, where would she get something like that? She was pretty sure she'd seen Sheila selling something, probably something illegal, behind the bleachers once and Willow had done her that favor, acting as lookout while Sheila went off to smoke, but drugs were even more addictive than tobacco and there'd still be all those health considerations. Drinking, alcohol that is, was supposed to be a taboo or at least illegal which was sort of like a taboo, but Mom and Dad let her have wine at the table on special occasions so drinking didn't feel all that taboo-like. Willow had thought she could start with something quick, like stealing a book from like the public library, but then what if someone had wanted that book and it wasn't there because she'd stolen it? Maybe she could steal a book and return it. The taboo was in the stealing, not in the keeping, right? But the library had those anti-theft systems so she'd probably have set off an alarm, gotten caught, and been sent to juvenile detention where she'd have picked up some really bad habits and not in a good expanding your mind kind of a way. She'd thought about stealing a book from the high-school library. That'd be an even bigger taboo since Mr. Giles was, well, not quite her friend, but he was teaching her magic and he depended on her to be responsible so, yeah, that would be a big taboo, but if she got caught then she'd have disappointed him and if she didn't get caught then she'd have felt all guilty. Willow had been twisting herself around all day and then Cordelia had made that comment and, well, that had settled that even if not studying wasn't a real taboo. Studying was just something she enjoyed doing. She could stop at any time. She could. She just had to keep her mind on other things like talking to Xander.

"... so I went to pick up The Punisher and do you believe they canceled it after only eighteen issues? And you're not listening to me at all, are you?"

"What? No, I'm listening. The Punisher. No more issues. Only, uh, didn't they stop running that about two years back?"

"Duh." Willow could almost hear Xander roll his eyes. "They brought it back."

"But not for long."

"No," he sighed. "Not for long."

As the silence ran on, Willow scrambled for something to say. Xander beat her to it. "So, Buffy didn't seem jazzed for the zoo trip. What's up with that?"

Ah, good, she could always count on Xander to keep the chatter going. "Well, we are missing a whole day's worth of classes. I mean, we aren't even going to get to dissect a pig now because we'll be missing the lab while we're at the zoo and Dr. Schaefer said there's too much to cover to make up that lab."

"Willow?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm pretty sure Buffy doesn't mind we're missing classes tomorrow. I can tell you for a fact that I personally don't mind not dissecting a pig."

"But pigs are a lot like humans, anatomically I mean, and it would be good practice if I ever decide to be a doctor, and besides, if we don't dissect pigs then the largest things we've ever dissected are frogs."

"Which I am perfectly happy with but, tell you what, why don't we ask Buffy to bring home a vamp for you to dissect? They're almost like humans, right? More so than a pig at least."

"Xander LaVelle Harris …"

"Hey, what did I say about using my middle name?"

"I am not dissecting a vampire. I mean, it wouldn't be dead, would it? Not dead-dead in which case it'd be dust and I wouldn't be able to dissect it. So, what I mean is, I'm not dissecting anything that's alive-like, or lifelike I guess I mean. I am not dissecting anything that would be complaining and possibly screaming."

"Oh, sure, an undead fiend gets a pass but you can still attack me with a two ton textbook."

"It wasn't a textbook. It was a Physician's Desk Reference, and that was an accident. Besides, I'm pretty sure it didn't break your foot."

"Right, so when I'm limping and can't escape from the vamp Buffy's capturing for you to dissect …"

"Xander, I'm not going to dissect a vampire." Ooh, but maybe a demon, one that was already dead. That would be sort of taboo-like, wouldn't it?

"Okay, okay," Xander agreed. "No vampires. Oh, here's an idea. Maybe we can watch the lions feeding at the zoo and you can sort of take a look at the anatomy of whatever they're tearing apart."

"Xander." Oh God, she sounded like her mother, but did Xander really think they fed live animals to the lions?

"Or maybe not."

Oh good, he didn't.

"So," Xander continued. "No cribbing the anatomy off of the lion's piggy chow."

No, but maybe they could dissect a pig in the science club. Since she'd come up with the idea, they'd let her do the actual dissection, right? Willow moved to her computer and tucked the phone against her shoulder. A pig was sort of like livestock so maybe she should start with the Department of Agriculture? No, that was probably only for living animals or for animals used for food anyway.

"Maybe you could watch, you know, an actual dissection at a morgue. A human, that'd have to be more human-like than a pig even."

"It's called an autopsy on a human, and it isn't preformed at a morgue. Oh, but the Coroner's Office. Do you think they'd really let me watch an autopsy?" Even if they didn't, they had to know where you could get a pig for dissection, having done it in school. Maybe she should ask at a university.

"Okay, and with that I think maybe I'm done for the night."

"No. No! We can talk about something else. Um, ice cream. We can talk about our favorite flavors." Right, because anyone over seven wanted to talk about ice cream flavors.

"Willow. Do you know what time it is?"

"Um, almost ten."

"Right, it's almost ten."

"So?"

"You're usually off the phone and studying by 9:30."

"Well, um, we've got that zoo trip tomorrow so there's nothing I need to study for right at this moment." Uh oh, caught out. She couldn't tell him about the whole breaking taboos thing because then she'd have to explain about the Tantra book which would lead to sex magic even if she wasn't looking at that part of the book and, no, this conversation was so not going there. And anyway, it wasn't like not studying was a taboo. She chose to study most every day. And if one day she chose not to, then she didn't have to study just that one day.

"Willow, you always need to study. I've seen you studying at the start of summer vacation."

"But there are studies that show students lose knowledge over the summer."

"Come on, Wills, what's wrong?"

"Wrong? Why would anything be wrong?" Okay, and that high-pitched tone didn't give anything away.

"Willow?"

The silence hung heavy between them but if she started talking she'd start babbling and then it'd all come out: the Tantra book and the sex magic and the breaking taboos idea. No, no, no. Talking led to badness.

"You shouldn't listen to Cordelia. You know she's the devil, right?"

Cordelia? What? Oh. Oh! "What, just because she said that Sisyphus would get that boulder up the hill before I could get through a day without studying?"

"Let's skip that whole boulder part – 'cause what kind of sense did that not make? – and go with that bit where Cordelia said you couldn't go a whole day without studying."

"Well, she's wrong. I can so not study if I choose to. I just don't usually choose to."

"But you're trying to not study today." It wasn't even a question. Xander knew her, well she couldn't say too well, but it was sort of annoying, sometimes, how well he knew her.

"Well, yeah."

"And how many textbooks have you opened today?"

"Uh, two?"

"Willow."

"Okay, three, but I shut them each right away before I could read anything except I did read a bit about the Revolutionary War but we've already covered that in class and it wasn't anything I didn't already know so I'm pretty sure it doesn't count as studying."

"And you're on the computer now, aren't you?"

"Um, well I'm just over at the UC Sunnydale sight, looking up info on their biology department to see if they could tell me, well …"

"Well what?"

"Well, I thought maybe they could tell me where I could get a pig, but that's not really studying-studying. Dissecting it, that'd be more for fun than for school since we won't be dissecting one in class."

"Willow? Step away from the computer."

"But …"

"So, ice cream flavors. I'm surprised you had to ask. Bubble gum, obviously, because then you have both ice cream and gum."

Oh, good, she hadn't had to explain about the taboo breaking and Xander was helping anyway. It wasn't cheating if she had help, right? Not studying was still not studying even if her best friend was distracting her from the not studying.

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!!!

This is a nifty story so far!


Gabrielle

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, it's all Willow. Of course you're going to like it. *grin*

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!!!

This is a nifty story so far!


Gabrielle

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!!!

This is a nifty story so far!


Gabrielle