By Dawn's Early Light by Grundy

Where The Heart Is II

Buffy grinned.

The best part of being back in Imladris was having just about her whole family – barring Arwen and her grandparents – around again. Her mother seemed nonplussed that she wasn’t all that upset at being grounded. Actually, her mother had spent far more time trying to explain the concept of ‘grounded’ to her father and brothers than Buffy had in acknowledging that she did kinda deserve it, even if the battle was not her fault at all. (She’d done her best to leave King Thranduil out of it. She’d like to go visit again someday, after her mother has been reassured that she doesn’t just wander around Middle Earth looking for trouble.)

Right now, she was catching up on Scooby time.

She’s had plenty of time on the road to hear all about Xander’s adventures – which he had assured her were not nearly as adventuresome as hers – in Lothlorien. Today she begged Tara to show off the garden she’s heard about from what seems like every single elf in Imladris, and Tara hasn’t disappointed. Not only is the garden gorgeous, the food that comes from it is a sight for bored eyes. After months of tame elven food, she was thrilled to finally eat something a little spicier, and it wasn’t like anyone else needed much excuse for Mexican.

Anya and Willow been exploring elven ‘magic’, which apparently is not thought of as magic here, even though it would be called that in Sunnydale. Buffy had been intrigued to learn that while some of it is written, based on runes, quite a bit of it is worked through song. They were in a fairly intense explanation of the properties of some particular rune when Willow said something that made Buffy tune back in.

“We could always check in the library, there’s bound to be something there.”

“Library?” Buffy asked. “There’s a library?”

Anya shook her head.

“This is your house, how do you not know there’s a library?” she asked.

Buffy sighed and decided now was not the time to remind Anya how little time she’d spent ‘at home’ before they’d left to visit her grandparents, and how much of that time had been taken up by showing the twins her proficiency with various weapons and learning how to ride a horse.

Willow grinned impishly.

“There’s a library. Way better than the high school’s.”

“Yeah, for a start, this one’s not located directly over a Hellmouth,” Xander pointed out.

Anya rolled her eyes.

“We weren’t talking about location, we were talking about content. There are books in this library significantly older than I am.”

Buffy blinked. She’s been scolded before for her casual indifference to the proper treatment of old books, so putting her in a room with tomes that antique doesn’t sound like the best idea.

“Don’t worry, they don’t look ancient,” Willow said reassuringly.

“Besides, your mom mentioned we could have a room just off the main library for studying if we wanted,” Tara said. “So you don’t have to hang out with the volumes of the First and Second Age if you don't feel like it.”

Buffy smiled slowly. Hanging out in the library again would be nice. Especially a library that was probably much safer than the SHS one.

“It’s not like you have much choice,” Anya mused. “I mean, you’re going to have to learn a lot – it seems like your family are involved in most of the important parts of history here. Although I guess you have to work on basic literacy first.”

Willow glared and Tara sighed, while Xander started to reply, thought better of it, and quietly facepalmed at the overly blunt reminder that Buffy couldn’t read much more than her own name in elvish letters.

“It’s not so bad,” Willow assured her. “We made a lot of progress when we realized that Joyce – I mean, Celebrían , I keep forgetting – would be a better tutor than Arwen or Lindir. She knows Sindarin, Quenya, and English, so she did a better job explaining the sounds that go with the letters because she knew what we’re used to.”

“Yeah, you’ll be reading in no time,” Tara agreed. “Tindomiel’s already good enough that she’s started transcribing some of what Willow brought on her laptop – Shakespeare, Austen, Harry Potter…”

Buffy stifled a snicker. She can’t wait to hear the elves’ reaction to that last choice – not to mention, she’s curious to see what Dawn chooses to do about years 5, 6, and 7. Maybe she’s waiting to see how Harry goes over first.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Willow said. “Xander, we were thinking that now you're back we should have a Star Wars movie night.”

Xander’s face lit up.

“All right! I can’t wait to see what the brothers El think of Yoda and Vader.”

Buffy blinked.

“Will, do I want to know?” she asked cautiously.

Willow grinned.

“You know magic and technology let me bring a lot more than I could have carried in books and DVDs alone,” she said smugly. “It won’t last forever, though. When the laptop wears out, that’s it – it’s not like we can get new parts here. So we decided we should start having movie nights, because your father says elven memory is different than ours, that you’ll remember forever once you’ve seen it. So if your brothers watch, even once we’re gone, you’ll still have someone around besides Dawn who will understand why ‘have fun storming the castle’ is funny, or know why St. Crispin’s Day matters.”

Although Willow’s subtle reminder that Buffy counts with the elves and her casual mention of mortality was less than comfortable – like pressing on a bruise – Buffy still had to snicker, because Willow makes it sound like there’s some highbrow reason she liked Henry V.

“Will, I really only watched that because Christian Bale was in it.”

“It’s still Shakespeare. And I didn’t think we should show them Swing Kids.”

That sobered her right up.

For all the sharing of the human history and culture of Earth they’ve been doing – and elves love learning, so they’ve been happy to see and hear anything Buffy and her friends are willing to show or tell - there’s some things Middle Earth really does not need to know about. Nazis are on that list, along with modern warfare in general. Having seen what old-fashioned warfare can do, Buffy is prepared to stand by that call. Orcs are bad enough with swords, she doesn’t want to picture them with machine guns or napalm.

“Right. So.. Star Wars,” she said, bringing the discussion back to where it started, and hoping to put off uncomfortable conversations until some other day.

Xander looked at her knowingly. His smile was slightly melancholy.

“Remember, Buff, the Force will be with you, always.”