By Dawn's Early Light by Grundy

The Song Remains The Same

“Eww!”

Buffy’s nose wrinkled as she surveyed her feet. New dimension, new demons, but some things stayed the same- they always managed to ruin her footwear.

Despite the occasional annoyance like icky demon blood on her nice new boots, the trip to her grandparents was looking up. Xander and Anya had made up- thankfully far enough away that no one else had to hear, not that Anya hadn’t filled them in later on the fact that orgasms had happened. Willow and Tara were enjoying getting to know Middle Earth, and were thrilled to see much more of it than they would have staying at Imladris.

Buffy was learning how to ride. She’d progressed past the basics pretty quickly, with encouragement from the twins to try some tricks that probably would have upset their mother greatly had she been there to see them. But more importantly, she was also getting a chance to hunt. She was killing demons- yrch, her brothers called them- fairly regularly, which was a relief after being cooped up at home so long with elder siblings who seemed to think that she was fragile and in need of protection no matter how proficient she showed herself with weapons.

Which brought her neatly to the best part of this trip (aside, of course, from its main purpose- being elsewhere while Dawn and Arwen either learned to get along or killed each other.) Elladan and Elrohir were getting an education in just how fragile their ‘small sister’ wasn’t.

The look on their faces when she’d single-handedly taken out the first group of orcs they’d encountered in the foothills of the Hithaeglir had been seriously smug-making. Since then, the three of them had been gradually learning how to work together- as equals, not as big brothers and their kid sister who needed rescuing. As she’d told them after the first fight, if they wanted to save someone, hang around Tindomiel on a Tuesday.

Elladan raised an enquiring eyebrow at her expression.

“Problem, little one?” he asked.

She’d given up fighting about ‘little one’, ‘small sister’, and pretty much anything else they called her that made reference to her decidedly non-Elvish size. (Dad had explained, but it was long and boring and while Willow had been riveted by the complexities, Buffy had tuned out. The gist was that elfling + Slayer = midget. She wasn’t bothered- like Faith had said, they were hot chicks with superpowers. Why fuss over a few inches?)

“Why is it they always manage to get blood on my shoes?” she asked plaintively.

She had, however, insisted her brothers call her Buffy. While Dawn had taken to her elvish name instantly, Buffy was too used to being Buffy to change. It was the name she’d lived in for as long as she could remember, the name she’d made. She’d answer to it when her parents used it, mostly on account of not wanting to hurt their feelings, but they were the only ones.

“I suppose they must take revenge in any way they can,” Elrohir snickered. “The shoes can be washed.”

“They’ll take forever to dry,” Buffy protested.

“Yes, but washing would be useless,” Elladan pointed out. “We are not yet out of the mountains, and likely to encounter more orcs before we reach the borders of Lorien. Your shoes will doubtless suffer further indignities.”

Buffy frowned.

“Just let my shoes be a mess?” she demanded. “That’s your solution?”

“Or improve your archery so the orcs don’t have a chance to bleed all over you,” Elrohir suggested brightly.