The November Project - Part 5

TITLE:	The November Project (5/10)
AUTHOR:	-Andy- see2go4me@yahoo.com)
STATUS:	Words: 1,422.
RATING:	18/R
DISCLAIMER:	This is a derivative work. All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, Panzer/Davis and others. I don't own any of this, just the words gluing my story together.
SUMMARY:	A Third Slayer Tale
SPOILERS:	All seasons of BtVS and Highlander.
DISTRIBUTION:	My blog fanfic pages. TtH eventually. Anyone else, e-mail me please.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:	This is my NaNoWriMo entry. Quantity over quality. Don't expect anything better than a rough draft until the whole thing is done. Then I'll revise it.

It took them several hours to reach the isolated wood Cassandra lived in from the small airport near the Canadian border. Arriving there, all that was visible was a small dock jutting out into the mist covered lake. Far out in the middle Fann could see a large island with a small house just barely visible through the trees.

Standing on the gravel road next to the dock, "I thought you said she was hiding?" Fann asked her companion.

"She knows we are coming." Amanda shrugged. "I'm not sure how it all really works but people she doesn't want to see can't seem to find her."

Fann looked around with a practiced country eye. "It seems pretty deserted around here. I'm surprised a lake like that isn't crowded with dozens of vacation cabins."

"One of the benefits of a long life." Amanda told her. "Her nearest neighbor is miles away. She has it all to herself. Of course, she also likes to be mysterious. They probably think she's a witch in the nearest town."

"Oh." Fann muttered. "Is that a good thing now-a-days?"

""She does have to put up with visiting Wiccans during their holidays. They think she's some kind of wise woman and her hiding techniques don't seem to work on them very well." Amanda chuckled. "She usually sends them packing quickly. Her ideas of religion are quite a bit different."

Fann snorted. She was well aware of Amanda's opinions about religion and assumed that other immortals were also very skeptical about such things.

From the moment they met Fann felt like a bug under a microscope. Cassandra couldn't seem to take her eyes off of her, even though she was ostensibly talking with Amanda while they had tea in her small, cozy cabin.

It had been going on for twenty minutes before Fann had had enough of the sideways glances and finally blurted out "Stop it! Why do you keep staring at me!" she demanded. Amanda looked at her normally mild mannered apprentice in surprise.

Cassandra shook her head and said nothing for a minute while using the interruption as an excuse to look at her much closer, making her squirm nervously in her seat. "I'm sorry. I just find it amazing."

"What's amazing?" Amanda asked, looking back and forth between the other two women.

"That you've managed to drag one of the Chosen into your schemes." Cassandra mused. "Even though she doesn't seem to be an ordinary Chosen One."

"What?" Amanda said, her eyes getting very round and sounding a little panicked to Fann.

"Chosen what?" Fann demanded. Cassandra nodded to herself, as if Fann's question answered one of her own.

"You don't know what you are, or what you are capable of, do you..." She said to herself. She looked at Amanda in amusement. "You've run into a Vampire Slayer before haven't you?" she asked.

"Yes..." Amanda answered her hesitantly before looking at Fann thoughtfully. "I, uh, borrowed something from her Watcher and she eventually took it back. Why do you think Fann is one?"

"There's something about her aura." Cassandra said thoughtfully. "I've only seen one like that before and it belonged to a Chosen One. Though hers seems to have something else in it. Strange."

"What do you know about them?" Amanda asked in a strange tone.

"Not a lot. Just that they are very special women warriors who fight evil. Usually vampires and other similarly evil creatures." She thought for a moment. "I believe they are very rare, which is probably why Methos is still alive."

"Cassandra..." Amanda began before being interrupted.

"Yes. I know you don't want to hear about that again." She raised a hand in silent command. "We apparently have more important things than revenge to deal with right now."

"Yes. Though not what I expected." Amanda told her. "If Fann is a Chosen One, why didn't she know it?"

"Still here!" Fann sputtered in protest at being ignored when the topic of discussion was apparently herself.

"Yes, but should you be?" Amanda asked herself under her breath. Under the combined weight of looks from both Fann and Cassandra she explained her comment. "A Vampire Slayer...which Cassandra believes you to be..." she nodded at Fann, "is a young woman who works for an organization called the 'Council of Watchers'. Each one has a guardian of some kind called a watcher who assists them."

"A watcher?" Cassandra looked surprised. "Like immortal watchers?"

"No. As far as I could discover at the time they are unrelated. The name is just a coincidence. Their watchers aren't the voyeurs ours are." Amanda took a sip from her cup before continuing with a small grin. "I was able to trick this Council into thinking we're more powerful than we really are. For people who fight evil they can be awfully gullible." Amanda laughed.

"What happened?" Cassandra asked.

"After my encounter with them back in the thirties... they agreed that interfering with immortals wasn't a good idea." Amanda told her.

"Good." She nodded at Amanda with approval.

"What does this mean for me?" Fann asked. "Am I supposed to go find these watchers?"

"I don't see why you should." Amanda told her. "They're a bunch of stuff Englishmen. That slayer I met didn't have an original thought in her head. She did whatever her watcher told her to do. If they haven't come looking for you yet they must have plenty of them."

"So do you know how someone becomes a Chosen One?" Fann asked her.

"Not really." Amanda conseeded. "The watchers I met kept that a secret."

"Oh. So you don't think it matters if I stay with you?"

"It might matter." Cassandra told them. "You might not have a choice."

Fann looked at her in surprise. "Why not?"

Cassandra looked at Amanda for a moment before answering Fann. "Some people have a destiny. How they live their life and what they do serves a greater purpose. No matter how hard they try to avoid it."

"How do I find that out?" Fann asked her faintly. She wasn't sure if she was ready to follow someone else's decision about her future. She was having too much fun learning from Amanda.

Looking pointedly at Cassandra, "She does a reading for you." Amanda told Fann.

"A reading?" Fann asked, slightly confused.

"Tea leaves and tarot cards." Amanda told her. "She'll read your future and tell us what you need to do or if you really have some sort of destiny."

"Oh. Is it safe?" She asked Cassandra. "Don't your prophecies usually predict disasters?"

"No." Cassandra objected. "That is just what mortal history has written about me. I wasn't even there for a lot of the things I'm blamed for. And that isn't what I'll see for you." She glared at Amanda. "If she's truly one of the Chosen she will have a destiny." Cassandra told them. "But it probably won't be what you expect. Or want. That kind of destiny isn't random."

"What do I have to do." Fann asked faintly.

"You need to come back tomorrow." Cassandra told her. "I can't just stand here and read you. I'll need to prepare for something like that."

"We'll see you tomorrow then. Let's go." Amanda told Fann, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet.

"You seemed to be in a big hurry to leave her." Fann grumbled.

"It's better that way. If we'd stayed she would have tried to get us to promise her something, like going after Methos for her." Amanda told her.

"Who's Methos?" Fann asked.

"One of her very old enemies." She shrugged. "He actually isn't that bad. He can be annoying but he's no longer the very evil person he was when they first met."

Fann looked at her, "So what's the problem?"

"She doesn't believe anyone when they tell her he's changed and she refuses to forgive him." She shook her head. "There are some things that are hard to forget, even among us. Once in a while she'll get herself psyched and try to chase him down."

"And he's still alive?" Fann asked in amazement, thinking about all of the tales she'd heard from Amanda about immortal vendettas.

"So far. He's been lucky." Amanda chuckled. "He's good at getting away. You'll probably meet him eventually. He's a friend of Mac's."

"And this Mac protects him?" Fann asked.

"When he's not annoyed with him for other things." Amanda smirked. "He's really good at that. Age can do that to you."

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