Hiraeth (pronounced [hiraɪ̯θ])

    TITLE: The Briefest of Heroes

    AUTHOR: kerk_hiraeth

    FANDOM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer;

    LENGTH: 350;

    CHARACTER(s): OC; Willow Rosenberg; Kennedy;

    SHIP(s): Willow/Kennedy;

    SUMMARY: Amongst all the Slayers being born; what happens to one who comes into her powers alone; untrained and unfound. This is a brief account of one such abandoned hero.

    A/N: This is set in a world where the Slayers and the Watchers are engaged in a; mostly cold, civil war. In this 'verse Tara is alive, but long separated from Willow; Faith is still in Buffy's body and vice-versa, but only really Tara and Faith of the major players still believe she is alive and are also the only ones still trying to find her.

     For the purposes of this story it's worth noting that there are splits which are further exacerbating the progress of dark forces; entropy and chaos. It is, by implication, set in the USA in the summer of 2020; it could equally be set somewhere in the Arab world during the Arab Spring, or during apartheid era South Africa, and could have been set at a protest in the US; France; Germany or the UK, or far too many places in the world for far too long.

     It is dedicated to the citizens of Ferguson; Marsha P. Thompson and Sylvia Rivera; George Floyd; Sandra Bland; MeToo; Stonewall and the surviors of persecution everywhere.

    This is not a happy story with a happy ending.

    The image is here used because though it's nowhere stated is, in my head, a muslim refugee; abducted and trafficked.

     She did not know where she was.

   Cool, with none of the humid warmth she was used to.

   Home.

   She remembered a home.

   Not the place of her birth.

   Even her Sister had not had that memory.

   Death met in a boat's depths.

   Tossed overboard; cursed wastage.

   She had a name too.

   Nought the Men cared.

   A real name.

   She had forgotten her own as well.

   It was dark here.

   Cold and harsh.

   Sharpness slashing her feet.

   Steadily down; step after painful, bloodied step.

   Shock froze her as she felt freedom's grasp.

   And took her; disoriented, toward a sea of noise.

   Turned a corner; into crashing waves of people.

   She had not conceived the world held so many.

   The camp had not prepared her.

   They had reached water and found Hell.

   Toes touched cold, hard glass.

   Reaching down she picked up the bottle.

   She drank.

   It burned bitter, but it refreshed.

   She sensed the ebbing of the tide of Humanity.

   Stepped into the gap created.

   Turning from them she found a faceless line of armored... people?

   Weapons raised.

   She paused.

   They paused.

   The crowd behind her paused.

   The world froze.

   The faceless weapons took a step.

   She did not retreat.

   Those behind cried louder.

   She felt their desperation; rage, pulse through her.

   The power building within her burst free.

   Energised every cell; to the least particle of her being.

   Instinct guided her hand to a jagged piece of hard wood.

   Desperate; Fearful; Angry; Righteous.

   Her skin burned with their need for justice.

   Fury enveloped her.

   Teeth bared in the face of the Demons, she snarled.

   She screeched like a fiery sea bird.

   Arm raised, the crowd roared.

   Berserker; she charged.

    ~~~

   Kennedy caught her; hand wiped sweat from her brow.

   Willow was barely able to shake her head.

   Blanket laid around her naked torso she collapsed into her lover's chest.

   Attempting comfort Kenn said she could try again in the morning.

   Willow sobbed silently; knowing different.

   Another Slayer had slipped away.

   Gone.

   Another nameless girl lost to their insanity.

   Fallen.

   Falling.

   Failing.

   Water was closing overhead.

   Would she find land?

   Would they find harbor?

     Goddess watch over us all, 

     kerk

    ps. Elisi, on reading this; or the immediate version anyway, back in June commented with a couple of lines from this https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land which I unconsciously echoed; even though I had not read it for twenty year, I think.

    These are the lines :-

    ~ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

     I had not thought death had undone so many. ~