The Key to My Life

Kicking Buffy Out

2005-09-04T03:39:12Z

I'm the kid sister. The one who, according to stereotype, is kind of rude and annoying and speaks her mind. Alright, so for a lot of the life that I haven't lived, I've been that same girl. And that same girl has a tendency to get angry from time to time. What? I'm human now, and that too, a teenage human trapped in a body that's overflowing with raging, crazy hormones. I say things from time to time, sometimes saying things without thinking, without really going through the consequences of what could happen if I said something I shouldn't.

In this case, it was to Buffy. We were gathered in the living room of our home in Sunnydale, and everyone was ganging up on Buffy. Everyone. Things in our fight against the First were not going to well. We'd lost many Potentials, and Buffy was going full force ahead in battle without even thinking straight. She was in it for the blood and the glory.

So I did the one thing that I had to do. When Buffy said that we were all in it together, and that none of us could be out, I had to tell her that we were in it together. Without her. That she had to leave because it was my house too. The look on her face, that surprise, that pain...it killed me. It killed me a thousand times over because she had protected me with her own life, she had given up her life for me, and here I was throwing her out in anger. You don't do that to someone who's sacrificed so much for you. You don't do that to family.

But I did. And I hate myself for it.

Muse: Dawn Summers

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Words: 289

What is the one thing about yourself that you don’t want anyone to know?

2005-07-31T10:14:09Z

I'm pregnant. With hellspawn.

Ha ha. Okay, fine, I'm sorry. Yeah, I agree, that was a bit of a lame joke, but it's not my fault that nobody gets me. Although, honestly speaking, if I did ever get pregnant with hellspawn, I don't think I'd want to tell anyone anyway. Buffy herself would go bloody murder on whatever it was that bedded me to impregnate me, which, okay, yay for her. But the very fact that I'd gone on ahead and had sex with someone? Buffy would try to get Giles to get Maid Marion's metal underwear from Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

All jokes pushed aside, there is something about me that no one should ever know.

Not even Buffy.

I know that keeping secrets, especially in my life, isn't the wisest thing to do...it usually tends to lead to trouble down the line, and more often than not, it also has something to do with an impending apocalypse, whether or not it's one that's been prophecised.

But, the thing is, letting this particular secret of mine loose? That might also bring forth an apocalypse, because that's what happened the last time someone from the other side discovered my secret.

So, are you ready for it? My deep, dark secret? It's one that should be quite obvious. And no, I'm not the Slayer, so that's definitely not it. I am, though, still the Key. According to Buffy, Giles, and Willow I'm not...but I know I am. I can feel it within me, that centuries old power coursing through my veins and arteries. Besides, before I was given this human form, I'd been the Key for untold eons. How could I stop being what I'd been for so long by just losing a few pints of blood? That's like the equivalent of saying that if you bleed Buffy or Faith, they'd stop being Slayers, or if you bleed Willow, she'll no longer be a Witch-Goddess.

No, I'm still very much the Key. And it explains so much about the ooky weirdness that's been going on with me ever since we moved to Italy. I was out in a nearby graveyard one night with one of the newer Slayers, Andrew, and Giles. Giles was training Andrew and me on the methods of being a Watcher out in the field (and yes, I am studying to become a Watcher. If not a Slayer, then why not a Watcher?) while he taught the girl - an annoying young woman named Giuliana - slaying techniques. Anyway, while we were there, I heard a voice...a voice that shouldn't have been there. Turning around, I finally realized what it was that I was seeing. A spirit. A ghost. Something that no one else had seen or talked to for ages.

I could talk to the dead.

That was the first thing that tipped me off as to what my true nature might still be.

A few weeks later, we were out in the field, fighting...battling a pack of hellhounds. One was coming at me, and I hadn't known of it. I was too busy feeling victorious over the one I had just defeated. I whirled around and saw one jumping at me. I panicked, and the next thing I knew, the hellhound had gone spinning away from me, thudding against a giant tree. I hadn't done anything to my knowledge, until I had gone home to practice some things in my bedroom that night.

That was the second thing that tipped me off. I was psychokinetic. Which, really, is way better than being just plain psycho.

After those two incidents last year, I started researching the Key, the myths of the Key. I couldn't find anything I didn't already know...but I started researching some of the what-if theories. Here's the thing...because I'm in human form, I have to manifest my energy in some way. Hence, I can talk to the dead, I can move things with my mind and, get this, when I'm in major trouble, this green force surrounds my body and I sort of...I guess...superpowerful. It's all very Phoenix force, which makes sense, since that was a cosmic entity, and I guess, in a way...I am too?

But no one can ever know that I have all these powers, that I am the Key still. Because I know that someone else will come to try to bleed me...to try to use me to open up any portal they deem necessary to destroy the world. I mean, Glory's gone...but Wolfram & Hart still exist, and they're always looking for trophies to keep within their offices to use at a later date. Proserpexa could be freed from the Hellmouth any moment. What Willow did to her three years ago, and with the Hellmouth collapsing two years ago, it's pretty safe to say she's disturbed enough to rise, and someone might specifically need my blood to do it. Let's face it, my blood could be used for almost anything evil...and for that I need to protect this secret from everyone I know and love...as well as everyone I don't know and might possibly hate.

It's the only way to ensure that the world we know and love stays as it is.

Muse: Dawn Summers
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Words: 874

I Never Actually Grew Up

2005-07-30T06:07:02Z

I don't...I don't honestly know where I grew up. More importantly, I don't even know if I ever grew up. Actually grew up, I mean. Frankly speaking, despite appearing to be 18, I'm really only about four years old.

Wow. I'm still a toddler.

And getting away from that side of thinking...the thing is...I'm not human. Or at least, I wasn't until four years ago. Before that, I was this glowy green ball of energy, all pretty and sparkly and intensely powerful. Okay, so I'm still all pretty and sparkly, and I can still throw intensely powerful tantrums (really, ask Buffy, or Andrew, or even Giles. No, really, ask Giles. He'll really tell you. I'd direct you to Halfrek, but she's kind of very dead.) I was a Key...this thing created to open the doorways of all dimensions and basically go all Big Bang with the universe as we know it. And no, not in a groiny way.

I don't think. I mean...there would be blood involved. My blood. Buffy's blood. Though, okay, my blood more because she's the Slayer and I'm the Key, and wow, can I please not get off topic?

As the story goes, I was kept safe by the Order of Dagon - at least, I believe that's what they're called - a group of monks who wanted to keep me safe from the Beast - really, a beauty, but jeez, she had a thorny pickled shoved up in a place that only something else vaguely shaped like a pickle should ever be shoved. Then, when things got too dangerous, the put me under the care of the one person that they knew would take care of me.

The current Slayer. Buffy Anne Summers. They took some of her genetic make-up, and from there fashioned the young woman who is writing this today. They pulled a Satellite Era Justice League on the whole world and basically made everyone forget some crucial stuff. Of course, they went one step further and remade their memories, implanting me into them, making it seem as though I had always existed. Of course, with the memories came the feelings and the emotions, the laughter, the tears, the pre-teenage angst. They made me into her little sister, knowing that she would protect me with her life.

Which is exactly what she did when the time came.

But I do have memories...constructed memories...but still...memories of where I grew up. In Los Angeles. It was a nice time...a happy time. Mom and Dad were well off. We weren't incredibly rich, but Buffy was always dressed to the nines. Then again, Buffy was to LA what Cordelia was to Sunnydale, so that only made sense. Buffy was always into her own life...her friends, playing dress-up as Power Girl when we were younger (she'd make me dress up as Supergirl and then tell me how she was better than me sometimes). Then, when she became the Slayer, sometimes I would put pencils in my mouth and chase her around, telling her I was a vampire. Of course, she'd chase me around with a pencil, pretending it was a stake. It all worked out really evenly. Our lives really had no problems at all...not until Buffy was Called. That's when the problems between Mom and Dad came to the surface. Until then...we were a happy, close-knit family.

Or at least...Mom, Dad, and Buffy. I didn't truly exist then, remember?

Muse: Dawn Summers
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Words: 572