Sacred Circle by Buffelina
Author Name: Jennifer A. Hudson (a.k.a.
“Buffelina”)
E-mail address: buffelina22@hotmail.com
Feedback: Please feel free to address any comments, questions, critiques,
rants or raves to: buffelina22@hotmail.com
Distribution: somewhere within the realm of Extra Flamey
Spoilers: none really necessary, only that the story takes place
somewhere during Season Five after “Real Me” and prior to “The Body”
Rating: I think it’s safe to go with a PG-13 rating as the story
concerns Witchcraft as a religion (which may be controversial to some
fundamentalists) and a lesbian relationship with romantic/sexual innuendo.
Pairing: Willow/Tara
Disclaimer: I have no connection to Joss Whedon, the screenwriters, cast
and crew of the television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” or
Twentieth-Century Fox. The characters Willow Rosenberg, Tara McClay and Dawn
Summers are property of the above mentioned. However, this story (which utilizes
the above listed characters) is totally mine.
Summary: Hoping to draw divine blessings upon their relationship, Willow
and Tara’s moon ritual is interrupted by Dawn who inadvertently disrupts their
sacred circle. When negative consequences ensue, Tara must find a way to rescue
Willow.
Note: In this story Willow and Tara practice Wicca as a religion and not
merely for sorcery.
“Did you remember to bring the sage smudge thing-ey?”
“Um, hmn.”
“Athame?”
“Check.”
“Ooh ... and that funky, yet nice smelling oil that we get to anoint each other with?”
“Yes. I think w-we should be all set now.”
“Good. I want tonight to be perfect!”
Two young women dressed in velvet robes of purple and green are out in a quiet hidden field in the all-but-quiet town of Sunnydale, California. They are preparing to celebrate an Esbat, a Wiccan moon ritual. One of the two women, clad in a purple robe, is boyishly slender with wavy auburn tresses that just barely reach her shoulders. She takes in a long and deep breath, her nostrils instantaneously tickled by the sweet fragrance of lilies that bloom nearby. Her green eyes sparkle as her lips form a playful smile -- apparently her natural demeanor. The second young woman is a bit taller, broader and more curvaceous. Her long blonde hair rests loosely upon her full bosom. Usually a shy and awkward person, she radiates no ostensible timidity this evening. Rather, she stands tall and with head held confidently, like a swan taking a drink. It is obvious she is quite comfortable – if not more than just comfortable – with her company.
The full moon bathes the earth below in her supernal glow and dozens of fireflies act in accord, twinkling like little mobile stars. They gently sweep across the thick blades of grass like scattered speckles of fairy dust. Enchantment is in the air and Willow Rosenberg and Tara McClay have fallen under the night’s spell.
“Oak-ey dok-ey. I think we’re ready to begin,” exclaims a lighthearted Willow. “Wow, just look at all the lightening buggies flitting around! It’s like they wanted to get in on all the action tonight!” Willow winks mischievously at Tara.
“Yes, like they wanted to make it ... extra special,” replies Tara with a knowing glance, desire burning in her eyes.
“It already is,” whispers Willow as she holds out her arms to Tara, who receives the redhead’s warm embrace. To the observer, their magickal intent grows lucid: they have gathered not only to honor the Moon Goddess, but also to seek her blessings upon their steadily growing and strengthening relationship.
Once the two witches part from each other’s arms, Willow brings her hand to Tara’s cheek and tenderly caresses it. She whispers, “Tara, do you know how much I love you? How happy I am that I found you?”
These questions result in the blonde girl’s blue eyes filling up with tears, not from any sadness or pain, but from a deep well of strong and inexplicable emotion. Tara cannot believe that she has found someone as special as Willow Rosenberg, the soul mate whom she had been waiting for her whole life: someone warm, compassionate and loving, someone intelligent and funny, someone who makes her feel whole -- and someone who loves her. Tara had lost that when she lost her mother. Not that Willow was utterly flawless. She could be impetuous at times, not to mention subtly temperamental. Nonetheless, her assets considerably outweighed her blotches and Tara loved the entire package that was Willow.
Tara gazes into her lover’s eyes, which have also grown drenched in water. The blonde girl contemplates that which she always has difficulty articulating verbally without sounding like a bumbling idiot. Fortunately, the two women are so in tune with each other that Tara only has to give Willow a look or touch that communicates everything words cannot.
“Yes, I do, Willow. And I love you more than I could ever tell you.”
With that the two young women embrace again, tightly, before Willow exclaims, “Okay. I guess we better turn off the waterworks for now and get started! We’ve got to get home in time to feed Miss Kitty’s growling tummy!” (Miss Kitty Fantastico is their feline roommate.)
To commence the Esbat ritual, Tara lights the sage smudge stick and begins to purify their designated magickal space. The odor is strong and pungent. It leaves a distinct impression upon the lovers’ olfactory senses and signals their minds, bodies and spirits to begin spellwork. Meanwhile, Willow walks three times in a clockwise circle and sprinkles salt water upon the grass. The lovers then proceed together in casting the circle, walking the space clockwise three additional times, their voices in melodic unison as they chant:
“We cast this circle to protect us
From all negative energies and forces
On any level that may come do us harm.
We invite into this circle only those forces
Which are right and most correct for us
And for our work.
We have created a sacred space. So mote it be!”
Everything seems to be working as planned. Tara alerts and calls the quarters. Both women focus intently upon and state their desire: the Goddess’s blessing on their love. They hold hands, close their eyes and feel their love deepening and strengthening within every fiber of their being. Willow then assumes the Goddess position in order to draw down the power of the moon to carry out their magick. She is suddenly interrupted by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps and a breathy, “Hey guys! Whatcha doin’?”
“D-dawn?,” asks a startled Tara.
“What?!,” cries a slightly annoyed Willow, who slowly and with burgeoning guilt checks her anger at the sight of Dawn’s hurt-filled statement. “Whoa! I mean ... you scared us there! We’re in the middle of … I-I mean ... what are you doing out in the middle of the night, Dawn-ey? Shouldn’t you be home?”
“I felt like taking a walk,” states Dawn, the Slayer’s kid sister, in a tone of typical teenage defiance. “Besides, no one would notice or care that I’m gone. It’s always Buffy this and Buffy that and ‘isn’t she so cool ‘cause she’s the Slayer?’... Are you guys workin’ on a spell? That’s so cool. You guys do cool things together!” Tara and Willow shoot each other a half-amused glance. The other half was pure, unadulterated irritation.
“Dawn … you really sh-should be home now,” stammers Tara. “Your mom and Buffy are probably w-wondering w-where you are. They might be … w-worried …”
Dawn remains impassive to the witches’ frustration and invades their sacred space, unaware that they have casted a protective circle.
“Dawn! No!,” cries Willow as she brings her hands to her head in exasperation.
“What? Fine! If you guys don’t want me around, I can take a hint. No one wants me around. Everyone thinks I’m no one at all, like I’m not even real.”
Tara shoots Willow a pleading look, but Willow’s face only mirrors her frustration at having what would have been a pure and uninterrupted evening of love magick go awry. Tara feels she had better at least try to salve the hurt feelings of Buffy’s kid sister while also finding a way in which to politely make her understand that Willow and Tara need “quiet time alone.”
As Tara does her best to make amends by cutting a door in the magick circle with her athame, urging Willow to keep watch, she walks Dawn to the edge of the field where it meets the sign of suburban life: sidewalks.
“Dawn, honey. No one thinks you’re nobody, least of all Willow and myself. It’s just that … it’s just that W-Willow and I are doing a very important ritual and we …we need absolute concentration and solitude.” She puts an arm around Dawn and says, “I promise you, Dawn, we all love you and want you around. It’s just important that Willow and I do this thing alone tonight. You understand, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so ... Willow’s not mad at me, is she?”
“No, o-of course not.”
“Okay ... I guess I’ll mosey on back home. Tara?”
“Yes, Dawn?”
“I feel like sometimes you’re the only one around here who understands what it’s like not to be a part of the Scooby Gang. Thanks ... you know, for talking to me and stuff, like I’m a real person … it means a lot.” Dawn leaves to return to the Summers home, heavy-shouldered.
Tara turns to face Willow, who stares into a vacuum.
“Honey, are you okay?”
Willow fails to answer.
“Willow?”
Still no answer. Tara grabs Willow by the shoulders, looks beseechingly into her lover’s eyes and shakes her gently. Willow lets out a drawn-out moan that causes Tara to tremble.
“Oh, Goddess! W-Willow? Willow, sweetie, talk to me!”
When she looks into Willow’s eyes once more, she notices that the pupils have grown abnormally large and in such a manner as to hide her radiant green irises. The redhead fails to respond to her lover’s pleas. She merely stands in a trance-like state.
Tara’s heart begins to thump wildly in her ears. She knows how to cast and open a circle, but she never learned what to do if a door was not cut into the circle to allow someone entrance or exit. Tara knows, however, the negative consequences of this failure: entities interfering with magick, potential harm to the witch or witches involved in the ritual, and who knows what else!
When the blonde girl looks up into the sky, she notices that a black cloud has thickened over the full moon and leaves the earth below devoid of lunar illumination. Willow lets out another low, slow moan. Tara continues to jerk her by the shoulders, roughly this time, but to no avail. The redhead’s eerie moan reverberates within Tara’s head, chilling her to the bone as if it were a northern winter’s night. Plus, the way in which Willow’s head moves reminds her too much of a famous horror film on demonic possession.
Tara anxiously flips through one of her spellbooks, hoping to find something to help rid Willow of whatever it is that possesses her being. Nothing. Zilch. She takes hold of another spell book and fumbles through that. Still nothing. Meanwhile, Willow falls to the ground and begins to mumble in a language that is unrecognizable to Tara.
“Vous êtes mon fin. Je suis votre fin. Ensemble, nous sommes l’obscurité et la lumière ...” *
As Willow continues to spew forth words in this foreign tongue, she shows no sign that she understands the words she utters. Tara cannot bear to see her like this. Her heart continues to echo within her head as her stomach feels as though it is being churned. She feels like she is standing at the end of a ledge, about to fall into a great abyssimal precipice.
Tara gathers Willow in her arms and holds her desperately to her bosom. Tears continue to stream down the blonde girl’s cheeks and anxious sobs violently shake her body. What can she do? None of the witches’ spell books even remotely mention how to reverse the effects of an invaded sacred circle.
She rocks herself and Willow back and forth, like a mother who comforts her distressed child.
“Hang on, darling. Hang on.”
Tara looks up to the sky pleadingly.
“Wait!,” Tara thinks to herself in a sudden moment of epiphany. She lays Willow down, tenderly strokes her cheek and kisses her on the forehead, and then gathers the pink candles and the patchouli oil they had intended to use during their ritual. She gingerly carves symbols with her athame in one of the pink candles, anoints it with the oil and then places the pillar firmly within the ground, in the exact middle of their assaulted circle. She then positions the other five pillars at each point of the pentagram within the circle. When that is finished, Tara takes some more of the patchouli oil on her right thumb and places a drop upon Willow’s forehead and between her small breasts, directly over her heart. She sits for a moment in deep meditation, grounding herself and her energy. Tara then rises, gathers Willow in her arms and holds her upright. While standing within the circle’s middle, she closes her eyes and states:
“Lady of the Moon, Lovely Mother, send forth your energy and drive the meddlesome forces out of this circle and out of my beloved. Bless us and bless our love now and always. I will it so, so mote it be!”
Tara slowly opens her eyes and sees that the moon’s light is emerging from behind the black clouds. She turns to Willow, who gradually returns to consciousness, with no enlarged pupils or foreign words spewing from her mouth. The redhead blinks her eyes and looks up into Tara’s with perplexity. When she opens her mouth to speak, she sounds out-of-breath.
“Tara? ... What happened? Did we do the ritual already? It’s weird. I don’t remember. I feel like my head exploded. Did my head explode?”
Tara lets out a tiny chuckle, elated that her love has returned to normalcy.
“No, Sweetie Pie, it didn’t.”
“Oh ... good. I thought it might have.”
Willow and Tara gaze deeply into one another’s eyes. Willow is touched by the well of love, concern and strength that radiates from Tara. She is absolutely beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful thing Willow has ever known in her young life. Somehow Tara senses all that Willow feels but does not speak. She smiles sweetly, basking in their mutual tender affection and cups Willow’s visage in her hands.
“Willow?”
“Yes, my love?”
“I ...”
Tara is about to say ‘I thought I lost you tonight,’ but checks herself, mesmerized by Willow’s sparkling green orbs. Instead, she emphatically and without a stutter, declares:
“I love you so much, more than anything, more than my own life even. I sometimes wonder if you’ll ever know just how much you mean to me or how lucky and blessed I feel to have found you.”
Tears well up in Willow’s eyes, Tara’s as well. Willow runs her hand through Tara’s soft blonde hair and states, “I know. And I love you ... more than even I could ever say!”
Waterworks now begin to flow between the witches. Tara blankets Willow’s face in butterfly kisses before she brings her lips to Willow’s and the two share a passionate kiss. Though overwhelmed with emotions beyond words, they seem to communicate those emotions adequately with each other’s lips. Time and space seems to have ceased and the lovers feel as though they are two entities converging into one. Once their lips part, they giggle at their own sappiness.
“I still don’t know what happened, Tara. I feel like some heavy duty stuff went on and I just can’t remember it. And why do I feel like I can speak French all of a sudden? I mean, I had it in high school, but not enough to, you know, know it ... And why do I feel like my head exploded? Are ... are you sure my head’s not all funny-looking?”
Tara lets out another chuckle.
“Yes, darling, your head’s still a Willow-head ... beautiful as it always is.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, whatever we did in this ritual, I sure am glad the outcome is just what we had hoped for!,” exclaims Willow.
“What’s that?”
“Our own circle, us, what we share together. It seems, I don’t know ... deeper, Tara. Like you are right here within me and I’m right there inside of you. And together we have this sense of completion. I feel, I don’t know ... closer, if that’s at all possible.”
“How much closer?,” asks Tara.
“This much closer,” states Willow, who brings her lips to Tara’s. Moonlight showers from above and forms around them what is indeed a perfect circle.
* Trans. “You are my end. I am your end. Together, we are darkness and light …”