a new world hangs outside the window
beautiful and strange
it must be I've fallen awake
I must be

The night air was cool but humid. A shiver ran down the length of the dark hunter's spine, and she tugged tightly at the thin black athletic jacket, zipping it up to the point that she could bury her chin in it. She flipped the hood over her messy, low-hanging pony-tail and trudged on, her gaze focused on the cold, damp sidewalk in front of her and her hands balled tightly into fists in her pockets.

Buffy felt a bit on edge, walking through the otherwise desolate park all by herself in the early evening hour. But that wasn't unusual as of late. Despite her gift of tremendous physical strength, and her all-around proven ability to handle herself, in the wake of her trauma came serious doubt. It was all in her mind, you see, but the seed was planted. She second-guessed herself constantly. Even now, when there was nothing to second-guess. Buffy coughed out of nerves alone into the brisk air, her abrupt exhales lifting like fog from her lips and disappearing into the night.

She rounded a corner under the haze of a lone streetlamp to find a tall and broadly-built man sitting on a park bench. It took all her effort mentally not to freeze right then and there. Instead, her big brown eyes shifted around her surroundings nervously, taking in the stranger's features as best as she could given the distance between them, but also to the bushes and the empty crisscrossing paths all around them. The hairs on the back of her neck stood in warning - she knew right away the man was in fact, a vampire. But the pale, blond-haired stranger barely gave her a passing glance. And Buffy was determined not to work tonight. Since he wasn't feasting on some innocent suburbanite, she saw no reason to engage him in any which way.

So the thin dark hunter picked up her pace, her skinny legs moving more quickly as the sidewalk took her closer to the lone vampire. She could hear her heart beating in her ears the closer she got. Instinctively her fingers edged nearer to the wooden stakes and silver knife she had in the bag slung over her shoulder. Just as she began to round the corner to take her away from the park bench where the vampire sat, something strange happened.

She jumped back, her feet taking her off the concrete path and into the wet grass as a dark figure successfully stabbed the vampire on the side of his body. Immediately she revealed a stake of her own in defense, but didn't dare move to join the scuffle. Buffy couldn't get a good glimpse of the attacker, but she could sense he too was a dark hunter. The fact that he would attack a vampire at such an early hour, and when he saw a bystander (her) passing by, seemed unconventional to Buffy. She wonders if this cloaked figure worked for the Council. It was difficult to know these days, as so many hunters seemed to just pass through Sacrosanct, picking up a job or two, before moving on to somewhere else. And Buffy had never really been much of a "team" player. She hardly knew any hunters in town anymore, outside of the ones in power that she was forced to communicate with.

The vampire recovers quickly from what was clearly not a fatal attack. And Buffy is left with a decision to make. It seems chauvinistic and rude to jump in on somebody else's kill. But she also didn't find the idea of being a witness or worse - collateral damage - in case this rogue hunter's attempt went south. So when the vampire peeled his eyes away from his attacker and focused on her, she held her hands up in neutral offering, in an attempt to show she had no part in this, meanwhile a few fingers still loosely clung to to her stake, just in case.

GIA BUFFY JONES