Chapter Text
Ethan pottered about the shop, pushing a few more masks onto unsuspecting parents for their horrible goblin children who were, if he performed the rites correctly, due to become actual goblins some time around seven in the evening. A civilized hour for mayhem, he thought. He wasn’t getting old—well, no, he was, damn it all to hell. However, he wasn’t above ensuring that he paid his dues. In fact, he rather had to pay his dues if he was to keep himself in the magic that he needed to survive.
That he’d managed to find Ripper all over again, well. Silver linings. He so hoped his old dear Ripper would come out to play. After all, something like this would have been their bread and butter all those years ago.
Lost in wistful memory, he was startled to hear the sound of the bell over the shop door. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Five more minutes. There were drawbacks to a plan relying on posing as a shopkeep. He was then startled to see a young woman he had already sold a costume to—a rather decent one compared to the other bargain items he had enchanted.
“My dear, is there a problem with your purchase,” he asked, putting on his finest, smoothest tones. Far from the cockney bounces he’d grown up with. Ah, even he was not immune to wanting to be what he was not. That was, after all, how he and Ripper had come together. Ethan, the gutter rat who had clawed his way out, and Rupert, the privileged boy looking for a way to rebel against daddy.
God, but they had been pure fire together.
The girl frowned, something hard and determined in the set of her mouth and jaw. “I’m not sure this is the right costume for me.”
Ethan studied the girl for a moment. She was petite, with highlighted blonde locks, and eyes a most interesting shade of green-grey. Yet for all her diminutive size, he could sense a power in her. Something coiled and waiting. He pursed his lips, openly thoughtful, and then he took the costume back.
“No, I suppose not,” he agreed smoothly. “I could stay open a touch longer for you, dear, but you’ll have to tell me what you’re after.”
“I—” The girl took a breath, all that precious teenage uncertainty coming to the fore. She could go in so many different directions, this girl. The world was at her feet, and she didn’t even know it. Oh, to be so young and blind again. At long last, she confessed, “I don’t know. I just know that I thought about it and being some pretty noblewoman just… it’s not me. And I know Halloween is about showing up as someone you aren’t, but I don’t know if I even want to try that on for size. Though, I mean, that’s stupid right? I mean, I like dresses and being pretty, but that’s not it, right? There’s more than that.”
“Much more,” Ethan encouraged. Though Janus help him if he had to endure much more than that small amount of teenage waffling. Had he ever been so uncertain? He felt somehow that he’d always known what he was meant for. “Perhaps, you need something that makes you feel powerful?”
The girl laughed wryly. “Oh, I’ve got power.”
“Do you, now?”
“Well, I mean like… doesn’t everyone have power? All women, I mean. Cause, um, women power.”
Ethan smiled at her, doing his best to not appear like the cat that spotted the canary. Gently, gently, he reminded himself. Oh so very gently. But now that she had mentioned it, he nearly swallowed his tongue at what he should have sensed right away. He’d known the Slayer was in Sunnydale. Known that because he’d known about Ripper’s assignment. So, here she was, the Slayer. Rupert’s charge. In his very sights.
A girl, yes, and a girl with power. Power, but no certainty. No force of knowledge in her bones that told her she had the right. A wavering commitment that was a far cry from conviction.
“Of course.” Ethan spread his hands. “I’m a feminist of old, my dear.”
“Right, because all the little endearments scream equality of the sexes,” she quipped.
Ethan laughed, in spite of himself. The girl did have a fire in her. But how to best channel that fire. A noblewoman would have been amusing, no doubt about it. The Slayer and her power boxed what this sixteen year old girl thought a noblewoman to be: weak, pretty, an adornment. Yet, he found himself oddly wanting to help the girl. In his own way, of course.
“Forgive an old queen his habits, then,” he retorted, putting a little more than his usual flair on display. The girl’s eyes widened, but then she shook her head.
“Okay, fine. What do you suggest, oh wise and sagely queen.”
“Actually, I think you have just given me an idea—I’m sorry, what was your name?”
“Buffy.”
“Buffy,” he repeated. She waited, as though she knew what he would say next. Disparage her name no doubt. He could, but he decided to not. He was about to unleash chaos on this town, and perhaps ensure Ripper took adequate notice of him, but he thought it might be the right kind of chaos to really unleash this girl. He held up one finger. “Stay a moment. I shall fetch something from the back, and then, I shall tell you a story about a very particular woman. You might, in fact, find some kinship with her.”
Green-grey eyes glittered. “Really?”
“Indeed, my dear Buffy, I think you will be fit to be crowned.”