Successor (BTVS)

[X] Cynthia tries to contact him directly with magic, either hers or another's (high difficulty)

"I just don't get why Buffy's so nice to her all the time!" Harmony sighed dramatically, leaning over the desk. "Or like, I guess I do, it's because she has a soul, but it sucks. Not the soul, duh. It's a cute soul. But she's being taken advantage of."

"People's relationships with their parents are often complicated." Cynthia flipped a page of the text she had out and continued skimming.

Even without the mind control, it was hard to see many of Joyce's parenting decisions in a favorable light. But instead of wanting to meddle with the relationship, she was now content to let Buffy work it out on her own. Harmony did not subscribe to that way of thinking.

"Mine aren't! First when I was human, Daddy would be nice and give me stuff and I was gonna have kids eventually and continue the Kendall line. We would both be happy. Now that I'm a vampire and with Buffy my side is sort of reworked into having the ear of city government, but still. It's kind of the same. It's not like one of us is all 'Grr argh' and the other is 'Yes please thank you may I have some more.'"

This was much the same discussion they'd had in the graveyard last night, rekindled when Buffy predictably tried to calm the growing rift between Harmony and her mother. Predictable, and ultimately inconsequential. Harmony would be well served blowing off more steam, and Cynthia could focus the majority of her attention on Necromancy, even while still manning City Hall's front desk. It was an efficient use of time.

Obscuring the reason for her new research topic had been far easier than she'd guessed. CyberWillow had simply taken it as a given that anyone would want to learn things, especially things that might possibly be of practical use. The vague curiosity of some of the others had been assuaged by Zoe's fortunately similar choice of specialization; Cynthia could simply claim to be perusing books in search of other spells that might be useful to the potential slayer.

But contacting Richard would hardly be as simple as cracking a few books. His confusing half-dead status made things worse, not better. There would be no invocation to cheat the costs and skill required, nor even a well researched spell or effect to work towards. Something would have to be created and cast fresh, and it was a daunting task. Her past duties had only ever required the meanest and smallest examples of actual magic, glorified trigger-pulling and bell-ringing. Even those simple spells had not been easy for her; she wasn't magically null, but neither was she one of the powerful prodigies that populated Willow's coven.

It was possible her unique background could provide further arcane advantages, but it did no such thing now, and she was hesitant to experiment. The-Library-That-Was-Her contained some books that referenced common magical effects, but no actual books of magic. Sure, she could add one or two or a dozen, but she had no way of knowing how dangerous it would be. Would any change in the library also change her core personality? Alter her memories again? Could it reactivate her compulsions? Was she still even connected to it at all, after her emergency adjustment to the crystal? Richard had not left helpful notes on his ritual for her to peruse.

"Cynthia, are you even listening?" Harmony broke through her musings, "If you turn into a bookworm too I'll have nowhere to turn!"

"Yes, I was just thinking," she replied, mentally rehashing what had been said before choosing a new line of inquiry. "I know you've always gotten along with your father, and Tracy has been very agreeable. But maybe his second wife could be a better example? Delilah?"

"Her real name was Sarah," Harmony snorted. "She just made that up and changed it to sound more dramatic."

"Despite your differences, you managed to share a house without killing, or to the best of my knowledge, even seriously injuring each other. How long was it for again?" Cynthia remembered from a conversation in August, but that wasn't the point.

"Nine years," Harmony sighed. "But that was different than it is with Joyce too. We always hated each other, but she was good at hiding it and I was a little kid. It was like, the same both ways, what's the word?"

"Symmetrical," Cynthia supplied.

"Eww, it's geometry?" Harmony scrunched up her face. "But yeah. We couldn't fight or anything, but we messed with each other. I'd gossip about her at school, she'd gossip about me at work. I stole her makeup, she burned my homework. I flushed her ring, she poisoned my cat."

Cynthia nodded sympathetically.

"But Joyce talks shit about Buffy, and Buffy doesn't go around trashing her. She kicked Buffy out of the house for a whole summer, and Buffy just lets her use all that stuff from the museums rent-free. She put Buffy in an asylum and had her drugged, and Buffy didn't even beat her up after!" She made a low growl and flashed yellow in her eyes. "It just makes me so mad!"

"I can see how that'd be difficult," Cynthia said. "But I don't believe Joyce's actions have truly gone unpunished. At least not in her own eyes."

"Like how?"

"There's a distance between them now," Cynthia continued. "Mayor Summers still talks to her, but she doesn't live with her. She sees her, in structured settings, but I can assure you her absence from the gallery opening was keenly felt. She still listens to her mother, but Joyce is starting to realize she does not respect her opinion, not anymore, and not for a long time. I'm sure it cuts her bitterly."

Cynthia wondered if the poor girl from 1988 still had a mother who worried about her, and had to crush the thought herself, with no compulsion to assist. This wasn't the time, and if there was yet to be one it wouldn't be soon.

"You're a good friend Cynthia," Harmony finally let herself slide down onto the desk, looking resigned. "But I still wish Buffy would beat her up a little bit. Even a couple little bruises, just to get that snark out of her tone."

Cynthia shrugged. "We can get some of what we want, some of the time."

Harmony rolled her head a little to look at the clock. "She's gonna be back from class soon! Help me touch up my makeup?"

Cynthia put her research to the side as they went through the familiar ritual. There was a setup with video cameras in place of mirrors that would've worked for her instead in the basement bathroom, but Cynthia didn't mind helping Harmony with little things like this. The slavish devotion to Buffy that had encouraged it before was gone, but the odd kinship between them remained. Even if it was in a form Harmony didn't suspect in the least.

She wistfully imagined talking to her about Richard. Harmony wasn't without her faults, but she was a fun gossip. Imagining her scandalized and then delighted commentary (in some alternate universe where it didn't call all her loyalties into question) put a little smile on her face.

Just a few minutes later, Harmony perked up excitedly, and Cynthia turned her attention to the door as well. About ten seconds later, Buffy came striding through, looking much more relaxed than she had the previous night.

"Honey, I'm home! Or should that be honey, I'm work?" Buffy said, emerging from the foyer.

Harmony rushed over to her with a kiss and a grope and a little more besides. Seeing the young mayor happy had only given Cynthia a rush of satisfaction before, but now she found herself more envious than anything. Harmony had realized her dream, and thus was a luckier girl than she was. For now.

"How'd you do on the midterm?" Harmony asked. "Was it bad?"

"Nope," Buffy responded. "I totally slayed it. And look why! The man of the hour: I got CyberWillow to help me pick him up from lunch." she waved her hand to introduce Ian, who was only now coming in from behind her. His steps were a little woozy; the no doubt death-defying motorbike ride had likely disagreed with him.

"It was nothing," Ian was gracious as he steadied himself against the wall. "You were the one that took the test."

"A test I would've definitely flunked yesterday," she said. "You saved my bacon and I won't hear anything different!"

"Mayor Summers," CyberWillow's voice intoned from the radio. "I'm sorry to interrupt, But Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and Warren Mears are awaiting you in the conference room."

"Already?" She asked herself, then looked at the clock and rolled her eyes. "Duh, already. What was this again?"

"They've rekindled the discussions on commissioning a non-standard tactical vehicle for SDCW use. There are a number of proposals outlined."

"I'd better get there fast before they combine them all into a megazord or something. Thanks again Ian!" Buffy jogged up the stairs.

"I like guns! And cars! I wanna come see!" Harmony followed her, leaving Cynthia alone with Ian.

"Are you quite alright?" She asked him. "There's some Dramamine in the medicine cabinet, I could fetch it for you."

"No, no, I'm allergic," he said hastily. "I'll be fine in a few minutes."

She nodded, considering. "You don't normally go out to lunch. Especially this late in the day."

He looked back and forth, guiltily. "I was a little afraid to be here when she got back. You know, just in case."

She doubted that Buffy would've taken out a poor performance on Ian, but he was already the type to worry, and that was a habit Sunnydale reinforced regularly. "She seems to be coming on well though, yes?"

"At least she's enthusiastic," he said.

It would've been easy to leave things there, and yesterday, she would've. But there was a new question on the tip of her tongue now, one only Ian could answer. It'd be a risk to ask, but it was a small one, in the whole of things. And she found herself terribly curious.

"I was thinking today," she tried to seem casual, and the emotion felt like an ill-fitting dress. "You're the only one who's been here longer than me, now."

"I'm not sure that says anything good about me," he sighed. It was typical of him to turn a non sequitur like that around on himself, but at least it kept him from being suspicious.

"I'd wondered who had my job before," she said. "Not as office manager, I know that was vacant for some time before I was promoted. Just the secretarial work."

"Oh, let me think, I was pretty new then too. Maybe it was Doris? I didn't know her for long before she was gone."

"Sunnydale?" Cynthia asked.

"Well, I never knew for sure, but she didn't give two weeks notice," he said.

"What was she like?"

"Always in early, out late," he said. "A little intense, really knew her stuff. Sort of like you? I guess it would fit if Mayor Wilkins was picky about his secretaries. Was there some big hiring process you went through?"

"You could say that," she answered. "Thank you for assuaging my curiosity."

"Of course," he looked a little nonplussed, but Ian wasn't one to ask many questions.

She had a lot to think about.

Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: With CyberWillow now acting as a counterweight to the threat posed by Adam, Buffy and the gang feel confident they can try something ambitious without being stabbed in the back while they're busy. What's the big plan?

[] Congressman Gold has successfully planted Willow's server at the Pentagon, and they've decided their next move is to go over Maggie's head and force her bosses to come to the table. But to make the Feds really listen to a city government they'll need to talk from a serious position of strength, after taking temporary control of all the computers in the building. They'll probably understand you did it for the right reasons.

[] The Rat King has been hard at work destabilizing Owl civilization for weeks now, and Andrew and Anya think they have a suitable candidate to run a puppet government. It'll only take one hard blow to collect tons of loot and effectively vassalize them, but Giles is wary of overextending your reach so deeply into interdimensional politics.

[] Knowledge of the spy on the SDCW has been frustrating Xander to no end, and CyberWillow's usual surveillance has come up with nothing. Willow has some new spells ready though, and thinks that by redoubling those efforts and doing a deep dive on everyone's history, she'll be able to finally catch them out. Some of the measures might be a little extreme, but you can't put too high a price on safety, right?