Meeting the honoured ancestors - 2

Meeting the honoured ancestors – 2

Disclaimer: See previous chapters.

“Where... where am I?” Willow wondered, as she wandered (pun intended) through the twisting roadways surrounded by darkness. “Hello? Is there anybody nice around?”

“There’s me” – a winged serpent-dragon landed before Willow. “Can I quality as nice?”

“Err,” Willow said, feeling rather uncertain of her situation, “I’m not so sure. Who are you? Not my ancestor, I believe.”

“No,” the serpent-dragon admitted, continuing to look up and down Willow’s person, “I’m not. I know the one you seek, though, and will bring you there.”

“Why?” Willow asked, clearly not trusting her new and sudden friend.

“Because she has asked me to.”

With these words the serpent-dragon sprung.

* * *

“Eeeee!” Willow’s reaction to being carried (in rather constrictive coils, too) through the otherworldly gloom had been rather shrill, if not particularly perceptive, but then again, Willow wasn’t particularly used to such sort of excitement leaving it to others, keeping the watch back at base. The not-so-long-ago misadventure with Angelus’s vampires, when she had to be hospitalized for a while had just reinforced her conviction, and now-

Now she was released, rather unceremoniously (but she didn’t mind) at the doorsteps of a rather temple-like building, and was being greeted – by a woman. A woman that was more lean and angular than her, perhaps swarthier, but with the same bright red hair that was the trademark of Rosenberg hair, though with different eyes: Willow’s cat-like, green eyes had come from Sheila’s side of the family, instead.

“So, uh, you’re my honoured ancestor?” Willow muttered, feeling rather mortified. “Eh, sorry about the undignified arrival?”

“That is all right,” the woman replied, smiling not unkindly in the firelight, “when I was your age, I had worse. It takes time and practice to gain experience in this sort of thing, too.”

“And what other sorts of things we will be talking about, first?” Willow asked in an uncertain tone of voice.

And her ancestor smiled, even wider than before. “Now that is a right sort of question, child,” she said in the same tone of voice. “Please, follow me.”

TBC