Story Notes: Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

"Why have you come, Eternal One?" whispered the wind through the cool darkness of the rocky cave.

The being originally known as Buffy Anne Summers answered "lifetimes have passed."

"You are the last," the wind replied. "Or perhaps the first."

"I am the only."

"Lazarus remains," swirled on the chilled air.

"He sleeps and dreams of better times," she replied. "He has embraced the Well."

"Yet you remain? We are sorry, Eternal One, but you know we cannot help. We are but a memory. A whisper of the blessed past."

The Eternal One dropped gracefully to the cavern floor. She crossed her legs and rested her hands on her knees. She breathed deeply as she tried to gather her thoughts. A human mind could only hold so many thoughts and an eternity of lifetimes had overwritten so many times that she wasn't even sure what she was hoping to do by coming here. She was empty. Humanity was gone yet her curse remained.

"I seek a fold. A flicker really. I remember bits and pieces. Time before. I existed before the curse. I believe I could find my way through a fold to a time before eternity."

"You seek to shatter time? To end the world before you begin?"

The Eternal One shook her head. Destruction of the world was not her intention. She was not the Immortal. She would not seek to break humanity as Lazarus had in an ill-fated attempt to end his own existence. She wished only to find release for herself. The being rolled her head and closed her eyes. She hummed softly as she sorted through the forgotten pathways in her mind. As she had discovered hundreds of years ago when she found this hidden retreat, it was easier to think in this ancient place. The Eternal One did not remember why or how the cavern was created but she did remember that she had been coming here since before the last vampire dusted and before the fall of the last Hellmouth.

"Ratty-somethings... demons from another dimension. They hold the power of time. Distort and bend in our reality with their presence."

"Ugh, won't work. How would I get to their dimension in the first place. Did I ever know how to open a portal between worlds?"

The Eternal One scrunched up her face as she tried to capture the elusive thought. It was useless. All that remained was the image of green swirls and a strange bit of melancholy. The thought was gone and frustrating in its absence. The cursed female shoved away just one bit of pain in an existence overfilled with the same. She refocused on her purpose.

"Hmm... pods in the sky... flying ships... Ly... Ly... Lyterius... they claimed the engines of their ships moved through time as well as space to allow travel to distant planets in their shortened lifetimes."

The Eternal One sighed as she remembered that the Lyterius had become ill from a simple virus found on the Earth and banned the planet from travel in hopes of stopping the spread of the disease. Unfortunately, they were too late and the sickness swept through the entire alien species. They were now believed to be extinct.

"Oracles? Do they even exist any longer or did the turok hun kill them too? Can they even die or did they withdraw to the Powers? Useless Powers of a forgotten race," the human grumbled.

The immortal being shifted until she was laying on her back and staring at the tiny sparkles in rock ceiling. The lights twinkled much like the stars outside. She smiled and enjoyed the moment of peace before moving onto other thoughts. More possibilities flowed in and out of her mind. Each was considered and discarded as impossible or impractical. Suddenly, the Eternal One sat up.

"Shades and Shadows. Do the Q'narkian still hold the Circle?"

If she was remembering properly, the small demon race still practiced some forms of magic. In a world where magic died just as easily as races and cultures, few beings still possessed the ability to bend the Earth's energies to their own purposes. Perhaps they would have a way to access a temporal fold. She vaguely remembered that the race had not been able to lift her curse but perhaps this new idea would find fruit in their abilities.

The Eternal One smiled. She held fond memories of Q'narkians. They were not one of the more humanoid of creatures and their presence made her skin blister and her organs fail if she spent too much time in close proximity. She believed it was due to the radioactive elements they consumed as part of their diet. The damage from the exposures was one of her more painful physical experiences of the last millennium. Despite the hurt they caused her body, something about the Q'narkians filled her with such mental and emotional peace. Much like this cavern, there was something about the demon species that appealed to her. She could not remember why. They just made her feel happy. The associated memory may have been forgotten but the feeling still remained.

With the kernel of a plan germinating in her mind, the Eternal One stood. She wiped any dirt and debris from her pants and headed towards the entrance. Before she left the shelter of the mystical cavern, the immortal woman turned and bowed. She offered her thanks to those who went before for their sacrifice. It was a small courtesy but the cursed immortal feared the loss of the connection to this place. She would do all that she could to maintain this last memory of mankind.

With a grace that attested to her familiarity with the rugged trail from the cave to the forest floor, the Eternal One slipped down to her scoot. Her vehicle was old and battered but it still functioned. The hover-cycle worked from a combination of magic and technology. She feared the point with it stopped working because the Kistel who created it had been dead for over a century. He was yet another member of a race now extinct from the planet. Human, demon, animal, alien. They all came and went with a never ending passage of time. It was an unending dance to which the Eternal One's only partner was a cursed human who was just as lost as she and to whom she despised just slightly more than she yearned. Besides herself, he was all that remained of humanity and like herself, he too now lacked the same humanity that called to her.

These thoughts were an often repeated pattern and so the cursed woman thrust them aside to concentrate on her newest endeavor. She nurtured the tiny spark of hope even though she doubted it would last long enough to catch flame. None of her ideas ever did seem to grow to fruition when it came to escaping.

It took her a few minutes to recall how to program the navigator system so that it would direct her to the Circle. The tiny crystal began to glow and the eternal being flipped her right leg over the often patched seat and grabbed the scarf that she used to cover her face while riding. Placing her protective eye-wear and the material in place, she kicked the ignition. The scoot rose about two feet off the thick vegetation on the ground and then streaked forward.

Flashes of pleasure coursed through her body as the wind rushed past her body. Speed and battle still gave her a feeling of freedom and rightness that she was unable to find anywhere else. She would lose herself in the movement of her body or the burn of her muscles. Adrenaline surged and she laughed at the release. The navigator and autopilot system allowed for even greater speeds than even her enhanced reflexes allowed. The immortal very rarely utilized the autopilot and overdrive on the scoot though because she worried about burning out the engine. Unfortunately, she had little choice but to engage it for the trip to the Circle because even with the added speed and navigation assistance, it would take almost five hours to reach her destination.

Despite the eternity that stretched before her, the cursed woman possessed an impatience that had only gotten worse as she aged. As the opportunity for new experiences diminished, the excitement and anticipation for even the slightest bit of change was reason for celebration. This trip held the promise of an escape from the unending monotony of life. She could barely contain herself. Her thoughts were bouncing in rapid succession and her body buzzed. The Eternal One embraced the moment of joy and reveled in it.

Dusk had fallen by the time the immortal woman reached the large crater known as the Circle. She coasted to a stop and settled the scoot onto an outcropping near the giant crater. Time had washed out the huge depression with water and wind clearing the debris from another lifetime. The Eternal One hated the Circle. As expected, the desire to cry crept up on her. The Circle was a place of pain and loss no matter how many lifetimes passed. This remained no matter what memories she built; the pang in her heart always stayed. It was the beginning point. The Eternal One found it ironic that her salvation might be found at what she considered the heart of the problem.

The woman crept carefully down the edge of the crater and approached one of the metal and stone towers that surrounded the lake deep in the center of the Circle. She called out a series of clicks that denoted a friendly greeting in the Q'narkian's native language. Whenever possible, the Eternal One tried to speak to indigenous species in their native tongues. If she knew how, she used the communication to help maintain the skills of so many lives. In some instances, the languages in her head were the only thing that remained of some species.

An answering pattern of clicks echoed across the water. Baring her teeth and growling to show she held no hidden malice for the small, creeping being that exited its tower, the Eternal One waited patiently for the somewhat timid creature to approach her.

The Q'narkian were vaguely bird-like in appearance although instead of feathers they sported a rich, curling fur of the palest white. They had long tentacles to replace wings and their over-sized eyes were a brilliant blue as opposed to the black bead of a bird's eye. The clicking sounds emanating from the Q'narkian's beak were sharper and clearer than the popping and snapping that the cursed woman was able to produce with her teeth and tongue but they were similar enough to convey her sentiments. The small creature appeared honored that she chose to visit them. Even in species far removed from humanity, the Eternal One was a thing of legend.

The furry being approached and raised one of its leathery appendages towards the cursed woman. The tentacle rested for a moment against her face between her eyes and above her nose. Vivid images passed between the two beings as the Q'narkian utilized its primary form of communication to discover the reason for the visit. The human offered no resistance to the mental invasion and held still despite the slow peeling of her skin and dimming of her vision from the close contact. Her nose started to bleed and she began to feel tired. Waves of dizziness washed over her body and she shook slightly as the radiation began to effect her entire system.

The Q'narkian tapped her face affectionately one last time then withdrew its appendage. It wandered back into its home as the Eternal One staggered away from the tower. From their telepathic exchange, the immortal woman knew that it might have a spell to help her and that it would be prepared for her if she returned in a full moon cycle. The spell invoked both a temporal fold as well as a melding of mind, body and spirit. It was an elaborate endeavor and the telepathic being was excited at the chance to perform something from its dying art.

The cursed woman made it half way up the wall of the crater before the vomiting and violent shaking began. Moaning in agony, the Eternal One forced her body to crawl the remainder of the way in the darkness. When she reached her destination, she lay for a while as her body fought off the affects of the radiation exposure. She snorted at her desperation. Her vision was reduced to only faded shadows and her short, white hair started to fall from her body in clumps as sores raised across her skin.

"Bloody hell," she cried in the dead language of her original lifetime. She finally made it to her scoot and fumbled through the activation of navigation and autopilot. Fearing that she might lose consciousness before reaching her home, the Eternal One utilized the material she normally wrapped around her face as a restraint and tied herself onto the seat of the scoot. She didn't even bother with her protective eye gear. Nothing she hit could cause her as much damage as the exposure already had. Closing her eyes and resting her head on the control handles, the woman engaged the hover vehicle and whispered a sure to be ignored prayer to the disconnected Power that had once held sway in humanity's evolution. She kicked the scoot into gear and headed for home. She made it half way before she passed out.

As the sun was rising, the Eternal One pulled herself from the slumped position on the back of her hovercraft. The automatic door that protected the interior of her home slid closed behind her. She stumbled from the small utility area where she normally parked her scoot and made it into the comfort of her living area before losing consciousness once again.

Just shy of a month later, the Eternal One returned returned to the Circle. She had once more recovered fully from the exposure sickness but she was not looking forward to experiencing it again. The agony would be worth it though if the Q'narkian spell attempts worked. Although she started down the side of the crater, she paused in her descent when clicking stilled her movement. The excited Q'narkian scurried towards her hauling a large basket on its back. It motioned her back towards the level ground outside the Circle. She then followed the furry being to a large area that it had prepared for the ritual.

The Q'narkian reached out and touched the Eternal One for just a moment to convey the information it needed to explain about the spell. In turn, the cursed woman offered profound thanks both mentally and with a simple click of her teeth. The furry being waved her into the center of the intricately assembled pattern of repeating triangles and circles. The human knelt in the very center of the configuration while the spell-caster withdrew all the supplies it would need from the basket. Herbs, symbols scrolled within twisted metal pieces, crystals and a bone knife were laid on the ground.

With a flick of its tentacle, the Q'narkian tossed the dagger towards the cursed human. While it prepared the rest of the elements, the Eternal One sliced the dagger deeply across her hand before burying the blood covered weapon to the hilt into the earth between her knees. The human shifted and wrapped her injured hand around the bone hilt. Her blood flowed from the self-inflicted injury and onto the earth. She rested back on her heels and watched as the spell caster finished. She closed her eyes as the furry creature began to call and click in its native language with an almost melodic chant. She shivered. Her heart beat in time with the cadence of the spell and it felt like her blood pulsed not only in her veins but in the very earth itself.

For the first time in her recent memory, a churning apprehension erupted in the cursed human's chest. She barely remembered the feeling enough to properly identify it. It wasn't a fleeting pleasure, a momentary pain, a gripping sadness, a clawing rage, or even her almost all consuming apathy. This was new or, more precisely, old. As the magic collected around her and grasped at the very heart of her being, the Eternal One felt a frisson of fear.

"What have I done?" she mourned as the spell gobbled her life like a starving beast.

Waves of dizziness, more aggressive than the ones being near the Q'narkian caused, assaulted her body. Her shivers turned to seizures. The Eternal One collapsed. She lay on the ground as she shook. With each convulsion, she faded back and forth from view. The chanting continued as the shifting increased in frequency. The ritual reached its peak. The earth shuddered beneath the cursed woman then all fell silent.

"Good luck," the Q'narkian chirped into the now empty space beside the abandoned bone dagger.

Across an eternity of time but surprising very little space, the Eternal One felt her being brush against the tingling power of an alien presence. It pushed and prodded at her mental image of self as her body shrunk and expanded from a dense bit of cells to an infinite seeming scattering of essence. She pulsed and the alien presence fought against her arrival. It shoved and fought with a singular purpose though it felt like there was more than one consciousness behind the power. It rumbled in her brain and scratched at her body. Spirit, heart, mind and hand fought her coming but could not stand before the onslaught of the Eternal One's power or the subtle onslaught of the Q'narkian spell. It crumbled before her as she felt her expanded self contract into the containment of a shell that welcomed her home with open arms. Two minds, two bodies, two souls entwined then merged into itself.

She felt the gentle touch of a warm, soft hand touch her chin. Her eyes closed as the Eternal One, now joined and housed in her former self, collapsed into the arms of someone else. The spell was over and she was whole once more. For better or for worse, she was home.