Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all recognisable indicia are copyright Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and others. No profit is made from this story.

Timeline: Post-Chosen. Will eventually join up with Angel season 5. Season 8 will not happen, but references to some of the events in it are made once in a while.

Story will eventually be wholly B/A, but there's tons of friendly Spuffy interaction until then!

Prosopopoeia – A Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic.

Part One

Chapter One

"Mission successful?" Buffy called, leaning over the upstairs railing, focused on the front door as Kennedy and two of the other new Slayers traipsed in the door, closely followed by Willow (who practically floated. There was no traipsing for Willow.)

"Buffy, please, there's really no need to shout across the house."

Giles, calling from the nearest room—the library—and demonstrating about as much shouting as she was. It was his house, though. A temporary place for them to stay while everything was set up for them to take over the castle in Scotland. They'd be moving, and soon—within the month, actually—and Buffy knew Giles was far more relieved about that than he was letting on. She couldn't really blame him. The place was absolutely overrun with Slayers.

Walking over to the library door, she poked her head in and smiled. "Oops. Right. Will try to communicate with people only directly face-to-face from now on."

"Yes, well, perhaps we should see what it is they've brought back." There was a hint of amusement in the tired lines of his face, though he didn't otherwise acknowledge the militant tone of her comment.

She turned and led the way down the stairs. The two girls who had accompanied Kennedy and Willow had disappeared, probably gone to fight over the shower, but both witch and Slayer still stood in the hall, Willow just closing the hall closet after hanging up her coat.

"So, what've you got for me?"

Buffy ignored the dark look Kennedy sent her, too used to the other girl's attitude to take any offence to it. She was willing to acknowledge that she was acting the general. She was also more than willing to argue that she had to do it, because no one else could. This fight had been hashed out months ago, even before they'd taken down the First. It didn't need to be revisited again—though that didn't mean it wasn't, and often.

Willow held up an amulet, the round object dangling from a chain wrapped twice around her hand.

"Oooh, pretty," Buffy murmured. She leaned toward it, appreciating the work that had gone into the thing. The setting was simple, white gold with an unobtrusive bezel to showcase the large, blue diamond amulet. As she leaned closer, she could just make out small shapes engraved in the face of the stone.

"It's pretty, yeah," Willow said. "But I think someone steered us way wrong on this one, Buffy. I can't feel any magic coming off of it at all. It didn't do anything when I touched it either." She jangled it as she spoke.

"Kennedy, did you try wearing it?" Giles asked. Buffy looked at him askance, and Giles raised his shoulders slightly in a shrug. "From what I've read on the Kostheshr Hekmon, it's meant to be worn by a Slayer."

"Well, not this one," Kennedy said. "Didn't do anything when I touched it."

"If it really is supposed to be worn by a Slayer, it's probably not just any Slayer that it's meant for. Right?" Willow asked. She looking at Giles, directing the question at him, but her eyes flickered to Buffy a couple of times as she spoke.

"Yes, well," Giles began, removing his glasses and rubbing one of the lenses on his shirt as he spoke. He replaced them on his nose, reaching out to take the amulet from Willow. "May I?"

"Oh, yeah, of course." She dropped it in his hand and Giles raised the chain so the amulet was dangling in front of his face.

"It is a very interesting artefact… You really sense nothing at all from it, Willow?"

"Not a thing, which is weird. I mean, Slayers aren't really magical so much, so maybe if it's meant only for a Slayer I wouldn't, but if that's really the amulet we were looking for, it's supposed to be this really powerful, really famously mystical object. I'd thought it would be a bit more… I don't know, magic-y."

Kennedy touched her shoulder. "Maybe the sources were wrong and we have the wrong thing. Maybe it's just some random piece of really priceless jewellery. How much does a blue diamond fetch?"

"We're not selling it," Buffy replied. "Can I try, Giles?" She extended her hand, reaching for it.

Giles jerked it backward, surprising her. "I really think we should do more research before any other Slayers put it on. Especially before you do, Buffy."

Kennedy rolled her eyes, but Buffy could only give him an exasperated half smile. "Giles. If it's really only meant for one Slayer, what're the chances that I'm her?"

"A great deal higher than you are pretending."

"Come on, Giles. Okay, let's say I am the Slayer it's meant for. That'd be good anyway, right?"

"The sources are very vague concerning what the Hekmon is meant for, Buffy. There is no guarantee it is meant to be beneficial to the bearer."

Not really getting this, but starting to figure out that she hadn't been sent out to retrieve the object with Willow for a reason, Buffy stood back and crossed her arms.

"Okay, what's with the overprotective Watcher act? Did you come across something you're not telling me?"

Giles looked relieved to find her coming around, even while still being defensive about it.

"It's more the lack of anything, and…" he trailed off and looked up, Buffy following his gaze. They were attracting an audience, curious Slayers poking their heads out of doorways, hanging over the upstairs railing, and starting to gather just down the hallway, near the entrance to the kitchen. "Shall we continue this conversation somewhere more private?"

Buffy nodded shortly. "Library," she said, following Giles as he made his way back upstairs, Willow and Kennedy trailing her.

Giles closed the library door once they had all entered and he'd done a sweep to make sure none of the girls were lurking in any corners. He took an armchair close to the fire as she leaned back against the door. Willow and Kennedy were already seated in the twin chair near his, Kennedy perched on the arm while Willow sat in the chair proper.

"So, what's this about finding nothing?" Buffy asked. She couldn't even see the amulet now. Giles had put it in the pocket of his blazer as they'd made their way through the house.

"It's just as I said. There's a strange lack of truly dated references to the ancient sources on the subject. It's as though the amulet and all of the material on it merely appeared one day."

Buffy crossed her arms again. "I don't know if I'm really following this, Giles. There are old sources on this thing… but… what?" She looked at Willow, who seemed to be trying to work it out as well.

"But… oh!" A light lit in Willow's eyes. "You're saying that, even though there's writing directly about the amulet, there's nothing, no colophons or anything that refer to it other than sources directly about it." Giles nodded, and Willow frowned. "That is weird."

"Isn't it possible that only a few people knew about it, so that's all we have?" Kennedy asked.

"Sure, sweetie," Willow said. "But the documents themselves should have been recorded, since they were probably in some great library somewhere or something at one point. And if they don't exist on lists anywhere, it's kinda strange."

Buffy rubbed at her eyes. "So you're suspicious because some ancient people had bad cataloguing skills? Giles, your librarian is showing."

"It isn't just the catalogues, Buffy. There is literally nothing I can find on this amulet outside of documentation entirely dedicated to it. It's as though it and all of its history simply appeared one day."

"But how's that possible?" Kennedy asked.

"I… am afraid I simply don't know. I'm worried it's a trap, though. A new enemy, perhaps."

"And you think they might be after me."

"I believe it is a distinct possibility, Buffy. How else could we be lucky enough to be in the area of the Hekmon's location when we stumbled across it in the books?"

"Giles might have a point. Weirder things have happened," Willow said, meeting Buffy's eyes.

"On a Hellmouth," she pointed out. "Is there anything in what you have that says just touching this thing might put me in danger?"

Giles hesitated, and then shook his head.

"Then I might as well try putting it on, right? Okay, so we don't know much about it, but—"

"I think it's an unnecessary risk, Buffy." Giles interrupted.

"Kennedy wore it, nothing happened to her."

Giles hesitated again, looking at the couple in the chair near him, and it dawned on Buffy that sending Kennedy out instead of her may have been an experiment of some sort—to see whether the amulet would react to any Slayer, and to see if the consequences of that would be anything tragic. She kept the thought to herself. If it hadn't crossed Kennedy and Willow's minds, she wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

"I realise you think I'm being unnecessarily cautious, Buffy, but—" he'd removed his glasses and was rubbing at the corner of his eye.

"But you're sure there's more to the amulet than you've discovered and want to find out more."

Giles replaced his glasses. "I'd thought I might look in other sources, now that I know for certain what the amulet looks like."

"Research. I can help!" Buffy said, only a moment later wondering if there had been a bit too much enthusiasm in her offer. The sceptical look Giles sent her confirmed it.

"Maybe it couldn't hurt, Giles. If the amulet's meant for Buffy, then we could learn a lot more about it by her touching it. And if it's not, then we'll have gotten past that, anyway," Willow said.

Giles' hand went to his pocket. "And if it does something harmful to Buffy? What then, Willow?"

"Hellooo? Not-deaf-Buffy standing right here. So we don't have a lot of info on this Cost-head Heckler thing—"

"Kostheshr Hekmon."

"—yeah, that. There's also nothing saying it's evil, right?"

"Everything points to the opposite, actually, that it's a tool for our side," Giles affirmed. He'd half taken the amulet from his pocket by this time, and Buffy could see the silver-y colour of the white gold chain hanging across his hand. "The writing on the diamond would probably tell us more, but I'm afraid it's in a language I've never encountered before."

Buffy held out a hand. "Gimme."

Giles sighed, but extended the amulet toward her. Buffy snatched it from his hand before he could withdraw it again. She ran her fingers over the face of the diamond, feeling the weight of the amulet in her hand.

"Look, see? Nothing to be worried about." Slipping one finger into the chain, she twirled the amulet around, letting the chain fall down around her wrist as she caught the amulet in her hand. Her eyes widened at the warmth of the stone in her hand, the sudden increase in its weight, and she let out a quick breath.

"Oh, this can't be good," she muttered, vertigo filling her and sending her toppling to one side. Dimly, she heard a chorus of her name, but it was way too far away considering how small Giles' library was, and how loud they had to be shouting.

So it came as very little surprise to her when Buffy landed hard on her side on a stone floor instead of on the library rug. She'd been falling far too long for the amulet to have not dragged her into some other dimension.

"Great," she muttered. "Sure, Buffy. Way to prove that not everyone is out to get you."