Sword and Stake Home Gen/Ensemble Page Shippy (M/F) Page Slash (M/M) Page Short Stories Page
Snakes on a Plane Chapter 1 2 3 4 6 7 8
by spikeNdru
Written for the Snakes on a Plane Challenge. Any fandom, anything goes, as long as there are snakes on a plane somewhere in the story.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Genfic, Action/Adventure
Story takes place in the Wishverse
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter Five
Buffy decided that she'd had enough of enclosed spaces the previous day—today she gravitated toward light and air. She climbed to the top of her pyramid and looked out at the other mounds spread out before her. The original mound she'd landed on and the one she now called home were the largest, and were in a direct line to each other. She figured they were probably the ceremonial pyramids, and turned her attention to the others. She wondered what their purpose had been when this city was alive and thriving.Were they peoples' homes? Stores? Did they even have stores selling clothes and groceries and stuff back then, or did everybody make their own clothes and grow their own food? That seemed like a lot of wasted effort to Buffy. If you were good at making clothes or something, shouldn't that be, like, your job? And then you could sell the clothes you made or trade them to somebody who was good at growing things.
What did these people eat? She had a vague memory of squash and corn and beans—or maybe that was the Pilgrims? Did they have Pilgrims here? She didn't think so. Here they had conquistadors and priests, right? And the people thought the conquistadors were gods because . . . because they had weird red and blond hair and guns and rode horses? Something like that.
Buffy's hands curled into fists and she dug her nails into her palms in frustration. Why didn't she know? Why didn't she pay attention in school when they were learning these things? Did they even study this stuff at school? Se tried to remember, but the only recollection she could bring to mind was something about the Chumash Indians. The conquistadors brought diseases with them to which the Chumash had no resistance and a lot of them died. And wasn't there something about the priests trying to convert them and if the Chumash refused, they were hanged or had their ears cut off or something?
Buffy wondered if something like that had happened to the people here. She felt sad when she thought about it. Why didn't their gods protect them and just throw these conquistadors' asses out? This place belonged to the people that built it—not to some greedy conquistadors that just marched in here like they owned the whole fucking world! What gave them the right to steal from and murder people who were just trying to live and mind their own business, because the invaders decided they wanted someone else's land and gold? If it happened to the Chumash, it could have happened here, too. And why didn't these people have policemen or sheriffs or somebody that could arrest the conquistadors for stealing and murder and throw their asses in jail? There couldn't have been that many of them if they had to come by ship.
There was nothing bipartisan about Buffy's thoughts. She was firmly on the side of the builders of this place. But why didn't she know anything about them? The council owned about a million books, didn't they? Couldn't they have lent her some on the people and the area to which they were sending her? Well, when she got home, she was damn well gonna look stuff up on her own! So there!
The Council had no problem sending her here to risk her life, but they didn't think she needed to know anything about this area? Or maybe they just figured she was too stupid to learn, because she'd never finished high school? Mrs. Post had gotten her out of the nuthouse and taken her to Cleveland and put her right to work. Nobody had even suggested she finish school in Cleveland. Well, fuck that shit! If she wanted to learn about stuff, she would. She'd do it on her own, if the Council wouldn't help!
She was here now, and the Council wasn't. They didn't know a damn thing about this city—but she could learn. She could explore and discover things the Council had no idea existed. Buffy's lips curved into a triumphant grin. Enough sunlight and fresh air—she was going to explore.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Buffy raided her store of MREs for Graham crackers, Cheerios and dried fruit—easily portable snacks. She slid her bullwhip through her belt and slipped the Beretta into one of her pockets before taking the above ground route to the cenote for water. She filled her water bag and then climbed back up to her campsite. Little tingles of excitement coursed through her at the thought of exploring.She buttoned extra batteries for her mag light into a pocket, and then added a few of the large wooden matches as back-up. She didn't want to take too many, as she had no idea how to start her campfire without them. She vaguely remembered something about flint, or rubbing two sticks together, but to her knowledge, she didn't have any flint, and the deadfall wood she'd scavenged for her fire didn't look too promising for rubbing together.
Buffy checked her supplies a second time, then repositioned her 'bathtub'. She took a deep breath and exhaled as she backed up to the edge of the fire pit. Her hazel eyes were sparkling with excitement. She took another deep breath, ran several steps and leapt. Her fingers caught and curled over the edge of her pizza-box door and she hoisted herself up and onto the narrow stairs.
Let the adventures begin!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Buffy crept down the narrow steps feet first, fingers and toes clinging to the edges. She carefully made her way down, feeling with the toe of her left foot for the next ledge before balancing her weight on it. She then placed her right foot, dropped her right arm to her side until she had a firm grip on another ledge level with her waist and arched her back as she trailed her left hand down the steps until it found the same stair her right hand was gripping. Then she began the sequence all over again with her left foot.Buffy had seen a nature program that featured an inchworm when she was a child, and she remembered practicing for several days in an attempt to achieve that distinctive movement. All that practice was coming in handy now, Buffy thought, as she continued her inchwormy movements down the stairs.
At least it's easier to breathe, Buffy thought. Although the jungle air that entered the pyramid through the two holes she'd inadvertently made was hot and humid, it was better than hot and musty, she decided. And the really bad stairs come first today. By the time I'm ready to go back, it'll probably be evening and a little cooler.
Buffy reached the first landing without incident. She pushed herself to her feet and stood on the small block of stone in front of the door she hadn't tried yesterday. There had been enough ambient light filtered through the two 'doors' of her campsite that she could make her way down the first set of stairs without her mag light. Those stairs were mostly navigated by touch, rather than sight, anyway.
Buffy now leaned her back against the outer wall, slipped her mag light out of her pocket and turned it on. She frowned in concentration as she studied the door in front of her. The symbols carved into this door were much different than the ones she'd solved yesterday. These were more like pictographs, while the others were more like a series of numbers. Buffy had a brief flash of insight, and her jaw dropped as her mouth formed a breathy oh! of understanding.
The number codes on the stairs are sort of like elevator buttons, taking you to different floors. The picture symbols, that I'm pretty sure lead to actual rooms, are like the figure with the skirt that tells you it's the girls' bathroom and the one with the pants for the guys' bathroom. Which is really kind of stupid, when you think about it, because pretty much everyone wears pants now. But, even if you're wearing pants, you just know you're supposed to go in the bathroom with skirt-girl on the door. Unless there's a really long line . . .
Buffy studied the carvings on the door.
Okay. There's a bunch of warrior-looking guys and a guy with a bird-head. Maybe it's a mask? And . . . a boat? Maybe a boat. And—uh oh!—a skull and crossbones? Oh, please tell me that means the boat's a pirate ship!
It took Buffy less than fifteen minutes to figure out the door code. Damn, I'm gettin' good at this! She slipped through the door and shone her light around the room. Okay. Not a pirate ship. I sort of figured not.
Niches built into the walls each contained a set of crossed leg bones with a skull resting on top. I wonder if this is where the Caribbean pirates got the idea? It should have been creepy, but somehow wasn't. These bones didn't have the appearance of sacrificial victims; they appeared to be honored dead.
Warriors that died in defense of their city, maybe? I wonder where the rest of their bones are? On second thought, I don't think I really want to know. Maybe there wasn't room here for the whole skeleton—those ledges look pretty small. The rest of them are probably buried wherever they put the regular people, I guess. I wonder if the Council has some kind of Warriors' hall for dead slayers, so they'll be honored and remembered? Nah. Probably not. One dies, another's called. I guess we're sorta interchangeable—like car parts. But it's nice that these people got some respect for dying in the line of duty, 'cause I'm pretty sure I'm right about the purpose of this room.
Buffy carefully moved around the room, glancing at the niches. She stopped before one and looked closer. The skull and femurs were slightly smaller than the others. It might have been a young boy, or . . .
Buffy reached out slowly until her fingertips touched the skull. She closed her eyes and saw a young girl with long dark hair that flowed down her back. A band of what looked like woven bird feathers was tied around her forehead to hold her hair in place and out of her eyes. She wore bracelets wrapped around her arms that resembled snakes. No, they were snakes, Buffy decided as she saw one move sluggishly. The girl carried a wooden spear-like weapon, pointed on one end like a stake and with a long, shiny black spearhead on the other end.
A middle-aged man came into view. He led the girl through the jungle until they came to a stele—a heavily carved pillar of rock similar to the one Buffy had used to anchor the rope to lower her water bucket into the well, only much bigger. Buffy's was maybe two feet tall and six inches wide. This one was at least seven feet tall and three feet wide. The man seemed to be reading the stele and relaying information to the girl.
Her watcher! Buffy suddenly realized.
The girl adjusted her snakes, gripped her weapon and started off alone into the jungle. The man watched her go, and then turned back the way they had come. The girl—no, the Slayer—pushed her way through the jungle until she came to an area of crushed vegetation that looked like something huge had gone through. The slayer stopped and looked down. Buffy saw a footprint that could have belonged to Godzilla. The slayer glanced back the way she had come, as if looking for support or reassurance from her watcher, but he was long gone. The girl stood, squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. She tightened her grip on her weapon and then began to follow the footprints through the crushed leaves of the jungle plants, although the vines were already recovering and had started to spring back into place.
Buffy allowed her fingers to rest on the skull for a few moments longer, but there were no further revelations. She'd had the slayer dreams, or visions, or whatever they were, when she was called, but this was the first one since then. This one was more personal, too. Buffy felt like she had actually connected on some level with this long-ago slayer.
Buffy gently withdrew her fingers and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The next set of stairs was a little easier to transverse, as the ledges were a couple of inches wider, but Buffy continued to travel downward on her stomach, facing the stairs. They were in no way wide enough to allow her to walk down them in the normal way and she wasn't about to risk a fall. Although she felt energized by her encounter with the Mayan Slayer and couldn't wait to discover what wonders were in the other rooms, she wanted to be alive and well to enjoy them! If that meant being cautious and taking her time getting there, well . . . the pyramid had waited for hundreds—maybe thousands—of years to be discovered. A couple of hours more wouldn't make a difference.Buffy took a short break when she reached the next landing. She had left the fresh air—if one could call hot and humid air “fresh”—behind, and was back to the hot and musty.
She thought about what the newspapers back in the day had called The Curse of Tutankhamen. The exhibit had come to LA during its tour of America, when Buffy had been a child, and she remembered her parents taking her to see it. Her mother had always been interested in ancient art and artifacts. She once told Buffy that she used to dream of moving to a small town and opening her own art gallery. Buffy had asked why she didn't just do it, if that's what she wanted so badly. Joyce had sighed and said she could never afford the costs of a gallery in LA. Location was important, and the rent on space in an appropriate area would be exorbitant. Even if she could take out a small business loan, after renting and then renovating the site, there wouldn't be enough capital for stock. It was difficult to stand out in LA—the city was full of trendy galleries and specialty shops. No, the only way she could make a success of a gallery, was to make it something new and special in a town that didn't already have dozens, if not hundreds, of competitors. Since Hank's work was in LA, she guessed it would have to remain just a dream.
Still, she made sure she took Buffy to museums, traveling exhibits, and to visit established galleries. Even Hank had wanted to see the Tut exhibit, so they'd made it a family outing. Buffy remembered the delicious thrill she'd gotten when the docent had spoken about the curse. She remembered talking about the curse on the way home. There was something deliciously primal about the power of a curse reaching through millennia to wrap icy fingers of death around the throats of all who disturbed the Pharaoh's rest that appealed to the young child she had been. Joyce had laughed and said it was probably nothing more than mold spores in the sealed air, unknown to modern man, which were released when the tomb was opened. The discoverers had no chance to develop antibodies to the ancient germs.
Why did I have to think of that now? Buffy thought, as she cast suspicious glances at the dust particles suspended in the air, stirred up by her passage. Well, it was much too late to worry about now. If there were ancient, killer mold spores in the pyramid, she'd already been infected. Buffy shrugged and gave an embarrassed laugh at her flights of fancy. And then she proceeded to eat some Graham crackers and dried fruit and drank some of her water.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Continue to Chapter Six
Sword and Stake Home Gen/Ensemble Page Shippy (M/F) Page Slash (M/M) Page Short Stories Page