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Emma doesn't have to face Phil that night. She gets home well after he's asleep, and she's far too exhausted to wake him up. And since she doesn't have to be up early- she doesn't have another shift for two more days- she sleeps well past when he leaves for work the next morning.
This leaves her plenty of time that afternoon to get herself worked up. Should she tell him? That resolves fairly quickly to 'yes'. He's her husband, he's dealt with all her parents' Watcher nonsense so far. But how to tell him, she can't not tell him, but she doesn't want him to think she's going back to being a Watcher. Slayers consult with plenty of people when they're active, right? Witches and priests and any of the other Watchers with expertise their own Watcher is lacking. She's not going to leave the girl hanging if she can help, but she's a nurse now. She has to be clear about that.
Should she tell her parents? That causes a lot more debate. Her parents don't know where the Slayer is, and it's upsetting them. And Emma does know where the Slayer is, and she has no desire to be a Watcher herself, so she really should tell them where the Slayer is, so they can arrange for someone to come and step in. But... Emma's kind of upset with her parents, right now. Watcher training is not more important than your daughter, than your daughter's expressly stated plans she made with her husband. And what if her parents insist that she has to be the Watcher, when she has no intention of doing so? She goes back and forth on that one for a while, and decides to get Phil's opinion. (He's her husband, they share, they come up with plans that work for both of them. Wouldn't it be nice if her parents could do the same?)
She briefly comes up with "should she tell the Watcher's Council separately from her parents", but dismisses that one even faster. Same problems as her parents, but her parents would also be upset she went over their heads. If she tells someone, it should be her parents, not the fussy old British men she's only met a handful of times.
And what happens if something happens to the Slayer in the meantime, that having a Watcher could have fixed? Is she responsible?
Emma is very stressed by the time Phil's home from work.
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ipsam_custodem
ipsam_custodem
"...Hmm. Um. Teacher/student's probably not a bad way to think of it?"
cross_and_bow
"I'm not sure I want one. I could use a support staff - could I ever - and a tutor wouldn't go amiss, but teachers tend to think it's their job to push..."
ipsam_custodem
"Well, I won't tell them if you don't want me to. But they're likely to find you eventually. It's worth having an approach planned out." Emma wonders if she can claim memory loss, should her parents ask her why she failed to notice or report a Slayer in her own town. "I'm curious, though. Support staff?"
cross_and_bow
"Demon-related information services. Medical attention that's less suspicious than non-you hospital nurses. Legal finagling if I kill something that leaves a humanlike-looking body or somebody pins a vampiric disappearance on me or I get spotted breaking in somewhere for legitimate supernatural purposes - Dad can help with this, but he's not a lawyer and every use of nepotism makes the other cops that much more suspicious. On-call rides to and from demonically infested places. Witching. Keeping me afloat in school if Slaying interferes with doing it the usual way. Hell, cash - it doesn't make sense for the one and only Slayer to have to save up her allowance for a crossbow. If there's lots of old British people in on this, any ten of them could work day jobs and tithe modest quantities so I didn't need to try to come up with some kind of career/Slaying balance once I move out of Dad's house. Since there's only one of me."
ipsam_custodem
"Demon information, yes. On call rides generally also yes. Medical attention and witching they usually go with a find a helpful local approach. Legal and financial- might be out of their hands, unfortunately. They don't have a lot of power, particularly not outside of England, and no one's managed a successful tithe system yet. I think historically they've been treated as walking talking demon encyclopedias, for the most part."
cross_and_bow
"Well, walking demon encyclopedias could come in handy, but... I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid, but - some of the ways an organization could maintain itself in a position of authority over non-volunteer superpowered teenage girls with short life expectancies who self-replace, over a long period of time, are not A+ best practices?"
ipsam_custodem
"Paranoia is a healthy Slayer trait," Emma says wryly. "I'm sure there have been problems, no organization's perfect, but they're hardly bedtime stories my parents would be telling me, so I can't trot out specific examples or anything like that. I can say, as someone who has been a young girl around a number of Watchers- they seem to rely largely on British etiquette? We are your elders and are more knowledgeable about demons than you are, respect our age and learning, that sort of thing."
cross_and_bow
"I feel like if I got anywhere near this organization I'd want to either collect one non-objectionable Watcher and take them home with me to be my encyclopedia and never interact with the others, or spend a lot of time instituting social reforms. I wonder if I can contact them anonymously."
ipsam_custodem
Emma chuckles at the picture of Bella running rampant through the Watcher's Council. "I can give you the email address of someone on the Council, if you decide you want to get in touch."
cross_and_bow
"That would be swell. Er, I don't stereotype old British people as being particularly cunning hackers, but if you advise me to take stronger security measures while negotiating than 'use a library computer and a new email account' I will."
ipsam_custodem
"There exist people in the know who are technologically competent, but Watchers are not among them. Library away."
ipsam_custodem
Emma scrounges up pen and paper and writes it down. She hands it to Bella. "All yours. Let me know if you have more questions, I suppose? I should get Alli home and get some sleep."
ipsam_custodem
"You're welcome. I'm just glad you're all right." She did get into medicine to help people, after all.
Emma collects Alli from where she'd fallen back asleep on the Swan's couch, drops her off, and returns home. Time to give her husband a more complete, less text-messaged report, and for the love of everything, get some more sleep.
Emma collects Alli from where she'd fallen back asleep on the Swan's couch, drops her off, and returns home. Time to give her husband a more complete, less text-messaged report, and for the love of everything, get some more sleep.
cross_and_bow
And the next day, Bella goes to the public library, opens a brand new email account (her handle is "chosenone", 'cause, why not), and emails the address Emma supplied:
Hello, this is the Slayer. I understand you're looking for me. Should I want you to find me?
Hello, this is the Slayer. I understand you're looking for me. Should I want you to find me?
This email causes- not quite a mass panic, but certainly mass fluttering. Extremely confused and somewhat indignant fluttering. The resulting response is somewhat accusatory.
Dear Anonymous Slayer,
We have been looking for you for months! We cannot send you your Watcher to supervise your training and improvement as a Slayer if we cannot locate you. Please get in contact with us as soon as possible so we can evaluate you and assign you a Watcher as efficiently as possible.
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
Dear Anonymous Slayer,
We have been looking for you for months! We cannot send you your Watcher to supervise your training and improvement as a Slayer if we cannot locate you. Please get in contact with us as soon as possible so we can evaluate you and assign you a Watcher as efficiently as possible.
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
cross_and_bow
Dear Watcher's Council, replies Bella at the same time as her first email the next day, unwilling to give more than one bit of information about her schedule. I will be happy to tell you where to find me if, and only if, I am satisfied that this will do me and my projects more good than harm. Please answer the following questions:
1) Who do you want to assign as my Watcher, and how is that decision made?
2) What sort of evaluation do you have in mind?
3) What is the content of your training curriculum?
- the Slayer
1) Who do you want to assign as my Watcher, and how is that decision made?
2) What sort of evaluation do you have in mind?
3) What is the content of your training curriculum?
- the Slayer
Dear Anonymous Slayer,
You may be assured that the Watcher's Council has many centuries of experience in assigning Watchers. Your evaluation can of course not be discussed until complete, lest the results be contaminated. Additionally, we cannot reveal the content of our training curriculum to an unverified, anonymous account with adequate proof of your identity.
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
You may be assured that the Watcher's Council has many centuries of experience in assigning Watchers. Your evaluation can of course not be discussed until complete, lest the results be contaminated. Additionally, we cannot reveal the content of our training curriculum to an unverified, anonymous account with adequate proof of your identity.
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
cross_and_bow
Dear Watcher's Council,
Okay then, never mind.
- the Slayer
Okay then, never mind.
- the Slayer
The Watcher's Council is initially reasonably unconcerned. Or at least less concerned. With tentative proof that the Slayer is hiding rather than uncalled, efforts are redoubled to find her. Watchers are contacted, with an emphasis on those in reasonably English-speaking countries or where the timestamps of the mysterious emails are within even faintly reasonable hours of alertness. They re-try their initial scrying attempts, hoping for a delay in her calling, or a weakness in her hiding methods; they try a few newer and more obscure forms of scrying. All of them fail.
Efforts are made to trace the emails. This also fails, somewhat spectacularly. The Watcher's Council has no one particularly knowledgeable on technology, and no good leads on how to locate such people; the Venn diagram of "competent with technology", "in the know enough to be told about Slayers and Watchers" and "locatable by the Council" turns out to be one technopagan up in Scotland who is utterly disinclined to work with the Watchers, and even less so when they explain their goal. He sides with the missing Slayer; the Watchers are welcome to find her themselves.
Finally, after a week, they are forced (extremely unwillingly) to admit that they are not infallible, and they may not be able to find this girl without her help. Another email is sent.
Dear Anonymous Slayer,
Surely you understand we cannot blithely reveal Council information to any anonymous account claiming to be the Slayer. What can you reasonably expect us to do that would make you willing to reveal yourself?
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
Efforts are made to trace the emails. This also fails, somewhat spectacularly. The Watcher's Council has no one particularly knowledgeable on technology, and no good leads on how to locate such people; the Venn diagram of "competent with technology", "in the know enough to be told about Slayers and Watchers" and "locatable by the Council" turns out to be one technopagan up in Scotland who is utterly disinclined to work with the Watchers, and even less so when they explain their goal. He sides with the missing Slayer; the Watchers are welcome to find her themselves.
Finally, after a week, they are forced (extremely unwillingly) to admit that they are not infallible, and they may not be able to find this girl without her help. Another email is sent.
Dear Anonymous Slayer,
Surely you understand we cannot blithely reveal Council information to any anonymous account claiming to be the Slayer. What can you reasonably expect us to do that would make you willing to reveal yourself?
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
cross_and_bow
Dear Watcher's Council,
Is anyone else telling you they're the Slayer? I could certainly understand your reluctance to believe me if there's competing claims. I actually do not understand why the council feels the need to be particularly secretive about any of the questions I have asked, as the three of them together boil down to 'what do you do with non-volunteer teenage girls once you have found them'. A lack of transparency about what you do with non-volunteer teenage girls once you have found them worries me very much.
- the Slayer
Is anyone else telling you they're the Slayer? I could certainly understand your reluctance to believe me if there's competing claims. I actually do not understand why the council feels the need to be particularly secretive about any of the questions I have asked, as the three of them together boil down to 'what do you do with non-volunteer teenage girls once you have found them'. A lack of transparency about what you do with non-volunteer teenage girls once you have found them worries me very much.
- the Slayer
Dear Anonymous Slayer,
The fact that the Slayer is missing and minimally active is not widely known, but becoming less so. That you are the first to claim Slayerhood does not make you the most reliable. That you find our methods 'worrisome' is suspicious by itself. Do you also regularly demand that your school provide you with your tests before you are given them?
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
The fact that the Slayer is missing and minimally active is not widely known, but becoming less so. That you are the first to claim Slayerhood does not make you the most reliable. That you find our methods 'worrisome' is suspicious by itself. Do you also regularly demand that your school provide you with your tests before you are given them?
Sincerely,
The Watcher's Council
cross_and_bow
Dear Watcher's Council,
Feel free to decide that I'm not the Slayer and that you don't want to Watch me; you aren't selling your usefulness nearly well enough to make me eager to prove myself. Public education in the developed world is subject to considerable regulation, parental and public scrutiny, reform activism, and oversight which I suspect you do not have, and the general scope of tests is known even when the questions are not.
- the Slayer
Feel free to decide that I'm not the Slayer and that you don't want to Watch me; you aren't selling your usefulness nearly well enough to make me eager to prove myself. Public education in the developed world is subject to considerable regulation, parental and public scrutiny, reform activism, and oversight which I suspect you do not have, and the general scope of tests is known even when the questions are not.
- the Slayer
This causes the man who had previously been responding to emails to degenerate into a frothing pile of indignation, spluttering about "The effrontery of her!" and "no respect for her elders, none, who does she think she is-" to the point where he is quietly assigned something else to do. The Watchers would like to not lose track of this Slayer again, and driving her away will not help.
Eventually, a replacement is selected, largely by virtue of 'as different from Hughes as possible'. Soon, Bella has a response.
Dear Slayer,
I apologize for the attitude of your previous correspondent, though I do hope you understand his (poorly expressed) caution. Our goal is to help and support you in your goal; to be a source of knowledge and research and training. While I readily admit our initial replies leaves much to be desired, we are genuinely trying to help you. Please know that.
Sincerely,
Tamara Reed
Watcher's Council
P.S. The general scope of the tests is 'kill demons'. Hopefully I haven't ruined the surprise.
Eventually, a replacement is selected, largely by virtue of 'as different from Hughes as possible'. Soon, Bella has a response.
Dear Slayer,
I apologize for the attitude of your previous correspondent, though I do hope you understand his (poorly expressed) caution. Our goal is to help and support you in your goal; to be a source of knowledge and research and training. While I readily admit our initial replies leaves much to be desired, we are genuinely trying to help you. Please know that.
Sincerely,
Tamara Reed
Watcher's Council
P.S. The general scope of the tests is 'kill demons'. Hopefully I haven't ruined the surprise.