For What You Are

Ally shifted uneasily in her plane seat as she woke up. Jayne was wide awake next to her as she wrote on her laptop with a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows open next her.

“What on earth are you doing?” Ally asked, looking over at the screen.

“Writing,” she answered distractedly. “Just a few more words…done.”

Jayne hit save and closed the book and the laptop at the same time.

“Analysing Harry Potter?” Ally inquired. “One would think that you are actually being intellectual for a non-vampirical cause.”

“School,” Jayne admitted. “I re-enrolled last week. I do have a bit of catching up to do, as far as they’re concerned. I mean, who really needs to know the chemical formulae to make iron, all I know is that it’s good for killing vampires with.”

Ally glanced at the people behind us who were staring at them curiously. “Theatre group,” Ally lied quickly with a smile before turning back to Jayne.

“Don’t say anything. I figured since I'm going to be around here for a while I may as well do something with my time.”

“You aren’t actually going to the same school though,” Ally said.

“Hell no. I think identical twins might bring me onto Kara’s radar.”

“Exactly,” Ally answered in contentment. “So, now we are quite clearly free of listening ears are you intending to tell me what the Favour is?”

Jayne did a quick scan for any possible vampires in the plane before hesitantly, leaning in closer to Ally and explaining what it was.

“You probably already know a bit about my life before Kara started needing care.”

Ally nodded, “You were both vampire slayers. You worked side by side.”

Jayne nodded. “That is true. But you see, Kara and I weren’t just twins. We were triplets.”

“Er…I'm fairly certain there are only two of you…”

“We had another sister,” Jayne said. “But we only had her for a year. Exactly one year after we woke up with our mission, she went missing. Thing is, after believing her dead for most of my life, two years ago I discovered she wasn’t completely dead.”

“What do you mean ‘completely’ dead? Was she a vampire?”

“No,” Jayne answered with a scoff. “Vampires are completely dead. No, she’s a witch and I fairly certain she dabbled in a lot of necromancy.”

“So she stopped herself from dying.”

“And I've heard rumours that some of her followers believe she’s back.”

“She has followers,” Ally asked, her brow furrowed.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Jayne said, looking her directly in the eye. “I know you follow her. I know she’s back but I warn you, she is dangerous.”

“Anyone can be dangerous-”

“That’s true,” Jayne responded, putting her glasses back on. “It’s just that Kanuea is more dangerous than most.”

“So she’s already returned?” Ally inquired, hiding her shock that Kanuea was Jayne and Kara's sister. Although she should have expected it considering they all looked the same...

“You sound like you’ve been expecting it,” Jayne replied, with that all knowing gaze of hers.

“Would it make a difference if I was?” Ally asked.

“Not really,” Jayne answered, opening up her book. Ally wasn’t fooled though. She could tell simply by her posture that Jayne was severely put off by her following of Kanuea.

“Look, nothing is going to prevent me from accomplishing this task,” Ally answered honestly. “I follow Kanuea, so what? I'd prefer to get my family out of your debt before anything else happens. As long as you don’t expect me to kill her, I'm with you. Because I don’t want to do it, and I physically can’t wield enough magic to kill her.”

“We could always team you up with Bonnie,” Jayne said over her book.

“You still haven’t told me what the Favour is,” Ally said impatiently after a moment of silence realising that Jayne had changed the topic very subtly.

“Oh, right!” Jayne honestly had forgotten and putting aside her book she turned back to Ally. “So basically, there’s this thing that’s stopping Kara and I from dying. Neither of us have any idea what it is, but that’s not the problem. The problem is it seems to come from…er….supernatural origins.”

“Vampire?” Kara inquired in astonishment.

“Most probably,” Jayne admitted lowly. “But I saved your ancestor’s life and she promised to one day rid me of this curse. She had the spell in her Grimoire, and that’s why we’re finding it.”

Ally thought for a moment, “If your eternal stasis comes from being a vampire, don’t you think getting rid of it might be a bit of a hazard since you’re what, a millennia old?”

“A Millenia young,” Jayne corrected. “The main point is to keep the immortality but get rid of the side-effects.”

“Side-effects?” Ally asked.

“The bl-What was that?” Her head swung around the side of her seat faster than Ally could see. Within seconds she was up and walking towards the back of the plane.

“Jayne?” Ally called.

“Shh,” she replied, walking down the aisle listening intently for another suspicious sound. It came, but not from where she was expecting. People’s yells alerted her to where the danger was.

The whole plane shook and began to spiral out of control. Jayne scrambled back to Ally as people screamed out. Pulling up the curtain, she struggled to keep her balance. The outside of the plane was in flames and they were plummeting towards the ground.

“Can you die?” Ally asked fearfully; seemingly oblivious to the people in panicked chaos around them. She held her hands to her ears but it didn’t help with the rapid descent.

Jayne looked over at Ally with wide eyes. From an impact like this, she honestly didn’t know. Ally slipped her hand into Jayne’s –

Then it went dark.