Language Barrier

Title Language Barrier
Rating PG-13

Dawn rolled her eyes and wished that, just for once, her apparently innate skills with languages weren't restricted to the ones that no one spoke any more. It was all very well being able to read Sumerian - and speak - Sumerian, but how did that help when trying to tell a girl from a tiny village in the Himalayas that she was a Slayer?

She wasn't even sure what language the girl was speaking, what she was sure of was that the blank looks and the polite nods were a good indication that absolutely none of her carefully prepared - and probably over-rehearsed - speech was getting through.

This was a test, she was sure of it; when she'd announced that she was going to go into 'the family business' she'd been a little surprised when everyone had taken it in turns to try to talk her out of it. They needed Watchers, they needed people who could read the books that Giles was managing to find through some of his... shadier contacts, she needed something to do for the rest of her life. It was a perfect fit. So why did they all try to tell her she could do so much more? What more *could* she do other than helping stop apocoli? (She had decided that had to be the plural of apocalypse, and since she was now the resident linguist no one had argued, well, not for long anyway.)

She'd got her way in the end, the memories of being a whiny manipulative kid sister might be manufactured, but she could put them to good use anyway.

Dawn had also pointed out that getting out into the world would be a good idea, and so here she was, at the arse end of the world in a wooden hut that smelled of Yaks and trying to come up with a universal way of getting her point across.

Now she knew how Giles had felt when Chao-ann had shown up, but there was no way she was going to use those gross hand-drawn flashcards, even if they had kinda worked. If by 'worked' you really meant freaking everyone out. It would be like being back in Kindergarden - not that she'd ever *really* been in Kindergarden even if she could remember playing with Colorforms...

She grinned and the Slayer in front of her drew back a little at the sudden change in the strange white girl.

The chances of there being Colorforms out here were about the same as the proverbial snowball had of surviving in Hell, but hey, Dawn Summers was nothing if not resourceful. She could make do with what she had. And she'd make sure to pick some up at the airport on the way home.