Oz sat quietly in the corner of the room, watching Willow. She was practicing her magick under the supervision of Giles. At the moment she was concentrating on floating a cup of water, and keeping it stable.
Oz grinned. This was a bit boring. He decided to liven it up a little. The next time he saw that Willow was looking at him he pulled a face. She started to giggle and lost control of her spell. The cup flew forward and the water splashed out. Both straight into Giles' face.
The look on his face was priceless. Then he got over his surprise and turned to Oz "Don't you ever do that again Daniel" he said in all seriousness. "I could have been seriously injured if that water had been in a glass"Oz blanched. He hadn't thought of that. He had just wanted to make the lesson a little more fun for Willow.
Giles smiled at the child. He knew he hadn't meant to cause trouble. And even Giles had to admit, levitation was rather a boring thing to watch. " Willow, we're finished for today. Why don't you and Oz go and find the others"
He watched the two scatter off. They were such sweet kids. But sometimes he wished they were older, more mature. It was beginning to get very tiring training Willow. She had such a short attention span.
He thought about what he could do to keep her interest. She really did seem to prefer interactive lessons. Well what child wouldn't?
He smiled to himself. Willow's recent kitty escapade had just given him an idea.
The next day Willow came running to her magick lesson excitedly. And alone. Giles had told her they were doing something fun today. But that none of the others were allowed to see.
She was intrigued. What could they be doing. Ideas of turning invisible, flying and other things she deemed fun popped into her head.
Of course Giles could have a completely different idea of fun. Her images were replaced by ones of floating pencils, and reading huge thousand year old texts.
That dampened her spirits a little. Ok, so those things could be interesting, but she wouldn't call them fun.
She shrugged it off. Well whatever it was at least for now there was some air of mystery about it.
Giles smiled as he saw Willow come rushing up. She was going to like this, he could tell. And Giles wouldn't exactly hate it himself.
He thought back to his younger days. Post Ripper, but pre present. He had loved pushing his magick to the limits, and finding and testing new spells, and although the spell he and Willow were going to perform was not that hard. It really was fun.
Willow looked at the smug grin on her teachers face. She hadn't ever seen him look like that. Maybe thiswasgoing to be good.
"OK Willow" Giles began when his student was inside and ready to start. "Today we are doing something you already have a little experience in. Transmogrification."
Willow felt her face light up into a grin. Goody. She loved turning into things. Being a cat had been so fun, at least until she discovered she couldn't turn herself back.
"What're we turning into??" She asked, almost bouncing in her excitement. She hoped it was a bird. Then she could fly as well. Or maybe a lion. that would be cool. But somehow she doubted it. It was more likely to be a mouse or something.
Giles smiled at his excited student. "Nothing too advanced today" he warned her. "We're going to be squirrels, but maybe we can try something a bit more exciting another time"
Willow didn't care. She liked squirrels. They were cute. And they could climb trees. Climbing trees was fun.
Willow pored over the spell Giles had told her to memorise. Unfortunately he wasn't going to let her change until she could do the spell both ways. Obviously, this was the not so fun part of the lesson.
Giles looked on in pride as his student studied the spell he had given her. She was so talented for her age. He suspected it would take her less than half an hour to learn the whole thing. I normal child of her age would not be able to understand it at all.
His hypothesis was correct. Less than an hour later he and Willow were roaming the woods in squirrel form.
Willow scampered around excitedly. This was so much fun. She felt so free. And seeing the forest from this level was different from normal. She stopped, startled. Was that thunder? No it sounded more like, really loud footsteps.
Her ears were so much more sensitive as a squirrel. That sound had nearly deafened her. She looked around for the source. And almost fell over in shock. It was Oz and the others. She had never expected to see them here.
Giles almost groaned when he saw his other charges. They couldn't see him and Willow. They tended to chase small furry things. And that could turn out very awkward.
"Look, squirrels. " Buffy exclaimed. "Lets chase 'em" She continued in true 5 year old fashion.
The fearful foursome started to chase the grey and the red squirrels. Faith let out a war cry and leapt around like a crazy person.
Giles and Willow ran for their lives. Or at least their immediate safety. Giles considered turning back to human there and then. But that might terrify the children, one minute chasing a squirrel, the next having their guardian running in front of them.
He darted up the first tree he came to, and saw Willow following suit.
The little hunters sighed in disappointment. Their quarry had gotten away. Oh well. They were really here to practice fighting, where no one could tell them off for doing stuff they weren't supposed to.
Buffy drew a short sword from the bag she was wearing, then brought out a crossbow- Faith's weapon of choice.
Faith grinned evily and started shooting at trees. Kendra drew her own sword and the two began a fencing match.
Oz wandered over to the edge of the clearing they were in. He had been dragged along to keep watch. Boring job. But he couldn't fight, and someone had to keep watch.
It was strange, he thought to himself, that red squirrel kinda reminded me of Willow, somehow. Of course that was just his imagination. Willow was doing something magick with Giles. He settled down to keep watch.
Giles looked on, outraged, as his charges blatently broke the simple rules he had set them. Willow was not allowed to practice magick without supervision, and the others weren't allowed to fight. They had agreed with him, when he had explained his reasoning.
That was it. They were in trouble this time. And they weren't getting out of it by being cute. He muttered the spell removal incantation, after jumping to the ground of course.
The girls turned around, startled, when they heard footfalls behind them. They were even more shocked to see who it was.
He glared at them and Oz, and turned back towards the village. They fell into a scraggly bunch, and he heard Willow, human again join them.
He marched to the village in stony silence. He was furious with them this time. This wasn't just a matter of them being disobedient, but that they could have hurt themselves. Why didn't they think about these things sometimes
The miscreants shared a glance as they scrambled to keep up with their guardian. Giles was really
mad this time. What was going to happen?