Faith looked sullenly ahead as Giles lectured her. God he was so boring. She knew she was in trouble, knew what was going to happen even.
Giles had decided to tackle the trio separately. He thought he might have more luck at the being stern thing if there was only one cute young child looking at him with that look on their face, their eyes just begging him to forgive them.
It seemed to be working, at least somewhat. Two down, one to go. He had managed to scold the other two without losing his nerve, even when Buffy was busy looking like she was about to burst into tears. That child would make a premium actress one day.
He had been quite happy to turn Oz over to Wes when they got back. He was after all his responsibility, not Giles'. He did hope that Wesley wasn't too hard on the boy though. Oz hadn't actually been doing anything wrong; he was really only an accessory to the mischief.
Faith started to shift impatiently. Could the guy lecture any slower? She knew what punishment she was getting; it was the same as the others. Extra chores and no weapons classes for a month. Yeah it sucked. But hey, did he really think they were gonna stick to it?
Giles noticed his lecture wasn't exactly inspiring awe in the most defiant of his little gang. He sighed. Sometimes he didn't know what to do with Faith. She just ignored him if he tried to scold her.
Well he didn't know what else he could do. He just wasn't good with reprimanding children. Teens, adults he could handle. But kids just shrugged it off half the time. He sighed and finished up.
He felt that the punishment was rather too harsh, but he was just so tired of them breaking the rules. Maybe him actually making them see that he could dole out things resembling punishment might make them think twice.
Faith slouched out of the room, in full rebellion mode. She really couldn't care less about what he had been saying. Sure weapons could be dangerous. Duh. What did he think they were? Weapons were supposed to be dangerous.
Giles looked after his charge as she slouched out, scuffing her feet on the floor. He didn't think he had gotten through to her, wasn't sure anything could. At times like these he really wished the three young Potentials were someone else's responsibility.
Sometimes Giles also wished the three were normal children. No child their age would normally be in the situation he had found his three in. Maybe fighting over toys, throwing tantrums, that was normal 5 - year old behaviour. Sneaking out into a forest to play with dangerous weapons? Only a Potential would even think about doing that.
No that wasn't actually true. He thought back to himself at around age 7. He had loved to play with weapons as well. As the child of Watchers he was expected to have sufficient training in case he was someday the lucky one to be the Slayer's Watcher.
Of course vast amounts of time were spent on the study of ancient texts and translation as well. Not to mention the proper use of magick. But the weapons had been his favourites when he was a boy.
How many times he had snuck of to play with the Watcher's weapons? And no one had ever known. Well there was no way his charges were ever finding out that titbit of information.
He could just imagine how they'd be if they ever found out that he punished them for things he had gotten away with.
He hoped the children weren't going to make this next month any harder than it was. He could just imagine them cooped up when they would normally be at their weapons training. He just hoped they didn't plan on being too loud. The last thing he needed was the council on his back for not controlling his charges.
Giles sighed at the thought of three 5- year olds with too much energy running around the town. He could see in his minds eye the destruction they could cause if he didn't manage to control them.
He felt like calling the punishment off. But no. He couldn't do that. The children needed to learn. What if someday one of them was the Chosen One? If she was undisciplined it would be easy for her to get hurt. Or worse, die.
He shuddered at that thought. Well if he had anything to do with it that would never happen. He would always be here for Buffy, Kendra and Faith. In the good times, and the bad. He would always look out for them.
The may have misbehaved at times, but he didn't care. They were his charges. He was the only family they had, they part of the little he had. He would always be there for his little Slayers.