The Warrior
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The crater was still smoking months after the Hellmouth had been destroyed, taking with it all that once was Sunnydale. Tara's grave, Joyce's, even her own, the one from which she'd clawed her way out a lifetime ago; the inscriptions on their headstones obliterated in the white heat that swept everything away in a fiery storm of annihilation.

Buffy searched the darkness of the depths, looking for a glimmer, a sign that something remained. Finally she sighed, dropping a single red flower into the hole.

For remembrance. For a fallen warrior of the light. The only memorial he'd ever have.

November 12th 2006