Fanfic Recommendations: The Next Generation

[Mamorien]

One of two fics I learned about through deviant lexikimble being commissioned to illustrate scenes from it: Wednesday at Sunnydale.

Standing at the locker next to his was Wednesday Addams herself, the new student everyone had been whispering about.

She wore a dress as black as a raven's wing, and a jacket black as a moonless night, accented with thin vertical stripes that whispered of cemetery gates, and dark hair braided with surgical precision. She moved with the quiet certainty of someone used to being watched, but not seen. Xander couldn't help but stare, curiosity winning over nerves.

She was all angles and careful movements, a shadow in a sunlit school. Standing there, Xander recognized her posture, spine straight as a ruler, eyes that never lingered too long on any face. He'd seen that careful self-containment before in his own bathroom mirror, back when he was the punchline everyone waited for.

A knot formed in his gut as he remembered how eagerly he'd passed along those stories about her, adding his own embellishments without a second thought. He'd found it so simple to spread stories about a stranger, just a name floating through the halls, but now that stranger had materialized at the locker beside his, flesh and blood and unsmiling eyes.

She closed her locker with a soft click, gathering her books against her chest like a shield, and pivoted to leave. Xander watched her go, his stomach twisting with the half-forgotten taste of freshman year, all those hallways he'd walked alone while whispers trailed behind him like toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

"Hey," he said, planting himself in the moment. "Welcome to Sunnydale."

She paused, eyes flicking back to him in surprise. Her face was a porcelain mask, but he caught the faintest crack in her expression, something like confusion.

"Are you okay?" That was all he could manage to say next.

"The rumors arrived before I did," she said, voice low and deliberate.

He nodded, guilt gnawing at his insides, he tried for a joke. "Most new students don't come with their own urban legend. Need help finding your class?"

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...y.1258648/