Prompt 16: A Taste of Freedom Faith Teen

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Title: Taste of Freedom
Set: Post Season Two
Rating: Teen
Prompt: Trail of Bread crumbs
Word Count: 773
Disclaimer: I am the almighty Joss, beware my wrath. Umm I mean I did not create these characters or this universe. Joss said go playth, and here I play!
A/N: Mucho thanks to agilebrit and spiralleds for listening to my lack of ideas for this prompt, my muse was finicky and didn't talk to me in time for a beta to review. PLEASE let me know if you see the stupid stuff that I missed in my forth read-through.
A/N2: So I spent last weekend in Boston. And my muse decided to stay there. This story references the Freedom Trail, Specifially this part. Also Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the Scarlet Letter featuring Hester Prynne.



May, a time when you could almost taste the freedom of summer, but when the truant officers were still hot and heavy on their rounds. Like she actually learned stuff in school. Not that she was in school today, cuz it was time for the annual fricking visit to freedom. Freedom as long as you walked with your buddy and sounded off whenever the frazzled teal track-suited mom in charge said, "head count".

Not that she had a buddy. The girls were all in shun mode-- see teach, she had been listening about the Scarlet Letter chick. Seemed like the Prynne gal was the only one who'd enjoyed this life instead of waiting for heavenly rewards, plus the bonus of looking down on people. That's what really got the Purtians' rocks off, she bet. But the shunning? She knew shunning. Maybe she shouldn't have used the cheerleaders' fellas? Whateva. If they wanted to keep those dweebs they deserved the angst-fest they got. Plus it had started way back. The pastel crowd just didn't dig her rocker-not-Goth look.

All Faith knew was that her version of freedom had a hell of a lot fewer churches. Not that the government buildings were more fun, but at least they had pictures and interactive stuff she could hit. Joys of living in Boston, birthplace of a revolution, re-enactments definitely NOT encouraged. She'd found that out a few years ago when she stormed Bunker Hill. Ya ya, the real battle had happened elsewhere, stupid red coats didn't even know where they were attacking, but the Bunker Hill site finally had enough space to run. Well except for the graveyards. But everywhere else she had to rein in and these last few days she'd just been feeling fizzing. Like she'd stuck a fork in a wall socket, but without the bad Toni perm effect. Sitting in class was like sitting in the electric chair. Today she was outside and for some fricking reason had walked the edge of each stupid graveyard on the trail. Not that they were big graveyards, couldn't stop progress by not building cheek to jowl around the edge.

This year the parent guide was particularly clueless. A transplant from California; bottle blonde too. How on earth she'd ended up in Faith's school district was a question for the ages. Her little angel was a much better fit. He'd already shown Faith his collection of pipe bombs. And the perfect clique had only taken a day to decide that even if he was an import, he was weird. Faith thought he was more like the guy from Heathers, and worth a few moments. His mom on the other hand? Let's just say if the Freedom trail didn't have the red brick line, and had only a trail like bread crumbs, her little group would have been lost in sight of the start line.

But they were almost done. Climb Paul Revere's horse, the one facing the wrong way, and then the two if by sea church. Wasn't even Paulie who'd shone those stupid lanterns. The real guy had to climb out a window to escape the red coats for crashing curfew. She could dig a guy like that, Newman. Hell they still called the window he'd climbed though by his name. Lucky it wasn't a RC church, or he'd hafta be mighty skinny to get out.

She had to get out. This life wasn't fitting. She could do more, she just knew it. Plus there were these wacky cheesey horror show dreams she'd been having. It wasn't even Halloween, why the heck was she dreaming of demons and really fat vampires?

They were lining up for the Old North Church, when a lady glared at her, twitching her head. The lady, and it was a lady tweed suit and everything, looked familiar. Closing her eyes Faith thought a moment. Na, that couldn't be right. Why would a Beacon Hill type be following her?

A whisper, "Miss Lehane". No one called her Miss. She let the class move forward as she hung back.

"What do you want lady? And how do you know my name?"

"I want to talk to you about your birth right. You are a very special girl. Faith, you are a vampire slayer."

Okay. This was different. Normally it was the pervs trying to get her attention. The lady didn't sound like she was looking down at her. Faith knew that tone and this wasn't it. She said 'special' but not in a short bus way. What the hell? If she didn't like what she heard she could always bail.

"Wicked. What's a slayer?"

A/N3: I love trivia. Yes the British stormed, not Bunker Hill (this is the whites of their eyes battle) but the hill near by. There are five churches and three graveyards on the trail. The statue of Paul Revere's horse faces south, and the St. Stephen's Church. It's a Roman Catholic Church and the mayor at the time of the statue had the support of the Catholics, not the protestants, and he refused to have a horse's ass face that church. No problem with it facing the Old North Church with its Episcopal congregation. Also while the poem said two if by sea, it was actually two if by river. Oh and Paul Revere, didn't complete his ride but was captured. Newman did escape the English patrol that was enforcing a curfew, of course Faith would like him!