From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski [#𝟏]

𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 [ den of wolves. ]

Song Recommendation ["Help I'm Alive" - Metric]
NOTE: For the full experience, I do personally suggest seeking out each song rec.

☽ † ☾

The only evil I know lives in how I am hated, not why.

☽ † ☾

Before

There were plenty of things twelve year old Madeline Hayes hated about being a slayer. For one, there was headquarters, which was pretty much like Hogwarts in way – if Hogwarts replaced magic wands with stakes, giant feasts with frequent munchie boxes from local fast food restaurants, and fun with strength, reflex, and strategy training. At least they spent a few years in a massive castle in Scotland; that was really where the similarities ended.

"So, there's this saying by..."

The second thing was the  thought that there were ranks among the slayers – something that had been perpetuated by Kennedy, one of the older girls. There were no actual ranks. There were squads of slayers and one watcher per group. Sure, the slayers outnumbered the watchers a hundred to one in the early days. Before a slayer's assigned to a team, they trained en masse like it was boot camp. There was no way to keep up so some of the more experienced slayers began training. That didn't make the one who happened to take some sort of battle training before being called better than the others, though.

"...you know, some old...smart...guy."

Third was sheer amount of girls; to say there were too many of them was an understatement. When they're young, they giggled in packs, they gossiped at every meal, they even pulled hair sometimes. And, as most would imagine, there was no such thing as cat fights among slayers, as they had a tendency to do real harm when they didn't like each other. Black eyes, broken ribs, shattered jaws, cuts and bruises by the dozens – these were regular occurrences and none of which Maddie had escaped with the mouth she had on her.

If nothing else, at least the meanest of all of them was on her side.

Marie nudged Maddie and Maddie glanced up at the fourteen year old. Marie motioned her head to the center of the room and feigned sleep for a second complete with a loud snore, blonde curls still in a top knot from sleeping in. Maddie snorted a laugh and nudged Marie back with a shake of her head.

"Know when to walk away and know when to run..."

"Buff, that's Kenny Rogers."

"The chicken guy?"

"No, that's Roy Rogers. Kenny Rogers was a country singer. You quoted a country song - about poker."

The last thing Maddie hated was the woman herself, Buffy Summers. Buffy was one part former homecoming queen and at least two parts war general. Maddie couldn't pinpoint which part she liked less. Perhaps she couldn't remember the woman who cheered her up when she cried in her bunk, knowing she'd never see her mother or father again. Perhaps that woman was gone or, worse, she never existed. There were whole months she was physically gone, and no one had an answer for where she went.