Buffy's Book of Short Stories, Somewhere in Time Options

[Acadian]

Welcome to Buffy's book of short stories! Rather than another chronological saga, this will be a collection of independent (generally short) stories that freely span Buffy's long and ongoing adventuring career. She'll tell you a bit more about that choice of format in her prelude below. One feature of the format she has insisted on is that the stories are not directly linked, sequential or particularly interdependent. While I believe you will find them reasonably consistent with 'Buffy lore', I'm looking forward to what I hope will be quite a bit of freedom and flexibility. The format should also make it easy for any readers who join us in progress or return from an absence, to jump right in with the current story.

For those well-familiar with Buffy, I hope you will continue to enjoy the enigmatic elven mage as she presents selective peeks into her neverending adventures across Tamriel. It is easy for Buffy and I to become emotionally overwhelmed as we contemplate the kind, enthusiastic and encouraging support that many have graced us with over the years. And for that we are profoundly grateful. My fervent hope is that you continue to find our efforts worthy of your valuable time.

For those new to Buffy, please do not let her long history deter you from jumping right in and joining us. While her series of full books are available on the Acadian sub forum, their sheer size makes reading them a daunting prospect. Fortunately, our 'Executive Summary' thread on the same sub forum offers what I believe to be a very effective summary that can easily be read in one sitting per book.

Table of contents

- Hard Crowds and Dancing Whales (1 episode) – post #12
3rd Era. Buffy fills in for a sick bard at an Anvil tavern.

- Unfinished Business – Buffy and the Box (1 episode) – post #24
3rd Era. Buffy finally reports back to Sanguine after inflicting nakedness upon the Courtess of Leyawiin and some of her party guests.

- A Bard’s Tale (5 episodes) – posts #34-66
4th Era. Buffy receives some musical training at the Bards College in Solitude.

- The Case of the Missing Court Mage (2 Episodes) – posts #76-85
4th Era. Buffy helps locate an absentminded missing mage in the Riften area.

Prelude

"Acadian, I don't want to write about the Oblivion Crisis right now." Getting up from the desk, I climbed up atop the corner bookshelf and sat down. "I want to write about being ambushed in the Reach by a Thalmor patrol. Or my first encounter as a Slayer with the vampiric Count of Skingrad. Or how, after I managed to lose Azura's Star, we traveled through time to retrieve it. Or maybe about that time when-"

"Buffy," interrupted the paladin, "all those things can eventually be crafted into your larger, overarching plot such that they fit properly along your timeline."

I hopped to the floor. "No!" Both hands planted themselves on my hips as my chin lifted defiantly. "I want to write about those things when the passion moves me to do so, not wait until it 'fits' into some silly book that's so long and complicated we can never write it. Whenever I write something I want, you complain if it doesn't make 'perfect sense' or that it doesn't fit at this point in our 'chronology'. By the time most of the tales I want to share fit into your unmanageable plan, I've long lost the passion that motivated me to write about them!"

There was a long silence before Acadian dubiously remarked, "Are you proposing a book with neither plot nor timeline?"

"Exactly! I am not a plot. I am an elf who travels, adventures and explores - with you, of course." I spread my arms expansively and twirled all the way around once before seating myself on a corner of the desk. "What's hard to understand about that? And would you rather read a story that I wrote when passion moved me to do so, or one that I had to force myself to write in support of some silly timeline?" I softened my tone. "Look, Acadian, you and I can travel between worlds and even move through time together. Why do my stories have to be 'in order'? When a butterfly moves across a meadow visiting flowers, does she do so 'in order'?"

The old paladin chuckled. "Despite my years and experience, the ability to successfully argue with an impassioned woman continues to elude me. Your butterfly metaphor contains a simple logic that I cannot refute. I will never fully understand the. . . whimsy that drives your choices but, over the years, I have grown to at least appreciate it."

"Does that mean. . . ?"

"Yes," he replied. "You are the true source of our passion for writing. I shall constrain you with neither plot nor chronology considerations."

"Thank you, my paladin." I crossed my dangling legs, folded my hands in my lap and smiled. "I know that I can sometimes be a little, well, erratic or even elusive."

Acadian sighed. "Like a butterfly in a thunderstorm, my bowgirl."

"This will be fun!" I chirped.