Title: Meerkat Hard
Author: thenewbuzwuzz
Setting: AU based on School Hard
Rating: G, I think
Word count: 471
Summary: How do you think School Hard would have gone if Buffy was a meerkat?
Notes: This is a ripoff of the All-Penguin AU, the Serengeti-verse, etc., inspired by rule 5 of the posting guidelines. A big thank you to seapealsh for helping make sure the thing is written in real English.
Meerkat Hard
Buffy ate scorpions and poisonous millipedes for breakfast. She’d even fought the puff adder, whose venom deadens the flesh, and look! Still alive. But this day was a bit much even for her.
To begin with, she had to dig through, like, three Buffy-weights of sand before she got to the first bug of the day. It didn’t help that Xander kept trying to snatch food right out of her mouth.
Also, something was watching her. When she looked up, she only saw her family, a ton of sand, and a sun-bleached heap of gazelle bones. She told herself to get a grip and leave surveillance to the sentries. She had to get her stomach full, because today she would stand guard just like the adults.
Buffy could do this. She had been practicing standing upright forever, and she didn’t wobble even a little anymore. Her eyesight was sharp, and she knew the warning calls… or she thought she did. Hooting stood for owls, right, so if she saw an eagle, she’d… screech? Yeah, that seemed right. Buffy hoped Mom would be impressed. She really, really hoped. If Mom disapproved, then nobody would groom Buffy anymore and her fur would be neither fluffy nor shiny! She’d be a mess of ticks, like Sheila that time she had babies.
But Buffy wasn’t Sheila. Buffy was a reliable member of the gang, on sentry duty right now! She was on top of things. Literally. This top branch of a dead tree was totally stable. She could see everything from here. She could see Sheila, who was sneaking towards the bushes with some guy again. Seriously, it’s like she wanted to be cast out of the group and die. Like, what could be worth the risk?
Buffy kept glancing at Sheila in between carefully scanning the sky for birds of prey. She was only making sure Sheila was safe, of course. And she wasn’t! There, in the shadow… was that a gazelle bone crawling towards her? Buffy peered. It was shaped like a snake, it moved like a snake… She yipped a warning and climbed down to meet the enemy.
Buffy could take all the creepy crawlies! She growled and spat, holding her tail high. The cobra reared up with a hiss that was almost appreciative. Now what? Buffy threatened him some more for good measure and looked for an opening. She bared her teeth and stepped forward. The snake lunged. She sprang back and growled again. Finally, the group arrived. They surrounded the cobra, bobbing their heads to confuse him, and Joyce went for the back of his neck. Death fled.
It was neat how Buffy didn’t have to get everything right on her own. The gang had her back as much as she had theirs.
And then they went home and cuddled.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/581409.html
