Thousands of years before the present era, men gather on the slopes of a natural amphitheater, a small basin rimmed by olive trees. The floor of the basin is bare earth, a soft white powder scuffed by many bare feet. One edge of this floor is defined by a simple wooden wall with openings, doorways, at each end. The audience can see through the doorways to the slope rising upward on the other side; the wall encloses nothing.

It is early evening. Orange and gold are beginning to fade from the skies, and shades of deep blue are forming over the wild mountains on the near horizon. The brightest stars, the gods themselves, are beginning to appear in the sky.

The audience observes, intent, fascinated, as a smaller group of men enter the basin floor through the doorways and cluster below, facing them. The small group is chanting a prayer in a ragged chorus. They are dressed in white chitons and wear no sandals; laurel wreaths are bound around their brows.

The audience seats itself on rocks, fallen logs, and the grassy slope itself, and falls absolutely silent. Men are on the lower slopes. Women are separate, higher, seeing the ritual from a sharper angle.

The words gather power as the voices meld together, match rhythms. The olive leaves shiver, though there is no breeze. Doves shake themselves from sleep in protest.

The voices deepen. The chant echoes the sound of booted feet on the deck of a ship, marching back and forth; the sound of waves crashing against a shore, as they crash against the shore not far from this place.

The audience leans forward.

The cluster of men below are a circle now, moving, stamping their feet with the rhythm of the chant: One and two and one and two and one and three and...

The audience holds its breath as the circle stops. It moves into itself, into a knot of men. Spreads apart into a semicircle -- leaving one figure alone in the middle.

A single figure. Alone.

Never before has a single figure stood alone before gods and men in the ritual contests.

And this one, this one stands taller than a human man, on sandals built up the span of a hand or more. And it wears a face that is not a human face but a mask, a terrible mask of grief that covers not only a human face but half a body.

The voice that comes from this figure is not the voice of a chorus, but the voice of a single person. It does not speak to the gods in the voice of the people using the voice of the people, We implore thee, O Immortal Ones!

It speaks for itself.

I, King that was, spoke to the gods...

The chorus answers, giving voice now not to prayers but to the thoughts of the audience, that watches amazed at the new thing that is created before them. Men who speak to the gods beware; the gods may be pleased to answer...

The actor -- the first actor -- speaks again, with more courage as the audience tenses, leans forward and listens intently.

The power finds focus.

And afterward, when the stars have faded, and the chorus has gone, and the first actor drinks wine with his fellow poets and rubs his feet and jokes that he near lost his balance as well as his bladder for fear that Dionysus would strike him dead for his daring, when men of the audience have left the little basin but babble still at what they have seen this night, a shadow sits and looks around him and marvels that he is all alone.

Not for long, the power assures him. They'll come back. Creators, audience -- they'll all be back.

"Welcome to Introduction to Drama," said the tall man standing in the middle of the stage. "I am Doctor Addams. This class will meet every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon here in the theater, except when technical rehearsals require the afternoons."

A hand shot up from one side of the auditorium. "What's a technical rehearsal?" someone demanded.

Willow Rosenberg sighed.

"That is one of the things you'll learn in this class," Addams responded, "if you remain in it." He didn't look as if he thought many of them would.

Ooh, ominous, Willow thought, amused. Another prof with a low opinion of students. Well, if that was an example, she couldn't really blame him. She leaned back against the worn leather of the seat and looked around. This class was actually being held in the theater auditorium, and she'd never taken a class here before.

The theater was one of the older buildings on the UC Sunnydale campus, dating from the sixties. The lobby was nice, a wide, bright room with a rotating stainless-steel sculpture of the Earth holding pride of place in the middle. Several doors led variously to the restrooms, the auditorium, the hallway that led to classrooms, and the stairway to the technical booth upstairs. One wall was lined with huge windows overlooking the outside bank of rosemary and the sidewalk, the other with posters under glass of various productions dating back from the very first show ever done on its main stage, Oklahoma!. Willow didn't much like that particular poster; it reminded her too much of a dream she'd had once of Riley, Buffy's boyfriend, wearing a cowboy hat. She much preferred the more recent posters, for Tiny Alice, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, or A Russian in the Woods. (Not that they'd actually done Russian, but someone in the department clearly had hopes.)

In fact, after that dream she might have dropped Drama if it weren't for the fact that she'd already registered for the class and thought Buffy was taking it with her. The idea of being on stage for the very first class--

Willow shivered, hating the dream-memory that everyone was staring at her and she wasn't prepared, wasn't ready, didn't know what they all expected of her. And besides, that awful dress... ick.

But Buffy had dropped, and here she was by herself after all. Not fair.

Willow frowned. Talk about not being fair...

Buffy had her hands full with Dawn and being the Slayer and training and everything. She couldn't be there all the time. After all, Buffy wasn't taking advanced physics, either, and that was all right.

Overhead, a net of steel catwalks supported banks of lights. Willow twisted in her seat to see the blank window set high in the wall behind her where the sound and light crews watched the action on stage for their cues. The class was scattered throughout the auditorium; she estimated about two hundred students were present, most of their number clumped up in the front. The theater seated more than twice that many. Willow, seated several rows from the front, was pleased to have empty seats on either side to park her extra books.

Notes for this class, she decided, would definitely be in purple, except the history part; that would be in black as always, of course. And if there was anything really interesting, well, she always had a red pen for magickal notes.

"This class will present an overview of the history of the theater, the development of drama from its roots in Greek religious ritual to today's postexperimental theater," the professor went on. "You will also be exposed to the concepts of stagecraft, makeup, costuming, lighting, and all the other elements that create the gestalt that is a play.

"There will be -- yes, young lady?"

The same eager beaver as before had her hand up and was waving it frantically. At least this time she had the sense not to blurt out her question without invitation.

"Tests? Papers?"

Professor Addams sighed gently, clasping his hands behind his back, and looked down for a moment before responding. He was a tall, lean man of indeterminate age, clean-shaven, with neatly trimmed graying brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. The stage lights reflected in those glasses, making it impossible to see his eyes. Watching him, Willow had the sudden impression that he enjoyed being on the stage, enjoyed the theatrical pause before answering the question, even enjoyed the fact that the students couldn't see his eyes. His voice was perfectly modulated to reach the very last row in the back.

"Don't interrupt me again, young lady," he said at last. "Learn patience, and all will be revealed." It was a gentle, almost humorous rebuke, but Willow made a small face and a note to herself: Cranky prof.

Addams waited until the student wilted, then turned back to the rest of his audience. He was standing at the center of the stage, framed by the proscenium arch, in the center of a spotlight. Even with the house lights and the rest of the stage lights up, Willow could see the outline of the spot as if it were a white aura surrounding him.

"Drama is an ancient form of human expression, dating from before recorded history. One theory is that it arose from ritual supplications to the gods. Participation in the ritual was essential to the health of the community.

"In that spirit, your participation in this class will include both tests on the material and a choice of a research paper or support for other students in the advanced acting and directing classes." He smiled thinly. "That support will consist of a minimum of fifteen hours of work in the theater, building sets, running lines, making costumes, or in any capacity the upperclassmen may find you useful. You may stay after this class, or, if you have a prior appointment, you may come to the theater sometime this week and speak to the stage manager. I'm certain she'll find something for you to do." He spoke as if theater was spelled the British way, t-r-e, not t-e-r, with a veddy upper-class English accent. He sounded like Giles, only as if he'd been in the States a little longer. British, but willing to drink coffee occasionally as well as tea. The accent went well with his tweed jacket and gangly build. He didn't wear a tie, but if he did, she was sure it would be "old school."

Willow took automatic notes, including a query to herself about finding out whether she could do both support and a research paper for extra credit. Addams was still talking, describing the tests, and her pen moved over the lined paper of the notebook. Ritual supplications to the gods, she thought. Riley in a cowboy hat was a ritual supplication to the gods? She tried to imagine a pantheon featuring Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Well, maybe. There might be a cowboy dimension out there. If there was one without shrimp, there'd almost have to be.

This class could be even more interesting than she'd thought. And if she built sets, or did makeup -- she wasn't quite sure what "running lines" meant -- then she wouldn't be standing on that stage, would she? And there wouldn't be a spotlight on Willow Rosenberg.

And she could be Research Girl, too. That was good. Willow bounced a little with satisfaction. She was really good at being Research Girl.

"It's really different," she told Xander later that evening over the heavy bass line of the music at the Bronze, where the gang had gathered to compare notes on the first day of classes. "So I stayed after to see about the theater work stuff, and they had all these flats -- scenery things -- and they had this whole crew just splatting paint at them."

"Painting them?" Buffy, bearing a tray of drinks, set it down on the low table and handed Willow a steaming mug of chai.

"Nope, not painting exactly." Willow accepted the cup in both hands, and sipped carefully at the scalding liquid. "Splatting. Sort of Jackson Pollocking. But when you stand in the audience, far away from it, it looks really cool."

"So are you going to sign up for it?" Buffy passed beers to Xander and Anya. She was reaching for Tara's Coke when Willow waved a hand and the drink floated up off the tray. Tara snagged it out of the air, frowning slightly.

Willow sipped again. "It's only fifteen hours. And tonight I already got an hour and a half in. It was fun. If you were taking the class you could come too." She smiled at Tara, and then looked pointedly at Buffy, widening her eyes and biting her bottom lip.

Buffy laughed. "Oh, no, Will," she said. "I am so not falling for that kicked-puppy routine. Responsibilities, remember?" She gave Willow a mock frown, and Willow sighed.

"I know, I know," Willow said. "I just wish..."

"How many people were there?" Tara said.

"Ten, I think," Willow replied "The guys building the sets, and there were a couple of seniors from the acting class practicing a scene, and three people up in the lighting booth. It was funny; they were all doing things for the same play--" She paused to sip again, and bit her lip as if momentarily lost in thought.

"What?" Xander put in, when Willow didn't continue.

"Oh. Sorry." Willow smiled apologetically. "It's just that, there were people doing all these different things, totally separate things that don't seem to have anything to do with each other, but it's all going to come together."

"Like elements of a spell," Tara suggested.

"Yes, exactly." Willow nodded enthusiastically. "Like the actors are the words, the painters are the candles, the lighting guys are the... the incense maybe. Or not," she added, at the expression of laughter on Tara's face. "But it is, really. You've got to come and see."

"I think I'll take your word for it," Tara said.

"They're so focused," Willow went on, as if she hadn't heard her. "They're creating something and it's amazing." The band segued into a slow song and several of the dancers came off the floor, headed for tables or the bar or the relative isolation of the space behind the stairs. The music dimmed underneath the sudden buzz of conversations and clinking glassware from the bar.

"It's almost like..." Willow set the empty teacup back on the tray and snuggled against Tara's side. Tara put her arm around Willow's shoulder. "Almost like Scoobystuff. You know, only without the fangs and demonyness. They're all so intent."

"Wow," Buffy said. "Scoobystuff without demonyness. What a concept. I could so get used to that."

Xander chuckled. "Me too," he said.

Anya frowned. "But, Xander," she said, "you're always talking about how much you love fighting demons. Besides, the sex is always more satisfying after a patrol where we have to fight."

Xander closed his eyes for a split second. "Ahn, honey..."

Anya huffed out a sigh. "I know, I know, too much sharing again, right?" She crossed her arms over her chest and slumped back in her seat. "I don't see what's so wrong about telling people that you're good in bed."

Xander repressed a wince. "How about we dance, honey?" he said, not looking at Buffy or Willow as he pulled Anya to her feet. Anya cocked her head, listening to the new, slow song the band was starting up.

"Well, all right," Anya said. "Pressing up against your body is almost as good as having sex."

"I don't think I'll ever get used to that," Buffy said shaking her head when the couple had disappeared into the dancing crowd. "Thank God Giles isn't here. He'd have polished his glasses right out of the rims."

Tara giggled. "I dunno," she said with a sly glance at Willow. "I kinda think Anya had a point." One corner of her mouth quirked up and she lifted an eyebrow at Willow, who blushed faintly but smiled back.

Buffy rolled her eyes theatrically. "Okay, enough with the arch looks. Just get out on the dance floor already. I'll watch the drinks."

Willow felt a momentary flicker of guilt that Buffy was all alone, but the feel of Tara's hand in hers snuffed it out. She let Tara pull her onto the dance floor and into her arms.

"You know," Willow said as she rested her head on Tara's shoulder, "I wonder if maybe it really does have to do with the ritual stuff."

"Anya and Xander's sex life?"

Willow lifted her head to find Tara laughing down at her. "No, silly. The theater." She put her head back down, nuzzling into Tara's soft throat. "Doctor Addams said the whole drama thing started with invocations. I wonder if there's leftover magic in the theater."

"When they're Pollocking the sets?" Tara teased gently, sliding her hand down Willow's spine to rest on her hip. "Or when they're figuring out who gets the spotlight?"

"They want to be stars, every one of them," Willow said, smiling as Tara's fingers traced a sigil of possession on her thigh. "They like the idea of being up there with people staring at them. It's weird." The two witches shared a shudder of distaste at the idea. Neither one had ever been Popular-with-a-capital-P, and they were just as well pleased not to be.

Willow thought of Harmony, who had been Popular and was now a vampire. She shifted her head slightly and looked at Buffy, sitting all alone on the sofa, fiddling with the drink in her hands and staring at nothing. She had been Popular too, back before she came to Sunnydale, but now she was the Slayer. And Cordelia, who had epitomized Popular, was off in Los Angeles with Angel, helping the helpless and sacrificing her social life.

Willow sighed and turned her face back into Tara's neck. "Popular" and fighting demons didn't seem to be mutually compatible. But at least she wasn't all alone. She had her friends, and, most importantly, she had Tara. She pressed a kiss into Tara's throat. Tara made a small, happy sound, and her arms tightened around Willow. They were too occupied with each other to notice when their feet left the dance floor, nor did they see when all eyes in the Bronze turned toward them, swaying in midair to the music.

Weird it had certainly been. Willow and a handful of other students from the class -- a mix of freshmen and sophomores -- had remained in the theater after the lecture to talk to the professor, or someone, about the work option, while the rest of the students had packed up books and papers and lunged out of their seats as if they couldn't wait to get outside for a cigarette or simply to escape. Addams had looked the remaining few over, sniffed, and disappeared without another word, apparently not caring whether they chose heavy labor or not. As soon as he was gone, however, strangers appeared from out of the wings. Most of the strangers didn't bother to do more than glance at them. They proceeded to pull large, wobbly frames out from between pairs of curtains, or shove furniture around, or kneel down on the stage to stripe it with masking tape.

But one, a woman in her early twenties with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail so long that it looped back upon itself and still hung halfway down to her waist, marched to the edge of the stage and looked down at them. Waiting until all of the Intro students were looking up at her, she said, "I'm Laurie. I'm the graduate stage manager. Are you the Intro students planning to sign up for backstage work to get out of writing a paper for Addams?" Her voice was hoarse, as if she spent a lot of time yelling or she'd injured her vocal cords at some time. Or maybe both.

The students nodded, and one of them, the clueless one who'd wanted to know what a technical rehearsal was, said, "What's backstage?"

Laurie rolled her eyes. "Give me strength. You're gonna find out.

"Okay, here's the deal. There's a signup sheet in the back. You've got to report to a crew head, that's me, or Lew" -- she pointed to a young bearded man with a hammer who paused long enough in a battle with a giant canvas frame to raise a hand and wave -- "or Marcie, who's up in costumes, or Alan in sound and lights, every time you show up, and we'll sign you in and out and mark your time. You put in fifteen honest hours and you're done. We're doing a lot of different stuff this semester -- the senior directing class is doing scenes from Shakespeare, we've got a couple of Albee one-acts, children's theater is doing Beauty and the Beast, and reader's theater's doing Spoon River. Plus the orchestra thinks this building was built for them for some reason. We need a lot of warm bodies to do props, paint scenery, make costumes, strike sets, the whole nine yards. I don't suppose there are any actual drama majors among you?"

Nobody raised a hand. Laurie sighed and lowered herself to sit on the edge of the stage, blue-jeaned legs kicking restlessly. "Of course not. That would be too easy. Okay. Now listen. The first rule in this theater is: if somebody tells you to stop what you're doing... Stop. What. You're. Doing. Instantly. You got that? We're dealing with electricity, hammers, power tools, some dangerous stuff, and nobody's going to get hurt if I can help it."

"Has anybody really gotten hurt here?" Clueless asked, on cue.

"Only really stupid people," Laurie said, smiling through gritted teeth. "Are you sure you don't want to do a paper instead?"

But Clueless persevered, so Laurie took down all the Intro students' names and made a note of the time and turned them all over to Lew for their very first lessons in the creation of theatrical illusions, which, as Willow informed Tara later, consisted of how to paint "flats," the scenery that looked to the audience like walls and trees but was really only canvas and wood and paint. Clueless promptly knocked over a (fortunately nearly empty) paint bucket. Lew sent her up to Alan in the lighting booth. As punishment, for the next half an hour the battery of lights over their heads flickered on and off like strobes in the Bronze while Alan demonstrated the different spotlights and follow spots and gels and dimmer switches to his new recruit.

Lew had growled and moved his painting crew into the shops. Xander would love this place, Willow thought. Table saws and jigsaws and hammers and all kinds of buildy things, like shop class, only -- no, actually; it was just like shop class. Only, she'd never actually taken shop class, so she was merely speculating, but she was willing to bet it was just like shop class. And the funny thing was, once they were all back in the shop, even with the saws and stuff running, it seemed quieter somehow. She wasn't always listening. Out on the stage she always felt like somebody was saying something to her that she wasn't quite catching.

"But you said there were rehearsals going on," Tara pointed out quite reasonably later that day. "You were probably trying to hear them. It drives me crazy when I can't quite hear something somebody's saying. I always think they're talking to me."

"Yeah, that was probably it." Willow bit her lip, thinking back, trying to remember everything that had been going on. "Yeah. Probably."