Got Fred's voice perfect, Plei. Faith's nearly as good, but Fred had more to do this bit. I have faith in your ability. Um. As it were.

Connie, I thought that was the case, either that or you were fuzzled between which word to use and then left them both in by accident.

I agree with Elena -- some play on the "which bond" question would be really great right there, maybe, if not the "my favorite bond" thing, an explanation that he means the brosnan bond rather than the dalton bond, since no chin dimple, or something. (insent, Elena, tiara pic!)

Plei, I've always thought Fred was kind of attractive when she's quiet, but, dang, she's a lot more attractive when you make her talk. I also never really liked Faith, honestly, but I like your Faith, too -- and she sounds right. I'm debating letting Greg read this. I'm betting he'll have trouble sleeping afterward *g*.

Deb, I've been thinking about Amanda (again!), Remember the first part you posted where you asked if it sounded too lyrical? I'm thinking she sounds the same age there as she does later, and she doesn't seem to make any mistakes, other than that she's always right and that can be annoying to those who are wrong. Even if she didn't really like her mother, she doesn't seem to miss her. Could she cry herself to sleep or whine a little, or ... something that makes her seem more vulnerable at the younger age? Also, maybe "too lyrical" isn't quite it, but, maybe less aware? or less able to describe what resonates for her? I've been reading this as all hindsight from an adult narrator perspective, but, I still think a touch of younger Amanda there might make it even better.

'course, with re: Plei, I'm wondering what Gunn's going to say.

edit: Slumbernut for my birthyear!

connie. More. Please.

I can't critique. It just is. As it should be, inevitable as breath. Except when it stops.

I can't critique. It just is. As it should be, inevitable as breath. Except when it stops.

Bev, if you don't quit it, they're gonna know I'm slipping you sawbucks under the table.

grin.

Deena, she's looking back from a damaged place. You're about to get her first bit of sobbing breakdown and betrayal. It comes after this next bit, but there's a hint of it in the final paragraph:

Outside, as winter made itself felt across Oxfordshire, we emptied our cups and ordered soup, and Rupert talked about his mother. Moira's sister Eileen had been a potential Slayer, one of those who might be called in the line of succession, had the Chosen One died. That was how Moira had met Richard Giles. Why she had married him had been known only to herself.

We got back to Turl Street late, and found the flat dark; Richard, in the last stages of the flu, was staying in bed. I was exhausted, I told myself it was from the long walk back in chancy weather, or perhaps a touch of the flu was fastening itself to me. But somewhere beneath the physical weariness, there was a touch of something foreign to me: depression, hopelessness, what the Christians of an earlier time had called accidie. It had been many years since I'd last felt this, and in the past, it had always been an omen, my spider-sense triggering to the delicate footsteps of something bad to come. Something loomed, something waited. I felt the drag of it against me, and indeed, there was nothing in the real world to cause it. I had killed a demon and Rupert had sworn that he would take my side, now and always. Surely, I should be energised, pleased...?

"Amanda?"

We stood in the kitchen. The flat was completely dark; it was very like Richard to send me out on a killing errand and not bother to leave a light on for me. Behind Rupert's head, through the tied-back curtains, black clouds scudded fiercely across the moon's face, driven by a winter gale. Unaccountably, I thought of the only time I had ever seen the faces of the Council of Watchers, nearly seven years ago. Rupert stood, shadowed by the season and the weight of my foreboding, and he suddenly seemed a thousand miles away. I shuddered.

"Amanda - I meant what I said."

He didn't feel it; whatever this was, it was a witch's business, not a Watcher's. I lifted my head and he came to me quickly, murmuring quietly. I hadn't known, until he touched my cheek with one fingertip and then put the finger between his lips, that I was crying.

"Don't cry, beloved." His voice was almost normal, and I made a tiny hushing noise. "I don't know what's wrong, but there's something -"

He stopped in mid-word. In the split second that was the eternity before the kitchen lights came on, I felt him go rigid against me.

"So." There are no words to describe the venom in Richard Giles' voice. The glasses were off, and the eyes fixed on me were the colour of filthy ice.

It was the stuff of purest melodrama, tacky and tawdry and cheap. Drury Lane might have produced the scene as a morality play and sold seats for a ha'penny. a century ago. The stern father, the son of the house, the hated ward caught in the son's arms...

Ah well. At least the shock seemed to have put paid to his flu.

I began to laugh.

"Get out." Richard took a step towards me. I hadn't thought Rupert could get any tenser. I was mistaken. His arm was around my waist and he was rocklike beside me.

"No." Rupert spoke quietly. "No, Father, I think not."

"I don't recall asking you what you thought." If I had cared for Richard Giles' opinion of me, the concentrated malice would have been enough to damage me; that, after all, is one drawback to being a witch. I cared for Rupert, though.

"She's the Slayer." Rupert sounded as cold as his father. "She's the Slayer, and that means you don't get to choose. You know it, I know it. You can't order her out into the snow with her baby in her arms, or whatever you think you're doing. Not without asking the Council."

"It's all right, Rupert." Something had flashed between us; I'd felt him catch at my thought. He hadn't simply also seen the absurd penny-dreadful parallels, he'd actually heard a bit of my thought. I had never come so close to anyone, other than the father I had never seen. It warmed me. "He's got a right to be shocked."

"Shocked?" Richard was almost lipless with hate. "I'm not remotely shocked. I always knew you were a witch and a whore and why you were Chosen is beyond me. This stupid weak boy here, he's quite right. I can't put you out. But I can -"

"Stop." It had hit me, the looming, the foreboding, the vast dark thing just above my shoulder. A picture in my mind's eye, books, one book left open on a lectern in a corner in the shop below our feet, a whispery voice, familiar, I knew it, an incantation, a curl of - "Smoke. I smell smoke."

Yes. connie cannot stop. She has to be with the moving forward. Like a shark. Except in cyberspace. And with teeth of jagged glass that she plunges into your chest and uses to chop your heart into tiny little pieces. Bitch.

Hee! Well, don't stop. Writing, I mean.

deb, I can't wait to get more of this story. I'm loving it muchly.

But, when does this story take place?

and in the past, it had always been an omen, my spider-sense

Because this is such an American reference, and from the late 60s, I think.

adding Elena to my will