Connie, I'm loving V!Giles. You write Spike wonderfully (duh).

He made a promise to himself that if he checked four volumes of dark lore for mentions of Glory, then he could go out and find something to beat up. After all, the technique had gotten him through Oxford.

Oh, I *so* believe that!

most scary snarling one

"Completely up to you, your illustrious bloodthirstiness."

You really have a good handle on Minionese.

Hmm... snuff, or slash, snuff, or slash?

Come on, Plei, you know me. Which way do you think I'm going?

The combo pack, really.

Well, not just yet, though. Gots me lots of fun stuff I want to do with the boys yet.

Edit: But I'm getting hte impression that the combo pack is not an upsetting thought.

Working on the Faith fic again. I think this is going to be the thing I do on Mondays while I'm stuck downtown waiting for choir to start.

Just wrote this sentence:

For all she knows someone just called 911 because there were two girls fighting like [interesting and vivid simile here].

Oh dear.

[STILL SO FIRST-DRAFTY IT HURTS]

[stuff]

She can barely hear the words she's saying-- her blood's roaring in her ears and adrenaline is high in her chest. Faith's been lying down for eight months and she's dizzy with the desire for a fight.

B looks back at her and her little mouth forms that familiar shape that means disgust, and that's the moment Faith's been waiting for. Slams her to the head. B hits back and oh, this feels good, this is the dance they do, this is the thing she's been waiting for. Her body's moving, ducking, parrying before she even needs to think about it. This is what she does best, fighting next to B, or with B, or against B, her other half, only other girl in the world as strong as she.

[after she scrambles up over the wall on campus]

Legs pounding, feet hitting nice and solid against the pavement and Faith can remember a time when she wasn't this fast. She can conjure up the ache of drawing breath after a hard [run], or what it felt like to twist an ankle and fall while running, but only if she really concentrates on it. And who wants to do a thing like that? Right now her muscles are working, she's moving smooth and strong, she can feel the little twist in her back as she turns a corner onto the next street. Spent eight months in a coma and she wakes up all ready to go, not even the ghost of stiffness or a single crick in her neck. Slayer powers, gotta love them.

Yeah, she used to be weak. But then she turned eleven and when she woke up on her birthday and stood up and stretched it was like hello, good morning, world sliding from black and white into technicolor. And sure, fine, she was like Dorothy out of Kansas, every year she got stronger and when she was sixteen she threw her mother across the room and broke one of her ribs, though she hadn't even been trying, and then a year later there was that crazy woman with the accent who kept telling her what to do.

Then Kakistos, and Sunnydale, and she had almost been happy there, almost been getting into the whole white-hat scene-- okay, living in a cheap motel room and watching B moon over her big, broody, lump-of-soul-and-undead muscle boyfriend until Faith was itching so hard to dust him that sometimes she felt her fingers creeping around her stake before she was even aware of it. That was true. Still, jealousy and ugly rooms were nothing she hadn't learned to live with, and sometimes, fighting next to B or blowing off Wesley or sitting in the library with the gang researching the next harbinger of doom, Faith felt something unfamiliar, something warm and tight in her chest, and maybe it was happiness.

But that was all before a man in a dark alley bleeding from his chest, and the story ended up with B's sweet face set grim and pale as she stabbed Faith with her own knife on the roof of some goddamn building. And then the sleep. And then the months and months of dreams.

Oh, she's gonna kill B.

[stuff? transition.]

There are students here. Uniformly young and well-dressed and wearing the bright, clean faces of people who do not have destinies. Nobody really turns to look at her as she runs [did I have a better word here?] past-- chick dressed in black with long crazy hair running like she's got somewhere to be-- but this is Sunnydale; and these are college students. They probably figure she's late for class.

A girl in a red sweater strolls across the sidewalk, holding her boyfriend's arm as they walk. Proprietary. They nearly cut in front of Faith. They're oblivious; or just rude.

Is that the siren of the cops' cars sounding in the distance? She's fast, but wheels are faster. Are they looking for her? For all she knows someone just called 911 because there were two girls fighting like [interesting and vivid simile here]. But the police could be a problem. How much has B told them?

She's got to get off campus.

The siren's getting louder. Faith looks over at the field of students lounging or walking on the green. Considers running straight across it and shoving them aside, throwing down the people in her way, cutting a messy swath of upset student in her wake. The images flash in her mind-- all those anonymous faces stupid with surprise; white limbs windmilling as that girl in high boots tips backwards after Faith hits her in the chest. But no, she doesn't want to leave a trail for the police. If they *are* following her.

Love it, Lizard. Love how you get in to Faith's head in a scene we're familiar with.

Is it way, way, way, way too exposition-for-shit-we-already-know -y?

It doesn't seem expositiony to me.

(Though I now have a mental image of ED's lips just burned on my mind.)

Feh. More WIP bits. Will Finish Someday

Is it way, way, way, way too exposition-for-shit-we-already-know -y?

I didn't think so. It's all inside Faith's head so it's a completely different perspective.