Elena, thanks, at least that's one mistake I caught myself.

final version is "published" up at BFA. Title is "The Wolf at Rest."

[link]

oh, connie, the sultana of silly is becoming a children's story. You've been given a title for exemplary service to the Sultanate. You are now Duchess of Discordia, Minister for Disposing of Those Annoying People in Poetically Just Ways.

This is weird. I posted mine, using ita's link, and it never showed up. Weird...

edit: and it took the repost. Weirder and weirder.

Deb, that's because you posted it as a comment to the post that told us what the theme was for this week.

You need to do the same steps for posting you used last week.

Use this link:

[link]

And in the Journal to Post in dropdown menu that lives below the post entry button, choose Sunday100.

Last drabble:

Quartoth and Holtz had taught him not to show his fear, but triggering the sanctuary spell had knocked that loose.

Why? Why him? Could he be an abomination? No … Holtz would never have let him live, never would have cared for him, never taught him to be strong and to fight evil … not if he were demon himself.

He snarled again at the mirror, relishing the contorted humanity looking back at him, begging it to chase away the sense memory of being hit by the spell.

Vampires don't leave reflections, he thought. Not in mirrors, not in me.

KerFUCKITY, ita, that topped the rest of 'em.

Damn.

ita, you're so good at this.

Damn, ita. That's some good stuff.

Plei, found the error and posted mine. I wish I found the livejournal a bit more transparent to navigate.

Not in mirrors, not in me.

GAWD, that's a perfect line.

This is still slightly rough, and will probably be padded in and polished in places, but reactions would be welcome.

Plei, this is *totally your fault*.

__________________

Re-education

Wesley raised his hand to knock on the door, but paused and sniffed. The faint smell of smoke alarmed him slightly, and he considered the merits of breaking down the door. On one hand, he was dealing with Buffy Summers, a Slayer who had managed to not only survive, but also avert several apocalypses. On the other, dying in a house fire would be a fairly ignominious way for her to go. He compromised and tried the door handle. It opened at his touch.

One quick glance reassured him that the house was not in immediate danger of burning to its foundation. The smoke seemed to originate from the kitchen.

"Buffy?"

"In here!"

He took a cautious step into the kitchen. No visible fire. The only symptoms seemed to be a bowl filled with some treacly mixture and…a charred batch of cookies.

Buffy rose into sight from her crouch by the oven. "Martha Stewart? A way bigger liar than her mild-mannered appearance would suggest."

"Yes, well, that would explain her recent troubles with the government."

"Oh, yeah," Buffy said. "I forgot about that. But this parchment paper stuff is supposed to be all magical and non-sticky and give me perfect cookies." She looked at the sad mess sitting on the counter. "These are not perfect cookies. These are totally imperfect cookies."

"Were you on a quest for the perfect cookies?"

She shrugged. "Spend a year in a house full of young girls, someone's got to learn how to cook. We got really tired of pizza, and it was eating up the food budget. I can make pretty decent spaghetti now. Turkey casserole. Tacos. So yeah, I was aiming for something in the dessert genre."

"The potential Slayers still live here, then?"

It seemed as if Buffy flinched, and he wondered belatedly whether he should have treated the subject with more care. "Most of the ones that survived. We had one local girl who went back to her parents, and a couple others took off right after the battle."

"And they intend to stay? Or, rather, you intend to let them?"

"That's actually why I called you. But you could have just called me back. You didn't have to drive up here. Phones do work two ways."

"To be honest, I wasn't sorry for an excuse to leave Los Angeles for a while." Too many bad memories, too many places fraught with some sort of significance.

By the looks of her, Buffy didn't need any further explanation. "Let's go sit in the living room. It's kind of toxic in here, with the smoke." She reached into a cupboard and pulled out a blue bag. "Chips Ahoy. A time-honored Summers tradition from before the Days of Cooking."

He surprised himself by pointing out, "We'll need milk, of course."

She raised an eyebrow at him, but merely said, "Of course." Milk was poured into two large tumblers, and they moved into the living room, Buffy pausing along the way to open a window.