Keen. I want to make sure you get them before you leave for the F2F.

Cool. I'll be in NC all weekend, but I'll be back on Monday before I leave for CALIFORNIA on Wednesday.

I feel wonderfully unfettered re: potential stories, now. This will be a good summer for writing.

I need a bit of language help, if someone doesn't mind. I'm working with a character in a fic who's half Mexican. What terms of endearment might a Mexican grandmother use towards her teenaged grand-daughter?

Ta ever so.

Nina means little girl.

edit: with a tilde over the second N, that is. Also, "ita" is the feminine diminutive ending, so a cute Spanish word with "ita" at the end could be a nickname.

She might also use "mija" which is sort of an abbreviation of "mi hija"/my daughter. She could also use "mi cielo" o "corazon". She might use the character's name with "ita" on the end, a diminutive and also a term of endearment. So, if she was me she could be "Gatita" for example. Huh, I just thought that would make ita "itaita", which gave me a good giggle.

Well, since I wounded the thread with the horrible "itaita" joke (sorry) I might as well go on and finish it off. Here's my original drabble, the one that started me on fan fiction and was spoilery before but not now since nothing is spoilery now. Sigh. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I do have a soft spot for it because it was my first baby. It's grown a little since the original 100 words. The theme was gun/hotel room.

"Pinewood Motel. Room 223. Stay there."

It shouldn’t be like this. She was supposed to be fighting, not in some roadside motel. She’d tried so hard to help. It hadn’t mattered. Everybody still thought of her as a little girl.

Xander had put her in the trunk. “Bastard.” She muttered. Ooh, she’d called Xander a bastard. She giggled, then caught herself. No wonder nobody took her seriously.

Was this Buffy’s idea of showing her the world? One motel at a time. No thanks. She walked to the closet, recoiling as her bare feet touched the stained carpet. The gun was on the floor, sleek and black. It had been easy to get. Pretty young girl. Old drunk. Sleazy bar. It wasn’t a big leap from klepto to pickpocket. She picked it up.

The click of the door opening almost made her drop the stupid thing. “Dawn, I brought some donuts. Thought we could watch a little Three Stooges. You up for it?” Her whole body tensed. For a minute, she thought she couldn’t do it. This was Xander. Then, she remembered Buffy in the cold, hard ground. That wouldn’t happen again. She turned around and aimed.

“I’d rather go home.”

• ****

“What is it with me and women? No matter how well things start out, they always end up with me facing death. Well, at least I’m not strapped to some wheel of pain or being menaced by some praying mantis de... Oh no. You’re not a demon now, are you?”

“What? No. Xander!”

“Just checking.” If he could just keep her talking, find out what happened in the short time that he’d been gone. “So where’d you get the gun?”

“We don’t have time for 20 questions. I want to go home. Now.”

“Not gonna happen, Dawn. I take you back, Buffy’d let Caleb finish what he started. The eyepatch thing is sexy, but those dark brown glasses? A little too Stevie Wonder.” A smile. Smiles were good. Smiles meant no bullets. “Come on. Let’s just sit down. We’ll eat donuts, watch a little tv. Wait for the apocalypse to be over.”

“I can’t be here. Buffy needs me. She does.” Xander watched Dawn’s eyes fill up with tears. Those tears had always gone straight to his heart. Only Willow’s affected him more. But he couldn’t break now, couldn’t comfort her. He had to make her understand something even he didn’t really get.

“Yeah, you’re right. Buffy does need you, Dawn. She needs you alive. She needs you to live through this, even if...”

“Don’t say it.” Dawn’s voice was no more than a whisper now. The gun in her hand looked like it weighed about a thousand pounds. Her arm was shaking and the tears were rolling freely down her cheeks. Xander stepped slowly to the cheap plywood table in front of the window and set the box of Krispy Kremes down. Then he started to walk towards Dawn. He tried to think about the best way to approach her, but all he heard in his head was Steve Irwin’s voice telling him to be very careful cause this baby’s beautiful but dangerous.

“She can’t die again. I can’t... I can’t.”

“I know, Dawnie. I know.” He was close now, just a few inches away. He reached out and put a hand on her arm, gently pressing it down until the gun hung limply at her side. Then she was in his arms, sobbing into his t-shirt. “Listen, Buffy will fight better if she knows you’re safe. You’re doing the best thing you can for her right now by being here.”

Dawn didn’t say anything, and Xander didn’t know what else to say. The two exiles stood there and comforted each other. The one eyed man and the key without a lock. What could they do in the big battle but get in the way, right?

• ****

Dawn didn’t say anything, and Xander didn’t know what else to say. The two exiles stood there and comforted each other. The one eyed man and the key without a lock. What could they do in the big battle but get in the way, right?

waaaaaaaaaa

(breaks again)

Sniff.

(It's Krispy Kreme)

Beautiful.

Thanks.

Krispy Kreme. Right. I should do some donut penance or something.

"key without a lock," that's good.