....annnnnnnnnnnd there are 3100 more words I need to sort through and re-read before shoving up here. But, you know. Soonish. Honest. Or something.

Oh, Plei.

WOW. This:

One on her neck, faded and almost invisible, another below her ribs, short and jagged like the knife that had made it, the same knife that gutted Faith while he watched, too far away to do any good, and the rest of them, still red and ugly, marking her hips and thighs.

guh.

You know what, in that entire thing, only one thing made me blink in the wrong way (there was an astonishing amount of blinking in the right way) - the use of the word "prurient" to describe Wesley wanting her. I sort of felt that, after the levels of hell he'd been through and, more, the levels of hell he knows that she's been through, he'd know there was a level to his need for her that went well beyond prurience. Unless it was sort of a Wesley-kickback moment,in his head? It would make perfect sense for for that word to pop into his head then.

Waking up. Man, that floored me. Keep it coming, please; I can't wait to see how it ends.

Ahem. Damn, online time too short! connie, I'll read and comment on that when I get to your LJ.

While I'm here, though, there's HH/FF crossover. Pure, unedited, unreread, as it tumbled out of my brain.

- - -

“Even dyin’ don’t go smooth, seems,” he said, and was a little startled to find that when he looked up at the buildings on the horizon, they were moving, gently waving up and down.

“Sir?” Zoe said, over to his left. “Is it just me, or is something very strange here?”

“This is scary,” Wash put in, from further along the beach. “Zoe—can you please stop being a penguin?”

Before Mal could formulate a reply, a calm female voice announced, “Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling.”

River giggled. “Infinite improbability drive. Shiny.”

Mal looked right, past River, past Jayne, to Simon. “Doc,” he said, “if your sister knows where we are…”

“One to the power of…” the voice went on.

Simon had to shout to be heard over it. “I don’t think she does, captain. Not really.”

“Right,” Mal said, and watched his arm slowly reappear.

“We have normality,” said the voice, cheerfully. Various members of the crew made noises expressing deeply held cynicism. “I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.”

“Okay.” Mal stood up, and took stock of his surroundings. They were in a small, luminous pink cubical, similar in shape and size to an airlock.

Jayne had his gun out and was standing by Kaylee, alternating between glancing round for anything attacking and watching Mal’s reactions.

Kaylee, in turn, was standing by Inara—in fact, Mal noted, they were holding hands—and trying to look confident.

River was leaning on one of the walls, listening to something behind it and muttering to her brother, who clearly wasn’t understanding a word, although he was trying.

Zoe and Wash were kissing passionately, apparently glad not to be penguins, and Book was on his knees, head bowed in prayer.

“It’s real shiny,” Kaylee said, staring at the sparkling clean walls. “All clean, like it was new.”

“It’s only been around for six lousy months and already there are more visitors,” drone a voice that sounded strangely like a man with his head in a metal bin. “Brain the size of a planet and all I ever get to do is escort visitors. Useless organic habit.”

They all looked around wildly for the source of the voice, and after a couple of seconds, the door slid open and Marvin appeared. Every jaw dropped simultaneously.

Wash’s was the first up, of course. “Hi,” he said. “Err… are you a *robot*?”

“I’m a cybernetic companion with a personality prototype. You can tell, can’t you?”

“That’s not possible,” Kaylee said, gaping.

“There are more things in heaven and earth,” Book told her, but added, “Robots aren’t mentioned normally, though.”

“I assure you, I am depressingly real,” Marvin said. “Now if you’ll be so kind as to follow me, which I expect you won’t, we’ll be going.” He turned and started to leave, glaring at the door as it opened with a happy sigh, but noone was following.

“Where ‘xactly are we goin’ to?” Mal asked.

“The bridge, of course, the current dwelling place of the other humans on this ship. If you don’t like that, frankly couldn’t care less, so pardon me fore breathing which I never do anyway so…” His voice droned on as he dragged himself up the corridor.

Mal looked around at his crew, decided it couldn’t get worse, shrugged, and gestured for them to follow the… whatever he was.

“Zoe—can you please stop being a penguin?”

suhNERK! Deb just went back to a BBC Thursday night radio happy place...

Oh, Am! Snerk!

You deranged and wonderful girl!

Deb, good call, and so noted in the logs.

Plei, have I mentioned less than a hundred times recently how splendid your Wesley is? The reason I notice the tiny stuff is because you get him down so perfectly.

Am, I'm still giggling over here.

"Can you stop being a penguin?"

"Robots aren't generally mentioned."

Whee. Makes me regret not seeing the show.

Plei, my god. I am loving this. Please whip those 3,000 other words into shape.

Plei, my god. I am loving this. Please whip those 3,000 other words into shape.

Can I borrow the discipline I sent you? I need to finish the writing spurt I'm on before I can do much more whipping. (Writing this in a linear fashion has been interesting. It means writing to a point, then going back, re-reading, and seeing what I need to alter/expand/include so that things aren't just in my head. It's kinda cool.)

lalalala, we are enabling Plei, lalalala.....

I've got oodles of spare discipline. Shall I send with cookies?