No more Spike, I'm afraid (but thanks for the encouragement, everybody!), but there is the rest of Giles talking to FE.

- - -

"There's no way you'll ever know for sure." Ethan wondered round the room, peering at the bookshelves as if working out how much petrol would be needed to send the whole lot up in flames.

"No, I don't expect I will," Giles said, and made a visible effort not to shudder. "Do you have a message, or are you just here to taunt me?"

"Oh, I have a message," Ethan smirked, a curl of the lips as familiar to Giles as the pang of emotion it caused in his chest. "But I thought I'd get in a little taunting while I was here."

"Why don't you get on with it, then? Where were you planning to start—my parentage?"

"No, I was thinking of insulting the size of your…" Giles' face registered that he'd followed that thought to its natural conclusion, and Ethan finished with "hamster," just to watch the two ideas collide.

"You know," Giles said, slowly and speculatively, "if you were the real Ethan, I'd be trying to kill you by now."

Ethan smirked. "Nah. If I was the real Ethan, you'd be sitting there trying to work out whether you wanted to shag me or kill me, or both. Which tells me… that I'm real."

It wasn't a point Giles would—or could—argue. "Message, Ethan. You said you had one for me."

"I could have been lying."

"All too likely. However, I prefer to think that since the message is bad news, you're going to give it to me."

"What makes you think it's bad news? It could be the Slayer and her pals are all fine, just waiting for you to go back and feed them Jaffa cakes."

"But it isn't. If they were fine, you'd have told me, and then taunted. No; there's bad news."

"Okay, then," Ethan shrugged. "You win. If bad news is what you want, bad news is what you'll get. The world is ending, buddy. And not in a pretty, funny, hitch-a-lift-out way, either. Evil's coming, evil so big and bad it can't be defeated, and everyone's going to die."

Giles nodded. "That sounds more like what I'd expect to hear."

"There's more," Ethan smiled, and Giles remembered working hard to produce that look, years ago. "It's going to be fun."

"I doubt that."

"Oh, it is. Everyone of note is on our side, and they're all going to enjoy themselves. Even the Slayer's friends will help—that vampire with the good taste in hair dye, for one. The armies of darkness are arising, Ripper—or is it Rupert, these days? So much tamer, so much less inclined to take action."

"I don't…" Giles began—but Ethan was gone. Carefully, he picked up the dropped and forgotten book, smoothed down the crumpled page, and sat there.

He wouldn't let the First Evil be right. It wasn't going to be that way.

Olivia looked as finely drawn as a Goya etching.

Beautiful. I love how the story is moving from funny to creepy. That's hard to pull off, but it's working well in this story.

The world is end, buddy. And not in a pretty, funny, hitch-a-lift-out way, either.

Shouldn't it be "The world is ending?"

Very nice Ethan and Giles.

Shouldn't it be "The world is ending?"

It should indeed be. Thanks, Anne.

And... a round up to my take on dreamtree's challenge.

- - -

"See the lion over in the corner?" Clem said, a slightly curved fingernail pointing the way.

Spike peered, found that no, he couldn't see it, and slipped into his game face without thinking. "Yeah," he said. "What about it?"

"Don't you think it looks a bit like Angel?" Clem asked. "Big brow, hair stood up on end like that, ever so serious all the time?"

"I see a certain resemblance," Spike admitted. "But how long have you known Angel?"

"Oh, ever since I got here," Clem said. "Arrived in the big new city, no idea of how to find my way around, and I figured that one of Buffy's friends was as good a place to go as any. They're running some sort of law firm now, I think—I haven't been involved much."

"Oh," Spike said, and then, "We're in LA?"

"Unless we ran so far we made it to… wherever's next up the highway," Clem told him. "Anyway, it's your turn. What about that lioness in the middle?"

Spike looked at the lioness in the middle, and all she reminded him of was Buffy. "Can't think of anyone. Look- it's nearly dawn."

Clem looked, and indeed, the sun was starting to rise. "We'd best be going, man. I don't want to have to… you know, sweep you up."

"No going to be a problem, actually," Spike said, beginning to realise for himself what things meant. "I'm human. I'm human—doing stupid human things, like breathing and going to the zoo; and not dusting in the sun."

"Oh," Clem said. "Oh. Oh, well, then. We can have more ice cream, and without stealing it, this time."

"You're on," Spike grinned. "If you're paying."

I may be wrong on this, Deb, but:

considering that Olivia kept yelling "Celare" whenever she broke a bit off the bracelet, this must be essentially a cloaking spell? Otherwise, she'd hardly keep yelling "hide!" in Latin.

"Celare" would mean "to hide." I think it would be "cela" to be "hide," though I can double check this evening.

Deb, Restoration Hardware gives *me* a woody.

Likeing this muchly!

Oh, Deb, that is scary creepy and I don't like it. More please.

Am, nice! I like your Clem. I want more of that, too.

Now I have to run off to LJ and read Connie's V!Giles, so you have a few minutes to post.

"Celare" would mean "to hide." I think it would be "cela" to be "hide," though I can double check this evening.

Ha! I knew someone would pick up on it, around here.

SA, you smart woman, you, goodonya for the catch. But the form is deliberate because she isn't calling out a command, she's calling out a result. The spell isn't quite what Giles thinks it is - remember, she's committing an action with a bit of gold, in conjunction with her spell.

In the final section. You'll see.

Whoo! Am, so both pieces are corkers.

But the form is deliberate

Ah. Okay. You'll excuse me if I still feel smart for saying something, as it means my two semesters of Latin and my upcoming TA position hasn't gone to waste.