Those are all great. Thanks, PMM.

I fear I spend too much time on hair websites, you see.

Attempting to keep my hair from turning into any one of those things.

Ooooooh.

"You don't have to breathe, pet," he reminded her, and she murmured unhappily.

Lurve that, Liz. One suggestion?

Rain was still drizzling half-heartedly down from the sky.

"down" is redundant. Only direction the rain could go, after all.

Otherwise, I totally adore this. I love her seeing the knife-edge of the sun and Spike thinking she wants a real one. And that bit about her toes? So very very Dru.

Wow, Rebecca. You write a great Dru.

The X-Files Drabble Excitement Continues!

Shadows

Waiting until the girls were out of the house to break down didn't make it any easier.

It was so hard, trying to be cheerful, trying to reassure Dawn and Buffy that everything would be okay after the surgery. Trying not to panic whenever she looked at her youngest child and saw nothing but a shadow.

A shadow could be nothing. That's what they'd said. Her shadow was something. Joyce stared at her reflection, the brush frozen in the carefully-frosted hair that wouldn't be there when she woke up, and tried to tell herself it would all be all right.

She *will* drabble them all!

Have you ever accidently come upon something you wrote a year or more ago and just be stunned at what you were thinking and feeling at the time? Because, wow. I was in a totally different place over a year ago. It's really a mind warp.

She *will* drabble them all!

t waits impatiently.

Go, Plei! Go, Liz! Gogogogogogo!

SA, it's a bizarre sensation, isn't it? The disconnect-reconnect thing gets really strange when it happens after longer passages of time. You look back at 30 at something you wrote at twenty and thing, yipes, was I really that eager/tough/tender/brave/naive or whatever?

edit: even weirder is that at fiftyish, the stuff you wrote at twenty five becomes much more sensible and familiar. I've heard this from other writers, as well. Makes me wonder about ageing and how much more our essential selves/original wrapping selves we are than we think....

"down" is redundant. Only direction the rain could go, after all.

Ah, yes, you're right. I'll strike that.

Wow, Rebecca. You write a great Dru.

Thank you, ma'am. She's one of my favorite characters.

SA, what's really odd is when you find *posts* from six months or a year ago and you have no memory of making them, and who is this odd person, and what is she saying?

The Resurrection Gambit

Part Eight: The Genealogy Lesson

Giles wondered if this was what the others were always thinking about him. Angel stood at a lectern, while behind him on a large, flat-screen monitor flowed images of an impossibly beautiful man, walking on air and shattering glass with a whisper.

“It’s called the Juris,” said Angel.

Wolfram & Hart’s cameras had captured the entire confrontation. Giles puzzled at the thought of Angel with such resources at his disposal. What on Earth was he going to do with them?

Still, the Juris was the threat in front of them. There were audible gasps at its beauty, how its every movement seemed to flow like liquid. Only Spike’s eyes seem to narrow at the sight of it.

“If it ever had a name,” said Angel, “There’s no one alive that remembers it. The few vampires who even know of it think it’s a myth.”

Angel stopped the tape with a flick of a button.

“It’s not.”

Gunn, Wesley, Fred, Spike, Giles and Xander sat in the miniature movie theater. There was a sort of nervous fidgeting between them, as though no one knew exactly what to say.

“So, why does it want to kill you?” asked Xander, ill-content to let the question they were all thinking lie.

“It doesn’t want to kill me,” said Angel. “It wants to judge me.”

“Then kill you?” asked Spike, who was growing visibly more agitated as the meeting went on.

“Probably,” said Angel with faux perkiness, before continuing more seriously. “As the legend has it, the Juris was one of the first vampires turned in the early days of man. In its youth, it cut a swathe through humanity, leaving bloodshed in its wake. Early on, it killed slayers with impunity, eradicated tribes. Centuries passed and it simply grew more powerful.

“Eventually, however, it got…” Angel seemed to struggle for the word. “Bored. Bored about covers it. It retired from this plane, but left one of its disciples an emerald that—with the proper ritual—would give its descendents immense power. The power to control our kind, to destroy them instantly. Most importantly, it gave the user the power to summon the Juris from its rest, to cast vengeance on those who betrayed their kind.

“The first vampire to wield it built a cult around himself, and followers flocked from every cemetery in Europe. With the emerald in his possession, it marshaled its forces into an army, a brutal wave that held whole countries under sway. That vampire was named….”

“Aurelius,” said Giles, matter-of-factly. "Meaning it's an ancestor of yours." Angel gave him a cold, quizzical look, but whatever he was thinking, he let it go.

“Uh-huh,” said Angel. “distantly removed, but yeah. It’s a straight line.” Angel looked up at Spike, who didn’t look pleased.

“Then why is it here?” asked Wesley. “And who set it after you?” Angel flicked another button, and an image of the female vampire they’d fought earlier appeared.

“That’s the one Faith and I fought,” said Xander. “In England. Yesterday. We got here by magic, so I suppose…”

“Probably,” said Angel. “Judging from what we saw and what Spike felt in the alley, not to mention the fact that the Juris is floating around, she’s gotten her hands on the Aurelius Gem. The gem can only be used by a descendent of the Juris, and she’s..”

“Descended from Luke,” interrupted Giles, who was beginning to piece it all together in his head. “Her name is Azra.”

“You seem to know a lot here, Rupert,” said Spike, “Care to share?”

Giles took a second to clean his glasses, and then looked Spike straight in the eyes.

“After the Master nearly…” words were lost beneath his stutter for a second. He didn’t know why he was suddenly feeling so anxious. “After you and Drusilla appeared, and after Angel lost…”

He stopped and looked at Angel, who was watching him with an unreadable expression.

“There was something about that bloodline. About all the vampires descended from the Master. They… you were all a bit smarter, more powerful. I decided to learn as much about the Order of Aurelius as possible. In order to destroy you all.” Giles paused for a second. “If necessary.”

Angel and Spike both stared at the Watcher, and then relaxed a bit.

“Right,” said Angel.

“Makes sense,” said Spike.

“But why?” asked Fred. “I mean, why is this Azra out to kill you?”

“Because I helped kill the Master,” said Angel.

“Wait a second,” said Xander. “I was there. Buffy killed the Master, not you.”

“Because,” said a voice that washed over them like emotion. “It is the nature of humans to struggle and die, and it is the nature of Slayers to hunt and sometimes kill…”

The heroes turned, and looked toward the back of the room, where the Juris stood, calmly watching them.

“But these two,” he said, his gaze falling in turn on Angel and Spike, “these are abominations in my sight.”