I am all about the doing it anyway, including walking when they told me I wouldn't. Ass 'em in the ear, with the "you can't".

See, I think I can recognise that particular ability (pure character voice without dilution) because it's an ability I emphatically do not possess.

Wow, I'm verklempt. This is where the guys would start picking on each other, huh? "You're just saying that to get in my pants." There. All better. :)

Oh, I don't flatter about writing, not ever. That's a 100% doesn't ever change given: if I'm eh about the work or the writer, I'll make a vague noise when asked and change the subject. If I actively dislike the work or the writer, look for total silence. If I like it but something makes me jump, I'll say precisely that. And if I love, well, see the last 50 or so posts right here in this here thread.

I'm very uncomplicated. What you see and what you hear is what you get and how I feel.

Deb, that right there is what I love about you. You're the real deal.

(and smoochies back to Fay, who is under strictest injunction to hug and kiss Roz for me, because Roz - who has already been given the reciprocal injunction - will certainly hug and kiss you right back.)

wrod.(Well, I kind of guessed, but just thought that the conversation came a little too close to Loving And Sharing, after all the murder, mayhem, and tortured souls. I was only teasing.)

That's a 100% doesn't ever change given: if I'm eh about the work or the writer, I'll make a vague noise when asked and change the subject. If I actively dislike the work or the writer, look for total silence. If I like it but something makes me jump, I'll say precisely that. And if I love, well, see the last 50 or so posts right here in this here thread.

That is so good to know; it makes your comments more valuable.

I'm waiting for one more beta on my Anya story, but I think it's ready for posting here. It'll be 5 parts...

Five Things That Never Happened to Anya

Summary: Two deaths, three men, and five ways Anya's life could have unfolded.
Rating: PG-13 or so.
Pairings: Aud/Olaf, Anya/Giles, Anya/Xander.
Spoilers: It's AU, but it spoils through the end of S7.
Author's notes: The characters are not mine. The dialogue at the top of each section is taken from the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer episodes "Selfless" (sections 1 and 4), "Dopplegangland" (section 2), "Tabula Rasa" (section 3), and "End of Days" (section 5). Thanks to all the great "Five Things" writers who inspired this, and to Erika and Vesica for the betas.

1. My Perfect Aud

"You are my perfect Aud. I could never want for another."

He told her that, and stroked her face, and for a moment it was good.

But it all evaporated like dew when Rannveig walked by, singing in a voice made painfully off-key by drunkenness. Olaf strained towards the door, humming an echo of her song.

"You love her, don't you?," Aud asked softly.

His lips denied it, but his face told the truth. Olaf was many things, but he was not a good liar. She lay stiff in his sleeping arms for a long time that night.

The next day, Aud passed the point in the river where the women drew water on her way to get more greens for her rabbits. Rannveig was there, gossiping and laughing with her friends. Their voices got a little lower and their laughter a little louder as Aud walked by, one telltale finger marking her out. Not like us, their postures seemed to say. Aud quickened her steps.

When she got to the meadow, she gathered a handful of the clover that kept her bunnies happy and fat. But she noticed another plant, a prickly one with tiny yellow flowers. It was one her mother had shown her once, long ago, when she was a child, as part of her education on which twig or leaf or root was good for headache, and which one could soothe screaming babies.

"And this one," she said, "Use this one if your man ever does you wrong – which he will. Grind it up and cook it with his porridge and a drop of your blood, and it is a powerful magic." There was more, but Aud was mesmerized by the idea that something as small as this plant could create something as vast as justice.

She fed the preparation to him that night, hiding her cut finger in the folds of her skirt, her heart pounding and her body hot with anxiety. Would it work? Would he find out what she had tried?

But he glanced up at her in a way she hadn't seen in months. "No berries. I want you for dessert!," he roared, picking her up and carrying her to their bed. And the heat in her body then came from a different source, and she knew that the fidelis spell had taken hold.

After that night, she never did another magic, afraid it would tear apart what her last spell had put together. When she was buried some thirty years later, seven sons surrounded her grave, and five daughters bounced grandchildren and comforted the weeping Olaf. "I will never be complete again. Never!" he wailed, as his oldest child passed him handkerchief after handkerchief and his sons glanced at the ground and fiddled with their capes, not knowing what to do.

The villagers shied away. It was already odd enough that Olaf had been so faithful a partner, keeping himself for Aud even when he went to war. But this wailing made no sense, especially from a man, and one whose riches in land and rabbits would attract another, more desirable woman soon. Especially when one considered that Aud – well, she was pleasant enough, and free with rabbits and advice (a bit too free with the latter, some thought, but she always had been), and no one could deny that she had been a caring mother and a dutiful wife. But even when she was young and had full breasts, they found her a bit strange, not worthy of a partner such as Olaf.

It made no sense at all.

I like the additions, LJ.

2. The River to the Sea

ANYA: Eyrishon. K'shala. Meh-uhn. WILLOW: Diprecht. Doh-tehenlo Nu-Eyrishon. ANYA: The child to the mother. WILLOW: The river to the sea. ANYA: Eyrishon. Hear my prayer.

There was a whirl and the scent of power, and the necklace appeared. Anyanka fell upon it with a squeal.

"We did it! We did it!" Anyanka snatched the necklace up.

Willow looked shaken. "What the hell just happened? That was really intense, in a bad way"

Anyanka felt her body gain its full powers as she fastened the clasp on the necklace. Her head swum with the calls of dozens of wronged women. If she would just leave, Anyanka thought, but she made the effort to keep her smooth human face on for a few more minutes. "Nothing. Just a little temporal fold, like I said. Look, I thought you said you could handle the big spells, but if you can't…"

Willow stared at her, defiant. "I can handle the big spells. I gave a vampire his soul back last year. That was just a little blacker than I like my arts."

"Okay, I won't bother you again. I hear Amy Madison's not afraid of a little power."

The redhead shook her head and turned around, walking out of the classroom. Anyanka waited thirty agonizing seconds to make sure she wasn't coming back before she teleported to D'Hoffryn. He welcomed his prodigal demon eagerly, and Anyanka spent the next year helping wronged women all over the world. Her spells were made even richer, her punishments more inventive, by the time she'd spent imprisoned in a mortal body.

Then she heard a call from Sunnydale. It was strong, clear, angry; it had to come from a witch. Anyanka teleported in.

She found herself on a college campus, so she put on her Anya Emerson face – the one she'd used the year before. Scanning the crowd listening to a nearby speaker, she noticed Buffy Summers and quickly turned to face the other way. It would be no good at all to have the slayer following her, she thought.

The call was coming from a dorm room. In the instant before she knocked on the door, she fixed a cover story in her mind; she had just transferred in and needed to borrow some notes.

"Hi, I just signed on for the English class you're in, and-" She suddenly recognized the girl who had answered the door. Shorter hair, eyes swollen from crying, but it could only be one person: Willow.

"Anya? I thought you had left town again."

Anyanka shrugged. "Well, I'm back. And, um, I need English notes, and the professor said to come here."

Willow looked at her suspiciously. "I don't have an English class this semester. Maybe … I think there's a Matt Rosenberg over on the fifth floor? Only, he's majoring in comp sci, so probably not taking English either." Willow went to close the door. "Sorry."

"Wait, wait-" Anyanka said, thinking. "It's, um, really weird to be back in Sunnydale. And you're one of, like, three people I know here. Could we go get some coffee or something?"

"I don't know, I'm kinda feeling the need for alone time right now." Willow brushed her hair behind an ear. "My boyfriend just left, and the whole social thing is sort of … beyond me."

Bingo - that was her opening. "Your boyfriend? What happened?" Anyanka looked concerned. "I just got dumped, too. That's why I'm back in Sunnydale."

She could see Willow thinking; given that it was Sunnydale, she suspected there was some supernatural thing she was trying to talk around. "We were so happy. But then he met this other girl, a singer. Total slut. And he cheated on me with her, and when I found out, he left town."

"That's terrible. Are they together now?"

Willow shook her head. "No. She's … sort of out of the picture."

"Doesn't help you, does it."

"God, it almost makes things worse, cause the way she left was kind of my fault. " Willow opened the door wider, gestured the other girl in. "Come on in. It feels good to talk to someone."

Anyanka sat eagerly beside Willow on her bed, prepared to hand over Kleenex. She nodded empathetically as Willow told her how wonderful Oz had been, how kind, how much she loved him. "God, that sounds so awful for you. I bet the whole thing makes you really angry."

"Angry, and sad, and … just confused. I mean, I really thought Oz and I were going to be together, you know? And now we aren't. It makes me want…"

Anyanka was all but salivating. "What do you want?"

"I want … I wish Oz knew what I felt like, only physically. Like, his literal heart was actually being stomped on. Not enough to kill him," she added quickly, "Just constant pain."

Anyanka switched into her demon face and touched the necklace. "Done," she said. And it was; she could feel it, feel that the werewolf was suffering from the world's worst case of heartburn. He had been hiking a Tibetan mountain trail, but now he was doubled over in pain on the side of the road. She opened a viewing portal so Willow could see what she had done.

Anyanka didn't think of herself as an especially greedy demon – she'd hardly ever collected the blood tribute she was entitled to – but she liked to hear a "thank you" when she did her job well. None was forthcoming. "Oh my god, was that some kind of spell? It felt really scary," Willow said.

"It was a vengeance spell. And a good one, might I add. Don't thank me – it's just my job."

Willow hardly heard her. She was staring at the miniature Oz as he clutched his chest and swore. "He won't … he won't be like that forever, will he?"

The vengeance demon shrugged. "You asked that he feel the physical equivalent of your emotional pain. So when you get over him, he'll be fine."

"Oh." Willow's face crumpled. "When I get over him? What if I never get over him, and he's just all painy for, like, sixty years, and it's my fault?"