Honeychild, if I thought for one second I could take even a soupcon of credit for any of that amazing stuff? I'd be starry-eyed.

Speaking of which, check out Teppy's new topic in Great Write. "Near-Death Experiences".

This weeks open-on-sunday challenge topic is "lessons". Here's two:

Life Must Go On (I Forget Just Why)

She weeps in his arms.

She weeps for what she's lost, for what she was and can never be again. She weeps for what she had, and will never have again. She weeps for what she nearly did, for the death she caused and the deaths she tried to cause.

She weeps for the injustice of this world, that Tara is gone, will never wake to another golden sunrise in her arms, will never stammer, never offer up another orgasm or bewitching sleepy smile.

She weeps in Xander's arms, bitterly. The hardest lesson - continuance - is still to come.

---

Lessons in Need

For a man whose heart pumps no blood, expands no red cells, Angel's very much aware of the lines carved into it, by the hard tests of time, of a gypsy's curse.

He knows, for instance, that he can't, mustn't, touch her. However nonfunctional his heart, his brain retains lessons learned, and the first of those lessons is that to love her is destroy them both, and perhaps everything else.

His hero's scarred heart, fragile soul, and unforgiving memory may long for his golden Slayer, day and night. His courage takes the lesson learned, and keeps it to mere longing.

And, one more "lessons" drabble (hoping Fay posts the two she did in here, they're fucking brilliant)

Beyond the Body

There's a hole in her heart, a dead raped empty place somewhere in her spirit. Nothing will grow there again; it receives no sunlight now, no nutrients, no care. The place once held her mother, but her mother is gone.

She directs the mourners, deals with a weeping broken Dawn, listens to the last rites, drops dirt on Joyce's coffin. The sound chills her; so final, so bleak. There is some comfort to be had, but not with the sun still high.

Two lessons she takes away from this: Everything, everybody, dies. And Angel will always be there for her.

Because I obey the fair Deb's every command, here be Drabbles for the 'Lessons' challenge.

Falling

Her death was inevitable, and he has never had any illusions about that. He has been preparing for this job since before his voice broke, and when he turned his back on the British Museum he knew that he would die abroad or be bereaved. It is the way of things.

She was not at all what he expected. Irreverent. Loving. Lethal. Undaunted. Full of laughter. Full of life.

Despite all logic, he expected her to win.

Rupert Giles finds that some lessons cannot be learnt from diaries or other men's mouths.

His heart shatters when she hits the ground.

Seeing Red

Willow used to be shy, but she's learning that the rules don't apply to her.

"Don't play with magic." But she's better than Giles, better than Jenny. She's smart enough. Powerful. Getting better all the time.

"We don't mess with life and death." Dawn couldn't, shouldn't; but Willow can. Does.

Power like champagne in her veins.

"You're using too much magic."

Willow knows better.

...it all comes apart. She's learnt the wrong lesson. Unlearning hurts.

...

...

"Can you just be kissing me now?"

Second chance.

Blood blossoms on Tara's shirt.

The world stops.

Willow is outside the rules.

Damn, they're good. They're soooooooo good...

Pshaw. You're very good for my ego, love. You know how much I like your drabbles.

On a wholly different note, can I just say aaaaaaaargh wrt stories? Am writing a big-ass sequel to my Harry Potter story, and it's going to take forever because I've not been concentrating on it enough even though I've had the time - I've been ReaderGal rather than WriterGal, but I have so little chance to do either, during term time...anyway, my characters seem to be DETERMINED to do something I absolutely hadn't foreseen, which is fabulous of them, I'm rather shocked, but that's a good thing...only it's going to cause SO much misery. I don't know where it's going to take everything, I really don't, but I rather fear that at least one relationship is going to be wrecked. Sigh.

Oh, dear. Well - give them their heads and let them run. You can always rein them in if you need to later....

I'm pretty much standing over them shaking my finger and saying 'WTF? Are you crazy? How can good come of this?' whilst suspecting that this is exactly what they'd do. Stupid teenagers.

You know, I want them to be happy, and to Do The Right Thing. I really do. But they're showing this horrible inclination to just fuck things up in the messiest way possible. I'm trying to think of how I can fix it for them, and then thinking 'but now I'm just colluding with them to try to dig them out of their own mess, and that's making it fake. Shit happens. People screw up. Damn.'

...which really isn't something I could explain to most people in my life, with the whole 'it all being made up' thing.

You may not have much of a choice on this one, kiddo. The problem with the "I will control it! ALL of it!" method of writing is that, when it's wrong?

It's reeeeeeeeally wrong.