Fay! You are the bestest! Now that will be Inara's backstory for me.

---

I wrote a couple for this week's Open on Sunday challenge, which is faith (or Faith):

Belief

She believes it.

Power, strength, the scythe, Willow' spell. She believes it.

She believes as she dances in the blood of a dozen turok-hans, believes as a Potential becomes a Slayer before her eyes, believes as Spike calls out something incomprehensible that becomes Buffy's name, as he channels sunlight itself, flooding the darkness, dissolving into shattering rivers of light.

Yet the greatest belief is yet to come: as she leaps for the door, she turns back, and locks eyes with Buffy, for just a moment, Slayer to Slayer, darkness and light. She can be herself, Faith.

Buffy's got her back.

Vignette #1

In the total darkness, she's blind.

Her other senses are heightened to an unbearable edge. She tastes, smells, the blood-drenched darkness, its coppery bite settling into sinus and throat. She can feel the even, rhythmic sussuration of whatever is breathing at the far end of blackness, molecules of danger against her flesh. But vision is absent.

She closes her eyes and concentrates. It's a matter of faith. Being the Slayer is defined by that: faith in herself, her strengths, her intuition.

Buffy aims the crossbow into oblivion. All five senses register satisfaction, the demon screaming as the bolt connects.

---

Just a something triggered by natural history

Animal Planet, or, Sometimes the Entire World is Twelve Years Old

Xander plugged his ears against Spike's complaints about the limitations of basic cable. "I don't care if Giles had BBC America! You'll watch basic and like it, or don't you remember that you're the one tied up in the chair?"

Spike ambidextrously flipped Xander off with his right hand while shuffling through the channels on the remote control in his left hand. "Sadist. Bondage fetishist. You learn that from the unemployed librarian, who just happened to have chains to hand?"

"Shut! Up!" Xander debated the pleasures of bouncing a full can of Coke off an undead skull, then decided it'd only fizz all over the place and get the floor sticky. "I'm going to change my clothes. You're going to sit there and watch TV, then we're going over to Giles' for a Scooby meeting, where you'll find some reason to justify our feeding you. Capice?"

"Ooo, Godfather imitations, so scary."

One more growl, then Xander grabbed his clothes and headed into the tiny bathroom to change. He heard Spike muttering in annoyance, calling the CNN anchorwoman a badly dressed cow, bad-mouthing the movie on Sci-Fi, sneering at Christopher Lowell--then silence.

Silence? From Spike?

Xander finished dressing, then, after a brief hesitation of wondering if monsters had eaten Spike, he opened the door.

Spike was still in his chair, still as undead as ever, but he was staring in disbelief at the TV screen. Martha Stewart? Barney? Xander hurried around to see. Animal Planet? Monkeys? The narrator's voice began making sense.

"It's not quite clear what the purpose of penis fencing is among the bonobo monkeys. It may be a means of establishing dominance, or it may simply be a form of mutual grooming or interaction."

On the screen, two monkeys hung by their hands from separate branches, facing each other, swinging back and forth and bumping into each other. Fencing. With their erect penises.

"Pleasure is apparently not the primary purpose for this behavior, because the two males do not continue to ejac--"

Xander yanked the remote from Spike's unresisting fingers and changed the channel. Headline News, death and destruction, much more soothing. He stared at the screen, then looking down at Spike. The vampire was still blinking in disbelief, then he looked up at Xander. They stared at each other, both unable to form words.

"Time for the meeting," Xander finally said.

"Yeah. The meeting."

Later, they blamed everything on Giles.

"Yes, it's a standard course of study when preparing to join the Council," he told Willow. He looked a bit smug as he adjusted his glasses. "I must say, I was always fairly good at fencing. Xander, are you all right?"

Xander managed to clear his throat. "Sorry. Potato chip, wrong pipe." He took a quick swig of his soda and made very sure not to look in Spike's direction.

Buffy came out of the kitchen. "When are you going to teach me fencing, Giles?" Spike, sitting on the stairs and staying out of trouble for once, began coughing. After a quick, suspicious look, Buffy ignored him. "I mean, how hard can it be? Spike, how can you be choking? You don't breathe."

Spike, keeping his head down, just waved her off.

Giles was considering Buffy's suggestion. "I suppose I can show you the basics. It is a useful skill to improve hand-eye coordination, but I can't think that fencing would ever be your primary means of-- Xander, are you sure you're all right."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Xander said in a tight voice. From the corner of his eye, he saw Spike was apparently chewing on his knuckle to stay quiet. "I'm--gonna go outside. Get some air."

Spike swung off the stairs. "Dark out. Whelp needs a chaperone."

No one commented as the door closed behind them.

They stood in the courtyard, studying everything other than each other. Spike took a deep breath.

"Don't!" Xander said quickly.

"Parry," Spike said anyway. "Thrust."

"Don't say thrust!"

Spike made an unambiguous hip roll. "En garde!"

Xander buried his face in his hands. "I do not need these things in my brain." He heard slow, booted footsteps coming towards him. "Spike, what can I do to keep you from coming up with some vile innuendo on this?"

"Innuendo? Are you implying there could be something sexual about the subject at hand?"

"Oh, god, the whole world is twelve years old all of a sudden."

"Might just be you," a sultry voice whispered into his ear.

Xander jerked his head up and glared at Spike, who smirked at him. "Aren't you supposed to be chained up somewhere?"

"Is that an offer?" Maybe it was the look of imminent brain implosion on Xander's face that made Spike dial down the lewdness generator. "S'pose we ought to go back in there. Listen to the Watcher and the Slayer chatter about fencing some more."

Xander looked at Giles' door with something less than enthusiasm. "Or we could pick up some beer, go home, and watch TV. Animal Planet is hysterical when you're drunk."

"Sounds like a plan."

---

dying of laughter... must... breathe...

---

muHA!

Connie, only one word in there doesn't work: that "ambidexterously" threw me. Also, not needed, since you describe in the same sentence that he's using both hands. So the word there sent me hunting down an unneeded visual.

Other than that? Giggling madly.

---

Connie - smooooooch! That is wonderful!

---

Bwah! With a side order of Bwah!

---

Heh. I never think something is going to be as funny as I hope.

---

Well my last attempt at a decent-length fic kind of stalled. But now I've discovered a new fandom, and a pairing I really like, and I think I may get something out of it. I hope.

What I have right now is about 1200 words of a Harry Potter story, from Hermione's POV. It's intended to be a Hermione/Ginny work, eventually. I'm not sure exactly where it's going, though I have snippets of future scenes playing out in my head.

I'm hoping somebody out there will be willing to give what I've got a looksy, give me some feedback. Am I consistent? Do I feel like I'm going somewhere? Where? What do YOU want to happen next? Do the characters seem realistic to you? Do you want to shoot me for using too many commas? These are the questions that pain me.

Anyway, check it out here: Untitled HP Fic

Oh, yes, it's untitled. I shall rectify that eventually.

---

Ooh! Nice characterisation, and it's a very promising beginning - I'd like to see what happens next! If you'll forgive me, though, I'm going to Britpick:

"I am getting better, I guess!"

Lose 'I guess' or replace with something more neutral, like 'aren't I?' - Ginny Weasley's speech patterns, unlike those of Muggles her age, haven't been influenced by American television.

"we're gonna be okay."

'going to' instead of 'gonna'. 'Gonna' really reads as American.

When Hermione walked into the restroom to brush her teeth,

We say toilet or bathroom (but you only say bathroom if you mean room containing bath or shower), never restroom.

"Oh, it's no big deal. Bit of a headache is all."

This construction is American too. 'No big deal' you could maybe get away with, but the second sentence compounds it into implausability - perhaps something like 'I just have a bit of a headache', or 'I've just got a bit of a headache', or 'Just a headache'.

"Yeah."

This is terribly sexist of me, but - I'd buy this from Ron, but it seems jarring from Ginny. 'Yes' would be less jarring.

And finally a logistical problem, which has the potential to make for more sexiness:

She reached out a hand, and clasped Ginny's shoulder...She closed her own eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep herself, her hand, forgotten, still on Ginny's shoulder.

Leaving aside the fact that the indication so far has been that kids are in dormitories with others in their own year group, I can't see this physically happening. The bedrooms are fairly spacious and the beds themselves are four-posters. For this to work, Ginny's bed would have to be very very very close indeed - so close that Hermione would practically fall into it every time she got out of her own bed.

BUT, you could have the two of them getting into bed together, in a non-overtly-sexy way, just to talk, or have a friendly cuddle, and falling asleep spooning. Which would be nice.

---