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Hallo! Seems like ages... Time seems to get away from me with alarming frequency. *Anyway* Before we do the updates, I wanted to link to a really interesting interview I saw on PBS last week.
Firstly, the show is Bill Moyers - On Faith and Reason. I like Bill Moyers, he seems sensible and open to all kinds of things. Also, he gives good interview.
He was talking to a UK author, Jeanette Winterson. They were discussing faith, then heroes of old *re: Greek/Roman heroes* and writing. She had some - to me - *very* interesting things to say about heroes. Things that brought Spike and Angel and Lindsey and Wesley very strongly to mind. She also talked about writing, and while she's a 'profic' writer, what she said applies to fanfic, as well. The entire transcript of the interview is here. But i wanted to put a couple of my favorite quotes in this post.
Yeah, because one of the things that the Greeks offer, is it's complicated. They don't try and clean up their heroes. And the heroes are rounded, complex creatures; they're not kind of squeaky clean like, with Superman, cardboard cutout image of what we would like a hero to be now. The whole package is thrown in and you're asked to look at it and say, yes this guy is a hero. He's also a murderer, a thief and a liar and a womanizer.
Yes, I mean, as a writer, you're always something of a vandal. You know, you're a tomb raider. You're gonna go in there and take the things that already exist - drag 'em out again, and dress them up differently. There is a sense in which, you know, you are a thief. You know, it's no wonder that writers are ruled by Mercury, god of thieves and liars, and Mercury of the double tongue. And so, there is the sense in which you will always steal, and take for yourself, the things that you need. But then you also bring them back into the light. You dust them down, and then you put them out again for people to find in a different way. I mean, the whole thing about myths, is that they need to stay fluid, they need to keep moving, and they need to be dynamic. And that's why we can go on retelling them, so that, what is valuable is passed on from generation to generation, across time, through cultures.
I hope it's interesting to you guys, as well! I'm thinking i need to get her book about Atlas...
Now, to the updates!
Chapter Nine of 'Drowning Not Waving' - so glad so many people are sticking with this very different *for us* and rather dark Spander story. Thank you!
And the nominee for best performance by an actor in a leading role...
And now, Neverland. Many, many thanks, as always, to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reremouse for her skills as beta and cheerleader. :)
Previous chapters are here.
Enjoy!
They tumbled down out of the tree-house on a rope ladder, chattering and whooping and making a ruckus. Peter dove down head first, darting like a swallow. It was darker there on the forest floor - darker and damper and thick with scents and sounds. Once the boys were all down they quieted, forming a line.
"We go single-file so they can't tell how many," Xander said, his voice hushed but his eyes still dancing with excitement. Spike watched them orient themselves and creep away into the dim vault of mossy green. He lingered for a moment, doing his own internal check of sun and north and here. Tink stayed with him, settling nervously on his shoulder and chittering into his ear, soft sounds that were almost like words. Tink's tiny hands were warm on the curve of Spike's ear and he didn't brush the fairy away, this time.
A half-hour's fast walk brought them to the thinning edge of the forest, the ground becoming spongy underfoot. The steady throb of the tide was laced with the scream of warring gulls and the splashing of oars - the hollow thunk when one collided with hollow wood. Spike stood in the shade of the trees, watching.
*Almost didn't believe this but...bloody hell, look at that...* Real long boat. Real sailors - pirates - in all their magpie finery. Something to set the heart of any ten-year-old boy pounding with wild excitement. But Spike hadn't been ten in a century and a half. He watched two pirates manhandle a bound girl onto a weed-slick rock, laughing. Then they settled back into the boat, ten men altogether pulling at the oars and a younger one - nearly a boy - at the tiller.
"We'll go 'round to the Claw and call the mermaids - they'll drive them into the rocks and we'll take them down!" Peter whispered, and the boys nodded agreement. They slipped back into the trees, heading rightward toward a curling line of jagged-looking rocks that were tumbled out into the surf like the skeleton of some long-dead thing. The long boat, fighting the tide, surged up and splashed down, perilously near swamping, it seemed.
Spike finished his cigarette and followed the boys, watching Pan flit back and forth above them like a demented dragonfly. Then suddenly he flew straight up and disappeared. Tink, who'd been silent the whole time made a little noise that sounded – angry. He leapt off Spike's shoulder and darted away into the forest, disappearing.
"We wait here until we hear the signal," Tootles said, pushing up his glasses. The boys settled in a ragged semi-circle in the sparse brush, panting. The soil here was half sand, scattered with dead fronds and bits of sea-silvered wood. Spike leaned against a palm, hands in his pockets. The boys' excitement had ebbed during the walk – ebbed and changed and now…
They're afraid, Spike saw. Shaking with it - green with it. The 'twins' were leaning into each other, the dark one muttering something. Spike tipped his head a little, focusing.
"It'll be okay, we'll be okay, just stay out of the water, keep your guard up, don't be afraid..."
*Bloody hell. Little boys playing at war...* His gaze fell on Xander's back - bare, now, since he'd stripped his ruined shirt off along the trail somewhere. Deeply tanned, muscled despite his thinness and scarred, in a random scatter of lines and curls and knots. An interesting back.
Spike heard a strange, high trilling and looked out into the bay again – caught sight of Peter crouching in the lee of a rock far to the point of the 'Claw', his face down near the water. Something just there under the surface that caused a rippling bow-shock of water to surge up as it swam toward the long boat.
More than one wave converging, and suddenly the water all around the boat exploded upward, a foaming sheet of seething white. The men on board were shouting – wood splintering with a sharp crack crack crack. The boys flinched and huddled tighter, gazes glued to the scene.
Out of the swirling mess came struggling figures: the pirates, swimming hard for the jagged, laval rocks that spilled into the turquoise sea. "C'mon, men! Don't look back!" one shouted, bobbing.
"Bill! Bill, I caa-an't!" The boy who'd sat at the tiller was floundering badly, his movements jerky – blood in his hair. His voice rose high and shrill and hysterical. "Jukes! Something's got me – Juukesss!" He went down with a scream, thrashing, and the water bubbled and foamed where he'd been. A moment later it foamed up red and the faint scent of blood came to Spike on the air, making him growl softly.
"It's the mermaids –" one of the boys muttered, and they all shifted uneasily. The pirates were swimming madly now, putting a good distance between themselves and the threshing, heaving spot of blood-tainted water that was all that was left of the tiller-boy. The one that had urged them on – Bill Jukes, it seemed – was hauling himself higher up the strand, stumbling and nearly falling on submerged rocks. His bare arms were blue-grey with tattoos.
Peter swooped out of the canopy above the boys in an explosion of leaves and twigs and the boys dove flat, fists curling spastically around their weapons. "C'mon, men! Now's the time to strike! They've lost their courage and their wind in the sea and they're bruised from the rocks – go, go!"
"Charge!" Tootles yelled, waving his club in the air, his voice high and thin. The boys scrambled up and ran, screaming, and Peter dove after them, his knife flashing dully in the heavy air. The low clouds - that had boiled and streamed overhead all day - now seemed to curl downwards, darker and more threatening, thick with rain.
The boys dashed madly over the sand and into the rocks, slowing as the water got deeper. The pirates struggled closer to shore, drawing long knives from boots and belts.
*Now we'll see. Now we'll see just how these boys do. If they've any stomach for it at all...* Michael struck first, sending a wobbly arrow into the shoulder of Bill Jukes who roared and splashed toward him. Michael dropped his bow and pulled his own knife and they fell to slashing at each other, stumbling in the rocky surf. Nibs and Curly were hacking at another pirate who'd had the misfortune to fall and crack his head and John and Tootles were edging in circles around the biggest one, ducking slashes from his cutlass.
Spike strolled down the beach, fishing out a cigarette and lighting up – watching the fight. Here the beach was a mix of rock and sand, some as small as a fist, some as big as a car. The bed seemed to shelve away steeply, the waves curling under with a snarling sort of noise as they crested. It made the fighting brutal and clumsy – agonizingly slow. It was, Spike supposed, ugly. He took a long breath of the mingled stinks of fear and sweat and blood and grinned, letting his other face forward.
Peter dove down from the air, his knife slitting a throat and piercing a back, crowing ecstatically. The water surged and splashed and another pirate shrieked and was dragged backwards, clawing madly at the rocks. The twins were down, the black one with a bleeding head, the Asian one twisted along the rocks like beached kelp, blood ribboning out from his side and his mouth open - his hands lax. Xander was standing up on a high rock sending arrow after arrow down, feathering three of the pirates before a skinny little one with an eye-patch caught Xander's arm with a rock, sending his bow flying. Spike watched Xander jump down into thigh-deep water, staff held ready. But it was clear the rock had bruised him badly, affecting his grip. Despite the damage he was landing a few blows - fending the knife-wielding pirate off until something in the water grabbed his ankle and he went down with a yell.
"Peter! Peter, tell her to let go!" Xander's voice was half-strangled with sea water, shrill with fear. The pirate was edging closer, knife raised to strike. "Peteeer!"
"She's just playing!" Peter yelled back, laughing. But he swooped over, circling – trilled again, lips pursed, and Xander wrenched himself away from invisible hands, splashing and reeling up the beach. The pirate he'd been fighting had leapt away when the mermaid had loosened her grip, his eye warily on the water. Spike decided that now was as good a time as any. Ignoring the melees going on all around, he slunk around a tallish jumble of kelp-hung rocks, carefully keeping his feet dry. Coming around the other side, directly in the path of the pirate who, it seemed, had decided to run for it. The man caught sight of him and drew breath to scream and Spike pounced.
"Right. Let's see if you taste better than you smell," he murmured, wrenching the man around and pulling his head sideways. The man was stunned – gasping in short, wheezing breaths, his knife clattering away between the rocks. Spike licked his lips and put his mouth on the sea-filmed skin and bit.
The blood hitting the back of this throat was like an orgasm, rushing cramp of heat and shivering tingles and Spike drank his fill, shuddering – let the husk fall away, reeling a little. He licked his lips, savoring the salt and iron and burnt-sugar flavor that lingered in his mouth. *It worked it worked it worked…*
"I remember you…oh god, I remember you…" Xander stood there, his leg skeining blood into the rippling water, his staff gripped in a white-knuckled hand. His eyes were huge. "I – remember – you were going to…going to kill –"
"And I still might." Spike licked at the corner of his mouth – lifted his hand and wiped a warm drop away with his thumb, sucking it into his mouth. Xander blanched – looked around as if he would call someone. "He brought me here for a reason, boy. And you've just seen it."
"I know h-how to kill your kind," Xander whispered, his voice gone husky and rough and Spike leapt from rock to rock – landed close enough to feel the heat pulsing off Xander in waves.
"And I know how to kill yours. So we're even." Spike shook his head, letting the demon go – watched Xander lick his mouth and swallow, panting.
"Nibs! Behind you!" someone screamed, and Xander jerked, turning and scanning the inlet wildly. Most of the pirates were down – half the boys or more. Pan was driving a short, fat pirate into deeper water, dagger flickering. The only other pirate left standing was facing off with Nibs, who was staggering a little, done in. The pirate kicked out, snapping Nibs' knee like kindling and Nibs went down screaming. Xander started to run as best he could.
"Too bloody late, boy," Spike muttered, picking his way up the rocks – back to dry land. The pirate spun behind Nibs – grabbed a handful of hair and jerked Nibs' head back.
"Noo!" Xander lunged, staff-end driving for the pirate's chest. The pirate's knife flashed, arcing through the air – across Nibs' throat. The jet of blood sliced across Xander as if he, too, had been cut and the pirate pushed the spasming body to the ground. Xander's staff flew up and then came down onto the pirate's skull, cracking report like a gun-shot. The pirate fell, his eyes rolling up sightlessly white. Xander stared at him for a moment and then brought the staff down again. And again.
He didn't stop for a while.
Firstly, the show is Bill Moyers - On Faith and Reason. I like Bill Moyers, he seems sensible and open to all kinds of things. Also, he gives good interview.
He was talking to a UK author, Jeanette Winterson. They were discussing faith, then heroes of old *re: Greek/Roman heroes* and writing. She had some - to me - *very* interesting things to say about heroes. Things that brought Spike and Angel and Lindsey and Wesley very strongly to mind. She also talked about writing, and while she's a 'profic' writer, what she said applies to fanfic, as well. The entire transcript of the interview is here. But i wanted to put a couple of my favorite quotes in this post.
Yeah, because one of the things that the Greeks offer, is it's complicated. They don't try and clean up their heroes. And the heroes are rounded, complex creatures; they're not kind of squeaky clean like, with Superman, cardboard cutout image of what we would like a hero to be now. The whole package is thrown in and you're asked to look at it and say, yes this guy is a hero. He's also a murderer, a thief and a liar and a womanizer.
Yes, I mean, as a writer, you're always something of a vandal. You know, you're a tomb raider. You're gonna go in there and take the things that already exist - drag 'em out again, and dress them up differently. There is a sense in which, you know, you are a thief. You know, it's no wonder that writers are ruled by Mercury, god of thieves and liars, and Mercury of the double tongue. And so, there is the sense in which you will always steal, and take for yourself, the things that you need. But then you also bring them back into the light. You dust them down, and then you put them out again for people to find in a different way. I mean, the whole thing about myths, is that they need to stay fluid, they need to keep moving, and they need to be dynamic. And that's why we can go on retelling them, so that, what is valuable is passed on from generation to generation, across time, through cultures.
I hope it's interesting to you guys, as well! I'm thinking i need to get her book about Atlas...
Now, to the updates!
Chapter Nine of 'Drowning Not Waving' - so glad so many people are sticking with this very different *for us* and rather dark Spander story. Thank you!
And the nominee for best performance by an actor in a leading role...
And now, Neverland. Many, many thanks, as always, to
reremouse for her skills as beta and cheerleader. :)Previous chapters are here.
Enjoy!
They tumbled down out of the tree-house on a rope ladder, chattering and whooping and making a ruckus. Peter dove down head first, darting like a swallow. It was darker there on the forest floor - darker and damper and thick with scents and sounds. Once the boys were all down they quieted, forming a line.
"We go single-file so they can't tell how many," Xander said, his voice hushed but his eyes still dancing with excitement. Spike watched them orient themselves and creep away into the dim vault of mossy green. He lingered for a moment, doing his own internal check of sun and north and here. Tink stayed with him, settling nervously on his shoulder and chittering into his ear, soft sounds that were almost like words. Tink's tiny hands were warm on the curve of Spike's ear and he didn't brush the fairy away, this time.
A half-hour's fast walk brought them to the thinning edge of the forest, the ground becoming spongy underfoot. The steady throb of the tide was laced with the scream of warring gulls and the splashing of oars - the hollow thunk when one collided with hollow wood. Spike stood in the shade of the trees, watching.
*Almost didn't believe this but...bloody hell, look at that...* Real long boat. Real sailors - pirates - in all their magpie finery. Something to set the heart of any ten-year-old boy pounding with wild excitement. But Spike hadn't been ten in a century and a half. He watched two pirates manhandle a bound girl onto a weed-slick rock, laughing. Then they settled back into the boat, ten men altogether pulling at the oars and a younger one - nearly a boy - at the tiller.
"We'll go 'round to the Claw and call the mermaids - they'll drive them into the rocks and we'll take them down!" Peter whispered, and the boys nodded agreement. They slipped back into the trees, heading rightward toward a curling line of jagged-looking rocks that were tumbled out into the surf like the skeleton of some long-dead thing. The long boat, fighting the tide, surged up and splashed down, perilously near swamping, it seemed.
Spike finished his cigarette and followed the boys, watching Pan flit back and forth above them like a demented dragonfly. Then suddenly he flew straight up and disappeared. Tink, who'd been silent the whole time made a little noise that sounded – angry. He leapt off Spike's shoulder and darted away into the forest, disappearing.
"We wait here until we hear the signal," Tootles said, pushing up his glasses. The boys settled in a ragged semi-circle in the sparse brush, panting. The soil here was half sand, scattered with dead fronds and bits of sea-silvered wood. Spike leaned against a palm, hands in his pockets. The boys' excitement had ebbed during the walk – ebbed and changed and now…
They're afraid, Spike saw. Shaking with it - green with it. The 'twins' were leaning into each other, the dark one muttering something. Spike tipped his head a little, focusing.
"It'll be okay, we'll be okay, just stay out of the water, keep your guard up, don't be afraid..."
*Bloody hell. Little boys playing at war...* His gaze fell on Xander's back - bare, now, since he'd stripped his ruined shirt off along the trail somewhere. Deeply tanned, muscled despite his thinness and scarred, in a random scatter of lines and curls and knots. An interesting back.
Spike heard a strange, high trilling and looked out into the bay again – caught sight of Peter crouching in the lee of a rock far to the point of the 'Claw', his face down near the water. Something just there under the surface that caused a rippling bow-shock of water to surge up as it swam toward the long boat.
More than one wave converging, and suddenly the water all around the boat exploded upward, a foaming sheet of seething white. The men on board were shouting – wood splintering with a sharp crack crack crack. The boys flinched and huddled tighter, gazes glued to the scene.
Out of the swirling mess came struggling figures: the pirates, swimming hard for the jagged, laval rocks that spilled into the turquoise sea. "C'mon, men! Don't look back!" one shouted, bobbing.
"Bill! Bill, I caa-an't!" The boy who'd sat at the tiller was floundering badly, his movements jerky – blood in his hair. His voice rose high and shrill and hysterical. "Jukes! Something's got me – Juukesss!" He went down with a scream, thrashing, and the water bubbled and foamed where he'd been. A moment later it foamed up red and the faint scent of blood came to Spike on the air, making him growl softly.
"It's the mermaids –" one of the boys muttered, and they all shifted uneasily. The pirates were swimming madly now, putting a good distance between themselves and the threshing, heaving spot of blood-tainted water that was all that was left of the tiller-boy. The one that had urged them on – Bill Jukes, it seemed – was hauling himself higher up the strand, stumbling and nearly falling on submerged rocks. His bare arms were blue-grey with tattoos.
Peter swooped out of the canopy above the boys in an explosion of leaves and twigs and the boys dove flat, fists curling spastically around their weapons. "C'mon, men! Now's the time to strike! They've lost their courage and their wind in the sea and they're bruised from the rocks – go, go!"
"Charge!" Tootles yelled, waving his club in the air, his voice high and thin. The boys scrambled up and ran, screaming, and Peter dove after them, his knife flashing dully in the heavy air. The low clouds - that had boiled and streamed overhead all day - now seemed to curl downwards, darker and more threatening, thick with rain.
The boys dashed madly over the sand and into the rocks, slowing as the water got deeper. The pirates struggled closer to shore, drawing long knives from boots and belts.
*Now we'll see. Now we'll see just how these boys do. If they've any stomach for it at all...* Michael struck first, sending a wobbly arrow into the shoulder of Bill Jukes who roared and splashed toward him. Michael dropped his bow and pulled his own knife and they fell to slashing at each other, stumbling in the rocky surf. Nibs and Curly were hacking at another pirate who'd had the misfortune to fall and crack his head and John and Tootles were edging in circles around the biggest one, ducking slashes from his cutlass.
Spike strolled down the beach, fishing out a cigarette and lighting up – watching the fight. Here the beach was a mix of rock and sand, some as small as a fist, some as big as a car. The bed seemed to shelve away steeply, the waves curling under with a snarling sort of noise as they crested. It made the fighting brutal and clumsy – agonizingly slow. It was, Spike supposed, ugly. He took a long breath of the mingled stinks of fear and sweat and blood and grinned, letting his other face forward.
Peter dove down from the air, his knife slitting a throat and piercing a back, crowing ecstatically. The water surged and splashed and another pirate shrieked and was dragged backwards, clawing madly at the rocks. The twins were down, the black one with a bleeding head, the Asian one twisted along the rocks like beached kelp, blood ribboning out from his side and his mouth open - his hands lax. Xander was standing up on a high rock sending arrow after arrow down, feathering three of the pirates before a skinny little one with an eye-patch caught Xander's arm with a rock, sending his bow flying. Spike watched Xander jump down into thigh-deep water, staff held ready. But it was clear the rock had bruised him badly, affecting his grip. Despite the damage he was landing a few blows - fending the knife-wielding pirate off until something in the water grabbed his ankle and he went down with a yell.
"Peter! Peter, tell her to let go!" Xander's voice was half-strangled with sea water, shrill with fear. The pirate was edging closer, knife raised to strike. "Peteeer!"
"She's just playing!" Peter yelled back, laughing. But he swooped over, circling – trilled again, lips pursed, and Xander wrenched himself away from invisible hands, splashing and reeling up the beach. The pirate he'd been fighting had leapt away when the mermaid had loosened her grip, his eye warily on the water. Spike decided that now was as good a time as any. Ignoring the melees going on all around, he slunk around a tallish jumble of kelp-hung rocks, carefully keeping his feet dry. Coming around the other side, directly in the path of the pirate who, it seemed, had decided to run for it. The man caught sight of him and drew breath to scream and Spike pounced.
"Right. Let's see if you taste better than you smell," he murmured, wrenching the man around and pulling his head sideways. The man was stunned – gasping in short, wheezing breaths, his knife clattering away between the rocks. Spike licked his lips and put his mouth on the sea-filmed skin and bit.
The blood hitting the back of this throat was like an orgasm, rushing cramp of heat and shivering tingles and Spike drank his fill, shuddering – let the husk fall away, reeling a little. He licked his lips, savoring the salt and iron and burnt-sugar flavor that lingered in his mouth. *It worked it worked it worked…*
"I remember you…oh god, I remember you…" Xander stood there, his leg skeining blood into the rippling water, his staff gripped in a white-knuckled hand. His eyes were huge. "I – remember – you were going to…going to kill –"
"And I still might." Spike licked at the corner of his mouth – lifted his hand and wiped a warm drop away with his thumb, sucking it into his mouth. Xander blanched – looked around as if he would call someone. "He brought me here for a reason, boy. And you've just seen it."
"I know h-how to kill your kind," Xander whispered, his voice gone husky and rough and Spike leapt from rock to rock – landed close enough to feel the heat pulsing off Xander in waves.
"And I know how to kill yours. So we're even." Spike shook his head, letting the demon go – watched Xander lick his mouth and swallow, panting.
"Nibs! Behind you!" someone screamed, and Xander jerked, turning and scanning the inlet wildly. Most of the pirates were down – half the boys or more. Pan was driving a short, fat pirate into deeper water, dagger flickering. The only other pirate left standing was facing off with Nibs, who was staggering a little, done in. The pirate kicked out, snapping Nibs' knee like kindling and Nibs went down screaming. Xander started to run as best he could.
"Too bloody late, boy," Spike muttered, picking his way up the rocks – back to dry land. The pirate spun behind Nibs – grabbed a handful of hair and jerked Nibs' head back.
"Noo!" Xander lunged, staff-end driving for the pirate's chest. The pirate's knife flashed, arcing through the air – across Nibs' throat. The jet of blood sliced across Xander as if he, too, had been cut and the pirate pushed the spasming body to the ground. Xander's staff flew up and then came down onto the pirate's skull, cracking report like a gun-shot. The pirate fell, his eyes rolling up sightlessly white. Xander stared at him for a moment and then brought the staff down again. And again.
He didn't stop for a while.
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:)
Yeah, dark for some reason. But hey! Sometimes you just gotta.