ephemera

stupid girl by jaesepha [pop][britney]
It always takes you a while to order your thoughts, to think about the question and then think about what you want to say. In the interviews, your pauses were stretched out and filled with the snappy snippy thoughts of the writers, college girls all. The thin chatter you used to fill those pauses when they became too awkward sounded a lot less charming filtered through those smart girls' pens. The meaner ones transcribed it word for word. You read the interviews again and again. You memorized the worst ones. You hadn't thought you were quite that stupid.

as time goes by by yahtzee [angel][cordelia]
So much has changed, these last few years -- the four years since the Venareth -- and not for the better. Wars are being waged and lost, first by humans and now, by demons and vampires as well. Great cities have crumbled, once-mighty nations are falling. Creatures that dare not walk in the light of day threaten to command the world at night. The time of decision is drawing near, but the vast majority of the population (human and inhuman alike) is helpless to affect it, can only stand and watching it coming, and hope not to be drawn down in its wake.

jenny the vampire slayer by marcus l. rowland [authority/btvs][jenny sparks]
"Here, use this stake to finish him... oh." says a panting voice behind her. She looks at the stranger, bowed down with crosses, stakes, and daggers, flicks her fag-end at his feet and walks away.
The next day, for the first of many times, she tells the Watchers where to put their council. She's buggered if she's going to let a bunch of old wankers tell her what to do with her life.

talking stick/circle by macedon and peg [st:voy][janeway/chakotay]
It's him again. Chakotay. He's started a story telling circle. Well, no. It started itself, and dragged him in. But there's no real question that it is his.

deathly by s.n. kastle [btvs/angel][faith]
Behind the glass Angel looked old, and he never looked old, and that's how Faith knew.

dreams of alligators. by moonwhip [btvs][willow]
Sunnydale's graduation is on a Thursday, for some asinine reason, and today is Monday. Thursday, the mayor Ascends--or attempts to, she reminds herself, because the situation isn't completely hopeless yet. Thursday, she leaves Sunnydale High officially.

forgotten girl by mary borsellino [btvs][dawn]
Dawn wondered if that's what was going on. Buffy wasn't around to see her, so now nobody could. That was the closest thing to logic Dawn could come up with.

seventeen by bishclone [xmen:m][jean]
when charles found jean, she was seventeen.

girls grow quicker than books by kyra cullinan [narnia][lucy]
there are no talking beasts here.

chiaroscuro by luna [btvs][anya]
anya through the ages.

the evolution of jubilee by mara greengrass [xmen:m][jubilee]
The last section, finally, was labeled "Mutation Today." She stared in disbelief at the sum total of human wisdom on mutants, as seen by the creators of this exhibit.

Idle Musings of a Woman at Eighty by minisinoo [xmen:m][jean]
They look at me with awe, I feel it beating against the glass lantern of my mind like the fluttering wings of moths. I must be so careful with them or I would burn them up. I am Phoenix. Yet I am also simply me. Plain Jean. I don't feel so special on the inside of my skin, and I wonder, idly, if this is how Charles felt when we idolized him, so many years ago

In a Motel Six on Highway Five, After the Forty-Nines by minisinoo [xmen][dani]
So serious. Always so serious. I suppose they've reason to be; not every group of superheroes saves the world on a regular basis. But really. A little humor never hurt anyone. Mine escaped, and I'm on a scouting mission to bring it back, dead or alive. I need to learn how to be Indian again without forgetting I'm a mutant. Creatures of two worlds have special power.

a moment of american beauty by tangerine [xmen][jubilee]
I don't really know when it happened, when I suddenly clued in and said, like, hey, girl, will you open your eyes and *see* the world, please?