Great story! I'd love to see you continue it.

thinking on what happens next in it

Great Story!

And the pairing is a absolutely great idea one of the best I've seen in ages.

I hope you continue this story because it is great.

I plan too once i find the muse again

You need to continue!!!!! I love your stories but hardly any are finished. Please finish this one! I love Sholto.... I wanna see him happy...

Gotta think on how to pull that off.

Wow, you brought Sholto in ! Nicely done! I am ashamed to admit that I never even thought of him in conjunction with Dawn because he is always kind of shoved to the side in the Merryverse.
This story is wonderful (you are probably tired of hearing that) and I look forward to more. :)

never get tired of hearing that. I need to hear that
I'm thinking on if Xander visits Dawn in LA and how he deal wiht Sholto. I actually need soem FB on that one ebcuase i'm not quite sure how it should work

Loved the letter to Xander...short sweet and a great way to explain...I love letters! As for the dance...very nicely done!

In answer to the question: if Xander has grown (as one would hope he has) then he should be accepting however if you still want him to be an a@@ then he could still have issues but with that said I personally would retire him and bring Willow to the forefront. Andais vs Willow Andais would win....or in my humble opinion she would

well, she's been working out her anger and pain and she knew it wasn't really them she was mad at, at least not until he insulted Jack, then she blew up because suddenly he was a viable target. although it shouldn't have been all of her rage and anger. but once he opene dhis mouth about Frost and Merry and everyone she exploded at him becusae then it wasn't irrational anger any more.

deciding how he reacts to the letter...any ideas?

awwws

love the Dawn Sholto pairing *hearts*

Sholto is one of my fave characters of the Merry 'verse. I always feel like he gets short changed though with Merry's reaction to his other bits.

*hearts* it lots.
chaos

well, she's not like anyone else either and he played wiht them. Without it being an order. Dawn I could see falling for him.

Oy, if BUffy comes back is this going to be fun
Buffy: Who is this?!
Dawn: my boyfriend, king Sholto.
Buffy: What?!

Excellent

thank you. Did you like anything in particular?

I love your take on Frost and what you are making him into.
I am always so excited when I see you have updated!

the book said he's Jack Frost. Jack Frost was a protector of kids and a guider of lost travelers. in the old myths.

Gotta figure out what next. Other than the letter she wrote being delivered.

Now Andais will never be sweetness and light but I really do like how you've portrayed her in this chapter! Great Chapter!

she seems to do odd things and Frost did give them something back. Playing with a child isn't too hard after that. now figuring if I want to have Dawn and Sholto date

Excellent chapter!

glad you enjoyed. Told everyone if they give me time things get much better

Great chapter

Thank you.

I am so happy that you posted more! I am really enjoying this story and all of the twists and turns you keep adding.
Bringing The Executioner in was totally unexpected! I can kinda see her and Frost getting along, or at least understanding each other though, because they both feel the same way about kids getting abused.
And Dawn and Barinthus met, yay!

well, a least you didn't think I was being mean or unfair. Thanks for the good review..

I thought this was the best chapter you'd written so far, but your hateful author's notes and responses to reviews ruin it for me. I'm going to take your advice and hit the back button- what amounts to flashes of brilliance in your text aren't worth the attitude. Good luck.

Kindly remeber that YOU are the one who impled My readers can't remember Dawn is grieving. YOU are the one who gave ME an attitude because YOU don't like how i write your favorite character even though i only intentionally bashed him in One Part. but, that last part when he was working with Angel is the LAST part when he's bad. And don't worry. I'll pull the comment. When I thought about it after I posted I decided it wasn't fair of me to return fire like that.

I had planned for him to choose to stay with AI when Wes voids their presence in LA to save the world. I'd planned for him to choose to go with them. And to know what WIllow did was wrong.

This part was going to start something new but I guess since my comments were taken as an insult even though I was only saying what YOU said you don't care to know that.

As for my flashes of brillance? I don't see them as that. I see them as how some people relaistically respond to grief. I did, so I know it's possible to go after people you love normally becusae they're the only ones you can hit out at. You thought I had Dawn hate them. She doesn't. It's a form of grief. but since no lone here apparently sees that grief comes in many forms I didn't understand how clearly I had to spell it out. My apologies.

and I apologize for that crack in the notes. I was being unfair but you are the one who implied it saying they shouldn't have to remember. no, if I have to remember in every Super Xander fic or 'Willow can do no wrong' fic that those are the rules and Xander's a god and WIllow is prophecied then remembering someone is grieving in mine shouldn't be too much to ask.

that upset me that you implied they shouldn't have to because actually, they should. if you invest in reading something you should invest in keeping the details in mind. It's a small one but it's also key to undestanding her behavior.

your comments about my fic were almost as hateful as you say my AN was.

It's not a reader's job to remember that Dawn is grieving. It's your job as an author, through the way you tell the story, to make that impossible to forget. If you'd actually show us her grief, and get inside her head more, instead of just telling it to us through Giles's stilted dialogue, then it might not seem like such a shallow, flimsy excuse for what amounts to incredibly out of character behavior for everyone. Right now, Dawn's grief seems far too monotone. She's angry. It's unclear, from the passages you've actually written that include Dawn, why she's angry, or why she chooses (or does not choose, but does so unconsciously) to direct that anger at Willow and Xander. You, as an author, know, and Giles seems to at least assume that he knows, but telling us what you know (or having Giles tell us) isn't the same thing as SHOWING it to us in a way that makes it real.

What about the other emotions that Dawn is feeling? What about survivor's guilt? What about loneliness? What about self-loathing or self-consciousness? This fic is currently completely devoid of meta-emotion. No matter how you feel, you have feelings about feeling that way, and it's that depth of emotion that makes a character ring true, not just to canon, but as a person in general. How does Dawn feel about being angry at people that she used to love? Does it hurt her? Is she scared that if she stops feeling that way, she might be angry at herself? Is she trying not to be aware of the fact that one of the benefits of being angry at the world is that as long as she's angry, she doesn't have to hurt? This is the kind of depth that will SHOW us that Dawn is grieving. The closest you've come- and the best moment of the fic so far- was when she first met Jack and he said she was lost, and she fell into his arms. Pretty much everything you've written since then, with relation to Dawn's grief, is rubbish.

You also haven't made nearly enough of an effort to tie Dawn's anger to who she was in the season 5 canon. For example, in canon, Dawn ADORED Xander. He was her favorite of all of Buffy's friends, and she spent years having a crush on him. If you want to make readers believe that Dawn now hates Xander, then you need to acknowledge the fact that she loved him once, and you need to help us see how she came from one point to another. The way you've written it, it sounds like Dawn has resented Xander and Willow for years, and that's just not believable given what we saw on the show.

I'm also a little unclear on why exactly Dawn feels like it's unfair that Willow and Xander didn't get hurt as badly as Buffy did. Buffy and Giles- as a slayer and her watcher- don't have a choice about saving the world. Buffy can't run away from her destiny, and it's Giles's job to put himself on the line with Buffy. It's what he trained to do, and it's the direction he chose for his life. Xander and Willow, on the other hand, don't HAVE to fight evil. They helped Buffy because they wanted to, and because they were her friends. Danger was Buffy's birthright, but it was Xander's CHOICE. As a reader, I need to understand why this isn't important to Dawn, or why she doesn't see it. It's fine that she doesn't- but only as long as you show us the WHY- otherwise, it simply doesn't work.

I also need to understand how exactly Dawn is managing to be angry at Xander and Willow for NOT getting hurt, when there wouldn't have been a battle at all if it weren't for Dawn. We know from the canon that Dawn has major issues with not being real, and she WANTED to jump, and was horrified when Buffy died in her place. I need to understand why or how Dawn doesn't view Buffy's death as HER fault, and how she's justifying to herself being angry at people who risked their lives to save her. Like I said before, it's fine that she's angry. You can write whatever you want. I just wish you'd make an effort to do it well and to show us on paper how it makes sense in your head, instead of just responding to every criticism with "she's grieving, okay?" like that's an answer-all for everything. No two griefs are the same, and if you want someone to buy your version of Dawn's, you need to explore it a LOT more.

Also, since this goes AU after The Gift, how exactly is Dawn dealing with the fact that the last thing Buffy said to her is: "Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you. But this is the work that I have to do. Tell Giles... tell Giles I figured it out. And, and I'm okay. And give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other..." I mean, her dying sister expressed love for Xander and Willow AND ASKED DAWN TO TAKE CARE OF THEM. And Dawn, after watching her sister DIE for her, answers this final request by refusing to talk to Xander and Willow, resenting them, and letting people "punish" them for upsetting her? She's doing the exact opposite of what Buffy told her to do right before Buffy sacrificed her life for Dawn's... do you have an explanation for this? Could we please see it in the text (preferably in Dawn's head and behavior, and not coming out of Giles's mouth as an info dump)?

The entire emotional arc of this story makes no sense whatsoever. You'd do better to focus on Dawn and her emotional state and forget about Xander altogether, because every time he comes into a scene, your ability to write any other character flies out the window. You seriously need to decide what the point of this fic is- is it Dawn's emotional journey and relationship with the Merry Gentry characters, or is it Xander bashing? Because if it's the former, you're failing miserably and need to focus to get on track, and if it's the latter, then you might as well change your summary to abandon the artifice of telling an actual story. The sad thing for me as a reader is that I don't even like Xander all that much, and I'd be perfectly content if he wasn't in the fic at all, or if you managed to make a negative portrayal realistic. What I'm really angry about is the fact that I love Dawn, and by using her as a tool for bashing Xander, you're depriving her of any actual characterization. If we could just get four or five chapters that focused on Dawn and said nary a word about the scoobies, you might actual be able to fix that.

I didn't Bash him until th part wiht that note on in it. I wa told he would ush to see her, he wold folow her and eh wolda ssume it's his right to be there even if by law he cna't be. I was writing that base don waht soemone said.

The emotional pat? I get biched at every time i focis on that because then there ins't enough action. my Readers need to make up tiher minds what they want. Emotio and substance or action and glroifyling characters.

By the wya most professional fiction writers trust their readers to be able to take saying a cahratcer is greving on faith. They show it later or explain it later but not always at the start of the sotry. I'm not even fifty pages in on this one yet

I have only had three reviews or four that I consider a flame (Yours actually is a constructive criticism) but you know, I put wanrings all over this fic. it is NOT my fault if readers aren't heeding them. But since you were constructive and not attacking, I'll go back and add in i the other bits that i left out because of the assive complaining about no action that I've had.

as for why she's upset?

Dawn was always there in this fic. sHe was real

Buffy is the one who ran away here before that fight. If she hadn't had a metjnal selfish moment they would have found Dawn before the ceremony.

And when it hits Dawn Besaba could have stopped al of it her angere's gonna fully hit the Birght ocurt becusae they actually never sent anypone tot each her how to cotrol thoe poetals. Or turn them off.

But remeber in thi one Dawn was inserted, sh's Joyce's step daughter and half Fey.

and i said it was an AU. I stated it. Dawn had a kid crush on Xadner but PSike I think was actually her best friend.

and as someone wh grieved wihtout knowing i was grieving and lashed out at people around me with no explanation (Especially those I knew weren't at fault and had done nothing wrong) when my grandfather died i KNOW there is nothing some time. No feeling except th grief, no raction but the anger.

One final point of fact: Xander hated people who were on his side (Becusae he did not know Angel was a vampire at first) Because he was mad they were alive and Jesse died. he resented people that he'd known all his life for that. In Canon. Do not get upset wiht me for applying taht same Illogic to another character as Joss amde it so blatantly okay to do it and have unreasoning hatred and anger ebcuase apparently Joss thought XNader should ahve the maturity of a two eyar old.

What's sauce for the goose and all. Unless you think only XNader shold get passes on childish adn borish behavior?

Dawn adh two orptions for Xnader that did not include death. sorry if her picking the nicer one upsets you but if she ahdn't Andais would have. Not tha a lot of people don't think Xander needs to grow up. It only seems to be when i poiint out how boorish and bratty the favorite charatcers on this site were that i get flamed. or 'criticized'

Xnader usn't pitiful. eh caused his own damn trouble more often then not So I dont write him as supeman adn I don't ignore his flaws adn his ego and his assumptiveness. I write them because they are part of him and I focus on them beucase no one else will. He is not a paragon and I am sick of fics who never make him pay for his crap. Excuse me for staying true to the character in ways no one else will because they adore him so much.

I warned people. It is not my job to tell the reader more than two or three times to skip the fic if they think Xander and WIllow can do no wrong and shouldn't b punsihed for things like lying and stealing even though thy wanted to punish Dawn for what XNader did in Once More With Feeling'. That was Xander's fault but as soon as it was found out it was 'Oh, no ahrm, no foul'. Forget that when they thought it was Dawn it was all 'Punish her'.

Not the wy I play. If they can do that in canon adn fics I can do it to them in mine.. I warned in caps. I warned in notes. I don't need to warn in any other way. It seems no one likes it when the shoe is on the other foot and saying 'Oh, it's Xander' is not an excuse to me.

He knew what magic could do. He did that crush spell you think he'd have elarne dfomr it. I think that stupidity should have been punsihable by death but I try not to kill him.

ANd with every fic on this site and others where Xander doesn't ahve to explain himself and neither does willow? I say neither does Dawn.

I couldn't even finish reading it.
I had lots of things that I was going to use to write a constructive critisism, but seeing the way you react to those I decided not to write any more than this.

the one I reposnded to shortly as NOT Constructive. It was pissy because I don't worship their favorite chaacters. If you don't like those two not being the star yoo won't like most of mine. I warned everyone in the notes. Do NOT get mad at me if you don't think it's a serious warning. EVERYONE on this site knows how I write.