Warning: Disturbing imagery, character deaths (original characters), extreme violence. If dead children disturb you, this is a definite warning to approach with caution.

No song download with this part. For obvious reasons.

[Note: Reposted because of LJ chaos.]

All previous parts can be found here.

Continued from Part 44.

( A Rough and Strange Mercy )

This pair of scenes are easily my favorite scenes in the whole story. I've been looking forward to posting this for months.

It's also the part where you start to see why I had to stop writing No Myth. I have to go back and re-write some of that story to make it fit better with Water Hold Me Down.  

The first scene didn't give me too much trouble. The second...well...let's just say I needed some extra eyes to make sure people could follow it. Big love to ludditerobot, othercat, midnightsjane, and r_becca for reading the draft before I locked it in and began my usual tweak-y ways with it.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't thank ludditerobot for today's song file. I had lost it in my great computer crash and desperately needed it to be replaced. Dude stepped up and handed it to me. Mucho gracias.

As a side note: I am not a fan of 'Stairway to Heaven' as a general rule. It was played over and over and over on the classic rock stations when I was a young 'un to the point that it landed on my permanent "change the station when you hear the opening bars" list. However, the first time I heard this bluegrass Dolly Parton version on my local NPR station, I fell to my knees and wept at the sheer power of it.

This is the song 'Stairway to Heaven' wanted to be when it grew up.

And it's the perfect song for this part.

For all previous parts, go here.

For Part 43, go here. (Posted yesterday, in case anyone missed it.)

And as we walk on down the road
Our shadows longer than our souls,
All that glitters is not gold.
Wanna be a rock and not a roll.
Oh, the great almighty dollar leaves you lonely, lost and hollow.
You can’t fool yourself forever,
You gotta work to get to heaven.
Stairway to heaven.
If we listen and hold fast
To every question that we asked,
The truth will come to us at last.

( The Aud Problem of Anya, Anyanka, and the Raven )

DOWNLOAD: Stairway to Heaven by Dolly Parton

No song to DL for this part, mostly because it was meant to be a short bumper, but the part after this was a little too long to fit the whole thing.

I'm going to be scarce most of the day, so I won't be able to get back to comments until much later. Apologies in advance.

Yes, this part and the next part is why I've been very scarce. After some thought, rewatching S2's 'When She Was Bad,' and some re-writing and editing, I'm happier with this section than I was.

If you keep track for these sorts of things, this section partially pays off what Xander found out about AlternaXander's early years in  Zihuatanejo waaaaay back in Part 15. Took me a while to get here. Oh, dear god...have I been writing this story for almost a year? If nwhepcat decides to have another Birthday Fic Challenge this year, I think I'll just pledge to finish this story instead.

All previous parts can be found here.

Continued from Part 42.

( Conflagration )