New story

I was feeling very brave today. I posted the first chapter of my Angel/Buffy/Kindred: The Embraced x-over titled Precious Son to ff.net. To the Kindred section, as there is less chance that it'd get ripped to shreds by rabid Buffy fans.

*glances around nervously*

Anyway, it can be found here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2006730/1/

It's an old story I've written quite some time ago, so it'll need some serious re-writing. But I'm rather fond of it, and wanted to make it available, in the unlikely case someone else would find it likeable. There'll be eight more pieces, most likely.

Different kinds of beauty

I watched Animal Planet today. More specifically, the programme "Charging back", showing how the number of rhinos is increasing in Africa again.

I was amazed to see how gracefully such a huge beast can move. A rhinoceros is the second-largest animal after the African elephant, but it runs like it had no weight at all. It's an incredible sight. Many other mammals could be seen in this documentary, but few had such a lovely moving pattern.

Another thing. On one of the boards I visit sometimes an argument rose about German being an ugly language. Well, not for me. Honestly, I think English is a lot uglier and much harder to learn. Okay, I'm prejudiced, as German was the mother tongue of my Grandpa, I admit it freely. But when I write fairy tales - original fiction - I always use German. There are so incredible riches in that language.

Just to pick one example (and leaving pronounciation completely out of consideration): in German, there is an unbelievably poetic expression for "wet soil". It's called "feuchtes Erdreich". The expression isn't just poetic, it also has a very... sensual quality. And a mythological one, to that. Granted, it's only used in literature, but the simple fact that it exists contradicts the statement German would be ugly.

I rest my case, Your Honour. No offence intended towards native English speakers. :)