Fandom: Young Wizards
Characters: Lissa, Dairine Callahan, Nita Callahan, Matt, Doki, Ronan Nolan
Summary: What was Lissa doing during the Invitational in Games Wizards Play?
Notes: Set during Games Wizards Play. Some text borrowed and modified for POV. Major spoilers for the book throughout. Thanks to Spocket for beta!
TORONTO
The wizard network had been buzzing with gossip for three days and the excitement wasn't going to die down any time soon. Lissa wasn't expecting it to. The Invitational occurred only once every eleven years and even for those not directly involved, it was the event of the decade. Not counting hopefully one-off mega-incidents like the Pullulus War, and no one needed to experience that kind of thing twice.
She absorbed every rumor and tweeted over the wizard-locked networks in response to every newly posted tidbit of information about the mentors and the candidate entrants, grinning over all of it. Knowing that soon, hundreds of wizards would be working together not for the crisis du jour but to share information and demonstrate new wizardries and basically have a giant wizard party, with the opportunity to discover new modes of spellwork on top of all the socializing...she had to stop and hug herself with glee, and then hug anyone appropriate at hand, because the whole thing sounded like the best time ever.
Lissa hadn't been insulted by the lack of an initial IDAA letter. She, her Advisory, and the Powers That Be knew very well she lacked the patience to effectively mentor an entrant. She'd be too likely to take over the project, forcefully injecting her own opinions and technical expertise (both considerable) onto a hapless, possibly already overwhelmed candidate. Better not to irritate everyone during the already-stressful proceedings.
So as far as she was concerned, the letter she got was just as good:
Dear Lissa,
On behalf of the Powers That Be and Their local representatives: cordial greetings! This is to inform you that you have been nominated by a regional supervisory steering subcommittee as a technical support volunteer for the initial assessment and joint evaluation phase of the upcoming IDAA main session, beginning on JD 2455692.7 and terminating on or about JD 2455713.00.
This nomination is entirely elective, and you are under no compulsion to participate...
As if she needed any compulsion! Technical support was better than mentor, since it meant she wouldn't be responsible for one wizard's project...she'd have the opportunity to see all of them! The work would be essential; fixers kept the world running. She was good at cobbling together solutions on the fly, as she'd proved during the war game on the Moon. And she'd be right in the middle of things when she wasn't on call, since the assignment came with the same access and transport subsidies the mentors were entitled to.
It was going to be three hectic weeks, but she'd have friends on the job too, too: Matt would be around as medical support, convenient for him since his boyfriend whose name she could never remember had been tapped as a mentor. She enjoyed teasing Matt, especially when he got his rules lawyer on, but he was a good guy. Ritchie aka "Moondust Boy" (newly dubbed for the dust in his face when he "died" on the Moon) would be working tech too, and he was also a good guy who she enjoyed teasing—okay, so she had a pattern.
Being on staff meant she'd need to abstain from one of the other popular spectator sports: betting on the outcome of the competition. Not with money or anything physical—the stakes were all wizardly favors or time, which the "winners" could collect as the losers' schedules permitted. Just as well she had to stay out of the game, because her strong competitive streak could've easily led her to far overextend her resources if she'd backed the wrong project.
Lissa looked up from her computer, struck with a sudden ridiculously self-conscious thought and glad no one was there to see it. She'd moved out of her parents' home a few months ago, with their blessing and relief on all their parts; she was too independent and too prone to living in a disorganized clutter for anyone else's comfort. Her small apartment suited her just fine, and it worked when her SO or friends came over to visit, and that was all she needed. The solitude kept her focused and besides, school and volunteer work and errantry meant she was hardly here anyway. But—
"What you wear for this kind of thing, anyway?" she said out loud, and laughed.
ANTARCTICA
It turned out that didn't matter, at least for the opening festivities. The UFO Caves were undeniably cool, in all senses of the word: neat to look at, but requiring a whole lot of technical support to make them habitable and comfortable for the Invitational opening ceremonies. Lissa had glossed over that part of the job description in her initial glee, but willingly pitched in to help carefully lay in the heating wizardries so the ice didn't melt and set up the gating complex and reinforce the cave's structure against acts of random wizardry.
And just because wizards were setting this thing up didn't mean it wasn't prone to exactly the same kind of technical snafus as any mundane gathering. Someone forgot to make sure the buffet included properly certified kosher and halal offerings. Some joker programmed the audio with discordant alien "music" on constant repeat and lost the remote (the jokes about Vogon poetry stopped being funny after about ten minutes listening to the cacophony). And at the last minute, the whole "see-me-not" spell around the complex started to glitch out and every wizard working behind the scenes had their hands full making sure the flashing lights and projected audio and heat signatures weren't detectable by any satellite flying by at the wrong moment.
So she listened to the Planetary's opening remarks through a feed and tapped down her disappointment at not being able to check out the invitees, but they were all busy meeting their respective mentors and candidates anyway.
Besides, the real fun would start in New York...and she still had a lot of work to do on her outfit for the post-Cull party. She also had some setup to finish for the discussion group she'd been organizing, spurred by her work with others on the Mars project and the lunar war games. Wizards gathering in a community that had more to do with personal interests and concerns than active errantry... Lissa liked that concept so much that she'd started a private online discussion group for wizards she knew would be interested, and their first meeting was scheduled near the tail end of the Invitational.
As her shift ended, Lissa's phone pinged with a text from her SO, proposing M&C night: movies and cuddling. Absolutely what she needed to wind down. She texted back with a thumbs up and a smiley and a lightning bolt, code for "I'll be there ASAP." Her outfit and meeting planning could wait.
MANHATTAN: JAVITS CENTER
A week or so later, Lissa headed out for a very early start to the preliminary selection session, transporting through Grand Central Terminal. She picked up her lanyard with its special tag and met up with the other techies. They were overseen by an Advisory named Mr. Bynkij, who seemed capable of keeping track of where everything and everyone was without referring to his WizPad.
The Javits Center's official contractors handled the physical setup and provided the concession staff, just like for any other exhibition, and the individual exhibits were being transported by the candidate wizards. Still, arranging the wizard-reinforced lighting and visual baffles and soundproofing took a good bit of time and effort.
After initial setup, Lissa received her specific assignment: handling minor glitches that popped up on the convention floor. The job was virtually tailor-made to her interests, and she told Mr. Bynkij as much. "Well, sure," he told her. "No point setting you somewhere you'd be bored."
No fear of that...but it would also be a personal challenge, balancing being social and making contacts and goggling over the exhibits and keeping an eye out for trouble spots. Lissa put her chin up and bravely dove into the chaos.
She'd be on the lookout for mundane issues, like keeping the aisles clear and making sure no one tripped over cords and watching that pyrotechnics displays didn't let off any stray sparks. Wizardry negated a lot of the usual problems, but wizards in the middle of an intense competition might develop tunnel vision for anything but their projects.
More excitingly, Lissa was expected to untangle the occasional glitch when project wizardries inadvertently interacted with each other in new and unforeseen ways. Nothing was going to actually blow up, not with the proctors behind the scenes vetting all the new spells, but sometimes minor "cosmetic" effects wandered out of their prescribed paths.
One trouble spot thankfully wasn't her responsibility—competitors trying to revise their projects on the fly, thereby making their submitted précis inaccurate. She happened to be near one such booth when the issue arose, and Lissa carefully backed away as an irritated Senior appeared to impose sanctions.
Not commenting on all the exhibits as she walked across the floor was a major test of her restraint, but worth it to get an early look at all the new wizardry. Lissa had a particular fondness for things that went BANG, yeah, but she could appreciate more subtle work, too. She'd been reading through the précis and some of the projects sounded more interesting than others, but she could see why all of them were invited even if the particulars weren't her style. With three hundred and twelve presentations to look at, there was something for everyone to appreciate.
She skipped a few, though. She'd heard enough about Penn Shao-Feng's attitude through the grapevine to skip his booth. Maybe his project was a work of genius, but since she wasn't voting, Lissa had no compunction about avoiding him entirely.
Sometime after lunch she crossed paths with Dairine on the floor. Dairine seemed slightly distracted, probably worried about her mentee's exhibit. From what Lissa had seen of the project, Dairine had nothing to worry about. "Dairine!"
"Hey, Lissa." Dairine's eyes were tracking everywhere except on where she was. Lissa didn't mind not having her full attention, but she worried a bit for Dairine's face, as in, she might fall flat on it if she didn't watch where she was going.
"Seen anything good?" Lissa teased, but Dairine just scowled.
"Yeah. Maybe too good. But I could've—" She cut herself off, but Lissa got the gist.
"Waking up a whole race of sentient computers blows all this out of the water," she offered.
Didn't work, though. "Sure, but 'what have you done lately,'" Dairine said with considerable self mockery, and then laughed reluctantly. "That's not really it, though. Or partly that, plus Mehrnaz is nervous for no reason and it's bugging me, and there's something I'm missing in all this..."
Someone, Lissa thought, but knew better than to say. A change of subject was in order. "Did you eat today?"
Now Dairine did look at her with a slightly guilty expression. "I was just thinking that I needed to grab something...uh, like an hour ago."
Lissa pointed toward the concessions stand. "Do not pass go. This is my official voice! Keeping people from passing out also fits into my job description."
"Huh." Dairine cocked her head. "I see it now. Kit said you were bossy..." But she was turning and heading in the right direction, so Lissa decided to let it go. And hey, she could live with "bossy" if that meant people took her advice.
Flush with victory over the notoriously stubborn Dairine "No, I will not move your planet" Callahan, Lissa caught a tech call and headed over to a booth to meet a very upset candidate and her equally harried mentor (distinguishable because one was in the booth, with the other hovering nearby).
Lissa cleared her throat. "I am on call, and I greet you."
The candidate had no time for pleasantries. "My project isn't working and it's not my fault," she said, looking mad enough to spit nails. Lissa thought she might have been fourteen, wearing a gorgeous kimono Lissa immediately envied. "It was fine this morning!"
Lissa glanced over to see her mentor nod as he added, "No problem I could see."
She hefted her manual. "Let's get you sorted." With the wizard's permission, Lissa delved into the spell schematics. Something about replicating and repurposing whale song for other beings' use, which seemed interesting but slightly under-baked as a proposal. Wasn't her place to judge, though, literally. "You're right, it's not your fault. Nothing here looks out of place. So what's changed since this morning? Any new factors? No changes to the wizardry?"
Now the girl looked indignant, her voice rising. "I'm not a cheater!"
"Didn't say—" Lissa started, and then took a breath. Moments like this, she was grateful for her ability to sound calm in a crisis. "If the wizardry didn't change, then maybe the environment did..." She used her manual to call up the active wizardries around the convention floor, thinking that a WizPhone would be even more convenient for this kind of thing. Maybe she'd talk to Darryl when this was over. "Okay, yeah, I think I got it. Your project didn't change, but its interaction with the sound baffling did—it's a lot louder in here than it was this morning! So when the baffling adjusted for the volume, it caught your sounds up too. Give me a sec."
It took more than a second, but not by much. Lissa used her tech authorization to exclude the booth's area from the overarching wizardry, judging that one unfiltered project wouldn't make much difference to the overall sound level at this point. "Fire it up now."
The wizard started up the presentation again, and whale song reverberated out of her wizardry. "Good? Excellent. Just turn it down a tad and good luck to you, cousin!"
"Thanks!" the wizard said, looking at the spectators passing by and clearly eager to get back to her demonstration. Lissa tipped a wink at her mentor.
"Dai," he whispered with a grateful look, and Lissa got out of the way.
The tension ratcheted up as the judging time approached. Exhibitors with plentiful approval tokens stood taller, expecting to hear their manuals chime with the passing alert...while others, unsure or tentative with their wizardry, looked resigned to their loss. Lissa felt a little bad for them, but only a little. Competition was just that, and it meant someone had to lose. The difference was that here, even "losing" wizardry usually carried the seed of something potentially useful.
She was actually telling just that to a sniffly eleven-year-old when Irina came out to make the Cull announcement. The kid—the wizard—gulped once when his manual failed to chime, offered Lissa a wavery smile, and quietly started packing up his booth. Lissa sent him a private text, inviting him to come and talk about the spell once the sting of rejection had worn off. Not that his mentor hadn't been helpful, but Lissa could see a few new avenues for exploration...
And that was all she had time for, because she swiftly got caught up in the teardown: carefully dismantling the spell webs around the exhibition space before the Javits staff started to swarm in for more ordinary cleanup.
JAVITS CENTER ATRIUM: THE LOSERS' PARTY
The tech staff gathered for a quick debrief in the atrium, once they'd been kicked out of the convention hall. "Good job, everyone," Mr. Bynkij said. "No major visible issues, which meant you all did your jobs unobtrusively, and that's half the battle."
Lissa stayed after a moment after he dismissed the troops. "Uh, I probably spent more time talking to people than fixing stuff."
"That's part of the job. Or did you think 'tech' only meant the wizardry? Keeping all those tense wizards from blowing up their projects or each other..." Mr. Bynkij grinned at her. "You've done your part admirably and I hereby release you for the evening. You've been twitching since the music started, go dance."
She didn't have to be told twice.
But first she stopped by the restroom to change. She'd spent the last week prepping her outfit for this party, and she was ready to show it off. Just because she wore a utilitarian jumpsuit for work purposes didn't mean she didn't enjoy dressing up on occasion, and this occasion definitely called for a sparkly, shiny attention-grabbing outfit. And the crowning touch was her new belt of black quartz crystals, packed with as much wizardry as she could safely cram into it.
Lissa admired her reflection in the mirror, added a touch more lipstick, and went out into the party.
She grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed onto the dance floor. She loved this, cutting loose while surrounded by congenial people, no fear of being accosted or groped. She consciously stuck to the other side of the floor from Penn on general principles, but otherwise, Lissa let her body move to the music and let all other concerns float away.
Her manual chimed to get her attention from its interdimensional pocket. She checked on the caller and grinned, looking around to see Nita Callahan waving. Lissa ducked and weaved past the other dancers to meet her on the sidelines.
After Nita's very satisfactory response to her outfit and stealing a soda from Kit in revenge for the "bossy" crack (even if he didn't know why he was being stolen from), Lissa indulged in some of the scandalous gossip of the day, especially her front-row view of the wizard who'd been dressed down for revising a project on display. She didn't name names, but the grapevine would fill Nita in if she cared to dig into it.
Nita suddenly started waving and Lissa turned to see Nita's sister. Dairine seemed more perturbed than ever, but she was clearly intent on talking to her sister, so Lissa made her escape. No one ever profited by getting between a Callahan and her goal.
Some considerable time later—she honestly lost track of time when she danced—Lissa took a break for another bite to eat and some caffeine, and to check in with Matt. His boyfriend's candidate washed out in the first round, along with two hundred and sixty or so others. It was a massive and slightly shocking Cull, and all Lissa heard people talking about as she crossed the floor. Were the judges just cranky, or something else going on?
Entirely predictably, Matt was more interested in setting up a poker game, since he'd been denied the Invitational betting. Lissa didn't have any interest in betting for Invitational tokens, so she passed on the game and just danced far into the night.
CANBERRA
Subsidized travel when not on errantry was rare enough that Lissa intended to take full advantage of it. She headed out a few days early, taking an impromptu vacation. She'd always wanted to see a drop bear anyway. She spent her time talking to the dolphins in the lakes, exploring the Jerrabomberra Wetlands Reserve, and generally mocking Matt for all his exaggerations about the spiders. (He wasn't exaggerating. They were horrifying. But she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.)
The setup for the semifinals followed much the same pattern as in New York, on a smaller scale; the same measures needed to be applied to the individual examination rooms as well as to the general convention areas. The smaller spaces presented different tech challenges, enough to keep her and the other volunteers busy until the semis began.
She was on a break and wearing her orange jumpsuit again, having decided that she'd rather be comfortable than fashionable, when Nita appeared. They chatted a bit—damn it, she had to learn Matt's boyfriend's name if she was going to be introducing people—and she got Nita stowed with a smoothie before heading back in to work.
It ended up being a long if somewhat boring day, since the fifty or so finalists were presenting privately to the judges and the rooms were sealed once the judging began. Mostly she spent the day monitoring the spell-shield around the terrace—people kept popping in and out, wouldn't do for an innocent nonwizard bystander to catch an eyeful.
The real excitement of the day turned out not to be the competition in progress, but Dairine's takedown of Mehrnaz's aunt, Madam Farrahi. Lissa missed the confrontation in person but got the blow-by-blow from Matt, who'd been hanging around the prejudging area in case someone skinned a knee.
"She was brilliant!" Matt crowed. "Perfect rank assertion, flawless recension, just an amazing diss from start to finish. And it was in public space, so it's all recorded for our repeated viewing pleasure."
Lissa did enjoy a good put-down, and this one sounded like it was more than deserved. Dairine had frankly been more civil about it than Lissa would've been, which was just one of the reasons she wasn't mentoring. Dairine would probably get away with what she'd done given the circumstances, though there'd definitely be consequences. It would be easy to envy the Callahan sisters for always being in the middle of things, if Lissa wasn't keenly aware of the cost that attention demanded.
Meanwhile she had her own concerns, and a pressing agenda. "Matt, I can count on you for the meeting, right? You and your boyfriend?"
He threw her a wounded look. "Said I'd come. Doki too, he wouldn't let me live it down if I skipped."
Doki, she had it now. "Excellent. Looks like the judges are nearly finished—that's my cue. See you at the mixer!"
She and the other techies handled the breakdown and then she was done, having thoroughly fulfilled her assignment. The last phase would be on the Moon and more senior wizards were doing the setup for that. Tonight she could finally relax and gossip about the winners and losers, and enjoy the company of other wizards without being on call.
CANBERRA: THE POST-SEMIS MIXER
The competition was down to five finalists. All of them, even Penn, had earned the spot. Lissa had a minor crush on Susila—that hair, so amazing—but if she had to pick she would bet on Dairine's candidate. Mehrnaz's earthquake-cancellation spell was amazingly innovative, and Lissa could imagine other uses for that kind of application, too.
She was making the rounds, catching up with other friends and acquaintances when— "Ronan!"
"Hey, Liss." He eyed her jumpsuit over his half-full pint. "Guess I missed your sparkly debut."
Lissa smirked at him. "Special occasion. Besides, I was working 'til the end. What's your excuse? Plain jeans, plain black tee, so boring."
"Bedtime where I live," he said with a shrug. "Grabbed the clothes at hand. And yeah," he said before she could, "makes matching easier when all your stuff is the same color."
"Boring," she reiterated, but she liked Ronan; he was acerbic in all the right ways. Also foulmouthed, which she appreciated. Good looking, for what that was worth, though Lissa wasn't shopping. And after seeing Ronan hanging out with certain people, it was obvious his attention was elsewhere.
He scratched the back of his head, an unusually diffident gesture. "Lissa, that meeting you're starting..."
She tried not to react but couldn't help grinning. "Yes?"
Ronan scowled, but since that was practically his default expression, she wasn't fazed. She waited until he continued, "Anyone can come, yeah?"
"If you're asking," Lissa said as kindly as possible, "you're absolutely welcome."
He looked like he was about to freak, so she reached out and patted his arm. "We're starting night after next. I'll text you location and time. Come if you can."
Ronan nodded, seemingly relieved she wasn't making more of a deal of it and also maybe a little terrified about having asked the question.
A distraction would do him good. Lissa nodded with her chin toward a corner where once again, the inevitable poker circle had formed. "Matt needs someone to take all his tokens."
He glanced over and shook his head. "Dairine's playing. He's doomed already. Might be fun to watch, though..."
"Shoo, go," she waved him off. As he ambled away, she subvocalized a reminder for her manual. Now that Ronan had broached the subject, she wasn't going to let him forget it.
Some time later she was leaning against a railing, trying to catch a night breeze, when she heard her name called. "Liss!"
She glanced over to see Nita down the railing. They seemed to be running into each other a lot these days. That was...interesting and possibly significant. She had already gotten to know Kit through the gaming group, but the basic "no accidents" principle suggested they were all being drawn together for some future purpose.
Well, all right; Nita and Kit were always involved in noteworthy wizardry, and Lissa was happy to know anyone who could invent something like Callahan's Untoward Instigation under extreme pressure. Lissa made a fanning motion with her hand, both indicating the heat and waving Nita over. "It's getting warm in there again," she said. "Even here they don't seem to have the hang of the air-conditioning."
Nita snickered. "More kinds of heat going 'round in there than one," she said.
"Uh oh," Lissa said. "Don't tell me. Penn?"
"He keeps getting weird with me and I'm not sure how to handle it."
Lissa sighed. She had a couple of ways to shut that kind of thing down cold, but they were probably more blunt than Nita would have liked, and not useful when dealing with someone she still had to work with. And now was as good a time as any to drop some personal information. "Well, I don't know that I'm the right one to be asking for advice," she said, "as I've got absolutely no interest in any boys that way, so I'm short on data."
Nita visibly blinked, clearly jumping to the obvious conclusion but gamely struggling on. "Yeah, I know, he—"
"Or any girls, either. Or anybody."
"Oh," Nita said. Now Lissa was having fun watching her uncertainty, probably an unkind impulse, but Nita wouldn't hold it against her.
"Because the sex thing," Lissa said, smiling, "I don't do that."
"Yeah, I thought I was getting that," Nita said.
"I didn't say I hadn't done it," Lissa said, because it was true. "I didn't say I couldn't do it. I said, I don't do it."
"Uh. You're...you're, uh, celibate?"
Lissa started to grin. "Nope, I'm ace," she said. Nita blinked.
"Asexual," Lissa said, because precision mattered.
Nita had the most amazing poleaxed expression on her face. "Wow."
Lissa couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing. "That is the best reaction," she said, "the very best!" She wrapped her arms around herself, giggling. "Perfect, just perfect, what a breath of fresh air!"
No "you haven't found the right person" or "maybe you have a low sex drive," just a lack of familiarity layered over with willingness to take her at her word, and the former could be solved with research Lissa felt certain Nita would do later. The latter was gold.
Nita looked both relieved and slightly annoyed. "Have I been some kind of idiot again?" she said. "Please say no."
"No," Lissa said, still smiling, and would've reassured her further except that a smooth, dark voice interrupted saying, "Relationship and physicality, always so fraught..."
—and that segued into one of the most astonishing conversations Lissa ever had the pleasure of participating in. She'd known Nita ran in interesting circles, but her familiarity (and ease!) with a Planetary, especially one as reclusive as Pluto, did even more to convince Lissa that her growing association with the Rodriguez/Callahan team boded...something. If she was going to be swept up in one of their errantries, well, that would be as the Powers intended; she'd just make sure she was as prepared as possible. And maybe add a few more gems to her spell-belt.
Just to cap things off, Kit and Penn got into an actual spell-duel in the middle of the party. Which was bad enough, but Earth's Planetary herself showed up to bawl them out, and everyone knew that Irina tried not to interfere unless she was really, really pissed off. Lissa didn't blame her; the whole thing was just rude. From Penn she could see it, but she thought Kit had better sense.
After that the party was pretty much over. Matt invited her over to his place along with a few others, but Lissa was finally partied out. Besides, she had a meeting to prepare for.
TORONTO
The conversation with Nita (and Pluto!) was still ringing in her mind as Lissa walked into the Toronto library. Everyone else was probably going to be more interested in Kit and Penn's duel. Macho bullshit, in her opinion, game set and match. The analysis of the fight would be interesting, even useful, but Lissa had her mind on more immediate matters.
Tonight was the first meeting of a discussion group she'd set up for LGBTQ wizards...or more accurately, for any wizard whose sexuality (or lack thereof) set them apart from others of their kind. Not just humans, either. Lissa had been delighted to get pings of interest from a couple of aliens who frequented Earth for business or vacations.
She'd set the first meeting on her home turf because she was running it, but they might move later. She probably wouldn't get any argument about meeting at the Crossings...
The fact they were wizards didn't negate the fact that they occasionally ran into difficulty at home or school, the kind of difficulty wizardry couldn't solve. Parents who wouldn't understand (or who a young wizard was convinced wouldn't understand), or cruel schoolmates, or an unfriendly local environment.
Or they had more personal concerns: Lissa wasn't immune to fears about her SO leaving if her asexuality became a sticking point. It hadn't been yet and her SO said it would never be, but people changed. She and the other young wizards in the group were all teenagers. How many couples stayed together past their teens and survived entering the adult world? True, wizards tended to bond young and quickly, especially when they found someone they could work and play with, like Seniors Swale and Romeo. Or Nita and Kit—Lissa would bet anything on them staying together, as a working pair at the very least; their obviously new romance was a great bonus. But her SO wasn't a wizard.
Still, most of the time she kept faith in her SO's words and (more important) actions, keeping Lissa company when she was sick and ordering in her favorite foods when she didn't feel like cooking. Lissa never had to ask for a hug when she needed it and that, more than anything, made "Special One" more appropriate than "Significant Other."
She smiled to herself as she waved to the librarians on her way to the discussion corner. Keeping everyone guessing about her SO was also part of the fun.
She'd negotiated confidentiality with a Senior, so the meeting and its members wouldn't be recorded. They were officially overseen by an adult, but the meetings were intended for younger wizards unless intervention was required. Lissa would do her best to ensure that help wasn't called for. Tom had enough on his plate.
Lissa arranged the chairs in the discussion corner and spoke the words of a privacy spell-shield, so any non-wizards wandering by heard only a regular study group. The few aliens would be wearing mochteroofs in case the circle failed.
People started to arrive, walking in or transporting to the alcove set behind the discussion area, one of the reasons she'd chosen the library. Matt sidled over to Lissa. "So is this mysterious Special One of yours gonna show at these things?"
Lissa nodded absently, watching people mill around. "Sure, but not this time. Our schedules don't always align— Hey, Enrique! Glad you could make it."
Matt rolled his eyes and went to sit in the chair Doki was holding for him. "Foiled again," he side-whispered, loud enough to be sure Lissa heard him. "She'll slip one of these days."
Doki snorted at him. "Your version of 'subtlety' is about as understated as your shirt." Which, given Matt was wearing one of his traditional loud Hawaiian prints, wasn't very at all.
Lissa winked at Doki as everyone took their seats. "Thank you for coming, everyone! I know we're all still wound up about the Invitational—
Imani nodded excitedly. "Can you believe that Penn guy drew on Rodriguez? Seriously!"
Lissa cleared her throat. "—but that's not what we're here to discuss. To begin: Hi, I'm Lissa, and I'm asexual." She paused while some of the aliens (and one or two humans) received a Speech-accurate definition from their manuals. "I'm not interested in sex, but I know most of you are!"
"Very interested," Matt wisecracked, and everyone laughed.
She grinned at him. "So as you know, the purpose of these meetings is to give you a chance to voice any concerns you have or discuss any obstacles you've run up against in regard to your sexuality or gender, however you define yourself. And how being wizards plays into that, or doesn't."
"Thank you for this," Mei-ling said quietly. "These are things I cannot discuss with my family, although they know I am a wizard..." She held up her hands, shrugging.
"Families, same the galaxy over!" Sar'inruhe, currently wearing the guise of a blond young man in a hideous Christmas sweater, gestured emphatically. Its voice was melodic even through (or despite) the disguise. "You wish, you need to make your own way regardless of tradition or culture, and..."
Lissa heard an alert chime from her manual and held up a finger. "Hold that thought. Late arrival. New attendee, be nice." She glanced at Matt, holding his gaze for a moment.
"I'm always nice," Matt said with a wounded air, and beside him Doki rolled his eyes with an indulgent look.
There was a POP from the alcove and Ronan Nolan appeared. Matt's eyes went wide and Doki's hand shot out to grip his arm. Matt visibly bit his tongue and sat back in his chair.
"Not sure I belong here," Ronan muttered.
"That's fine!" Lissa told him with welcoming smile. "The 'q' stands for 'questioning,' too." She patted the empty seat next to her. "You're welcome to share, or just listen."
Ronan waved to the group as he sat. "G'on with your meeting, let me get my bearings."
"Our meeting," Lissa said emphatically, and nodded to the Christmas-sweater alien. "You were saying...?"
"Yes, it's just, it's hard being [monogamous] when there is so much pressure to share one's spore among the entire cluster," Sar'inruhe fluted with a mournful tone. "But I only wish to blend with my [untranslatable]!"
Another alien, one who looked like a mass of purple tentacles under the disguise of a punky Russian girl, nodded in sympathy. "This one comprehends. Shared consciousness can be as much a burden as a comfort."
"And that's why we're all here," Lissa said. "One way or another, to greater or lesser extent, we're different from others within our communities. Tabling the discussion about why that is or why it shouldn't be like that," she added with a wry smile, "the upshot is that we need to find coping mechanisms, and practice patience with those who don't understand, and live our best lives regardless of those challenges."
"Especially difficult," Doki said, startling everyone used to his usual quietness, "when one lives in a community where open expression of one's preferred 'different' sexuality is not acceptable, and the art must remain sevarfrith even to those closest. Hiding wizardry, hiding love...it becomes wearying after a time."
Matt reached over and took Doki's hand. Doki smiled. "But of course we have recourses and escapes that most do not, and even this simple gathering is a gift not to be undervalued. It is still more than many have."
"Right, but," Imani said, looking argumentative, "this group and the Errantry is great and all, don't get me wrong, but like you said—some of us still gotta go home and hide everything we are. So for all our power, we're still back at square one."
"Except for the knowledge that you're not alone and never will be," Lissa said. "So the best thing you can do it take that understanding and reach out to others in your community who might be truly isolated."
Imani opened her mouth, then closed it again, looking thoughtful. That was possibly the best result Lissa could have asked for; if these wizards turned their frustrations into a drive to help others, she would consider that a victory against local entropy. And small victories added up.
Lissa glanced sideways at Ronan, slouched down in his seat and taking it all in. He caught her glance and looked away; he would either speak of his own accord or not, and either was fine. Just listening to other's stories and issues was useful, too.
The meeting went on for another hour and a half before Lissa called a halt. "I think we can call this a successful experiment! I'll message your manuals and arrange the next, as your schedules allow. Please let me know in the chat room or privately if there's anything you'd like to change or discuss next time. Meanwhile..." she grinned at them. "I'm all pins-and-needles for the Invitational finals. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see those demonstrations in action."
"Especially Rick Maxwell's volcano," Mei-ling said, looking star-struck, "did you read the précis? His technical artistry—"
"'s nice," Ronan drawled, "but I'm betting on Joona Tilli-whatever." He glanced at Lissa. "What? Some of us weren't on staff, we can bet however we like."
"You don't think Penn will pull off a surprise victory?" she teased.
"If he has a chance, it's thanks to Kit and Nita." He frowned. "Something about that guy..."
"Yeah, he's a piece of work," Matt said, but Lissa thought Ronan meant something else entirely. Before she could pursue it she was caught up in saying her farewells to the others, and then it slipped her mind until after the spectacular, terrifying finale on the Moon.
It was generally agreed, after all was said and done, that it'd been the Simurgh trapped in Penn's head causing his personality malfunction and bad behavior. The young wizard community collectively decided to forgive his past errors and meet him anew.
Lissa found herself both shocked and strangely unsurprised at the turn of events. Once again, Nita and Kit and Dairine had been the instigators and facilitators of momentous, vastly important occurrences. If her growing association with them meant she was about to have that kind of experience...
"Okay, universe," she said, knowing she was virtually daring the Powers that Be. "Bring it."
Writing fic about a sideline character naturally means obsessing about every line she appears in. *g*
Meta: Lissa just walked into that opening scene one day and said, more or less, "Well, here I am." She's going to be pivotal in some stuff to come. - Diane Duane
In GWP, Lissa refers to her significant other as her "Special One" and Diane Duane carefully refrains from assigning a gender. Rather than be proven wrong in retrospect, I likewise dodged the issue.
"[Nita] looked at him in surprise. "Wait, is [Lissa] going to be here?"
"Yeah, I saw her on the incoming visitor list in the manual this morning." Kit grinned. "After ten minutes or so of Lissa in I'm-talking-tech-to-you,-stupid mode, [Penn]'ll be so grateful for you."
- GWP p. 292, Kindle Edition.
Lissa wasn't at the initial mentors-and-competitors meeting, and she's on the visitor list. She's apparently a techie, between this mention and her war game solution. So having her behind the scenes as a technical support seemed to fit, given how Lissa seemed to be involved in nearly every step of the Invitational without having a mentee of her own.
"No, I will not move your planet" — Dairine from A Wizard Abroad. Mehrnaz seemed particularly impressed by that too.
Also a nod to DD's Star Trek novels, because she's already crossed the streams. Speaking of, a Phoenix rising on the dark side of the Moon? My old-school inner X-Men fan had a good long laugh over that. And finally:
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too ...
There's someone in my head but it's not me ...
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.
- Pink Floyd