fic: Its Own Reward

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

TITLE: Its Own Reward
AUTHOR: SelDear
SUMMARY: Dairine Callahan, two weeks a wizard, learns that wizardry isn't always about the big stuff.
RATING: PG-13
NOTES: Written as a pinch-hit for the yuletide challenge 2007. I've never written Young Wizards fanfic before, and I'm not sure if here is the right place to post it since a quick skim has not displayed any fic. If it's not the place to post it, please let me know, and I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.

Its Own Reward

The first Dairine Callahan knew of a failed worldgate configuration was when she awoke at three in the morning to a cat sitting on her bed.

In a household which owned a cat, this would have been nothing unusual, cats being the creatures they are. In a household which boasted a grand total of zero cats, it was very unusual, and most twelve year-olds would have shooed the cat away before pausing in the moment before sleep to wonder where the cat had come from.

Dairine Callahan was not like most twelve year-olds. And the cat was not a stray that had somehow worked its way into her room.

Dai stiho, Dairine Callahan, I am on errantry and I greet you.

There were few things that could get Dairine up like a shot, even if her body would take a few minutes to catch up with her brain, and that phrase was one of them. Errantry meant a wizardly mission, and the fact that a cat was sitting on her bed speaking to her in the Speech - the language that all creation understands - meant that a wizardly endeavour involving planetary worldgates had gone wrong.

Dairine had only been a wizard for two weeks, but even in those two weeks, she'd learned that when planetary worldgates went wrong, it was bad.

"Hey, Rruena," Dairine managed, rubbing at her eyes and trying not to notice that the clock read 3:06 and had just clicked over to 3:07. "What's up?"

The cat flicked an ear, like an eyebrow raised at Dairine's colloquial language, but otherwise she seemed more amused than offended. A reconfiguration fails, she said briskly. The planned transfer did not occur at the expected time and the power edges are unstable. Our kits hold it steady, but more is needed while the Seniors work out the solution. The ehhif Area Senior Carl Romero suggested you.

"Oh, man," Dairine yawned as she hauled herself out of bed in her fluffy Darth Vader pyjamas and glanced over at the computer on the desk. "Spot?"

The laptop computer that had previously been sitting quietly on the desk, sprung a half-dozen little legs off its sides and scuttled up like a silvery, electronic crab. It flipped up its lid and showed the glowing backlight of a screen and a message waiting for her in dark letters.

From: Carl Romero
To: Dairine Callahan
Subject: New York Worldgate reconfiguration power anchor
Message: Sorry, Dairine. You're on active status for the next few hours. See you at the end of Platform 17, Grand Central Station with Rruena. We'll take it from there.

Brief and to the point, no words wasted.

And it was three in the morning!

"Give me enough time to throw on some clothes," she told Rruena, who was watching her while cleaning between her back toes. The effect was disconcerting: a very catlike thing to do with a very un-catlike expression on the feline face. "And I'm there."

--

Dairine left a note for Nita and her parents on the kitchen table, just in case she didn't get back in time for school. Wizardry might give a teenager phenomenal cosmic powers, but it also entailed a whole lot of responsibility.

Including not skipping school.

Not that it would matter, Dairine thought to herself as she stepped out into the cold, dark yard and held the door open for Rruena to slip out after her, Since school's never a problem for me anyway.

Spot scuttled across the neatly-cut lawn and settled its silvery body down next to the feline messenger who briefly flattened both ears in discomfort at the sentient technology. Five strides later, Dairine had scooped him up and spoken the closing word of the spell to take her from her backyard all the way in to Grand Central Station, New York City...

The man waiting for her was tall and dark and warmly dressed against the early morning chill in a red parka with a blue and white striped Yankees beanie pulled down over his ears. "'Morning, Dairine."

"Hey, Carl." Dairine only half managed to stifle her yawn. "What's up?"

"Let's walk, I'll tell you on the way. Dai, Rruena."

"Dai, Carl. Better get that one into the anchor structure pretty soon." Rruena flicked a tail in a casual farewell and raced off along the platform ahead of them, to vanish into the night's darkness off down the tracks.

"We're on our way." Carl touched Dairine on the shoulder, gently pushing her along. "Come on, sleepyhead."

"Keep me awake by telling me what's going on," she told Carl. "It's way too early for my brain."

"Nearly too late for mine," he said cheerfully. "The story is that the cat-wizards in charge of the Grand Central Worldgate have been looking at moving it from Grand Central over to Penn Station for a while. After 9/11, it's been reasoned that they don't want the worldgate in such a targeted space as the middle of New York."

"And Penn Station's not exactly the pinnacle of New York style," Dairine finished as they reached the end of the platform and walked into the darkness off it. The video cameras monitoring the area would have been dealt with - either through wizardry or simply with a brief technological fault that would glitch their images as they walked along the platform. "Okay, so what went wrong?"

"Unexpected solar flare," Carl explained as they made their way through a brief period of darkness, only to emerge into a lighted area, where a glowing circle pulsed with a multicoloured light beneath which a dozen furry lumps were sitting, their eyes reflective circles in the lit-up darkness as they stared at the Worldgate.

Dairine frowned. "Wouldn't they plan for those kinds of things?"

"Our best theory is that your recent work out in a galaxy far, far away has resulted in some lingering temporal vengefulness from the Lone Power."

Since Dairine's recent Ordeal had involved coming directly up against the Lone Power, and influencing an entire civilisation to reject his poisoned offer of Would You Like Death With That? She could imagine the Lone Power - the StarSnuffer, the Fallen One, the Destroyer, and all the other names given to him by the wizards of every world and every race - was not a happy camper at this time.

"So he couldn't do much since he's taken a pretty solid hit," and Dairine couldn't help the smugness that seeped into her voice, "but he could mess this much up?"

"Exactly. And that's why we need you." They'd reached an area just beyond the collection of cat-wizards sitting off to one side, clearly in consultation.

One of the smaller ones bounded up. "Dai, elder brother," it said in the Speech. "Dai, little sister. Are you ready to join in the anchoring?"

"In a moment," she told the cat before turning back to Carl. "Was I dragged out of bed because it's my fault?"

Carl fixed her with a disappointed look. "You know better than that, Dairine. Wizardry isn't about fault or assigning blame. You've got the power we need and you're available - yes, even at three in the morning! Errantry can be about using what's to hand as it is about using the right tools."

And that, Dairine realised as the cat-wizards began setting her up to enter the power configuration for anchoring the worldgate, was that.

It was a bit of a letdown to realise that they didn't need her for this work so much as they needed the power she wielded. She wasn't even the tool they were going to use to fix this problem - the feline wizards knew exactly what needed to be done to stabilise the worldgate and were already implementing the necessary wizardries - she was just the power generator.

Inserted delicately into the power matrix, Dairine found herself physically tucked into a corner by a switch with Spot, who was the conduit through which she accessed the power of an entire planet of computer-wizards.

"I'll be back around shortly," Carl told her. They were the only two humans apparently involved in this wizardry, and Carl seemed to be more in the role of an observer and assistant than active participant. The feline wizards were all over the worldgate, laying out spells with a twitch of whiskers and a flick of tails.

"Dai," said a little voice by her ankle, and a small black and white kitten peered over her thigh. "You are Dairine of the ehhif? The one who helped birth a world of the rhirhrnn?" The little ears twitched. "I am Rryf of the People."

"Hey, Rryf. Dai. Are you one of the anchors, too?"

The kitten hopped up on Dairine's knee. "Yes. They called me out in the middle of the hunt. I had hoped to get some hunting done - Krran said there were huntings nearly as big as him out in the rmmarhrggrh." The Ailurin didn't quite translate to any Speech Dairine knew, and came out instead with vague impressions of tunnels and the glowing lights at the end of a city alleyway.

"Yeah," Dairine sighed. "They pulled me out of bed for this. But I guess errantry calls at all times."

"It could have the consideration to call at a more appropriate hour." The big eyes regarded her thoughtfully. "But bed is where I shall go after this." A tiny mouth full of small, sharp teeth, yawned widely as she thoughtfully sniffed at Spot, and then settled down on Dairine's lap, her eyes apparently closed but her tail flicking in a steady pace.

"Make yourself comfortable," Dairine said, a little dryly.

"Thank you," said Rryf, opening her eyes. "I will."

With a laugh, Dairine brushed her fingers across the kitten's fur, soft and silky. So, I lost out on a bit of sleep, she reflected. At least this wizardry isn't likely to kill me. The cat wizards seem to have it all under control.

And, she had to admit, there was a certain thrill and excitement about just watching such a major wizardry take place. She'd never yet had to work with worldgates - on Earth, it was unlikely that she ever would. The feline wizards were more than capable of taking care of the delicate power and balance requirements involved in worldgate maintenance, although sometimes they called in wizards from outside the People - as they called themselves.

Still, after the first hour, her eyes were slightly bleary and she shifted several times, once dislodging an annoyed Rryf in the process and ending up with claws in her thigh. "Ow!"

She felt the wizardry wobble and grabbed at it - just her section of it to stabilise things out.

"Dairine?" Carl appeared, took one look at her and Rryf and gently picked the kitten's claws out of Dairine's leg and watched with a grin as the kitten rubbed an apology against Dairine's hand. "They'll be done in another hour - can you hold out that long?"

Dairine sighed. "If I have to."

The Senior wizard grinned. "Would it help if I got you something to eat?"

The soda and hot dog Carl brought her from a 7-11 out in the station were a help, but by the time the worldgate had been stabilised and the anchors detached one by one, Dairine was more than ready to go back to bed.

She was the last of the anchors to be removed - as the one with the most power - and she felt the snap of the cutoff with something like relief - although clearly not as much relief as the wizards who watched their gate technicians checking out the statistics before the all-clear call came.

"Big night, huh?" Carl helped her up. "Thanks, Dairine. Thanks, Rryf."

"Uh. You're welcome. I think." She yawned widely. "Boy, am I tired."

"My pleasure," said the kitten to Carl, who'd stuck by Dairine for the remainder of the night. "Dai, Dairine. We will meet again, I hope." Rryf pushed against her leg once once, flicked a tail in farewell and pranced off, apparently none the worse for the night.

Then again, Rryf wouldn't have to be in class until four o'clock that afternoon. Dairine checked her watch and groaned - something she'd been afraid of doing as the hours crawled by. 6:30. "Oh, crap," she muttered to herself. In spite of her love of school, Dairine wasn't looking forward to keeping her head up in class today. "I don't suppose I can get out of school for this?"

"Sorry, Dairine. You know the rules. No skipping school for anything less than a full-blown emergency with authorisation at at Planetary level."

She sighed, but rallied. "Does it have anything written in your job description as a Senior about enjoying putting new wizards through the wringer?"

He grinned. "No, but that's definitely one of the perks. If it's any consolation, I've got an 8:00 appointment at the studios, so you're not the only one who has to be awake and functional for the day." He clapped her on the shoulder. "Come on, I'll see you home."

But as they went off to the end of the station where Dairine had first appeared, she felt the satisfaction of a wizardry well done somewhere deeper in her bones.

Wizardry was its own reward.

- fin -

Comments

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Oh that's so very good! Thank you for sharing it with us here.

I like a good bit of wizardry, and you've written this excelently, with wonderfully don echaracterisations. Thanks!

[majaji.livejournal.com]

that was good! i enjoyed reading it very much!

[northern_magic]

You have a very good sense of the nature of wizardry throughout this piece. I especially liked your portrayal of how errantry isn't always the stuff that'll make up a major novel, but how it's very much the maintenance of the universe as well as going up against the Lone Power. Personally, I think the voices could do with a bit more individual character, but that's something I often fixate on *cough*.
Also liked the sense of satisfaction at the end.

Most fic and art are posted over at myriadwords, by the way. Dai stiheh!

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this the first time I read it, and again today! No-one will at all mind you posting this here, I'm sure, and feel free to x-post it to myriadwords, too.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Very nice! Smoothly written, with good characterization. I especially liked that subtle, "It's really not all about you," that Carl delivered, and I liked Dairine's reaction to it as well.