A mirror, so silver, so exact

I'm trying to get my userinfo organized. Here's a listing of all the awards and shinies I can think of that I've collected on the internets:

( Collapse )



( Collapse )



( Collapse )

Reading books is not as simple as it used to be. It was much easier when I went to the library or the bookstore every couple of weekends and brought home some new titles. Now, I have ten unread print books on my shelf, three iBooks, three Kindle books (two of which are Idol-related), and one audiobook that is a duplicate of a print book that still resides at my parents’ house. How do I sort through all the different media for reading?

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

Now What?

I have decided that I would like to re-read Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books. I originally read those books in the late 90s and early 00s, and I have not reread them recently. In fact, I am so far removed from them that when Mark Oshiro began to read and review them, I realized that I did not remember the books at all. When he started on The Realms of the Gods, I summed it up as follows: “So at some point, they go to the Divine Realms. They run around there for a while. It’s kind of weird. Oh, and I kind of remember how it ends.” Upon reading the reviews, I am half-convinced that I never actually read the book, but only heard about it from something else. I have no memory of almost all of these plot points! But I know I read the books, because my mom had to rip them out of my hands so that I would stop being rude and write my Bat Mitzvah thank you notes!

If I could find my print copies, then I would just read them. I cannot find them. My best guess is that they are in storage near my parents’ house, so I cannot easily get to them. What do I do? Do I get the e-books or the audiobooks? How do I choose what medium to read a book in from here on out? Will the need to choose an option haunt me every time that I want a new book or an old book that’s not in my physical possession?

What are your thoughts?

"Where are you from?"

( Collapse )

This has been an entry for Week 9 at therealljidol, where I selected the prompt "Home." Please take a look at the many other excellent entries that will go up this week!

Alice wanted to believe that Orlando merely slept on his hospital bed, but his injuries and the stagnant beep of the machines told her that the accident had taken his life. Fortunately, she could reclaim it. Her arms moved in mechanical motions to touch the talismans she carried in her book bag. The instructions for the long-forbidden spell lurking at the back of her grimoire said that the more tokens a witch could find that had belonged to the dead person, the better the chance that the spell would work.

( Collapse )

---

This was my entry for Week 8 at therealljidol, in which I wrote for the prompt "Bewitched and Bewildered." Thanks to alien_writings, audreybuttercup, beldarzfixon, and tatdatcm for beta reading!

On what might have been the twenty-fifth day of the journey through the ruined city, Red stumbled over a piece of rubble that came up to her knees and did not get up. Caterina and her traveling companions tried everything they could to make her rise again. Their sealed, silent mouths could not call the redhead's name, even if they knew it, but they poked her plastic skin with the metal rods they normally used to defend themselves and tried to use their tiny hands to open her eyes. The one in charge, who Caterina called Angel, gestured to the remainder of the group to lift Red from the ground. So Caterina teamed up with flame-scarred Green and took Red's shoulders, and Angel placed one hand on Red's head. With her other hand, Angel gestured, and they pushed Red up.

( Collapse )

---

Thanks to comedychick for her beta reading! I am in the poll for Second Chance Idol here, and the main competition's poll is here. Please read the entries and vote!

Red. Could it be? During her assignment studying the Corae Market of 2355, Lyra had never seen a soul dressed in head-to-toe red like the woman she had just spotted out of the corner of her eye. Red attracted the attention of the blood demons, who would inflict untold suffering upon all who walked here if only given the chance. The woman in red could not be from here; otherwise, she would know better. A foreigner? No, even foreigners knew the customs of Corae. Even if they stifled their laughter at any mention of blood demons, they excised all red from their wardrobes and stalls to preserve access to the market.

"Miss? If you don't want your moon fruit, I'll be having it back," the keeper of the fruit stall shouted above the din.

"I'll be having," Lyra echoed. She took her moon fruits and swept them into her brown satchel before turning to pursue the woman in red. Normally, once lost, it took the luck of the gods to find anyone in the Corae Market in the middle of the morning. But the people parted before the stranger this time, believing that any contact with her would bring the blood demons upon them.

Another time traveler, Lyra concluded. But not a licensed one. The Agency of Chronological Management kept close tabs upon each of its operatives. Each agent wore a monitoring device that tracked her whenabouts and whereabouts. The dossier that Lyra carried on every research mission contained the names and photographs of all agents within her vicinity, and the Chief plotted each operative's movements to ensure that no agent crossed over her own timeline. Furthermore, no agent went on assignment without knowledge of the local customs.

Lyra pulled out her dossier, keeping it concealed within her shoulder bag. But instead of showing nearby agents, a message in red ink filled the page: ALL AGENTS RETURN AT ONCE.

She looked back up from the dossier, where the woman in red kept walking as the crowd parted before her. Instead of activating the snap-back device that would return her to 2543, Lyra took a few steps to the right, her eyes on the mystery woman. She knew something more interesting than exchanges of money and people milling around would happen shortly. Did the Agency have to call her back now?

The dossier hummed again under her hands. ALL AGENTS RETURN IMMEDIATELY.

Lyra looked up again and saw her quarry looking directly at her. She stared back at the unknown traveler's pale face, framed by thick brown hair trying to escape a ponytail. What did she do now? It occurred to Lyra that her flight of fancy had to come to an end. Her tangent from her mission had occupied her mind for a while, but she was just a researcher, and she had to obey the dictates of her Agency. She reached for the watch on her left wrist and pressed the knob on its side that would return her to her own time.

--

The disorientation overtook Lyra upon her arrival one hundred and eighty-eight years later. She reached out both her arms, trying to find something to hold onto while the ground spun beneath her feet, and found herself clinging to another operative.

"Agent Tristan," she heard the Chief say. "You're late."

"Sorry, Chief," Lyra mumbled. She should have prepared herself better for the jump. Any leap through time tended to have a vertiginous effect, particularly jumps of a century or more, but sometimes medication alleviated the impact.

The Chief ignored her transgression for the moment. She directed a laser pointer toward the screen in front of the assembled operatives, and an image of the woman in red Lyra had pursued just moments before turned up. In the photograph, the woman looked less pale than she had appeared in the Corae Market, but Lyra could not miss the resemblance.

"This is Camille Sand," the Chief said. Lyra looked around the crowd of agents for her partner so she could share what had just happened to her in Corae, but saw no sign of Jane Harper. "Five years of distinguished service with the Agency, starting in 2666 and ending when she went rogue in 2671."

A murmur ran through the room. Agents seldom dropped off the map, given the battery of psychological tests that any prospective operative had to pass to gain access to the most basic of the advanced chronological devices. Lyra had heard stories of the damage rogue agents could cause during her training. Usually, they consisted of former operatives making futile attempts to alter the course of history, but one had managed to fake the security clearance to read a Chief's Whenabouts Board and reveal the ultimate fates of every agent working in the office that year.

"Camille has been reported in three different locations since she took off her monitor, which last reported from 2671 on this day six hours ago. She could be anywhen, and she is dangerous. I have suspended all of your former missions. Your task is now to locate and capture Camille. Questions?"

"How are we going to find her?" one agent asked.

"Because she wants to be found," Lyra answered.

When all eyes in the room turned to Lyra, she realized she had spoken more loudly than she had intended. "Why do you say that, Agent Tristan?" the Chief asked.

Lyra thought about revealing her prior encounter with Camille Sand, but thought better of it. "No one who wants to go unnoticed wears that color red," she said to the crowd of agents.

The Chief looked at Lyra before returning her gaze to the crowd. "As with any mission, you will each be assigned a year within which to hunt for Camille. Your dossiers are being updated as we speak with information about Camille and the years you have been assigned to. Arm yourselves, but if you get into a situation you cannot manage, use your beacons to signal home for help. Dismissed. Except you, Agent Tristan."

The agents left the room, complaining about the interruption to their research and speculating about how anyone could jump three times in six hours without succumbing to the vertigo. Lyra stayed standing for her upcoming lecture about obeying orders with punctuality.

"You saw her," the Chief said to Lyra.

"Yes, Chief."

"Then you and Agent Harper will return to 2355. Camille's probably long gone by now, but I won't let a solid lead slip through our fingers." The Chief tapped on her Whenabouts Board to denote Lyra and Jane's upcoming locations in time. "Go."

--

"The woman in red--"

"Haven't seen hide nor hair of her, gods bless me!" The shopkeeper ran out of his jewelry stall, mixing prayers into his mumbling about fools and demons.

Lyra looked at Jane. "He saw her."

"Yep."

They squeezed their hands together, then left the stall and walked in the opposite direction from the shopkeeper. Jane's hand went to her concealed gun, while Lyra found her beacon.

"Do you think she's still here?" Lyra asked. With the approach of the midday heat, the crowd in the market had started to dissipate.

"I would have said no, because she's gone on so many jumps already, but you said she looked right at you. She seems interested in you."

"You don't have to be jealous." Lyra swept her eyes along the edges of the crowd. She saw no red.

Jane smiled. "I know. Anyway, she seems to know who you are."

"How?" Had Camille left? She could have found a boat to take her away from the Market, if she had even stayed in this time period.

"I have no idea. Well, she could have gotten her hands on a Whenabouts Board, but a board from 2671 wouldn't show us, and I see no other way. It all depends on whether she wants to be found now or whether she'd rather lead us on a chase through time first."

"Oh, I think I want to find you first."

Jane turned toward Camille's voice and pointed her gun, but within a matter of seconds, a white-clad Camille had disarmed Jane. "If you even think about going for one of those devices on you, I'll make your Agent pay," Camille said, gesturing toward Jane with the gun. "Now, I want to see your hands."

Lyra raised them in the air, away from the beacon she had already activated. "Who sold those to you?" she asked, aware of the idiocy of her question.

"A jump here, a jump there," Camille said. "Should have taken me down when you had the chance."

"I didn't know who you were," Lyra said.

Camille looked around at the people in the market, who ignored them now. Maybe someone had called law enforcement, but the operatives would arrive before any local security did. "Bullshit. Your Agency just hadn't told you, but you knew."

"It's your Agency, too," Jane said.

"I didn't say you could talk." Camille turned back to Jane. "And it's not my Agency. Not after what I've seen."

"What you've seen?" Lyra echoed. "And what's that?"

"That the world can change," Camille said. "Far more than any agency chief ever gave it credit for. We can change time, not just travel in it. You don't believe me? Go to 2546 and find the white--" Then, the bullets hit Camille.

"You all right?" The three backup agents ran over to Lyra and Jane, ignoring Camille's body.

"We're not hurt," Jane said. "Lyra?"

Lyra stared at Camille's body. "The white what?" she asked.

"She was just rambling," Jane said. "The same thing as any other rogue."

"But--" What if Camille had told the truth? What if a device existed that would allow the Agency to break its constraints and use the known chronological devices to do more than simply observe? If so, then that could mean a thousand different things for the Agency that Lyra had never envisioned. If no such thing existed, then why had Camille run? Lyra quelled her thoughts. "Never mind. Are you going to be okay, Jane?"

"Yes. Let's go back."

Lyra looked at her snap-back device and felt the disorientation coming on already. Did it come from anticipation of the return trip, or from having a gun pointed at her partner while a rogue operative tried her best to turn the world upside down? "Not ready yet," she said. "I'm going to take my tonic first this time."

[Content note]Content note: References to rape.

Down, down, down we walked. If I allowed myself to, I could lose my sense of self among the descending throng before we ever reached the river. The farther we descended, the fewer differences distinguished the once-people surrounding me. All sizes and shapes melted and stretched into uniform gray rectangles that bore vague resemblances to people when I glimpsed them out of the corner of my eye. At every turn, more shades of former people joined us for the journey down to the world of the dead.

I wondered if the walk down turned me to gray as well. Gray muting the red hair that drew the eyes and attentions of gods. Gray turning my once-clear intentions to the bare need to put one foot in front of the other for the long trip down, and hopefully for the long trip up again.

I am Zoe Hester, I told myself. Daughter of Leon and Cornelia Hester. Age sixteen. I am here to live my own life. I have not come beneath the earth to die.

I remembered enough to toss my flask of the water from the river of forgetfulness over my shoulder once the spirit attending the newly dead turned its back on me. Among so many new souls, none of the attending spirits noticed me. Perhaps I appeared just as gray and rectangular to them as the true dead did. It would be better that way, to disguise the sound of my beating heart that, to my ears, rang out across the silent fields of the dead. Did the spirits have ears to hear my heart? I had not considered that prospect when I wandered far from home to find a sinkhole and follow it down, down, down to retrieve my fate.

Zoe Hester. Too young to die. Too striking to hide. Too headstrong to obey.

The first field would never hold what I sought. No, that would be too easy. I continued down through waves of washed-out souls with nothing before them but the world beneath the earth. From a distance, I saw no way through the crowd, but every row of immobile, insubstantial souls somehow parted before me. How many souls would I have to walk through before I reached my goal? I reassured myself with thoughts of how far I had come. I had already crossed the river unnoticed and nearly traversed the first field. Surely, I could overcome my aching feet to continue my march through the world of the dead. So long as my feet continued to ache, I could ward off the gray from reaching my heart, for I still had life within me.

I directed my thoughts to the living world as I walked in the hopes that the memories would keep me unaffected by the dead air. I thought of running my hands across the columns of the temples to feel the grooves in the stone. I had tried to live a good life under their protection. I had followed the rules, made the sacrifices, and done my best to avoid sin. If I did those things, then they would be gentle with my fate, for they held my fate in their hands and controlled each aspect of my destiny. But no more. The god I had encountered in the wood had expressed intentions that were anything but gentle. He had called me too pretty to stay hidden and told me I should feel honored. I remembered the shock of cold river water on my skin and the disappointment when the water washed nothing away.

So I dropped beneath the earth to follow a tale that might not even be true. One of the great heroes had descended to the world of the dead to collect his fate from the gods and thus become his own master. Unlike him, I was mortal, and I possessed no great gifts. Yet I had made it this far anyway.

"You are not supposed to be here."

I stopped and turned in the direction of the commanding voice, where I saw a woman clothed in deep purple who seemed to glow in contrast to the dull crowds of the dead surrounding her. Out of instinct, I fell to my knees before her. "Forgive me, my lady," I said. Had I obeyed the proper courtesies? At this point, did my lack of manners even matter? I had trespassed. The very act of coming to the world of the dead for my fate suggested that I could handle my fate better than the gods could. A voice whispered to me that I could do that, but the gods likely would not take the suggestion kindly.

"Your thread is uncut." Her voice had lost none of its authority, but she did not sound angry. "Your heart still beats. Tell me who you are and why you have come here."

It took a moment too long for my name to spring to my lips. "Zoe Hester, my lady. I heard the tales of the hero Renald, and I--I thought to do the same."

"To claim your fate?" I had always envisioned my fate as a thread according to the stories, but when the glowing outlines of a swan appeared in the goddess's hands, I recognized it as my fate. I rose to accept it, but the goddess drew back her hands, and the swan disappeared.

"Yes, my lady." I bowed my head. "I am but mortal, and I have no great gifts, but--I am no longer welcome in the house of my parents, and I do not know how to make my way. So I thought to claim my fate and bring myself hope."

"Hope," the goddess repeated. I dared to look up again and saw her watching me. I bowed my head again and did not move, even as I wondered what she was waiting for. "Who would I be if I denied a maiden hope?"

"But--my lady--I am not--"

"Take it," she said to me. The swan appeared in her hands again, and she extended them towards me. I touched its glow and gasped, unprepared for the shock of power that came with holding my own fate. "Keep it safe."

"Thank you, my--"

"Don't thank me yet," the goddess said. "I have given you your hope. You must not waste it on your way back to the living."

"I want to be a truth teller," Mike said.

His teacher for Magical Theory, a woman almost as tall as him who probably lived in her ceremonial blue robes, looked him in the eyes. "Why?"

"Because I want to know when people are lying to me." He needed to know. Regular people had their ways of sensing lies that they thought were foolproof; twitches of eyes and corners of mouths. Mike wasn't a regular person anymore. He should do better than them now.

"Being a truth teller is about more than knowing when someone is lying to you." The teacher pursed her lips. "You will never tell another lie, or even another untruth, again. You have to take it more seriously than that."

"But--"

"You have math class now." The teacher turned away.

Mike couldn't believe that a boarding school for magical teenagers still had math class.

On the whole, magic school bore distressing similarities to real high school. He could make it rain indoors without realizing it, but he still had to struggle to stay awake in his unlucky front row seat while the English teacher droned on about Charles Dickens. Even worse, the English teacher literally had a magic eye in the back of his head. Outside the classroom, the situation showed little improvement. Hierarchies formed among the teenagers cast out from the public high schools as if they had never left, and Mike rapidly fell to the bottom rung.

"You look like you lived in a trailer park. Don't you people marry your cousins?"

"You look like a girl. And you act like one, too."

"You're weird."

Mike thanked his lucky stars that at six foot five, he couldn't fit into any lockers.

In theory, Mike understood why the sorcerers in charge of the school made sure everyone had normal educations. Most of them would leave the Palatine Order's school after obtaining a semblance of mastery over their powers to go back to the real world with a story about their experience as an exchange student in a foreign country to explain their absence. Once they returned to the real world, they would need impeccable transcripts for those ever-important college applications, and the Palatine Order would give them whatever they needed.

Mike wasn't going back. The moment that he walked beneath the stone archway leading to the school, he knew that everything that mattered from this point forward in his life lay inside the arch. The outside world had already offered him everything it ever would. The Palatine Order presented him a future better than anything he'd have back in the trailer park.

Only they didn't seem to want him.

"That's not true," his mentor in Practical Magic told him. "We want all of you to stay. There are never enough of you."

"But you want some of us to stay more than others." Mike tossed a ball of water in the air and willed it to hold its shape. "If I had any real power--" The ball burst over his head. "Whoops."

"It's fine," his mentor said.

"If I had any real power," Mike continued, "someone would have told me by now." He saw the way that the teachers fawned over the students with the strongest magic, turning their best efforts toward convincing them to stay with the Palatine Order. No one seemed to care if Mike stayed or left. "But I still want to stay."

"Good," his mentor said.

"And I want to be a truth-teller," Mike added.

His mentor asked the same question as the Magical Theory teacher: "Why?"

This time, Mike had prepared an answer. "I want to know. How the world ticks, and why it's doing the ticking." It wasn't coming out right, so Mike kept talking. "I'll never know if I don't make a commitment to the truth."

The mentor shook his head. "That won't be good enough."

"Why?" Mike asked. He'd told the truth. He really did want to understand the real reasons of the world's ticking.

"Because I know you prepared that answer. It's not the real reason."

"But it's true!"

"Not completely. If you want to be a truth-teller, you have to tell the truth to yourself first. You have to quit playing games with us. But more importantly, you have to quit playing games with yourself."

"I'm not playing games." Mike tried to create the water ball again. It collapsed before formation.

Classes went on. And on. Mike did well enough in his academic classes, but still couldn't make the turnaround with his magic. He got regular letters from his parents: We know you're doing great. Looking forward to seeing you at Christmas. We love you. So he went back for Christmas, but it didn't feel any more like home than the Palatine Order's school when he had to spend most of the trip studying magic. Okay, maybe he didn't have to, but his younger siblings wanted endless demonstrations. Plus, Mike stayed up at least half of most nights studying magic so he could keep up with the stronger students.

When Mike returned to school, he made one more request to become a truth-teller, this time to the Dean of the school.

"Why?" the Dean asked.

Mike took a deep breath. "I want the power," he said. "I know I don't have a lot of it on my own. I know I need to be a truth-teller if I want to make it here. And I want to make it here. I want you to accept me."

He watched the Dean and tried to calm his racing heart. All the while, the Dean said nothing.

Then, she smiled. "Good," the Dean told Mike. "Keep thinking like that. Keep being that honest with yourself."

( Collapse )