all's fair in love and war

[actualantichrist]

The four of them are sitting two-thirds of the way up an old live oak, passing around a canteen of tinny water and talking about magic.

Em wants it more than anyone. The rest of them all think she should be a psion, but she wants to be a mage, wants to paint the sky with fireworks and make clean energy and maybe become an astronaut and figure out a way to avoid the rocket equation.

Reuben, whose upcoming eclipse in March started the whole conversation, says he doesn't want powers at all and if he gets any he'll have them shut down. He wants to be a priest when he grows up, which the rest of them all agree is objectively way lamer than either mage or psion.

Faith, like any sane person, is hoping she'll eclipse, but she doesn't want it with Em's desperate hunger. If she doesn't get cool magic powers, she'll find something else awesome to do with her life. Right now she's thinking she wants to discover a new element (or maybe a new planet, she hasn't decided) and get it named after her. Fides, from the Latin for her name.

In the end, it's Jay who gets powers from his eclipse, and that doesn't work out so well for him.



The three of them are huddled together at Jay's funeral, Reuben in the stark cassock and surplice of an altar server, Em staring up at the sky like she's willing it to open up and rain fire and vengeance. Or at least rain.

The sky stays stubbornly blue. "My eclipse is in February," Faith says blankly, looking up at the moon and she sun in the sky together, so she doesn't look down at her friend's coffin instead. "Maybe I'll be the one who figures out how to bring back the dead. Maybe I can still fix everything."

"Faith, no," Reuben says, softly. "You can't think that way. You have to let him go. I hope -- I hope you don't eclipse, I couldn't bear if--"

"I don't have to do anything I don't want to," Faith retorts. "Just because you're scared--"

"Don't," Em says. "Not now. Just don't."

Faith eclipses anyway. She doesn't actually get a choice.



Virtuality is incredibly lame. She can't actually do anything, not for real. But she comes out of it with her new powers, and it's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to Faith. She can get people's attention, make them listen instead of laughing because she's young or female or a sub, and it's not easy but it's right, like catching a pitched ball perfectly and feeling it slam into your hand. People throw their attention all over the place, and she can fix that, help them pay attention to important things.

Like what she has to say.

School is boring, so Faith tells her parents she wants to be homeschooled, and what do you know, they listen. (She doesn't make them agree, of course. Even if she could, that would be horrible. She just helps them really sit down and listen to her, and understand how important this is and how carefully she's thought about it.) When she's ready she applies to the local college, and her resume is okay but the interviewer thinks she really stands out.

College is way better than high school. Class discussions are fun! Her favorite are classes with participation grades. She always gets A's in those.



They're standing by the grave when the two of them turn on her.

They tell her all the things she's been hearing her whole life, things she'd thought her friends would never say to her. They tell her that she shouts too loud, dreams too big, talks too much, that she acts before thinking, that she needs to stop. They want her to stop using her powers, to make herself less, to make herself normal.

Faith just stands there, too devastated to speak, and she cries, and when they're done she tells them that they're right, that she understands, that she's going to transfer colleges and stay with her mother's cousin and make a new start, meet new people whose minds she's never touched.

They let her go.

They were supposed to be her friends.



Faith doesn't know her aunt all that well, but of course Aunt Kelly is happy to have her niece stay with her for college. Faith's transfer application gets processed with perfect efficiency once she shows up to the office of the registrar and helpfully lets them know she really does need it dealt with soon. Kansas is no Texas, but it's okay, it'll do.

Her first class is apparently history of philosophy, which sounds unbearably boring, but it's a core requirement, so while Faith's advisor agrees that she should clearly be allowed to take something more interesting instead, no one actually seems to have the authority to make that happen. So: ancient philosophy it is.

Faith arrives early and sits in the front. After all, she'll surely have helpful insights to contribute!

Comments

[warmfeelings]

Some of us are going to Rachel's for pulled pork! You want to come? She made a ton!

[actualantichrist]

Oh I couldn't possibly just invite myself over! But if you want to look at the philosophy reading or whatever, I'll be around the library all afternoon.

[warmfeelings]

Sounds fun!



And in the late afternoon Chelsea goes and finds Faith. And gives her a little tupperware of pulled pork. "Welcome to Kansas from Rachel."

[actualantichrist]

"Aww, how thoughtful! I'm totally packing this for lunch tomorrow. You'll have to thank her for me."

[warmfeelings]

"I will!" Phone: out. Text to Rachel: Faith says thanks!

[actualantichrist]

"So I've gotten completely distracted from homework with clubs and stuff."

Faith does indeed have the table halfway covered with pamphlets, some with highlighting and notes marking interesting features.

[warmfeelings]

"Ooh, what have you been leaning towards?" Peer.

[actualantichrist]

"I've actually got a pamphlet here for my aunt's neighborhood association, their rules are dumb and the playground down the street is super lame, it might be cool to organize a fundraiser to work on that. There's two martial arts places, used to do that, probably have to actually go to a meeting to see what they're like. And then a bunch of different activism groups. Trying to figure out which of those are actually serious about it. Oh, and student government, but I'm not super impressed by how that looks."

[warmfeelings]

"Yeah, student government doesn't do anything that seems like your kind of serious here."

[actualantichrist]

"I don't like not being taken seriously! I actually tried to pretend I was a dom for like six months back in middle school until I realized I was convincing exactly no one. Student government seems like it's just the people actually in charge patting you on the head and letting you play pretend."

[warmfeelings]

"What make an activism group good enough?"

[actualantichrist]

"If all they do is, like, hand out flowers on campus, or get signatures on internet petitions, or sit around drinking coffee and talking about how oppressed they are, I'm not impressed. Oh, and I hate bake sales, those things have terrible profit margins. I want to actually do something -- either provide a concrete service ourselves, or have a track record of getting, like, legal or social changes made."

[warmfeelings]

Nod, nod.

[actualantichrist]

Chelsea is such a good listener. Faith likes having her opinions taken seriously.

Beam.

[warmfeelings]

"Can you usually tell from the pamphlets?"

[actualantichrist]

"I can usually rule things out! If they put stuff about, like, dancing in the rain, or that Dr. Seuss quote about being who you are, I know they're not my type of people. Once in a while someone will actually put statistics in the pamphlet, and that's a really good sign."

[warmfeelings]

"Like what kind of statistics?"

[actualantichrist]

"Um. Sometimes budget stuff? Or number of people helped, or things reduced over the past year, that sort of thing."

[warmfeelings]

"So not 'this is how bad things are'."

[actualantichrist]

"Sometimes they do that, but I'm not so impressed. For one thing, those statistics get fudged so badly. And it's easy to google what percent of subs are sexually harassed in college, that sort of thing. If they're gathering statistics about, like, what they do, though, they're probably kinda serious about it."

[warmfeelings]

"Huh, cool. So who's impressed you so far?"

[actualantichrist]

"There's this double-A group -- 'activism in academia' -- they have sister organizations at a bunch of other institutions, and they work on reducing race and role bias in colleges. They got better blinding procedures set up for admissions here a few years back, that's a nice result."

[warmfeelings]

"Are community colleges selective enough in the first place for that to show up much?"

[actualantichrist]

"I haven't looked up statistics on community colleges in particular, but it's good practice anyway! Everyone should be doing it. And bigger colleges are more likely to try it if we show them it's not too hard to pull off."

[warmfeelings]

Nod nod!