Minerva MacAlister (minerva_m) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-12-17 10:34:00 |
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Current mood: | uncertain |
Thursday morning, 17 September 1942, in the alchemy laboratory at the Royal Academy of Wizardry...
Minerva McAlister sighed to herself as she carefully completed a sequence of energy manipulations and examined it. This was all very easy stuff, but, she reminded herself severely, that was entirely appropriate when she was as unsettled as she was today. “I’m not up to much this week,” she said to Endymion Dashwood. “Your turn?”
Endymion nodded and did his part of the exercise, smiling almost vacantly as he layered the energies.
Minerva examined his work, and nodded. She told herself severely to settle down, but as she thought it she knew that it was essentially a failure: trying to force calmness on oneself like a mask was not the needed approach. “Sorry,” she muttered to Dashwood, who she knew could probably feel it, in addition to seeing the obvious difficulties she was having. “It’s good so far, yours is fine, but today is not the day for me to push this.”
“So don’t push,” said Endymion. “This doesn’t want pushing anyway, Nerve.” He winked at her, and then corrected one of the supporting sigils with a tiny flick of his wand. “Please tell me I won’t have to get you a litter box later today.”
“I’m not going to push,” Minerva said. “And thank you, but no. I do want to do that again soon, but not today.” She rather hoped that Charis would be on hand, in some capacity, the next time she attempted a cat transformation, and winced slightly as she realised Dashwood would have caught the very clear and vivid image she had of her.
Endymion chuckled under his breath. “It’s all right, you know. She talked about you all the time at home.”
“You said in your letter,” Minerva muttered, and was immediately annoyed at herself for sounding so cross. “Sorry. I just don’t know that I want to know what she’s been thinking. Not if she doesn’t know…what she’s talking about is another matter, I suppose.” She smiled hesitantly.
Endymion smiled at her. “Did I say anything about what she had been thinking?”
“I guess you didn’t,” Minerva said. His words had been ‘I know Charis looks forward to seeing you too.’ “I think…I didn’t think she’d have said it.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Endymion cocked his head to one side. “Not everyone is as worried about it as you are. I’m not, and my parents took it much harder than yours will.”
“Took what?” Minerva snapped, uneasily. She half-admitted, only, what it probably was.
Endymion looked up at her from under his brows with an expression that said, If you actually make me say this, it will be funny, but you won’t be laughing much, and said, “Please. You’re smarter than this.”
Minerva glared at him. “Smarter than what?” she said. “Exactly?”
Endymion sighed heavily. “Let’s finish this first,” he said in a tone that implied infinite patience but wasn’t actually terribly patient at all. “Otherwise it will explode and we’ll have to explain ourselves to Mathers, who will be laughing for weeks.”
Minerva exhaled slowly through her nose and double checked that the pattern of energies they had set up around their samples were stable, before carefully beginning to dismantle her own contributions.
Endymion did likewise, his vacantly pleasant expression replaced by a frown and a furrow between his brows that was not the least bit attractive.
When they had finished, Minerva put the ingredients away in a more hurried manner than usual, although not quite a careless one. “Smarter than what?” she repeated to him, annoyed. Damn it, she thought. Her fears of a permanently strained relationship with her parents, at best something like this last awkward summer with the strange jokes and awkward silences and the pleasure everyone had taken in her being out flying, alone or with Mal, somewhere where she could think about the smart women she admired and not have to figure out whether it was playing across her face, they were real, she thought defiantly. And they hurt. And if Dashwood didn’t like it he could get out of her head.
“You know you’re half in love with her already,” said Endymion. “And you know they will get over it. I realise it’s not like telling Dracaena, and that you’re not visible from Yesod like I am, but they will. They’re not like my father. Or worse yet, Mablin’s.”
“There’s getting over it, and getting over it,” Minerva said. “Look, I know my family looks like…well, some people’s idea of heaven on earth from the outside, I don’t know about yours. I don’t want to feel that I can never really tell my parents what makes me happy, ever again.” She sat down abruptly. “I don’t really need you to tell me that I don’t have any choice but to find out if that’s true.” Except, she probably had needed it, hadn’t she?
“Not heaven on earth,” said Endymion in a softer tone. “Too much sport for that, you know. I can’t abide heights, and you have to remember how hard Potter tried with me. But…not like mine or Mablin’s; no-one will hire you a prostitute whether you want one or not, or humiliate you in public. You can tell them. In fact you will have to tell them, over and over, and then eventually, they will understand it, if only because they’re not given to nonsense and self-delusion, no more than you are most days.”
“Most days,” Minerva agreed. “I’m not used to doing that. Not with them. They’re normally better than me at pointing out the obvious.”
“Well, this is rather personal,” said Endymion. “Trust me, it’s not easy to look at someone and say, ‘excuse me, my dear, but you’re queer,’ and it has to be more difficult for people who can’t be sure.”
Minerva shrugged, but she smiled slightly at last. “They don’t like it,” she said. “Maybe it will be easier, if they say that. But it’s not going to be like how my mother doesn’t like my taste in clothes, is it?” Even as she asked it she recalled that he’d hardly know, to him both kinds of conversation with a parent were probably alien.
Endymion nodded. “Still, it’s not something that can be improved upon or altered. Unlike one’s aesthetic tastes, which can be educated, it’s a very deep part of you. Which means they are liable to accept it long before they accept that you really are determined to wear that shade of green. I haven’t accepted that yet myself.”
Minerva snorted. “Well maybe,” she said. “But I don’t have to bring that shade of green home for dinner, do I?” She looked at him. “Last year, well, we were only friends, but I was proud of my world for being better about all this than hers, by a long way, and now it’s the opposite.” She shrugged. “And now I’m just whining.”
“Well, you’re in good company for that,” said Endymion. “I whine all the time. I’ve just learnt to do it so artfully people don’t notice.”
“Just not doing it is usually easier,” Minerva said. “Especially around you.”
Endymion nodded. “But the purpose of whining isn’t to be understood, else no-one would do it to anyone else. The purpose of whining is to vent one’s frustrations. That’s why Caerleon people don’t like it and Avalon people only do it in private. It’s self indulgent and exposes your vulnerabilities.”
“Yes,” Minerva said. “It seldom gets much done.” She looked at their now packed experimental setup. “Like me today,” she said. “I want to figure out how to have this conversation with her, soon. Without making her hate my family, ideally.”
“With Charis? She won’t hate your family. Good Lord, has she ever told you about the Marvells?” Endymion shook his head. “Our world—even yours—is better about all this than hers. There’s a reason she lives with Dracaena now.”
“Of course,” Minerva said. “I think she probably hopes she’s got away from that though.” Except possibly for her mother, Minerva supposed, about whom Charis seldom had a chance to speak when there were demons and wars to hand.
“I’m sure she does, it’s just that she’ll compare your family to them as much as Dracaena,” said Endymion. “Which is probably who you’re comparing them to, and who of course is all-understanding, since she was born with a prick and had to put up with everyone saying of course it is fine you like boys, dear, but that doesn’t mean you are not one yourself.”
“It would be nice if my family were comparable,” Minerva grumbled and caught herself. “You’re right though, at least they’re closer.”
“There is only one Dracaena,” said Endymion. “The world couldn’t handle more than one. But if it makes you feel better, she’s absolutely losing her mind because she can’t admit how upset she is that Liane’s in love with Professor Rosenthal, whom I cannot decide if I dread or look forward to meeting this afternoon.”
“Did she tell you that?” Minerva asked pointedly. “Or did you…work it out? I don’t need everyone else’s secrets. Not to make me feel better.”
“If Liane has worked it out I hardly think it’s a secret,” said Endymion. “And she has, which is amazing, given that it wasn’t expressed numerically.”
“But I wouldn’t have worked it out,” Minerva pointed out. Just because he hadn’t learned it from telepathy, didn’t mean he should be telling everyone these things.
“I want you to know that Charis isn’t coming from any place perfect on either side,” said Endymion. “I love Dracaena very much. And I am certainly her man. And I know you will not spread this about. It is one of a great many things that has been driving me mad. Because there’s nothing fair about telling someone to tell you how they really feel about something when they know that you don’t want to know, and I never thought she’d be unfair, no more than you do your parents.” He shrugged. “C’est dommage. Elle n’est pas irréprochable. How shall I live?”
Minerva shrugged back. “I don’t know about you,” she said, for though she was sure he was being sarcastic it still seemed to bother him. “But I tend to return to doing the best I can, for myself, which is all very well, and forgiving others for not, which is harder.”
Endymion smiled at her. “Yes,” he said, “that’s really all you can do. It’s just, I want to do something to help, and I can’t.” He frowned, clearly distressed at hearing those sentiments voiced in his own voice. “Usually when I’ve decided to be noble, I can say just the right thing and move things along. But this is beyond me, it’s moving too fast.” He shrugged. “There, now you have something to not tell on me. I would die if people knew how much I really want to help sometimes. Anyhow. I don’t think it’s actually very common for parents not to quibble at whoever it is you bring home. Would you have expected Hadrian’s mother to loathe me as much as she does?”
“I’d have guessed embarrassing lectures about safety, from the books,” Minerva said.
Endymion smiled. “Yes, exactly. But she just cannot stand me. Apparently most people’s families have got some idea of the sort of person they’d like to see them bring home. Whether it’s ‘oh my god, I will never have grandchildren’ or ‘they cut their babies, and no-one we speak to has ever heard of this man’ or ‘excuse me, how dare you not be Robert Campion?’ it’s always something.” He tossed his hair back over his shoulders. “They want us to choose our own mates. Then we do. O tempora, o mores.”
“Or rather,” Minerva said. “Some want us to, some don’t and we tend to do it anyway. Well. I’ll let you know how it goes. Seeing as how you’ll find out anyway.”
“I was speaking largely of the ones who do,” said Endymion. “The ones who don’t are easier to deal with I imagine. One does as they wish or rebels.” He smiled at her. “Of course I realise that isn’t simple. I’ve been through it after all, and paid my dues, or rather paid to have them paid. I just don’t think anyone’s family is perfect, not any more, and yours will be better than most.”
Minerva nodded. “I just have to think about how to cope,” she said. “While they’re busy being better than most.”
“One day at a time. Hour, if you have to,” Endymion said gently. “That’s all one can do. People have asked me how I did some of the things that I did and the answer is always, I just moved forward, did what seemed best with the choices and information I had. I won’t tell you that it’s not going to hurt. I will tell you that it won’t be as bad for you as it was for me or even for Mablin.” He swallowed. “I don’t often admit how difficult it was, you know.”
“You don’t often admit anything,” Minerva said, and looked at him with, she hoped, the right amount of sympathy. “And nor do I.”
Endymion nodded and smiled at her. “Really,” he said, “it will be fine in the end. They won’t hate her. She won’t hate them. It will be awkward, and probably you will laugh about it in five or ten or twenty years.”
“Five I hope,” Minerva said. “I wonder if I ought to talk to Mal first.”
“Well, he’s younger than you, but he’s friends with Lew and Bobby, isn’t he? Of course sometimes it’s different when it’s your own family, but not for long I expect.” Endymion sighed, and wondered, for no particular reason, what this was going to be like with Emmeline.
“He was good about knowing when to get out of the house over summer,” Minerva said. “And this is before any of them have been told.”
“So,” said Endymion, “not bad at all.”
Minerva nodded. “One down,” she said. “Two to go. Maybe.”
fairlight and minerva_m