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TITLE: In Life's Name - Errantry
CHARACTERS: John, Rodney
NOTES: A snippet of a work-in-progress. Don't know if it'll ever go further. Based on Diane Duane's Young Wizards series.
John woke to the sound of someone unceremoniously banging on his door.
"Mo-o-om!" He groaned, dragging the sheets over his head in a futile attempt to block out both noise and the light that was streaming in the window he'd stupidly left open. "Do you know what time it is?"
"I'm not your mother, it's eight-thirty in the morning, and this is an emergency, Sheppard!" The aggravated and slightly panicking tones or Rodney McKay came clearly through the door. John could hear his mom's mild protest a moment before Rodney thumped loudly on the door. "Look, do you think I like this? It's my Saturday morning, too!"
His mom would go away. Rodney wouldn't.
The banging stopped, followed by a soft thud. Then Rodney said, in the Speech, "It's urgent."
That woke John up, even if he didn't feel any better about having to get up at such an hour. With a grimace, he rolled out of bed, kicked the previous night's laundry under the bed, and opened the door for Rodney to stomp in. "It's okay, Mom."
She sighed. "I'm not cooking breakfast. You'll have to get it yourself."
Rodney had barged into the room and was pacing by the window. John glanced at him. "I think we'll be okay, mom."
The instant the door was closed, Rodney spoke.
"Jeannie's missing. She didn't come home last night. Mom's called all her friends, Dad called the police. They had another argument and I locked myself in my room." The words spilled from Rodney's mouth, syllables tumbling over each other in their haste to emerge. "I mean, I figured she'd just nicked off for the night - she's got friends they don't know about and the ones they do know might have lied for her. But then, this morning, she wasn't back and my mom was screaming at me, and I looked at my manual..."
He was yanking it out of the slot of his ubiquitous backpack as he spoke - a small laptop computer, silvery-grey, for all the world like any laptop computer available from a modern computing company.
One thing that made this laptop different, however, was the fact that it sat comfortably on thin air, as solid as if it had been placed on a workbench. Another was the fact that the lid opened of its own accord, and a cool, feminine voice inquired, "Previous listing?"
"Yeah. Repeat previous listing, projection view focus of point-five metres. Stop at entry Jeannie McKay."
John eased himself down to the foot of his bed as Sam-the-computer began projecting silver-bright letters in the sunlit air between him and Rodney. She scrolled through a list of names and details with silent efficiency. It took his brain a few seconds to engage, but as a series of numbers flitted past his sleep-smeared gaze, John suddenly realised what he was looking at.
A listing of all wizards in the greater Denver area.
After McAllister, Daniel, there was a new entry - one that sat before McKay, Meredith Rodney.
McKay, Jeanne Eleanor
3877 Canada Pl,
Colorado Springs
CO, 97886-2443
USA
Power rating: 8.7764 plus/minus 0.7/1.2
Status: on Ordeal.
John scrubbed at his hair as though it would help get the information into his head. "Wow." He wasn't feeling entirely awake this morning, and he certainly wasn't getting why Rodney was in a panic. "So Jeannie's a wizard, too."
Not such a surprise. These things tended to run in families, although John had seen no sign that either of his parents had the faintest idea about wizardry.
"A wizard! She'll only be a wizard if she makes it through Ordeal!" Rodney snapped. "My sister, Sheppard, my little baby sister - is on Ordeal. My parents are going nuts - I nearly had to break out of the house to come over here, my mom doesn't want to let me out of her sight."
"Jeannie's not that much of a baby," John said, lying back on the bed. "She's-- What? Thirteen?" That was only two years younger than Rodney, after all - and Rodney had been through his Ordeal at twelve.
"That's not the point!"
"No," agreed John, "it's not. Look, I guess the Powers need her for something that only--"
"--that only Jeannie can do," Rodney snapped. "I know that!"
Problem was, Rodney knew it, but didn't always believe it. He had absolute trust in his own wizardry, and had learned to trust John's in the two years since they'd met, but other wizards - particularly the youngest wizards - were suspect in Rodney's eyes. Which didn't always make collaborative projects easy to manage. Any team that Rodney was on consisted of Rodney - and, on good days, John.
"Okay, so why don't you sit down, calm down, and stop contributing to entropy, then?"
The younger boy gave a snort of disdain. "I'm not--"
"You are." John pulled his pillow over and tucked it behind his head. "Gonna use up all your energy on worrying about Jeannie - who, I believe you said, only two months ago, could look after herself."
"That was different!"
He sighed again. "Whatever. Look, Jeannie's smart and sharp. She's your sister. She's probably managing just fine." And the thing which John wasn't going to mention was that if Jeannie McKay wasn't managing just fine, then there probably wasn't anything Rodney could do about it.
Privately, John hoped Jeannie was okay. He thought she might be, but he wasn't going to fret about it - Rodney fretted enough for the both of them anyway.
CHARACTERS: John, Rodney
NOTES: A snippet of a work-in-progress. Don't know if it'll ever go further. Based on Diane Duane's Young Wizards series.
John woke to the sound of someone unceremoniously banging on his door.
"Mo-o-om!" He groaned, dragging the sheets over his head in a futile attempt to block out both noise and the light that was streaming in the window he'd stupidly left open. "Do you know what time it is?"
"I'm not your mother, it's eight-thirty in the morning, and this is an emergency, Sheppard!" The aggravated and slightly panicking tones or Rodney McKay came clearly through the door. John could hear his mom's mild protest a moment before Rodney thumped loudly on the door. "Look, do you think I like this? It's my Saturday morning, too!"
His mom would go away. Rodney wouldn't.
The banging stopped, followed by a soft thud. Then Rodney said, in the Speech, "It's urgent."
That woke John up, even if he didn't feel any better about having to get up at such an hour. With a grimace, he rolled out of bed, kicked the previous night's laundry under the bed, and opened the door for Rodney to stomp in. "It's okay, Mom."
She sighed. "I'm not cooking breakfast. You'll have to get it yourself."
Rodney had barged into the room and was pacing by the window. John glanced at him. "I think we'll be okay, mom."
The instant the door was closed, Rodney spoke.
"Jeannie's missing. She didn't come home last night. Mom's called all her friends, Dad called the police. They had another argument and I locked myself in my room." The words spilled from Rodney's mouth, syllables tumbling over each other in their haste to emerge. "I mean, I figured she'd just nicked off for the night - she's got friends they don't know about and the ones they do know might have lied for her. But then, this morning, she wasn't back and my mom was screaming at me, and I looked at my manual..."
He was yanking it out of the slot of his ubiquitous backpack as he spoke - a small laptop computer, silvery-grey, for all the world like any laptop computer available from a modern computing company.
One thing that made this laptop different, however, was the fact that it sat comfortably on thin air, as solid as if it had been placed on a workbench. Another was the fact that the lid opened of its own accord, and a cool, feminine voice inquired, "Previous listing?"
"Yeah. Repeat previous listing, projection view focus of point-five metres. Stop at entry Jeannie McKay."
John eased himself down to the foot of his bed as Sam-the-computer began projecting silver-bright letters in the sunlit air between him and Rodney. She scrolled through a list of names and details with silent efficiency. It took his brain a few seconds to engage, but as a series of numbers flitted past his sleep-smeared gaze, John suddenly realised what he was looking at.
A listing of all wizards in the greater Denver area.
After McAllister, Daniel, there was a new entry - one that sat before McKay, Meredith Rodney.
McKay, Jeanne Eleanor
3877 Canada Pl,
Colorado Springs
CO, 97886-2443
USA
Power rating: 8.7764 plus/minus 0.7/1.2
Status: on Ordeal.
John scrubbed at his hair as though it would help get the information into his head. "Wow." He wasn't feeling entirely awake this morning, and he certainly wasn't getting why Rodney was in a panic. "So Jeannie's a wizard, too."
Not such a surprise. These things tended to run in families, although John had seen no sign that either of his parents had the faintest idea about wizardry.
"A wizard! She'll only be a wizard if she makes it through Ordeal!" Rodney snapped. "My sister, Sheppard, my little baby sister - is on Ordeal. My parents are going nuts - I nearly had to break out of the house to come over here, my mom doesn't want to let me out of her sight."
"Jeannie's not that much of a baby," John said, lying back on the bed. "She's-- What? Thirteen?" That was only two years younger than Rodney, after all - and Rodney had been through his Ordeal at twelve.
"That's not the point!"
"No," agreed John, "it's not. Look, I guess the Powers need her for something that only--"
"--that only Jeannie can do," Rodney snapped. "I know that!"
Problem was, Rodney knew it, but didn't always believe it. He had absolute trust in his own wizardry, and had learned to trust John's in the two years since they'd met, but other wizards - particularly the youngest wizards - were suspect in Rodney's eyes. Which didn't always make collaborative projects easy to manage. Any team that Rodney was on consisted of Rodney - and, on good days, John.
"Okay, so why don't you sit down, calm down, and stop contributing to entropy, then?"
The younger boy gave a snort of disdain. "I'm not--"
"You are." John pulled his pillow over and tucked it behind his head. "Gonna use up all your energy on worrying about Jeannie - who, I believe you said, only two months ago, could look after herself."
"That was different!"
He sighed again. "Whatever. Look, Jeannie's smart and sharp. She's your sister. She's probably managing just fine." And the thing which John wasn't going to mention was that if Jeannie McKay wasn't managing just fine, then there probably wasn't anything Rodney could do about it.
Privately, John hoped Jeannie was okay. He thought she might be, but he wasn't going to fret about it - Rodney fretted enough for the both of them anyway.
Tags:
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The snippet's great though. Young!SGA characters are always so much fun.
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You know that she's on LJ and JF, don't you?
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I didn't know she was on LJ - thank you for cluing me in. :D
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Wizard's Dilemma
A Wizard Alone
A Wizarding Holiday
Wizards At War
and the new one A Wizard Of Mars
...wait. A Wizard Abroad is the one where Nita's parents send her to Ireland, right? And they need Dairine to get them time-slid starsteel?
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Oh my god, I'm so excited. Lately I've been at such a loss for new fantasy to read that doesn't feel worn-through with tropes - YAY!
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Another fantasy writer I love is Melanie Rawn - again, she's got a strong angle of real-world politics in her stories. She hasn't written anything in years and her last big trilogy stuttered into a duology.
Then there's Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series. Politics, BDSM, angst, romance, and one of the best acknowledgements that sex ≠ love in any fantasy writing that I've ever seen. The heroine gets off on BDSM, but the love of her life was trained to be a celibate. Sexually, they're the most mismatched pair ever, but together, they're awesome.
And if you want to see some fantasy tropes turned on their head, try Terry Pratchett. The man is brilliant, IMO.
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Rawn I've seen but never tried - anything you'd suggest picking up (or avoiding)?
Kushiel has been recommended several times now, so I'll put that right up there on the list along with the new Kay book, Ysabel.
As for Terry Pratchett? I completely agree. He's signing books in DC this weekend and I can't go, because it's the one weekend I can road trip. The trick question - are you a wizard, witch, or Nightwatch person? (Not that they're mutually exclusive, mind. :D) I have a crush on Sam Vimes a MILE wide.
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The DP and DS series are good and long and finished, if not as politically intricate as Exiles.
But I think Rawn really comes into her own with Ruins Of Ambrai and Mageborn Traitor - there's a more modern political feel about it, including various bodies jockeying for political power. Unfortunately, the series has been left unfinished for the last ten years. The third book The Captal's Tower hasn't yet been written.
Still, the two Exiles books are complete in and of themselves, no major cliffhangers. Still, one would like to know what happens at the very end!
Favourite Pratchett sub-series? It's a toss-up between the watch and the witches, although Tiffany is awesome.
I have a great fondness for Susan Sto Helit, too - especially in Thief of Time. And Moist Von Lipwig is fantastic. *gurgles*
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Oh, god - Tiffany. Those books are fantastic. - and I agree, Susan's right in line with her for favorite female characters ever. (Did you see the BBC's Hogfather? For that matter, BBC radio adapted The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and it was fantastic.
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When you talk about 'Kay' did you mean Guy Gavriel Kay? I've heard his name a lot, but have never actually tried reading his books.
Got any recs for me, incidentally? I should try some new fantasy, I think.
Oh, another really good fantasy book is Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (I think it might be called The Golden Compass in the US.) I'm not crash hot on the sequels, although Will is a darling, but the first book is frighteningly awesome.
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And yes - I -love- Guy Gavriel Kay, although I have friends that complain that the level of angst in his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy is dialed a bit high.
Tigana, I think, is where I'd suggest you start - it's a wonderfully complex book. What I enjoy most about his writing is how real his characters are, and they just leap off the page at you in that book. After that, I'd say pick up A Song for Arbonne and/or The Lions of Al-Rassan, possibly in reverse order.
Once you get that far, you're well-set to read the Fionavar trilogy, and/or the Sarantium books (two), and/or his newest-but-one, Last Light of the Sun, which I enjoyed more than the Sarantium series. Sarantium (which is set, I believe, during the decline of Rome) and Last Light of the Sun, which deals with the Vikings and the not-yet-British Isles, -felt- different to me than the rest of his work. More historical, although not void of the fantastical. Not a -bad- difference, just - different.
I really liked the Pullman (and you're right, on the title), and felt similarly about the sequels. Really, I was good through to, say, the last third of the last book, at which point the thread of the story sort of got lost in favor of authorial pulpit-pounding. Not that I feel strongly about that, oh no. :D
(And apologies for entirely hijacking this thread - swapping notes on books is a wonderful thing, though!)
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I have no problems with having threads hijacked in my LJ. The conversations are always interesting!
And yes, I've realised I really do need to get back into the reading swing of things. My reading time cut back liek whoa when I discovered fanfic writing.
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"My reading time cut back liek whoa when I discovered fanfic writing."
Oh, thank god - it's not just me.
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Now, I feel guilty if I don't get some writing done every day.
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I wish I was more disciplined about writing every day, rather than writing to deadline, which is what seems to happen most often. I have a very hard time settling my head down enough to write - although I suppose practice would improve that, hmm.
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Got AIM? Or Yahoo?
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The snippet's great though. Young!SGA characters are always so much fun.
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You know that she's on LJ and JF, don't you?
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I didn't know she was on LJ - thank you for cluing me in. :D
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Wizard's Dilemma
A Wizard Alone
A Wizarding Holiday
Wizards At War
and the new one A Wizard Of Mars
...wait. A Wizard Abroad is the one where Nita's parents send her to Ireland, right? And they need Dairine to get them time-slid starsteel?
no subject
Oh my god, I'm so excited. Lately I've been at such a loss for new fantasy to read that doesn't feel worn-through with tropes - YAY!
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Another fantasy writer I love is Melanie Rawn - again, she's got a strong angle of real-world politics in her stories. She hasn't written anything in years and her last big trilogy stuttered into a duology.
Then there's Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series. Politics, BDSM, angst, romance, and one of the best acknowledgements that sex ≠ love in any fantasy writing that I've ever seen. The heroine gets off on BDSM, but the love of her life was trained to be a celibate. Sexually, they're the most mismatched pair ever, but together, they're awesome.
And if you want to see some fantasy tropes turned on their head, try Terry Pratchett. The man is brilliant, IMO.
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Rawn I've seen but never tried - anything you'd suggest picking up (or avoiding)?
Kushiel has been recommended several times now, so I'll put that right up there on the list along with the new Kay book, Ysabel.
As for Terry Pratchett? I completely agree. He's signing books in DC this weekend and I can't go, because it's the one weekend I can road trip. The trick question - are you a wizard, witch, or Nightwatch person? (Not that they're mutually exclusive, mind. :D) I have a crush on Sam Vimes a MILE wide.
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The DP and DS series are good and long and finished, if not as politically intricate as Exiles.
But I think Rawn really comes into her own with Ruins Of Ambrai and Mageborn Traitor - there's a more modern political feel about it, including various bodies jockeying for political power. Unfortunately, the series has been left unfinished for the last ten years. The third book The Captal's Tower hasn't yet been written.
Still, the two Exiles books are complete in and of themselves, no major cliffhangers. Still, one would like to know what happens at the very end!
Favourite Pratchett sub-series? It's a toss-up between the watch and the witches, although Tiffany is awesome.
I have a great fondness for Susan Sto Helit, too - especially in Thief of Time. And Moist Von Lipwig is fantastic. *gurgles*
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Oh, god - Tiffany. Those books are fantastic. - and I agree, Susan's right in line with her for favorite female characters ever. (Did you see the BBC's Hogfather? For that matter, BBC radio adapted The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and it was fantastic.
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When you talk about 'Kay' did you mean Guy Gavriel Kay? I've heard his name a lot, but have never actually tried reading his books.
Got any recs for me, incidentally? I should try some new fantasy, I think.
Oh, another really good fantasy book is Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (I think it might be called The Golden Compass in the US.) I'm not crash hot on the sequels, although Will is a darling, but the first book is frighteningly awesome.
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And yes - I -love- Guy Gavriel Kay, although I have friends that complain that the level of angst in his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy is dialed a bit high.
Tigana, I think, is where I'd suggest you start - it's a wonderfully complex book. What I enjoy most about his writing is how real his characters are, and they just leap off the page at you in that book. After that, I'd say pick up A Song for Arbonne and/or The Lions of Al-Rassan, possibly in reverse order.
Once you get that far, you're well-set to read the Fionavar trilogy, and/or the Sarantium books (two), and/or his newest-but-one, Last Light of the Sun, which I enjoyed more than the Sarantium series. Sarantium (which is set, I believe, during the decline of Rome) and Last Light of the Sun, which deals with the Vikings and the not-yet-British Isles, -felt- different to me than the rest of his work. More historical, although not void of the fantastical. Not a -bad- difference, just - different.
I really liked the Pullman (and you're right, on the title), and felt similarly about the sequels. Really, I was good through to, say, the last third of the last book, at which point the thread of the story sort of got lost in favor of authorial pulpit-pounding. Not that I feel strongly about that, oh no. :D
(And apologies for entirely hijacking this thread - swapping notes on books is a wonderful thing, though!)
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I have no problems with having threads hijacked in my LJ. The conversations are always interesting!
And yes, I've realised I really do need to get back into the reading swing of things. My reading time cut back liek whoa when I discovered fanfic writing.
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"My reading time cut back liek whoa when I discovered fanfic writing."
Oh, thank god - it's not just me.
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Now, I feel guilty if I don't get some writing done every day.
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I wish I was more disciplined about writing every day, rather than writing to deadline, which is what seems to happen most often. I have a very hard time settling my head down enough to write - although I suppose practice would improve that, hmm.
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Got AIM? Or Yahoo?
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