30 Day OTP Challenge: day 7: Cosplaying

[dianeduane]

It’s a sufficiently unusual occurrence that you have to dig around in the Wizard's Manual a fair bit to find it.

Most potential practitioners of the Art make the acquaintance of wizardry through the direct and usually rather obscure action of the Powers that Be. The probationary-wizard-to-be comes across something unusual: an odd book or a peculiar computer or tablet, a voice that speaks to him or her alone, an object that somehow holds knowledge inside it and whispers it into the heart. Sooner or later the finder progresses through this initial discovery to the personal Choice offered by the presentation of the Wizard’s Oath, and (if it’s accepted) to the Ordeal that follows.

But sometimes matters go differently. Sometimes—for reasons best known to Themselves, normally having to do with something private but important in the potential wizard’s makeup, some situation making a personal touch the most effective—the Powers call in presently-practicing wizards to assist in the delivery of the Manual or “induction instrument”. These so-called assisted inductions can be (seemingly) very simple, or sometimes fairly complex.

The one presently in progress would probably qualify as the latter.

“Are you ready?”

“No, because I can not keep this hair under control!”

“Stop fussing. And hold still or the stealth spell’ll slip. No no, not that way!”

“I told you, the hair…! It’s all over the place, it’s trying to strangle me, I swear, did you forget an inhibitor variable on that routine?”

“Two secs, I’ll have a look — “

“Rhiow, your thing is slipping.”

“Which thing?”

“The doohickey on your forehead. The focus anchor.”

“Just press it on tighter, I’ll have a word with the adhesion. Arhu?”

“Mine’s fine. I used duct tape...”

The black cat rolls her eyes at the white one. “Only you.”

The group presently adjusting their costumes—or rather, their very carefully custom-tailored wizardry-powered semblances, a specialty type of disguise called the mochteroof—consists of four humans, two cats, a whale, and an alien who normally looks like an ambulatory Christmas tree...

The eight entities in question are standing off to one side at the masquerade competition of the largest anime convention in the US, possibly the largest one in the world. What possible interest the Powers that Be could have in such an event would be a question, except that (a) one must assume the Powers are pretty much interested in everything, and (b) there’s no use asking the question, because it falls (Nita suspects) into that range of questions about “privacy issues” that she suspects will not be answered inside one’s corporate lifetime. Maybe later, in that part of Timeheart that doubles as lounge space for wizards coming and going between macroassignments: but not before.

She has enough problems of her own right now, anyway, to put that question aside for a whole lot later. “Fil, the hair — !”

“I must have missed something or it wouldn’t be doing that—! Oh Powers no, what if everything comes apart all of a sudden—”

“Stop it. You are the king of the mochteroofs. Calm down! If anything goes wrong, you’ll fix it.”

“Yes, but this is different, these are hybrid appearance-managers, not true shifts or complete concealments. If something slips or gets out of phase…”

“Mela, your shrub’s getting stage fright. Don’t just stand there! Straighten his hat.”

“Who’re you calling a shrub?”

“Dair! Not helpful.”

“Fil baby, calm down. Here. Time for some tree-hugging.”

The stealth specialist makes a little “oooo” noise, which makes Nita think that if more Earth trees made noises like that, they’d get a lot more hugging. Something to discuss with Liused. It then makes her wonder what exactly is going on with Carmela, who appears to be having some kind of small orgasmic moment. Not something to be thinking about right now. Or even later. File it under privacy issues with the other thing, move on…

Oh God, the hair. No, no, calm. Give him a moment.

“’Ree, are you sure your mass isn’t going to, you know, slip somehow?”

“You’d better really hope it doesn’t. Imagine everybody’s surprise.”

“Where is it all?”

“Elsewhere. In the pocket. What, do you want a grid reference or something? It’s where it won’t split the skirt.”

Laughter. “Good enough for me. Dair, you good?”

“No prob. Spot’s holding on the music.”

“Is Tech cool?”

“Tech,” Dairine says, “is always cool.”

This produces a muted snicker from the others. It’s part of the point of this whole exercise, after all, that the standard of special effects at this event is already routinely so high that the miraculous is almost expected. Which is a good thing, because the miraculous is what people (and their target) are going to get. There would inevitably have been be problems with Tech—the people behind those consoles in the dark back-of-the-room always being alert to pick up on anything fishy—but fortunately Tech here has had a wizard on board since day one. He’s told his colleagues behind the boards not to take anything seriously that they see, it’s all 3D / virtual technology that has to do with the release of the new movie. Since the new movie in this particular franchise is already famous for its production team’s hypercontrolling behavior, no one will be surprised when the whole ensemble will become instantly unavailable, after the blowoff, “for effect”. Similarly, the same production already being talked up to the sky for the (rumored) wonderfulness of its effects, it will be easy for everyone in here to assume that all the lasers and dry ice being deployed around the edges of the stage are simply something to do with special effects. No one will be thinking any further along to the concept that smoke and mirrors might be used as well to hide real magic as to fake it.

“Right, we’ve got our go. Sixty seconds,” Dairine says. “Spot’s got the cue.”

Okay, time to panic now. Because the hair is still not behaving. “Fil…!!”

“Yes, yes, I’m trying, just— Oh, wait. Here!”

The hair suddenly settles down, back into control again. Nita twitches it with the mochteroof’s control network. This time the hair twitches appropiately. “Got it!”

“Oh good.”

“Forty-five seconds. Stage is clear. Ready?”

General murmurs of agreement.

“Move. Stage places.”

“Just let the mochteroofs handle the transition, don’t rush them, watch how you move, they don’t have a lot of tolerance for—”

“We’re moving,” says one voice, and “Fil, shut up, we have rehearsed this and your concerns eight million times,” says another, and “See you on the other side!” says another.

The stage is empty. The audience is faintly murmurous, as it normally could be expected to be in mid-masquerade, between group presentations. Unseen, they slide into position.

“Thirty seconds.”

“How’s Tech?”

“Checking— Ready. Spot’s in synch. …Fifteen seconds. To your launch spots now. Kit—”

“Assuming the position.”

Music comes up on the master sound system. Spots train on the empty stage. The dry-ice smoke ramps up, and the audience waits.

Then two cats, white and black, leap into center stage from either side and pose there, looking alertly out at the audience and holding the space, the crescent moons on their foreheads blazing.

(The audience murmurs a little at this.)

A slim young woman with blue hair in a pageboy bob and a Japanese schoolgirl’s uniform appears out of nothing behind the cats, stage left. She steps up into the air, actually levitating, and whirls in a suddenly-appearing circular rush of glowing water, her clothing transforming into a different version of the schoolgirl uniform, with much more blue about it—

(More murmuring now. People aren’t finished staring and whispering at the impressive water effect.)

Another young woman with long, long dark hair, wearing a temple assistant’s gi and hakama, steps up into the air and whirls likewise in a blaze of concentric fire-circles that steady down into a stylized school uniform with red detail—

(Louder murmuring now, sounds of increasing excitement. Some people are staring up into the light-hung area over the makeshift proscenium and over toward the sides of the room, trying to work out where the special effects are coming from.)

Yet another girl with long, long blonde hair appears stage right, leaps into the air and  sweeps a spiral of golden light like fiery stars around her. Now in a bowed uniform glowing orange-golden and white, she settles into a graceful spread-legged pose and blows the audience—no, someone in the audience—a kiss.

(The crowd noise is coming up to a roar now. Shouts of approval in various languages, fist-pumping, and noises of “woo hoo!” are heard all across the big room.)

A fourth young woman, taller than the others and in a slightly different school uniform with a brown skirt, appears and whirls green atomic-orbit lightning about herself, coming to a stand with back arched and head thrown back, elegant and dangerous...

(General screaming and carrying on in the audience, the crowd noise completely drowning out the music now—)

And finally a blonde girl appears, a bit smaller and perhaps younger-looking than the others, with amazing hair in two five-foot tails that float around her in a spiral as she floats up into the air and gracefully spins, and her school uniform transforms itself into a more flamboyant uniform in red, white and blue. She strikes a pose—one hand on hip, the other arm cocked up in a cheery two-fingered salute—and all around the group, gemmed headbands flash, jeweled brooches blaze.

They all hold the tableau for a moment. A roar of wild applause goes up—

—and then is interrupted. From above and off to one side, in a streak of ruby fire, a single long-stemmed red rose arrows down into view and embeds itself stem-first into the floor of the stage to stand there, vibrating slightly, almost aggressively.

The audience looks up to see where it came from. On the very top of one of the big Anime Fair scrims meant to hide the stage entrances and exits, impossibly perched but apparently stable on something that can't possibly hold his weight, is a tall slim figure in black evening dress (white tie), masked in black, wearing an improbably tall black hat and carrying a magician’s white-tipped black cane. His red-lined black cape is swirling in some wind that doesn’t involve a machine. Effortlessly he leaps down to join the other five, slipping one arm around the girl with the long blonde hair, and all strike their poses again (thought the hair and the cape keep swirling as if they have their own plans).

The crowd goes absolutely wild, the noise in the place as deafening as the end of one of the two nearby active runways at LAX when one of the new big Airbuses is revving for takeup.

And then, just like that, they’re all gone: vanished into thin air. Only the rose remains, burning all by itself in the middle of the stage. After a few breaths it too fades away. The audience keeps roaring for many, many minutes: but the performers aren’t particularly concerned about that.

What they’ve come to see won’t happen until the masquerade is over and the room’s been broken down: not until Tech has struck the boards and other equipment and taken everything down to secure storage, and the room’s been locked down for the night. One door, though, has been carefully reopened and left that way; and the performers are guarding that door and this whole space, waiting for the next thing to come.

And it comes. Not a thing, but a person: a very slight and dark young boy who quietly, quietly opens that door. He peers in, looks around him, desperate not to be seen: enters.

Slowly he makes his way up to the stage, with the uncertain manner of someone who doesn’t believe what he saw earlier but doesn’t dare believe that he won’t see one particular piece of it now. Softly he makes his way up by way of the side stairs to the dark stage—visible only in the room’s dim exit lights—and moves across it.

Then he stands still, looking down at the spot in the floor where a rose’s stem had struck itself into the stage floor as if it was soft as so much butter.

Nothing there now. The boy's shoulders sag. He’s ready to turn and walk away…

And as he turns, light sparks there.

A long thin shape shimmers into being, seemingly rooted in the stage. Just a rose, all by itself in the darkness. But it’s somehow more visible than anything else in the room, and its aspect is weighty with purpose, as if it knows something.

The boy bends down. He reaches out to the rose, so slowly, as if afraid to touch it, afraid to take it.

Then in a single quick motion he plucks it free of where it’s rooted and stands up straight, his back braced erect in triumph.

Eight pairs of eyes and a large open cluster of them are peering from behind one of the proscenium wings, watching: invisible to the single figure on the stage, but all their owners still afraid to move or make a sound.

The boy looks at what he’s holding. Then, slowly, his eyes only on the rose—as if hearing something unexpected, something meant only for him—he walks down from the stage and heads over to the door he came in by. Out that door he goes, and it closes behind him, and locks.

The eight wizards, one adjunct talent, and one friend-of-wizardry who stand there watching him go, now turn to one another, dumping the stealth field (for the security cameras have been feeding fake input to the hotel’s systems for the past hour). “Now maybe,” says Carmela, “someone’ll tell me what all this has been about?”

The others all shake their heads. “We get almost everything in this business explained to us,” Kit says, looking at the spot where the rose was rooted. “A really surprising amount, considering. But some stuff? Not a word.” He shook his head.

“It’s not much They ask of us,” Nita said. “In this case? I doubt we’ll ever find out. Privacy issues…”

…And they head out on their own business, after that, having things to do in other cities, or time zones, or in at least one case, on other planets. But much later on, when lying in bed and reading late, Nita leans her head back against the counterfeit-Totoro-propped pillow and wonders when, during some day spent out on errantry, they’re going to run into a young wizard who arrives at the scene of an intervention carrying nothing but one red rose…

Comments

[dogmatix-san.livejournal.com]

This is funny and gorgeous and awesome. ♥♥

[batyatoon]

You know the shiny-eyes thing that only anime artists ever seem able to pull off?

My eyes are doing that right now.

That? That was a THING OF BEAUTY, lady.

[djonn]

Oh my lord. That's just absolutely too cool for words. Hold on a second....

[pause, load audio of certain anime-series theme music]

[reread]

Wonderful.

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

Were I in that masquerade, I don't know if I'd be jealous of the "extra help" with the effects, or too appreciative to care. Probably the latter :)

[estara.livejournal.com]

awwwwwww. I love you doing your own fanfiction in the first place and now also Sailor Moon.... I'd love to have been in the audience there ^^

[azurelunatic]

This sort of "coincidence" always leaves me delightfully shivery and spiky.