Scene 6 - March 13th

Exterior Dagobah Beach, Late Morning

Quinn Kaufman

“Come on guys,” Holly encouraged us, “let’s get a good spot!”

We tromped onto the beach, glancing around - it was the first weekend since the previous summer that it was warm enough to visit the beach, so Holly had put together a group outing for the Journeymen - as well as our partners, for those of us who had them. Of course, Nic - who had finally revealed his identity to me a few weeks ago - was dating Jack, and the only other member of the group who wasn’t single right now was Molly - she had been dating a boy named Tristan for the past two months, although this was the first time I would be meeting him.

Unfortunately, it was a nice enough weekend that we weren’t the only ones there - it seemed that half of New Venice had had the same idea, and the beach was very crowded.

“Come on, we just need a little space,” I begged the world at large, looking around for somewhere to pitch the tent. “Just a little!”

“Oh, hold on! I got something...” Molly’s boyfriend said cheerfully, digging through his bag. “One of my moms gave me...” He produced a small statuette and poked at a glowing button on its base. “It’s some kind of magic thing that’s supposed to stop people from bothering us. Mom is always worried about privacy, you know.”

“May I see it?” Holly asked, holding out a hand for the statue as people began to leave our vicinity - from the snippets I heard as they left, they were remembering urgent appointments, deciding to get lunch, or simply moving closer to the water. “I’m a mage myself, and I’m a little curious.”

Tristan hesitated briefly before passing it over. “Just, uh, be careful with it. She made it herself.”

Holly nodded as she peered at it. Her fingers brushed against each other and a series of glowing runes and sigils began appearing on, and floating in the air near, the statuette.

I stood on my tiptoes and rested my chin on Holly’s shoulder, finding myself curious as well, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to understand any of it. From this close, my presence picked out Holly’s expression right through her illusion - she was biting her lip with a faint frown, her brows furrowed with concentration. It was adorable, even if I couldn’t actually see it, and I had to remind myself yet again that I wasn’t ready for a relationship yet.

“This is on a bit on the edge, legally speaking,” Holly informed Tristan after a moment as she handed it back to him. She put a hand up to my cheek, and I leaned into her palm instinctively. “It’s not quite to the point of flat-out mind-controlling people, but it’s definitely sketchy. I hope your mom hasn’t done anything that goes any farther than this.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. She mostly does technomagic stuff, she just threw it together for this trip.”

“Really? It’s pretty advanced mind magic... still,” Holly glanced around the beach, “I can’t argue with the results. Let’s get this tent up so we have somewhere to put our stuff.”

We set up the tent and plopped chairs in the shade under it, leaving our bags and towels on chairs, and before long my friends began arguing about what to do.

“It’s been years since I’ve been to the beach,” Jack said. “A shame, really, since we do live on the coast. I don’t think I’ve made a sand castle since I was ten - I’d kind of like to make one again. See how much better we could do.”

Nic scoffed. “That’s kid stuff, babe.”

“Well, we are kids. I don’t know about you, but I want to make the most of having no responsibilities while it lasts.”

“I barely know what to do,” Molly admitted, absently playing with her boyfriend’s hand. “It’s been years for me as well, and even then I never really had a good time. Too dysphoric, and even now I’m not super comfortable...” Indeed, she was wearing a swim shirt over a one-piece suit, while the rest of us had doffed the clothes we had worn on the way here and were just in swimsuits.

“I know how you feel,” I told her sympathetically, “but I promise, you look great - no one is going to look twice at you.”

“Especially with mom’s thing,” Tristan said, nodding to the statuette - currently sitting on a chair of its own - and bringing her fingers up to his lips to press an encouraging kiss to them. “Is there anything you feel like you missed out on that you want to try?”

She bit her lip nervously. “I guess... I know little girls sometimes get sand packed over their legs in the shape of fish tails? I kind of want to try that.”

“Ooh, I wanna do that too!” Simone cried. “It’s been, like, a year since I got to be a mermaid!”

“We can make you both mermaids,” Jack promised. “You can even lie in the range of the statue if you want, so that no one will look.”

Holly glanced at the statuette, making that same under-the-illusion face of concentration for a few moments as Molly thought, then made a gesture. A transparent bluish bubble appeared around us, extending at least 15 feet away from the tent in all directions. “That’s the edge of its effect. If you’re within that, no one will pay attention to you, and no one outside of our group will enter it.”

With that assurance, Molly nodded. “Then yes, I’d like to be a mermaid.”

The younger members of the group began digging up sand to cover Simone and Molly’s legs. I, meanwhile, dragged a chair out from under the tent’s shade in order to get a little sun - Holly set up another next to mine and produced a book, one which I thought I had seen Miriam reading a few weeks before.

“Convenient that Tristan’s mom - one of his moms, did he say? - happens to be an artificer,” I commented.

She shrugged. “It’s not as unusual as you might think. Magical studies majors are becoming more and more common anyway, and there’s a revolution in artificing coming soon, I think. One of my professors says that within five years, magical technology will be competing with the regular stuff in the commercial market - if his mom is one of those researchers, something like that is probably pretty easy. Although,” she admitted, “I’ve only ever looked at artificing theoretically, myself - some of the same principles went into those magical earpieces, but it’s not quite the same when the spell is anchored a person rather than an object. Fewer power considerations, entirely different UI. My parents do it more often, I think.”

I turned to look at her. “How... are you doing with your parents, by the way? I know you’ve been talking with Dr. Wagner, but...”

Holly let out a long sigh. “Yeah, it’s... healing is slow, you know?” I nodded. “But I’m making progress. I’m planning to actually confront them about it, soon - next weekend, probably.”

“...are you going to want any support?” I asked.

She reached over and took my hand, squeezing it tightly. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, and I’ll think about it, but... I think it’s something I want to do on my own, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“But I’m almost definitely going to want to curl up and watch something light and fluffy afterward, so if you want to join me for that...”

“I’ll have The Princess Bride queued up and a pillow all fluffed,” I promised.

Holly smiled at me in a way that made my heart flutter. “Forget the pillow. Your shoulder will do fine.”