Eachdraidh App

( PLAYER ★ INFORMATION )

NAME: Tai
AGE: Old enough to vote. For awhile now.
CONTACT: PP here, email at lai_nyan-at-yahoo.com, or private plurk at otteratplay
CURRENT CHARACTERS & LATEST AC: ...Ummmm, none?

RESERVATION LINK: Here's a link to it. I'm letting the Frank reserve slide because I know I won't have enough time to finish his app before the cap hits.

( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )

DOES THIS CHARACTER MEET SKELETAL BASICS? I'd say nine books with her as the or a POV character counts.
NAME & AGE: Juanita Louise Callahan, known as Nita. Hates her middle name with a passion. At the time her canon's paused at, she's fifteen (they're still in 2010).
CANON & CANON POINT: Young Wizards book series by Diane Duane, after the currently-latest book, A Wizard of Mars.
CANON INFORMATION: Nita was born on April 16, 1995, the first of two daughters of Harold Callahan (a florist) and Betty Callahan (a dancer from Colorado), who lived in a town in Nassau County, Long Island, New York. Her little sister Dairine was born in October two and a half years later, and overall she had a very loving and supporting family as she grew up. But her childhood wasn't really fun and she doesn't look back on it with wistfulness of "a time of happiness" because Nita was frequently the target of bullies at school for her intelligence and her inability to fight back until it was too late and just landing her in more hot water. She got teased by her classmates from the very first day of her school life and ended up getting beaten up at least once a week for several years. Her father sent both of his kids to judo lessons, but Nita refused to use the moves she learned; Dairine didn't, and for awhile the younger sister was sort of her silent protector (Dairine's an odd one). But Nita loved learning for the sake of learning, school was pretty easy for her, she took to astronomy like a duck to water, and she had a voracious love of reading, and that's what led to her becoming a wizard.

Running from a group of her usual tormentors one day in May, 2008, she ducked into the little local library a couple of streets from her house and hid in the children's section. While there, she felt something grab her fingers as she was running her hand over the books, and found a book she'd never seen before in that building (an unheard of prospect) titled So You Want To Be a Wizard. She took it home with her, and it turned out to not be a cute little book about doing stage magic as a career like she'd thought, but rather a treatise/explanation/helpful guide to actual wizardry, using power given to certain people by The Powers That Be to preserve and fight for life, save it where they can, combat the Lone Power, and try to slow down entropy and the death of the universe. It was heady and much heavier stuff than she expected, but she slowly grew excited over the prospect of being able to do anything from talk to a tree to learn to alter the physical laws of a world, such as gravity, temperature, and anything else. She took the Wizard's Oath, which bound her to the power, and when she woke up the next morning the book had more than doubled in size and suddenly had a lot more, and a lot more specific, information in it.

Through wizardry, Nita met the boy who would become her best friend, wizardly partner, and eventual boyfriend, Christopher "Kit" Rodriguez, as well as a host of other strange, colorful, sometimes frightening, and wonderful characters both from Earth and from far out in the reaches of space (and occasionally, from other universes entirely). She and Kit suffered losses of friends and loved ones more than once in the eternal battle against the Lone Power, having so much of a hand in several major defeats of It and Its actual redemption that another wizard complained their part of the world was screwing up everyone's averages. Nita's sister Dairine also became a wizard and joined them on most of their adventures, while Kit's sister Carmela started showing her own odd talents that still haven't been quite defined, while his dog, Ponch, developed stranger talents still. Such as creating universes.

The Wikipedia entry for the series in general has an overview of a few things, as well as links to the summaries of all the specific books. Please note that Diane Duane edited all the books to form a consistent timeline, since the series started in 1983 and each book was written with the technology of the day in mind, and A Wizard Alone was more or less halfway rewritten entirely because there were a lot of facts wrong with her portrayal of autism in the first go-round. In the New Millenium Edition, Darryl actually stays autistic, though he is not locked inside himself anymore. In the NMEs, the first book takes place in May, 2008, while the most recent happens in late June, 2010, with the others strung out inbetween.

PERSONALITY: Anyone looking at Nita Callahan would see an overall average fifteen-year-old girl: average height, average figure, average looks, average everything. Brown hair, gray eyes. Nita on her own doesn't really stand out in any way, and she more or less prefers that. But spend some time getting to know her, and you'll realize why the Lone Power Itself once tried to make a deal with her to render her neutral in the great war against It and keeps trying to kill her to get her out of the way.

Overall, Nita is fairly mild-mannered, polite, and courteous, partially as a result of being a wizard; wizardry works much better if you use polite persuasion on things, or make friends with them, rather than ordering them around. She spent the majority of her life getting picked on by bullies, teased and jeered multiple times a day and being physically attacked at least once a week ('Joanne and her hangers-on had found out that Nita didn't like to fight, wouldn't try until her rage broke loose - and then it was too late, she was too hurt to fight well.' - SYWTBAW), and so she doesn't go around drawing attention to herself. In a crowd, it's easy to overlook her. That outer seeming is genuinely a part of who she is, but within that there's a power and a drive to get things done, a dedication that will not rest until the task that was set is accomplished, and a righteous fury that is rarely invoked but has made more than one of her acquaintances very, very afraid of her. It seems to be a family trait, given what her mother did while she was sick ('Nita's mother looked over her shoulder at Nita.' "My daughter and I," 'she said,' "are fighting the same battle. Maybe I do it in more ordinary ways. But we're on the same side. And you, if I recognize you correctly, are no friend of mine. Get off my turf!" - and much, much asskicking ensues in TWD) and what her sister does on a daily basis.

The several years of being a punching bag means that Nita rarely puts herself forward in social situations unless she's very comfortable with them and the people there. She's by no means a wallflower and will talk to people easily, but she doesn't go out of her way to draw attention to herself, especially when in a group composed of people that aren't peers in some way. During the wizards' meeting in Ireland, she was fairly self-conscious when asked to stand and be introduced, even if she didn't have to speak herself, and didn't really get into conversations ("I also want to welcome those of you who have come unusual distances, including Nita Callahan. Stand up, love." 'Nita flushed fiercely and hoped it didn't show too much in the pub's dim light. She stood up.' - AWAbroad). Heck, during much of her Irish trip, she's not the first one to introduce herself. She integrates into the local landscape fairly quickly, but she does it mostly by going with the flow and letting things come to her rather than seeking them out. She's not a loner, but she does enjoy her quiet time and the occasional solitude, and appears to be a fairly comfortable introvert to the world around her. She possesses enough obvious self-confidence now that the bullies don't come after her anymore (although she still gets teased some in school), because they know subconsciously it's a bad idea and that she won't rise to their taunting anymore ('Nita stood still, listening to Joanne's footsteps hurry away, a little faster every second - and slowly began to realize that she'd gotten what she asked for too - the ability to break the cycle of anger and loneliness, not necessarily for others, but at least for herself. It wouldn't even take the Speech; plain words would do it, and the magic of reaching out. It would take a long time, much longer than something simple like breaking the walls between worlds, and it would cost more effort than even the reading of the Book of Night with Moon. But it would be worth it - and eventually it would work. A spell always works.' - SYWTBAW). For all that she finally has self-confidence and has gotten the bullies to leave her alone, Nita still doesn't want to stand out in really unusual ways and have people start trying to attack her again. She still gets a lot of teasing for being smart, not to mention her friendship with Kit and for a long time people misreading their relationship ("Gettysburg. Got a date?" "Yeah, but he'll have to stand on a box to reach." - TWD), and while she's learned to live with it she doesn't want to invite it on herself except if it will make things better for someone else. That's why she begs her mom to buy her less conservative clothing when she starts ninth grade, even though her mom's hesitant about it since the skirt is pretty short, because if she can't be normal she at least wants to look normal ("Mom-" 'Nita sighed.' "Nobody beats me up anymore, if that's what you're worried about. They can't. But a lot of the kids still think I'm some kind of nerd princess. [. . .] It's nothing wizardry will cure. Just believe me when I tell you that dressing in style will help me blend in a little. I know I didn't care much about clothes in grade school, but now it's more of an issue." - TWD). But it's also why she talks to and makes friends with Della Cantrell, the new girl whom everyone was whispering about and avoiding, because she knows that feeling of loneliness and doesn't want others to suffer it ('That feeling Nita knew all too well from the time before she'd become a wizard, the time when she'd first come to understand it was unlikely that anything she did to her clothes or her hair would ever change the way the other kids saw her - as a nerd - and every passing day had left her more hopeless and angry about it. Now, far more certain of herself and far less concerned with what most of her classmates thought of her, Nita was in a better position to feel concern for anyone else caught in the same trap. As soon as that class had finished, she'd gone over and introduced herself.' - WAW).

With her friends and other wizards, though, it's a different matter. Gaining the power of wizardry, the power to change the world, showed her she wasn't powerless against the forces that opposed her - and that in the grand scheme of things, her "suffering" wasn't really all that important, more another example of entropy running down the energy of the universe even faster. Wizardry has allowed her to make real, genuine friends and "find herself," more or less, as she's found her place in the universe and, more importantly for her, her purpose in life ('Both families were delighted that their children had each finally found a close friend. Nita and Kit laughed about that sometimes. Their families knew only the surface of what was going on - which was probably for the best.' - DW). Those experiences have translated into actual confidence and her being more expressive with those she knows and trusts, the circle of which is steadily expanding (although at the moment it is still mostly comprised of wizards and others somehow involved with wizardry, like Carmela). She frequently laughs with her friends and goes on random adventures with them when they have the time, like when she and Kit went to Munich for Oktoberfest or Carmela dragged her to the Crossings to go shopping, and if people at her school think she's a loner nerd, she doesn't care anymore. She has fun in her life now, something she had all too rarely as a child, and if the fun's a bit strange for some people? Too bad for them. She gets to go swimming with whales, touring different star systems, have conversations with trees, and do a thousand other things just for the joy of it ('In triumph Nita splashed and jumped in the flooding gutters, like a kid, then finally ran right out into the middle of the empty Times Square and whirled there in the wet gleam and glare all alone - briefly half nuts with the delight of what she'd done, as the brilliant colors of the lights painted the puddles and wet streets and sidewalks with glaring electric pigment, light splashing everywhere like Technicolor water.' - TWD).

Nita genuinely cares about pretty much everything and everyone she meets. It's something of a prerequisite of being a wizard, since they serve life in all its forms, and that doesn't mean she can't get annoyed with people by a long shot, but overall Nita is more than willing to defend and help anyone she can. There have been a few times in her wizardry career that she was willing to die to accomplish a goal - she didn't want to die, of course, but she would do it if it was going to be the most help she could give. The first was during the Song of the Twelve, when she was paying back the lifeprice on the blank check wizardry from her and Kit's Ordeal (And in that second Nita came to understand what Carl had been talking about. She wheeled around and stared at the outcropping - then chose to do, willingly, what she had thought she'd no choice but to do. The triumph that instantly flared up in her made no sense: but she wouldn't have traded it for any feeling more sensible.' - DW), but it also happened during the Pullullus incident when she and Sker'ret went to check on the Crossings ('Perfectly clear in her inner vision hung and burned the words in the Speech that gave the Powers That Be the authorization to take the last thing you had, your life, and make the best possible use of it. You were, of course, allowed to make suggestions. Take everything I have, Nita said silently, and clear all these creatures and weapons out of here so Sker'ret can do what he has to do to keep the Lone One from getting the Crossing. For just a second she though sadly of Kit: there would be no way to tell him what she was having to do, no way to say goodbye-" - WAW) and after the fight she had on Mars with Aurilelde and her people, although granted that one was less of a certainty for her and more of a smashing threat to the Shamaska ("There's a full implementation of a transoceanic pass-through hanging over your heads right this minute, and I'm in a mood to use it if I don't get my partner back right now. If I go, too, when the hard rain comes down, big deal because life without Kit doesn't look so hot right now! And I'm betting I'd be doing the universe a service in getting you people off the books. For Kit and me, 'cause our Oaths are in place, I'm betting there's always Timeheart. Whereas for you, the Lone Power only knows where you'll wind up, and I can't bring myself to care. So?" - AWOM). She's not always the best at expressing this care - Aurilelde even comments on her habits during their fight ("As if you know anything about love! Your idea of physical intimacy is punching Kit in the shoulder-" -AWOM) - but she will do just about anything for a friend, an acquaintance, or even a person she doesn't know who's threatened in some way. She's gone after Kit to save his life multiple times ("Kit-" 'He looked at her.' "You saved my butt," 'she said.' 'Kit let out a breath.' "You let me." 'She nodded.' "Anyway," 'Kit said,' "you've saved mine a few times. Let's just give up keeping score, okay? It's a distraction." - TWD), as he has her. Nita has even been concerned about the One's Champion in the past, worried about how the Pullullus was affecting It while It was in Ronan, since "living" in another waking spirit must have already been difficult ("It can't be easy being... what you are... and having to live inside a human being," 'Nita said.' "Especially now, when so many things aren't working the way they should." - WAW). She cared enough about her mother to nearly make a deal with the Lone Power to lose her wizardry, and did a prodigious amount of wizardry towards that goal, even if it didn't work in the end. She's also the one that holds the family together after her mom dies, being the translator and peacemaker between her father and sister, taking over a lot of her mom's duties like coffee making and grocery shopping, running herself thin because she wants them both to be well even if she has to sacrifice her own comfort to do it, although she does get strained by it and resent it sometimes ("You don't think I see?" 'Dairine said, reaching out to trace some aimless design on Spot's upper case with one finger.' "And when Dad and I can't connect, you're the one who winds up talking sense to him, and to me, and getting us all going in the same direction. But who's there to make things easier for you? ...You're getting worn out with it. You need a change of pace, something besides worrying about whether we're okay. We're tougher than you think we are. But you..." - WH). That caring, that drive to help people, save them, can lead to some amazing things happening, as Nita herself once said. After all, she once yelled Ronan into not dying ('But there wasn't any pain, and the emotional context she sensed was very far indeed from shock. It was utterly serene. And off in the distance, getting more distance by the moment, Nita caught sight of a growing glow of light.' 'Oh no you don't! she shouted inwardly. Not that way! You don't get to do that right now!' [. . .] 'Not - another - step! Not - another -' - WAW). And, after two years of being best friends, Nita and Kit finally both acknowledge that they've been chicken about admitting they're interested in each other ~that way~ because they don't want to rock the Friendship and Partnership Boat and unspokenly-mutually-more-or-less agree to give being an item a shot as almost everyone they knew already assumed was a truth. So far they like it, but they're still figuring it out, and they're teenagers.

She can definitely be pushed too far, and there's a reason why more or less all of her wizard friends are reluctant to piss her off: Nita is downright scary when she's mad. It doesn't happen often, as she very rarely gets to the "really pissed off" portion of pissed off, but even at "irritated" most people, especially guys, don't want to mess with her (Darryl's eyes went wide.' "Oh, Kit, don't let [Nita] hear you say stuff like that! She'll pull your head right off and beat you over the shoulders with it." - AWOM). Darryl and Ronan have both made cracks about her annoyance "carrying" to Kit ("Everybody heard Miss Neets's reaction to how you just dumped her yesterday-" - AWOM), and she's made both of them shut up with just a look when they were taking digs at her. But when Nita is furious, she can - and has - moved worlds. She's more or less instinctively learned how to harness her anger and fury to give her more fuel and what's more or less an adrenaline boost in bad situations, though she knows that's not something she can depend on too much or she'll become more or less addicted to it and not be able to stop, probably warping herself in the process ('Nita wasn't used to thinking of anger as a tool. It had always seemed like something you didn't want to get accustomed to using, in case it started to become a habit, or started twisting you and your wizardry in directions you didn't want to go. But if you're careful, she thought, if you stay in control, if you manage it carefully enough - maybe it's okay to use it just every now and them. Maybe managing it, rather than letting it manage you, is the whole idea-" - AWAlone). But with that anger, she was able to bust down the walls Darryl had erected in his mindscape to keep the Lone Power in, and, more obviously, she was able to beat what was more or less the personification of Mars itself in a wizards' duel even when everything but offensive wizardries had been turned off - while fueling a spell that held a sea's worth of water in two very large spirals to keep it from smashing her to pieces. She's able to focus her rage to cut through the crap and find effective solutions to major problems, usually involving Kit or other people she cares about. But she also knows when to put the rage aside thanks to living with Dairine, who argues her rivals into blowing up so she can stalk off and claim they got irrational first (Nita turned red, too, with annoyance. She thought of about six different cutting things to say, but kept her mouth shut on them all.' - AWAbroad). Nita's got a very long fuse, but there's a time when everyone reaches the end of it, and the amount of explosion that happens is proportional to the seriousness of the situation. It's what led her to transport Dairine's bed to Pluto when Dairine wouldn't go to school after their mother's death.

Nita doesn't exactly have a rollicking "sense of humor" as most people would think of it. She's not one to make jokes frequently, a lot of the ones she makes are made by accident or pretty low-key ("What I really need right now in terms of energy is a candy bar, but the only thing I've got left in my backpack is a cat. And I can't eat that." 'She made an amused face.' "Too many bones." - AWAbroad), but she also doesn't take offense at most of them as long as they're good-natured. She can find the humor in situations pretty easily (picturing the Lone Power as a Darth Vader-style duck, for example, nearly put her in hysterics), but she doesn't initiate those situations on her own. She's very go with the flow about these kinds of situations, having finally learned to laugh at the absurdity that sometimes springs up in the universe and in her life especially. She can still get embarrassed pretty easily, though, especially when it comes to her "situation" with Kit and some of the things they've gotten into - ask her about the time they got those body mods. Go ahead, ask. She's most likely to get embarrassed or get cranky about teasing when it's something she feels is intrusive, like how everyone assumed that she and Kit were an item for a long time before they actually were. That's the one thing she just got more or less immune to over time ('Nita smiled ironically, letting the "dating" reference go by. She was so used to hearing this kind of thing from kids at school that she'd stopped protesting, since it just made everybody sure they were right.' - AWOM), at least in terms of general comments, but actual teasing always got told to knock it off. The absolutely does not work with Carmela.

Wizardry did, however, bring with it a lot more danger - and a lot more tragedy. Kit and Nita are told very early on that in order to defeat the Lone Power, someone usually has to die, and this is roughly a 90% or above possibility ('But she was afraid. It'd be dumb not to admit that, Nita thought. All I have to do is push through the fear.' - TWD). They pretty quickly learn that this is not an exaggeration - and they know for a certainty that the Lone Power hates them and their little group since they keep kicking Its ass repeatedly, meaning they've drawn Its attention to them in an effort to subvert them. They rarely have an adventure without someone dying - on their Ordeal they lost Fred and the Lotus Espirit, during the Song of the Twelve Ed sacrifices himself in place of Nita, and the Lone Power strikes down Peach during the fight before Its redemption. The worst by far, however, was Nita's mother: the Isolate activated unhealthy cells in her body - a fast-growing cancer - to try and trap Nita into a deal to make her lose her wizardry. It's only thanks to her mother's intervention when they were inside the wizardly construct of her own body, where she was more or less a god, that Nita didn't go through with the deal and almost kill herself as well on accident. Losing their friends and especially her mom has hurt Nita very deeply, making her grow and mature faster than most teenagers, and she has her moments of survivor's guilt like anyone. Her going to a counselor to handle her grief after her mother's passing is actually a fairly big thing. But at the same time it doesn't completely weigh her down, because she knows those that are gone are still alive in some form or other in Timeheart - after all, she's seen most of them there. It's not the same as having them there with her, not at all, but it does help to know that while their mortal bodies are gone, their specific inner being is in the place that everything wants to be ("If you mean, am I over my mom dying? Don't be silly," 'she finally said.' "She'll always be part of me. It's going to hurt for a long time that she's not still in my house. But nothing can take her out of my life. Am I over wanting to just sit and suffer and let life go by? I think so." - AWAlone).

Nita was born with a great thirst for knowledge - not quite to the level of her sister, but she always just found learning interesting, reading fun, and school enjoyable, when it didn't involve her classmates, at least ('She loved any library, big or little; there was something about all that knowledge, all those facts waiting patiently to be found that never failed to give her a shiver.' - SYWTBAW). She's read the entire children's section and at least most, if not all, of the adult section at the small local library a few blocks from her home, and one of her earliest presents was a telescope which she still uses even to this day to observe the moons of different planets and things like comets or meteor showers ('That sense of the Earth being a small safe "house" with a huge backyard, through which powers both benign and terrible moved, was what had first made her fall in love with astronomy.' - HW). School was easy for her for many years, which was great because she loved it but also bad because that's what she got teased over the most. That thirst is still there and still just as big, even if school has become harder as she's gotten older and the material has gotten more difficult, but Nita is one of the few even among wizards to study the Speech as simply something to do for fun. She also frequently reads her manual before going to bed, which is like someone reading a textbook on engineering in a lot of ways, and when it's not a life-or-death problem, she finds wizardry fun and enjoyable ("What are you doing up so early in the day, hNii't? Isn't this supposed to be time off for you? Your learning-place work is almost done for this season, I thought: you were supposed to be relaxing-" "I am," 'Nita said.' "This is relaxing." - AWOM). There's always a pile of library books in her room, and she loves going on trips where she learns something, anything, new, and talking to people to simply find out more about them and what their lives are like.

The best way to describe Nita is the way that Ronan used not long after they met: "A lot of [other girls] talk tough all the time, but if you push them, they give. You, though, you don't talk tough - mostly. When you do, you're scary. And as for pushing - you just fall all over whoever does it, like a brick wall." It took a long time, most of her life and the discovery of wizardly, for Nita to come to that point, but she's arrived at a place where she's comfortable with who she is and what she is (at least as much as the average American teenager), and she's not willing to change herself to be what other people think she should.

COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING: She is so very Seelie it's almost ridiculous. The sides don't quite correspond to the Powers exactly, but a large part of a wizard's job is to fight for order against chaos, as chaos is one of the Lone Power's primary weapons. Chaos is a very easy way for people to get hurt or life to be lost, after all, and while wizards (and the Powers) don't want to take away free will, and understand that some uncertainty and potential danger is actually a good thing since it provides more learning experiences, they're still trying to clean up the universe and make it more safe than it currently is.

ABILITIES: Nita is a wizard, so her main "ability" is wizardry. You can hop over here if you want a long, involved explanation of what this means and some of the significant particulars, but the absolute basics of it go like this: entropy is running, and wizards from all the worlds, all the universes, choose to accept the power offered to them by the Powers That Be to slow down the death of the universe and combat the Lone Power, the One who invented entropy, painful death, war, strife, lies, all the things that make life hard. Wizards speak the Speech, Life's language which everything understands, in order to describe how something is and how they want it to be after the spell is done; most spells are more a matter of persuasion and negotiation rather than ordering things around. There's no clause that says wizards can't use the power for personal gain, only that they can only cause harm, or death, in absolute last-ditch situations, and they can't change anything permanently without that thing's permission. All wizards specialize in the work they do, doing better in some areas of wizardry while being weaker in others, just like any other talent or aptitude, though specialties can change over time.

A small sampling of the things seen being done with wizardry in the series are:

• Communication between people of different nationalities, biologies, and even non-humans altogether, since the Speech acts as a translator for all who speak it
  
• "Bouncing back" a hurricane into the ocean (a major group wizardry)
  
• Transporting to other locations, including other worlds, into space itself, and with the right variables added even other universes
  
• Fixing an entertainment system (with ...mixed results)
  
• Opening drawers and locked doors
  
• Temporarily bringing statues to life
  
• Timesliding, or going "sideways" to the past
  
• Making weapons and defensive shields
  
• Fixing stars

And over a bajillion other things. There's a fairly common thought among wizards that nothing is impossible to do, as long as one can get the information out of the manual to figure out how to enact what's needed for the desired effect. Finding that information and putting the pieces together is the tricky part.

Nita's specific specialties include:

• "Life affinity," or the ability to understand biological things, especially plants, much better than "inanimate" things like rocks or mechanical things (Kit's specialty). Also translates into being decently good with healing spells, roughly on-level with a triage nurse.
  
• Something of an affinity for water, spells involving water, and working in water. Not quite an infra-affinity, where she can bond with it and come out fine on the other side, but a tendency nonetheless.
  
• Working with "kernels," or the software of a world (from a person to an entire universe), to edit it and permanently change the world. Still a beginner in this work, but has handled multiple kernels over the series, and knows the basics. Learned this skill to try and save her mother when she developed cancer. Changing a kernel is something done only with a higher sanction or a blatantly emergency situation, such as when Mars was trying to shake itself apart.
  
• Oracular gift. Fairly new and incredibly frustrating to her, but she's learning to let the glimpses of the future she gets unfold over time as they will and not force them. Mostly comes to her in quick flashes while she's awake, or full dreams which are unusually straightforward and almost exactly parallel to future occurrences, though it took her awhile to realize that. Very, very slowly learning to channel this deliberately; keeps a dream/vision journal to help keep the flashes/dreams clear. Can occasionally finish another's thoughts (mostly Kit's) and reference things others haven't brought up to her, though doesn't seem to realize she's doing this.
  
• The peridexis. Started hearing the "voice" of wizardry itself during the pullullus scare (Wizards at War), and it didn't go away after that was over, becoming something of an adviser and something of a personal assistant. Constantly offers to handle the actual work of setting up and sometimes running spells for her, which she mostly declines. Nicknamed "Bobo" after her childhood invisible friend.
  
• Telepathy, but only with other wizards.

INVENTORY: Wizards can make a thing called "claudications" - pockets of otherspace about the size of a duffel bag that they can store things in and not have to carry them, just have them on hand when they're needed, and they don't need any effort to access other than just reaching in. Nita keeps her manual in hers, a few odd components for performing esoteric spells (selected because the objects bend space and the natural laws in various ways, not for any "powers" the objects themselves have, like a gimbal from an old TV), a little long-term food like granola bars, a sweater, and a few other things normally found in pockets like pens and scrap paper. She can only take stuff out of it that she herself put in, just like a regular bag; the only real difference is it's intangible and follows her around. She also has a wizardly-made "charm bracelet" that carries spells in almost-ready-to-go mode, prepped and stored so they only need one word to cast them.

( WRITING ★ SAMPLES )

NETWORK SAMPLE:

[The girl that shows up in undoubtedly human, and undoubtedly young - mid-teens, most likely, definitely no more than sixteen. She's also almost entirely average-looking, with brown hair and gray eyes, wearing jeans and an old t-shirt - but the look on her face is far from ordinary, at least for new arrivals. Rather than being surprised, shocked, panicked, or desperate, the girl simply looks... normal. Maybe a little curious, but focused, and not at all surprised to wake up somewhere she's never seen before, and she glances around as if occasionally looking for something as she speaks.]

Dai stihó, everyone. My name's Nita Callahan, I'm on errantry, and I greet you... I think. Normally I get more warning about going somewhere else when I'm put on assignment, but maybe this is just the most efficient way to do it this time.

[She glances down, eyes flicking back and forth as if she's reading something quickly. If one looks closely, they could see the book, about the size of a large paperback, open in her hands just below chest height, before she looks up again.]

The manual functions seem a little messed up here, so could anyone tell me if there's a guy named Kit Rodriguez here? He's taller than me, Hispanic, kind of looks like he's starting to get out of that lanky stage. Or Dairine - she's my little sister. I'll keep trying to reach them, but the messaging system isn't updating, so I'm not sure how much it's going to work in the future, and my phone's not working at all.

Uhm... I guess that's all for now, so go well everyone. Dai. I never know how to end these kinds of things.

LOG SAMPLE: Nita sat on the steps of the station, her manual balanced on her knees in front of her as she turned its pages. Everything seemed more or less in place, with all the normal diagrams updating as she watched, and an analysis of the world she'd found herself in running on one page she kept bookmarked with a finger. But other sections of the manual weren't moving - mostly, the things normally associated with her own world and the status of other wizards she knew. With the exception of the page where she kept a list of the wizards she worked with frequently for easy access, nothing she said could make any other listing pop up, no matter how many worlds or specialties she asked for. Touching the names she'd bookmarked didn't bring the normal "fizz" of an active wizard, nor even the smaller hum of one in some sort of unaware state, usually sleep. The page remained inactive and dull beneath her fingers, any attempt to reach Kit or anyone else mind to mind was answered only with silence, and the messaging area point blank refused to work.

It wasn't like this was a new situation for Nita; she'd been to a few places where manual access wasn't guaranteed, mostly other universes and pocket realities that were encapsulated away from "normal" space. For a moment she focused on the solid, reassuring weight around her wrist, the charm bracelet she'd made to carry spells in the kernel management practice universes, wondering if it was time to depend on it heavily again. But she quickly shook her head: no, some things weren't working right, and that was a problem, but in terms of wizardry, they were all minor things. Nita could still feel the undercurrent of wizardry around her, at the bottom of her mind, and the manual could clearly still access it and update itself at least in time with the world around it. That made the malfunction something to keep an eye on, something to prepare backup for, but not something to worry needlessly over until the situation got worse. She already had enough weird on her hands.

It's not like you've never been on your own before. And you've still got me.

She sighed, closing her eyes as she propped one elbow on her knee and leaned her head against her hand. I know, Bobo, and believe me, it helps. But I don't have any idea what I'm supposed to be doing here! I don't even know where "here" is! And when I don't know-

You want to find out. I'll let you know when the analysis is finished.

Thanks. If this is going to be another pocket reality like the practice universes, I'd like to know that before I go setting myself up for a fall.

An almost imperceptible hum was her only answer, not quite an acknowledgement of her statement, but one she chose to take as a reminder that she wasn't alone. After all, a wizard on errantry was never truly alone, not as long as life was around them, and this world certainly had that in abundance. If she only had Kit, or even Dairine around, this would have the potential to be a nice break from the normal chaos of their lives.

Kit, you better get here soon!