The Bookwyrm

"What's a name?"

Ma'tani shook it. "Nice to meet you." "Oh. I'm Matani. In my defense, I was much more focused on Jolane when we first met, so...

Ma'tani blinked. "I never told you my name?"

"Hey, at least it's not a squirrel," said a disembodied voice.

She smirked. "Ma'tani. Sometimes you have to be more specific, or people will think you're waxing philosophical."

"That's a deep question. Not sure if even I know the answer yet." She looked down at the flute. "For now, I'm a traveler. Far from home in an alien land. That's the jist of my life right now."

Ma'tani nodded. "...On an unrelated note...you're a musician. Have you ever seen one of these?" She gingerly pulled the Shenai flute out of her robes and showed it to Niamh.

Ma'tani fell silent for a moment. "Got to pay the Spirits back somehow, right?" She said softly. "They gave me him. Maybe they gave Jolane me." She smiled and shook her head. "Nevermind. That's none of your concern. I'm just someone who likes getting in other people's business, and helping people who never asked for my help. I'm endearing like that."

Ma'tani smiled slightly. "Well, what do you think we're working on?" She pointed a thumb and July.

Ma'tani pointed to July. "He'll know." @J. Magi "...I guess you could say I'm worried for your young friend's position." She jestured towards Jolane. "Something's not right about her position. I think she's being manipultated, maybe abused."

"It appears as though my way of thinking does not align with yours, after all. I had thought you were on my side, but you have shown otherwise.... You are dismissed." Is it spreading? Why doesn't Eddie want to be a nerd? Why does everyone in this courtroom want to argue over the definition?

"I never said the new era was realized. It is the unfortunate truth that the world still does not understand what the word truly means. This includes Eddie. As I said from the beginning, it would be nice to get her legal status as a nerd ratified, so then we can move on to the psychological aspect of it." He looked to the wider room. "Most of us here generally consider ourselves nerds, of one thing or another. We know it's a good thing. So why does the wider world look down on it? What mental stigmas still exist around that status? And have those stigmas taken root inside Eddie? "I was called here as an attorney, but really, what the world needs are therapists. And pioneers. To change the way the world looks at the term 'nerd'." He turned back to JM. "We're arguing semantics, but let's place that aside for a moment. By my definition, or even by any definition, would you say Eddie is a nerd?"

(Sad. Of the three and two halves generations I've played, that was my favorite.)

"Oh, but here's the thing: I would argue that people who are into sports, or makeup, or anything that mainstream are in fact nerds. They don't admit it because the general connotation of that word from a bygone era was negative. But we're in a new era now. An era where being a nerd is cool. And those people who are super into sports, or makeup, or fishing, or whatever it may be; they have just as much a vested interest in those hobbies that another person might have into Brandon Sanderson's works. "We're in a new era, ladies and gentlemen, where everyone is a nerd, whether they realize it or not. Unless they have no hobbies, in which case they're boring. And our good friend Edema Rue is anything but boring."