Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

Bay's Star Episode II

A/N: This story has been a long time in the making. I wrote Episode I last summer. It was the very first Constellations story, and even though ideas abounded for what happens to Bay next, it was hard to narrow in on a clear story. And so with much ado, I present to you, Bay's Star, Episode II!

Glossary: Hall Names

Ad-dabarān Hall: From the original Arabic name for the Taurus constellation. Ad-dabaran, "the follower (of the Pleiades)" 

Baekdu Student Center: Korean name for Ursa Minor, Baekdu, after the highest mountain on the Korean peninsula.

When Bay Goes to Magicians College

Bay hated it when Yue called her in class — or when she was supposed to be in class.

A sprint would have gotten her to Link Combinatorics 213 on time. Or basically on time.

In fact she had been sprinting across campus from the bus stop — past Lillywood trees that crawled purple branches up to new heights to only just tickle the bottoms of the four levitating Ad-dabaran towers on the campus of the magician's college.

At certain angles the arboles tall as gods seemed to support the flying buildings, but of course they didn't. The skyscrapers hung unsuspended, as if gravity's force pushed up against them in reverse, cancelling out the pull of the planet.

Four library towers orbit the Baekdu Student Center and provide revolving views for the pupils studying in the windows.

Bay was so happy to be here she could scream — and she did and she had sometimes, like when she received her admissions letter and she and Song had jumped up and down screaming the words they read together:

"We are pleased to inform you that your employer and sponsor Yue Nimbus has secured a place for you to renew magicians credits in link surveillance on a part-time basis to fulfill certain magical responsibilities required for your employment!"

Bouncing up and down they had screamed and cheered together. Even if it was only part-time, only three classes, only permitted within the purview of the surveillance role, so long as she stayed on Yue's good side and didn't get herself terminated or the role canceled, she was back! Back at school! Bay was back in magicians college, back on campus, back with the kids!

And oh, those kids. They were so young, not that Bay looked a day older! Yet there was a certain difference in body language and spatial poetics between the real nineteen-year-olds and the multi-centenarian who just looked like them.

Indeed, Bay hated it when Yue called her when she knew she had class, and she had been sprinting to make it. Running past the library's doming edifice on the ground, Bay's heels slammed into the red brick path as she slid to a stop. A pequeñisimo portal had blocked her vision while she ran — definitely a trip hazard. Maybe she should become a Constellation engineer and fix that.

Panting and sweating in her new animated pantsuit — decorated with pinstripe shooting stars — she waved as if at an invisible fly to accept the call.

In the petite link, Yue's face started out the size of a poppy and grew and grew along with the portal until her life-sized countenance stared out at Bay as if through a window.

Never had Bay seen Yue look positively shook before.

"You know I have class," said Bay. "Shift starts at 4:45, and at precisely 4:45 I'll take a link back to the Cloud—"

"Notice posted on the door. We're being shut down. Failure to comply with flight zone regulations."

Stars damn it. How long had Yue been failing to comply with flight zone regulations?