Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

Prologue - Part II

Kyuma watched the two little girls duel with inanimate sticks. How did they get to be so silly. Glanced at the stellar watch, a special little present from Mama Amandla, Inyanga's grandmama, and sighed.

Sighed because Star was later than late. Extra late. Beyond late. Already Kyuma had had to take the girls on the underground to get to campus while Amafu's umama sat in a "million meetings" she "tried and tried to get out of, sorry love!"

Yet Star had promised to join them all for a summoned lunch from the Cloud Cafe, a picnic of divine magic cast sandwiches, by meridies, and that damn woman had yet to pop out of one of those hundred solidae single-use link portals she treated herself to whenever she wanted to, as if a hundred solidae were pocket change.

If Kyuma had a hundred solidae to blow on something that would be gone after ten seconds, it wouldn't have been necessary to get the two mischievous sprinters all the way to Constellation Univasiti on a bus, the underground, another bus, and on foot the final two blocks where Amafu almost got lost when she decided to start a hiding game among the parked motos on the city streets.

Or maybe Kyuma would have still done the journey the mundane way and saved the money for a trip to a stylist magician to make the temperamental hair Amandla had passed on gleam like that of a movie queen. Shiny braids for a few days might be worth the cost of the trip they just had — for half a solidae bus fare each. Constellation could be faulted for many things, but at half a solidae each for bus fare, the magic public transportation provided by the magic company was cheap and stellar.

Still, the fact remained, Kyuma didn't have a hundred solidae to blow away, magic cost too much to perfect the hair, nails, clothes, or anything else the mundane life had gifted, and Star was stars damn late today.

In the middle of Kyuma's musings, Star appeared out of the clear blue air in the middle of the shady courtyard under al-Maysan lecture hall, and under the colorful flowers of poppywood trees too. No portal, either — which must add even more expenses to Star's magic bill. Since it was just her, she could pop around directly, without two children and her childhood friend to coral along with her.

How very nice and convenient for her.

Kyuma didn't even throw her a "you're late." Star would be expecting that. Instead, "I'm going to destroy you at weiqi stones, whip you until your brain gets sore," was promised, with a gesture at the table for two set with a board and piles of white and black pebbles. "The children are playing over there," waving a vague hand. "Or there," with a head nod the other way. "They're around. Somewhere."

"I don't care about them, let me take a look at you! Stand up!" said Star, rushing over, and Kyuma did. "Are you with child?" As Star examined, Kyuma did a little turn around with hips swinging, and a smile lit them both up. Eternal youth kept both Star and Kyuma young. Really young. Their grandparents, too, looked little older than teens did, including Kyuma's mother, Grandmama Amandla.

And as Kyuma did a hip-wagging circle, Star took in the new curves.

It was important to enjoy the moment before it was necessary to say, "No, of course not. I am not with child. I threw down the payment for a fertility spell. That's all I have saved up for. Who knows when I will have enough for a starborn."

Star shook her head and made a tsk sound. "If you get pregnant now, the baby will take your immortality."

"Get pregnant?" Kyuma scoffed. "My husband's no longer with us, how am I to get pregnant? Madness. Don't worry about me. I made the first payment, so the funds wouldn't burn up a hole in my savings account. Taken care of."

"So now I must call you by new pronouns, aeh/aer?" said Star. "My best friend Kyuma, aeh is so stubborn and at times aer brain does not work so well. How will aeh pay for Univasiti tuition for aer daughter if aeh throws away all the money to make more babies with in vivo magic?"