Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

If Inyanga Gets In - Flash Back in Time Part 3

Constellations Characters + Glossary

Yanyu: Words, speach or spoken language in Mandarin 言语

Aeh/aer pronoun note: In this time period, 400 years earlier, the pronoun aeh/aer is used as a general singular pronoun i.e. "When a student breaks a rule, aeh must go to aer scheduled detention sessions."

Flash Back in Time Part 3

It turned out that when Echo said she would forward Amandla's complaint about the animae crisis, she meant that she would contact Julia Mars, the director of Constellations herself.

An airweave note was written and passed through a link the size of a bathroom mirror hanging in the air in front of Echo's wall to wall, corner to corner view of Soliara's skyline. In her own office, Julia Mars read the airweave memo, presumably. Moments passed before the small communications link expanded into a portal tall enough to pass through and low enough to step over, which Julia Mars did now in patent black Oxfords magically animated on the sides with gnomon wands that gleamed as if reflecting a passing strobe light.

Julia Mars, a woman with a military background, stepped over the bottom of the portal with a commanding mix of military leader and catwalk model. She had the height to look not unlike a goddess even in a pantsuit. Hers was night sky blue, bare whispers of cloud cover moving across the fabric almost too slow for the eye to catch. Without the hair growth and nourishment spells her company developed, one could imagine it taking decades, perhaps a century, to grow out the healthy amber waves that reached to her hamstrings. One could imagine a thousand years of regular trims, two steps forward, one step back.

A thousand years ago, Julia Mars had been Justin Marius, before gender transitioning. Surely spells helped with that too.

The first thing the director did was tell Yue to leave. "100k a year, the salary of an intern magician in the airweave mail department. If you tell anyone, you will be cut off. That's the only incentive you need, right, Yue Nimbus?"

"I don't plan on talking," said Yue, and she gathered her animated starfire skirts around her as she stood. "I won't tell anyone. I want the cash flow, not to save the world." She left behind an accusatory gaze for Amandla, and the office doors felt the mood in the room and opened without being asked to let her go.

"Now," said Julia Mars, "Echo's call was right." Amandla would have expected the boss of the company that invented magic to kick Echo out of her seat if she wanted to sit, or conjure up a throne, but, amazingly, the director sat on the corner of Echo's desk, one leg crossed over the other, feet dangling. It put the toes of her gleaming shoes inches from Amandla's knees.

And finally, finally, words came back to her.

"Listen. I am with child." Amandla's hands were already cupping her bump. "And don't call me foolish or blame me for getting pregnant. My partner and I always wanted a child. Why should I choose to live or for the baby to? How will I support her if I can't get a magician's degree?"

Mars stopped her voice with a mute spell.

That had been a rhetorical question — to be followed by ever so much more that Amandla had to say to this woman — but as her tongue and mouth flapped, they made not so much as a hint of sound.

President Mars went on as if she couldn't see Amandla's jaw working up and down. "We don't allow lawbreakers to attend our school. When a student uncovers a problem, aeh is expected to discuss it with aer professors, academic advisors, or Constellation's liaison.

"We're past that now. I'm about to offer you a deal, just like I did Yue Nimbus. It isn't because Constellation is admitting fault, or capitulating to blackmail. Which reminds me. Before you try to record this as if it's some kind of confession: your gnomon, please. No more recording, no more imposing your narrative on this company's decisions, and no more op-eds."