《People of New Yamato》
Chapter 1 - Estrella
You see a magical watercolor photo-sketch that seems to flow and ebb with the ambient mana currents. A pretty young woman leans against the support pillar of a fruit stall in what appears to be a night market, though the safety lights embedded in the mana-crete indicate this is a highly developed area; the somewhat distant ceiling is arched, with red lacquer trim, and the kanji ´̵ (New Yamato Shopping Street) shines from a hovering arched sign far overhead in sakura-pink. A few small delivery drones can be seen whizzing through the air, and in the far distance, block letters in pale green show text reading "Deck 23".
The woman before you looks very young, barely out of high school. Slightly wavy black hair with overtones of aubergine-violet tumbles a bit wildly around her head and around a pair of upward-protruding, chestnut-furred ears; her hair is barely held together to one side, with one loose shock of pale bangs escaping between her ears to cover her forehead. A set of earrings dangles upon her ears, making them appear to be covered in a constellation of five-pointed stars. She looks up with deep-set, slightly down-turned coffee-colored eyes as if she''s about to try pushing away those stray bangs with a quick breath. The pale light of her HUD hovers a couple feet before her, lighting up a gentle, cute face that feels more suited to a schoolgirl than a spacefarer. A folded space station jumpsuit lies on a crate in the corner; the girl herself wears a bright, orange-red dress accented with a multicolored collar and accented in bead work, surprisingly simple and modest, but also not hiding feminine curves, or the tail peeking out from behind her, its own wild shock of aubergine-violet hair to match that on her head. On one cheek she has a glowing mana tattoo of stylized sea serpent around a full moon, curved around as if holding the moon in its embrace. There is a tiny patch of pale fuzz on the tip of her nose, though it''s subtle as atavistic traits go.
The stall itself is laden with numerous boxes of vibrant tropical fruit, from familiar staples like bananas and pineapples, spiky rambutan and lychee, but the boxes closest to her have clusters of round, fuzzy yellow fruits you don''t recognize, one split open to reveal translucent white flesh. You feel like you can imagine a sweet smell, somehow like the happy marriage of a grape and grapefruit, if that could be possible. A simple mana-plastic sign bears the name, "ύuζ : Taste of the Southern Islands"
In her right hand, she holds a stylus, with a stream of what feels like magickal ink streaming out to the edge of the photo-sketch, revealing this to be a self-portrait.
"In Yamato speech, my name is Hoshi. But my true-name is Estrella. I hope it''s not too weird to share my true-name out with the world like this. They used to say we had to guard our true-names and only share them with our intimates and no one else for fear of people stealing your power, but it''s not like I have much "power" to give, and what I do have to give, I want to share with everyone. I hope the people I introduce in this series are as open with their stories, but it''s up to them.
My parents dreamed of traveling the stars, and eventually, they left our beautiful home island of Camiguin to do just that. The cousins and brothers and titos and titas and lolos and lolas though they were such mavericks. Why would you leave a tropical paradise like we had, the white beaches, the wild volcanoes, the orchards of lanzones? But mom and dad had big dreams and they would not be denied. Some people delved dungeons, and they chosespace.
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I remember us going to the soul servant spire to consult with Bakunawa, the great dragoness of our island, because it was one thing to intelectually know that space travel safe, and yet another for us simple itkbalang to actually follow in the footsteps of She Who Chases the Moon. I never thought I''d hear a Soul Servant laugh. She even said, "I promise not to eat the moon!" They may be so uncannily powerful, but Bakunawa is kind and sweet, and if she weren''t a thousand years okd, I''d think she was exactly like one of us. I''m so glad we sought her blessing, though it was heartening to hear her say it outright.
All ten of us kids went out from the node in Mambajao and traveled to the Yamato islands to Tanegashima. The amount of mana needed to travel to space nodes is too exorbitant for normals to afford, so they still use a combination of pre-Ascension technology, and some newer designs to launch from there. Fusion reactors, with mana shielding. I remember when I found out that our Ascended Earth has something called the manasphere, or the Van Allen belt. I always thought it looked more like a butterfly, flapping idly through the cosmos.
But what do I know about that? All of that physics and nuclear manipulation is not my game. I''m aillustromancer. And I remember the graceful arc of that rocket with our parents and so many others reaching into the sky that day and capturing so, so many images in my mind. Maybe I might even publish them later. I''m still just a journeyman, and you can''t power-level illustromancy in a dungeon.
Last I heard, they were among the first to start exploring Proxima Centauri b. Did you know the pre-Ascension folks were aiming for this before the Cataclysm War? That dream is finally real! And ofcourse we are the pioneers to go to centauri, ''cause aren''t wetikbalang the next best thing? Probably why Captain Stavros Kallinikos hand-picked them, he''s an actual centaur himself truth be told.
I don''t need to go to Proxima though. I feel like being the first of the first is a bit too lonely for me, and what I really want to do is tell stories. To get a glimpse of all the people around me, a snapshot into who they are, what they''re thinking about, maybe their aspirations, and leave a small little record of it for history, so we don''t forget ourselves like our ancient ancestors did.
I think we had a Cataclysm way back in the past because we kept forgetting our humanity, even when we were just one Human race. I don''t see that in the hearts and minds of anyone on our world now ... I mean, maybe those Antis I read about were the only ones, but that was centuries ago, right? But still. I get the feeling that this is just another thing we need to do ...Ineed to do .... in order to stave off whatever doom might be awaiting our world.
But that''s maybe a bit grandiose. I just like people. Maybe I need no further reason than that.
So I figured I''d start with my own story first, before learning about those I meet, here on this station called New Yamato. Maybe I''ll follow in my parents'' footsteps and go out to Proxima. Or travel the worlds of the solar system. But that seems overwhelming to think about for now, and this station already has a hundred thousand people to meet.
I''m Estrella, the smallest star in a sea of stars, third daughter of Arjaynel and Maria Divina Romualdo of the tikbalang Romualdo clan of Camiguin, the Island Born of Fire; follower of Bakunawa, She Who Chases the Moon, journeyman illustromancer and for now, a tropical fruit vendor on the space station New Yamato, and this is just the beginning of my story.
Of what I hope is the first of a million, million stories.
Care for alanzon? We teleport ''em fresh from Mambajao, every morning, and if you''ve never had one, I guarantee youwill fall in love. With the fruit, not me!"
Chapter 2 - Yggdrasill
Trees abound here. Maples with wine-red leaves, aspens in gold and green, deep blue-green spruce and Christmas-green douglas-firs and sugi-cedars. Incongruously, there are also tropical hardwoods around: teak, narra, mahogany. You''d think you were in some magical forest somewhere on an alternate Earth, but the unceasing blue sky with no direct sun, and so many well manicured, numbered, and lit paths and occasional hovering interpretive markers remind the viewer that this is not natural at all, but the Arboretum in the Sky, the great botanical garden that fills a full floor of New Yamato.
Leaning against an ash tree is a lithe young woman, her long blonde hair streaked with green. She has a folded up blue and yellow garment tucked under one arm, but is herself dressed in much more utilitarian garb, khaki overall shorts over a pink crop top, her hands covered in gardening gloves, one holding a trowel covered in dark soil, the other an indeterminate sapling ready to be replanted, looking incongruously healthy despite being uprooted, as if being in perfect health from the woman''s touch. Her eyes are deep emerald green, and skin pale but kissed by the slightest bit of sun.
Isn''t it a bit personal and less than professional to start your interviews with your girlfriend, dear?
I guess we''ll start from the beginning, then!
My Yamato name probably sounds weird, it''s Susama, with the characters for "uncanny" and "horse". But my true-name is Yggdrasill Johansson. Okay, maybe that seems a bit weird too, but it makes more sense when you''re born into a family of Askafroa. In the old speech, that means "wife of the ash tree"; think of us like dryads.
What am I doing in space? Well, it may come as a shock to you but we tree-folk can sometimes have wanderlust too! We may prefer to be near our trees, but we don''t tree if we''re away from them. Though we do like to bring our trees along with us, this is a daughter sapling of my tree right here, and I brought her onboard as a sprig when I first came here, before the Arboretum in the Sky was even a dream.
I actually came here as a mechanic for the water maintenance systems. I had learned hydraulic engineering back in Uppsala, and found it dovetailed well with my druidic skills. After several tours around the world with irrigation systems, like in Ak-chin, Babylon, and Dunhuang, I was recruited to come to New Yamato, where we could pioneer a truly enclosed system, like the pre-Ascension works near Tucson or the more recent arcologies in some urban areas since then. And of course, we just end up teleporting stuff in all the time, so it isn''t realy enclosed at all, so I started thinking about how I missed being around forests, and looked at our energy surplus, and thought, maybe we could build our own little biosphere here.
The administration told me that was exactly the idea they were looking for, and gave me a whole floor to play with! Between the different ecosystems, and of course the extradimensional space, we would qualify as the largest arboretum on Earth, if we were, of course, actually on Earth! Getting the right amount of light in here is tricky though, had to work with some evokers and enchanters to get that right. And then it was a matter of sourcing the plants. It was easy enough to teleport some bits and bobs from Padjelanta and the Salish forests and then folks started to really pitch in and I was getting really random submissions for a while, and I''m very glad my druidic powers allow me to pinpoint the species and provenance of everything in here, down to the newest fruiting mushroom, or I''d have been so overwhelmed. And this is a constantly work in progress and I shift things all the time; I hear some folks call this "the Lost Woods" because they keep relying on trees as landmarks when I keep warning people that the landscape apart from the set paths is subject to change at all times!
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It''s not like I''m intentionally pranking people or being mean, it''s just hard to make up my mind where anything belongs, especially with so many new trees to plant and new species to catalog!
And then one day, while heading through the shopping street to the commissary, I see all these tropical fruits I''ve never seen before, because I never made it to Southeast Asia with my job, you know. And I thought those fruits were so beautiful, and then I saw something even more beautiful than that, and my family told me, if I ever saw anything that was more beautiful to me than any member of the plant kingdom, that this was the moment an Askafroa falls in love.
Yeah, I''m blushing. No, *you''re* blushing!
Look, I''m not blind or deaf. I know what happens in my arboretum. *Everything* that happens there. I warn people the arboretum is under constant surveillance so everyone has to know every makeout session or tryst has ... an audience? You don''t need to talk to trees to know when people are sharing water under your roof. That''s just human nature at work. I''ve even shifted the forest a few times to keep folks "private". I don''t mind doing that. People are pretty too.
But ... Estrella isn''t just "people" to me. We bonded over our love of plant life but she sees things from such an interesting perspective, that painter''s eye I''ve heard about. And ... I guess I came to see her the way she sees the world.
So I''m starting to work on a little Camiguin in my arboretum, with the seeds from the very first fruits she sold me. Some lanzones, some jackfruit, some mangos, a little imported volcanic soil from that island of fire. To match with my little Padjelanta. What was once a world away, now just an arm''s reach.
Just like us.
That''s actually why I agreed to be the first interview, because I wanted to take a moment here.
Six months ago, you came onto the station and opened my world to a new possibility. And you came to my arboretum and saw and understood the beauty and heart of my mission. I know better than to ask you to be my one and only, any more than you expect me to be faithful to you alone, but I still want you to share your path with me all the same, if you would have me as your travel companion.
Estrella, will you marry me anyway?
Despite being put thoroughly on the spot, the author did in fact say yes, emphatically, or she would not have published this article; the author is also now the bearer of a twining ash-branch ring of lunar silver.
(I''m not going to promise not to get personally entangled with future interviewees, but this won''t be normal, okay?)