Name Meanings

Maestra Nyeon: Teacher, 년 nyeon means Year in Korean

Ura: Hour in Quechua and Nahuatl

Song: a short set of words set to music in English, or to give as a present in Chinese, 送 sòng

Mare: Sea in in Italian, pronounced MAR-eh

Stella: Star in Italian

Kailasa: a temple कैलास, from Sanskrit, also Mount Kailash

Chiara: Clear, or Luminosity, brightness in Italian

Kiran: Ray of light in Hindi किरण

Hasin: Iron in Akkadian and Sumerian, हसीन divine or beautiful in Urdu, from Arabic حُسَيْن

A/N: Some of these words mean different things in different languages, and I would love to learn all of them. Hasin means different things in Urdu and Arabic and other languages, so if you know other meanings in other languages, leave it in a comment!

Word Meanings

Nonna: Grandma in Italian

Nonno: Grandpa in Italian

camicia: blouse in Italian, pronounced CaMI-cha

cuore mio: my heart

tesoro mio: my treasure

Sette Minuti in Paradiso: Seven Minutes in Heaven

danzano: to dance

ardah: a folk dance in Arabic العرضة

Chiara's Star Part I

One bathroom served many in Chiara's family home. It was the worst. One inert secular mundane, non-magical bathroom.

All under one roof, Mamma, with the newborn, and Baba, and Nonna and Nonno, and Chiara, and Chiara's cousin Stella would danzano, tango, ardah, and spar for their time in the morning.

The back to school eye shadow pallet given to Chiara by Nonna became difficult to apply with so much traffic in the morning, and the light in Chiara's bedroom was all wrong, all shadows and glares alternating in her mirror.

When she applied makeup in there she came out with her eyes looking bruised instead of bronzed, so she tried tiptoeing in earliest of all, but Nonna woke up so long before dawn she could never beat him to it, and after his steaming hot shower Baba was up, and he got to call priority, and after two steaming showers it was too misty in there anyway, the mirror all fogged up.

And then Mamma could come in to change the bambina, and Stella would start to fight for hairstyling time, and at some point or other one of them would need to let Nonna in to tinkle, and everyone wanted to kick Chiara out like her eyeshadow application wasn't important.

The sparring got verbal but they tried to keep it quiet in the morning hush. "You already showered last night before bed. Let someone else have a turn," Baba hushed.

Chiara whisper whined, "But I bathed last night so I could have time in the bathroom to put on makeup."

"Stop being so vain." Baba would hold open the door that unleashed the water vapors and a wash of soap smells, and he would usher in nonna with a death glare for his daughter.

Nonno softened a similar take as he passed in the hall to go down to the kitchen for his morning caffe and biscotti. "You don't need any cosmetics, you're beautiful the way you are."

So sweet. Tell that to the boys at school who called her bashie, feo, chǒu, words she didn't know but was beginning to gather the meaning of.

Some called her words she knew well: qibāḥ and Brutto.

Not qabīḥa or brutta, the feminine adjectives for ugly, but Brutto, masculine, and qibāḥ, masculine.

Fighting for five minutes under the vanity lights between showers, when the moisture and the early Septembris warmth made the air close and sticky, and usually after Stella's hairstyling time, because Chiara didn't want hot at blown at her while she went to work, finally her time came.

She swiped the mirror clean, dried the counters and her fingers, closed the door to distractions (half the time Stella opened it again to check her reflection in the good light and to say something cruel) and began to sculpt flattering angles around her eyes to make them more feline feminine, lining them with the darkest powder in the palette, visions of her divine cousin taunting her. Stella was femininity incarnate, and when she saw Chiara in the hall with her makeup bag, she would say, "You went without for thirteen years of your life, why is it suddenly so urgent?"

How'd this dumb dumb get into Magician's College? One time Chiara said that out loud but it didn't end well for her; la mamma grounded her for three weeks with no screens. It was so unfair, Stella was being so unfair, she who needed only a dab of rose dew on her cheeks to look like a painting of a reina, eyes huge and sparkling between heavy natural lashes. And she knew why.

Trying not to let the taunt distract her from the structure of shadows she was building up on her lid, Chiara growled in her throat and her mind ranted, but there was no time to spare on that, because Mamma would be coming with the baby's poopy diaper any minute.

But Stella was full of doodoo too, she knew why. And who wore makeup the first thirteen years of their life, stupid? And yes, she used to go to school with no makeup when all the girls started wearing it, but Stella knew why it was urgent now, the dumb witch. She knew full well that if Chiara didn't show up to school every day a looking like a model out of a magazine, the other kids wouldn't see her, Chiara, they would always see Kiran.

Kiran, the feminine boy they used to call Fea, Brutta, qabīḥa, because he was so girly. That kid who didn't seem one thing or the other. Not a girl, definitely not a boy, though. Caught between.

She didn't want to be between. She wanted to be a reina. A queen.

Contouring complete, Chiara levitated down the stairs to the breakfast table, spirit light and floating, just in time, with seconds to spare, to pass la mamma coming with baby Kailasa's diaper stinking up the place like clockwork each morning.

In the kitchen she stored lipstick and mascara in the outer pocket of her schoolbag. That part she could do in the car on the way.

Every morning when Mamma came down with baby Kailasa, she would stop in the doorway watching Chiara daintily dip and scoop her cereal spoon and say something to the effect of, "Are you sure you aren't too young for all that makeup, cuore mio?"

This morning it was, "You don't want to grow up too fast, mio tesoro."

"Mamma, you always say that. And I always tell you, if one girl wears eyeshadow like this we all have to. Don't you remember from your school days?"

Mamma would hand her the baby, clean now and smelling like powder, and double fist coffee and a slice of toast. On the moto ride to school, Chiara sat behind Stella and applied black magic to her lashes, the cheapest mascara in the store bought with a meager allowance, but she kind of liked the clumps. The way the thick, chunky mascara on her lashes kind of made her look like a scrapper. The tough girl look in contrast to the flower pink lace embroidery of her camicia and pearl silver skirt; she loved all styles, rocker bad girl and chic preppy bookworm and prim, delicate flower.

Today Mamma looked back as a sudden brake made Chiara smudge some of the black magic on her upper lid. The little wand came with a magic erase button, which she employed, dusting the smudge out of existence.

"Right of passage," said Mamma, fondness escaping her lips in a reluctant smile. And Stella looked back and a toothy perfect smile broke loose, lit up her easy, angelic perfection, rosebud round cheeks delighted.

The love she was feeling made Chiara crack a grin with her nude glossy lips. She kept the lipstick subdued to allow the eyes so much brushing, dusting, blending, drafting, sketching and crafting had gone into to take center stage.

Just like the tutorial links said to.

In the car she lingered and said, "I love you, Goodbye, Mamma," and couldn't get out of the car until la mamma turned around in her seat and caught her eyes and said, "Goodbye, amore mia, I love you," just like every morning.

The maestra still called her Kiran on the attendance list, and every morning the whole class would turn and look at her, and then the loudmouths would defend her to Maestra Nyeon.

"Her name is Chiara now," said Ura, the skinny troublemaker in the back in an animated cap, every day a different image, fireworks booming or lightning flash dripping or rain crashing down.

Next to Ura, his inseparable partner Saory said, "Are you the most forgetful maestra on the planet?" On her black night skirt moons waxed and waned.

Maestra Nyeon would always push non-existent glasses back up her nose, a force of habit that must remain from a day before vision correction spells, and say, "My mistake, I'm sorry, it's all so new."

"It's not new," said Song, Chiara's crush. "Read a history book." The cute boy in the front row, a class clown, he sat in the front and not the back so he could look up every time he made a joke and feel like he was in front of the rest of the class on a comedy stage.

Today he sounded serious but that was the joke, the irony of this jokester delivering a perfectly composed smartypants argument: "Ancient philosophers participated in gender changing thousands of years ago, and wrote treatises on how the only empirical and objective way to determine which sex had it better would be to experience both, that is, knowledge a posteriori, from direct experience. Sumerian priests and gala all dressed as women 4500 years ago, even the men. It's not new, magic just makes it accessible now."

Through all of this Chiara sat silent and as still as she could, like the pack was with her today, but if she made one wrong move, would they turn against her? If she didn't look pretty, if she talked like a boy, if she walked wrong or held her body wrong would that be the end of the support?

Thank you for reading Chiara's Star Part I. Please leave a star for me if you're into her story.