The Shade. After 700 years living in the neighborhood, Cielo truly loved it. The way you loved a sibling who's always breaking your heart, getting into trouble, blowing up aer life, and, occasionally, getting locked up.

The Shade. It wasn't the overcast skies that bothered Cielo, whose madre had given aer a name that means Sky for the love of them. Unconditional love brought an acceptance of the cloud cover and the cool air year round. Always nippy, so you would need to carry a jacket, and couldn't leave the house in shorts or a summer skirt — which meant, wrapped in skinnies and a suéter, if you trekked into any other Soliara barrio the sun would sweat you out as you peeled off layers you'd have to carry along with you.

You could always cooling spell yourself, but it got cara as the cost started to add up. As would sending your suéters through a link home.

Better to just stay in the chill relief of home. And upon returning from anywhere else, sweat drenched and sun-soaked, the Shade provided that sweetest windy embrace. The whole barrio was an ice box — free of charge — and Cielo loved how it cooled aer down in the skinnies that were always too tight, clingy to aer wide thighs.

Aeh loved it, and Samura loved it, so why leave?

The people, mostly.

For a century there, the sun came out more and more. No one knew why. For a century or so, Sol rained its beams happily over inhabitants and the weekenders, and word spread, and the barrio became popular — and you would think that would be a good thing, but as word spread . . . it brought . . . change.

You could get sun anywhere in Soliara, but could you get Luz's Arepas or Lamfen's jianbing crepes? The Dosa at Sahan Family had long been a draw — filling, nutritious, its fragrant chickpea sheet encasing potatoes and onions in masala spices. The aroma crossed Lira Street with every cold breeze. People used to link straight in and out of the Shade to get it.

The sunlit streets during that hot spell invited them to stay, though, and wander until they had room for an helado or a fried buñeulo from Benecio's.

The newcomers would stop in their tracks suddenly on the narrow streets to point and capture magic prints of the political murals or rainbow graffiti, or the painted little houses that had survived urban renewal (so far). The newcomers would scoff in their open toed shoes and sandals at the broken bottle glass on the ground, and — often — that of broken moto windows.

They snapped up scarves and tanks crafted by hand, sans magic — and that business heated up, and so along came the booths of knockoffs with replica factory made bags, necklaces, tanks, dresses, wispy shawls and light throws, at a low cost that pushed the old artisans right out. Near identical textiles sprouted up on every corner, replacing the one of a kind goods. And who could complain about that? The magic stuff was high quality, durable, long lasting . . . and it all looked the same. Everywhere you looked, girls had the same hot pink tote, the same flowering blue skirt, the same magic cast leather satchel, the same rose bud gold chains.

And the newcomers would drop solidae in the hats of grayscale homeless who had given up the color spells that replaced the pigmentation leached away by immortality, which was nice. At times, though, they avoided them, steering wide to avoid an assumed smell or an uncomfortable confrontation, thus blocking the way when Cielo was trying to get aer bags of groceries home (choosing to walk and not link for the exercise, but wanting to be quick in case the helado in aer bag should melt so aeh wouldn't need to shell out on a cooling spell during the hot spell).

No one made any effort whatsoever not to bump, slide, meander or wander right into aer way.

And they stayed. Because the weather was nice. They moved in. Fine, the more the merrier. The problem was, the cloud and fog would roll back in. And when it did, the people of the Shade began to grumble. They started to whine and whine. You could overhear them complaining all the time.

"Why is there always broken glass everywhere?"

"Why don't those lazy homeless immortals go back to magicians college, why don't they get jobs?"

"Why is it always cloudy?"

In THE SHADE! Seriously!

Always complaining, and never doing a thing about it.

As if they weren't a part of it. They chose to live here, but it didn't really sound like they loved the Shade.

Loved defunct stores and obsolete mailboxes carved and painted with hidden artwork, or the onmibus full of grayscale folks trying to get to work, or the solid fog gray sky, or the pops of fireworks intruding on slumbers.

Or the blaring music erupting out of speaker link portals, transmitting the live bands at bars or concerts into the streets to bring the blasts of dance to Lira and Forns and Leo street (it was too dissonant, or too early, or too late, or too loud, or they just didn't like that kind of music).

Or the gatherings of grayscale immortals smoking and chatting around the underground entrance who would bring folding chairs to sit on because the city tore out benches to stop them from gathering there (the newcomers were afraid they could be asked to spare some coin).

Or the tap and bang of makeshift drumkits (that grayscale immortal was asking you for some spare coin) or the laughter of the brown paper baggers. Nor did they love the overturned garbage cans, the clank of the bottles collected from them in the early morning for 10 solidae a piece as the grayscale folks picked out glass bottles to be returned before they got smashed in the street (easier to recycle spell them if they were all in one piece, all in one place).

All of these immortals would be in Cielo's heart, always, and so aeh loved all of it, but if it was going to all continue under the voice over track of Why's it so dirty and Why are all the grayscales on Story, laid out unconscious out front of the stores and ‌Why does it always smell like mierda? and why, why, why . . . then they could have it.

Samura and Cielo were getting out.

#

"Go to unit P4 and and if you have any questions, just ask!" the Stellar message had read.

"Do we just show ourselves around?" No answer to Cielo's message arrived by the time the elevator reached the top floor; the building returned to hard opaque reality, and the solid elevator doors let Cielo and aer esposa out on a landing.

Wide viewing links like windows showed the view outside in an expansive vista so they could see out at the hedgerow park and pretty classic houses from the interior corridor within the walls of apartments. A view from so high up extending to the waterfront, the sea, the blue sky horizon.

A cool air rushed around Cielo's body, getting in all the nooks and crannies to relieve the sweats aeh always felt, especially outside the Shade, especially when skinnies encased aer curves with little ventilation. It smelled like lilac up here, faint and refreshing, and the top floor atmosphere felt comforting and a little mesmerizing; something in the air seemed to tinkle and slowly fall on the edges of aer vision, like slow motion petals coming down from a floralwood, or snowflakes, but every time aeh turned aer head to catch a glimpse, the floaters vanished.

Creeping around, searching for P4 and peeking at the doors to the left and right, marked P5, P6, P7, P8, then oddly P2 and P3, the feeling returned that at any moment a tenant would come out and ask if they lived here. It felt as if they were intruders in someone else's building, not least because neither girl had ever lived in such a snazzy place.

It wouldn't have felt that way had Drishti come to show them around. Where oh where was she?

No idea whether to try around the corner to the left or right, they silently agreed to try left, rounded the corner and saw they were wrong when they hit P1, and then backed way up together the way they came backwards.

Always laughing at unspoken jokes, Samura nearly lost it now, delirious with laughter as they backed up together as if choreographed, and turned, together, to go the other way front-wise.

Two voices came from around the door that was propped open — must be P4, as it was the last door on this level. The murmurs of a conversation bounded around the door and bounced off the walls, and so did bright light, and the cold air of a cooling spell.

Voices? Cielo had taken the earliest appointment slot. And was the door to this unit being left unlocked all day? Who did that? Left their place unlocked all day?

Squatters could get in, could tail a tenant with the fingerprints to get in, hang out and wait till dark and slink through the halls and get people. Or something.

It was odd. What if someone was waiting for Cielo and Samura in there? What if this was a trap, someone trying to get them?

Hand raised to push the door or knock, aeh hadn't even decided which yet, another hand pushed it from the inside and aeh needed to lean back and get out of the way of two immortals coming out. Both grayscale folks. The tall woman had short straight black hair and narrow hips, and the parens coming out behind tossed cascades of braids streaming over aer shoulder, beaded as if ready for a starborn to play with, the curves like an hourglass giving aer gender away. Yet few grayscale immortals would be able to shell out for a starborn and the child's immortal animus . . . unless they had given up color to save up?

Stunned, Cielo's words faltered. "Oh, um . . . sorry. We were . . . we're here to look at P4?" Questioning inflection on a non-question once more.

Two sets of eyes, narrow and then wide, fell on Samura and Cielo. Then glided past the couple, and the two grayscales glided down the hall toward the elevator without a word.

Feet planted where they were, on either side of the open doorway, the esposas stayed planted, only their hips swiveling till they faced each other to give each other the same look again, like What was that? What is this? What's happening?

Face scrunching with the incredulity, Samura said, "Um, this must be the place. No other doors on this floor."

Lost for words, Cielo's face matched aer esposa's puzzled expression, mind working out what's happening — what was that couple doing, no offense meant but what would a grayscale couple be doing looking at this expensive apartment — or did they just give up their color to afford a place like this? The stigma around the impoverished who did that usually prevented regular people from such a cost-saving measure.

Why did they leave the door unlocked?

Why did not they not seem to hear them?

And where can Drishti be?

On the Stellar, aer question hovered without an answer.

Thank you for reading Episode I of Cielo's Star! If you liked it, please leave a star. This story will update on Monday with the thrilling conclusion! Tune in, friends! <3