in color | Glowfic Constellation

His hair is green.

His mother was green, and in lots of places he would follow her, but Anitam is not one of those places; castes are patrilineal. He is a blue with hair inconveniently reminiscent of his dead mother, that's all. He will grow up and be a politician or a diplomat or an ambassador, like his father, like his father's second wife. His mother did embroidery, stunningly beautiful tapestries and fabric concepts and artwork that hangs in the state buildings and museums. But he's not green, and he can't follow her.

He runs away from home, of course. He would probably have done that anyway; looking back on it it feels a bit overdetermined. The hair would have been enough. Entis, his father's second wife, would have been enough. His siblings - two of them, blue in hair and ambitions and manner and talents - would have been enough. His hair is green. He runs away from home and shows up at a university in Anitam's third-largest city and sits in on classes, front row, asking questions and taking notes and turning in effortlessly brilliant problem sets.

In the third week he tells a professor, biting his lip, that he's not technically enrolled - family couldn't come up with tuition this year, and said maybe next, but he didn't want to wait - and the professor ruffles his hair (green!) and says that it's a delight to grade his work, he can keep sitting in and if he does well he'll talk with the administration at semester's end.

He excels in all five classes he sat in on. They find a scholarship. He vaguely mentions his mother's family.

He graduates with honors and co-authorship of four papers and offers from eight higher degree programs. He accepts one and publishes machine learning papers at a pace that has his advisors gently asking if he's going to burn out and he's green green green and he lives off microwave dinners and praise and envy and he marries the co-author of one of his papers about fluid dynamics and eventually someone pieces together his parentage and asks -

"Are you," he says, "suggesting that someone wrote my papers for me?"

" - I - what - no - I was at your thesis defense, no one else could possibly have -"

"Right. So then are you suggesting that the person who achieved those things wasn't even green?"

"There's no need to be confrontational. I was just - it's matrilineal lots of other places."

"Yes, it is."

And he's green green green.

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alicornucopia

She beams. And puts on the dress. And when Inlad comes to fetch her she offers him her hand.

He takes it.

And he introduces her to everybody!

"How did you find the decontamination procedure, it sounds terribly onerous."

alicornucopia

"Oh, it was exhausting, I hope they have a way to cut it down in the future. I'm delighted to be out. It's lovely to meet you, I'm Shasali."

"Aitim. Do you know what you want to do?"

alicornucopia

"I'm strongly considering judgeship, but I'm open to other ideas, as I have only secondhand notions of what most possibilities involve."

"And we've a real problem with accurate expectations about what the work looks like even internally, it wouldn't surprise me if most people out-of-caste, surveyed, would say the blue jobs are 'sending people to jail' and 'coming up with rules'. - perhaps the reds would add 'proposing robots -'"

Kan Neli

"Yes, that's an occupation all its own."

"Wins you elections but does dreadful things to your insurance payments - on the topic of jobs that actually do exist Isel's trying to reform riot procedures so no one would die. But I think it might be to your advantage not to overtly focus on red issues."

"It's to everyone's advantage not to overtly focus on red issues."

"This has not escaped me! Notice how few opinions I voiced in public on the subject until it looked like -"

alicornucopia

"I'm hardly unwilling to deploy what perspective I have on the subject," says Shasali, "except to the extent it might cast doubt on perceived legitimacy of my caste shift."

Kan Neli

"You can privately advise Isel just like everyone else who has an idea and doesn't want their name on it. This being accepted is more important - only solution in the long run -"

"I think you should do something totally unrelated and moderately public-facing - possibly not a judge since it's a job that gets people annoyed with you, though if you think you can handle it it's not a bad choice - and then in four or five years lean into some role with international contact, get people used to the idea before they forget their history lessons -"

alicornucopia

"What would you recommend?" asks Shasali. "Inlad suggested moving somewhere too small to have anyone to elect mayor, but that may not be ideal for exposure."

"I really wouldn't want to guess without knowing what you're good at, it being something you are good at being very important - or we could try to get the different pieces different places, get you a seat on the board of directors at Tamai for the general mostly-friendly-and-constructive exposure and then maybe something on the judicial track but low-exposure - yellow criminal court -"

Kan Neli

"How're you getting her a seat at Tamai -"

"Sorcery."

"You wouldn't give me a university board seat."

"You should endeavor to be important to ongoing plans of mine!"

"Does this mean that if i invite Shasali out for dinner my political prospects mysteriously brighten in ways unconnected to you -"

"If it did I am sure I'd know nothing about it, the ways being unconnected to me. - but quite seriously have a wedding this fall and a child this spring and people'll feel far less free to mutter about the cleaning."

" - you're as bad as my grandparents -"

alicornucopia