The full Ijo stands. Each member clasps their wrists and bows their heads in your direction. When they raise their heads, they break their grasp. They hold their fists out as they shout.

“Hoo!”

A chorus of finger snaps issue from when the Yar’adua family congregate. Bayard, head of their family, steps forward. “We see you, Amachi Adisa, daughter of Xola Adisa and Selamault Jywanza. Long may you serve.”

“I offer all in service to Muungano,” you say.

You catch sight of Maulana Buhari, gliding through the crowd, a shark among a scattering school of fish parting as he nears. Your heart skips a measure before finding itself again. You have admired the man for almost as long as you have drawn breath. You have studied his fiery words as faithfully as an agoze, holding him second only to Xola in your heart’s admiration. Marching with a quiet dignity—stiff and upright, ever overly mannered—he defers to the stateliness of the proceedings, but otherwise has no use for its symbolic pageantry. His dark eyes filled with both a devouring hunger and a protective menace. He has a way of looking at everything, constantly calculating its potential threat. His face full of intent, he whispers in his elder’s ear.

“Are there any matters to bring before the Ijo?” Camara Xola asks, both knowing and expectant.

A Buhari elder stands, his face a filigree of wrinkles, and an expression on his face as if he’d just bitten into the sourest of apples. “The Buhari name Maulana, son of Hakeem and Tiamoyo Buhari, as the duly appointed head of our family.”

A few gasps ripple among the Ijo. The Buhari elder was certainly due to step down, but an elder usually relinquished his seat only after sufficient notice for the Ijo to arrange a proper gratitude ceremony. A move this sudden, without so much as a warning whisper, portents nothing but ill.

Your stomach churns with anticipation, since you already have little room or love for such grandstanding.

“We see you, Maulana Buhari,” Bayard ordains. “Long may you serve.”

“I see you.” Usually not one to be caught up on procedural matters, Maulana remains standing. From the graveness of his face, the vague unease you experienced at his entrance begins to curdle into something solid. “Camara, I’m afraid that I come bearing sobering news.”

“What is it, Maulana?” Camara Xola bridges his fingers, his gaze leveled at the table.

“It’s Jaha.”

02 JAHA DIMKA
The Muungano Embassy on (Original) Earth

“A storyteller is a master strategist. A skilled griot sees people as characters, participants in a tale. They apply motives and goals to people, because stories are driven by them. They police Muungano by confronting our members with reminders of who they are, who we are, and pointing them to the future of what we hope to become.”