The Last Translator

She read the first clause and understood: this was a land reclassification bill that required the official termination of Mirean as a recognised language in order to proceed.

'You will need to find another way,' she told the ministry. 'I am not available to participate in this.'

The legal challenge took four years. She spent them in courtrooms, and in the evenings teaching herself to type Mirean so it would exist in more forms than breath.

The bill failed. Not permanently — such things return in new envelopes. But Kirra had bought years, and years, she discovered, were enough.