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_posts/2016-12-26-assignment.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Assignment"
+description: Ioan Balan is a historian and blogger assigned to research a flash-cult. Things go sideways, and he's left with more story than expected.
+img: # Add image post (optional)
+tags: [Post-Self, Short Story, Rated G]
+author: # Add name author (optional)
+---
+
+The feeling of an instance merging state back with the tracker would never NOT make Ioan Balan#tracker uneasy. It wasn't the differences in experiences, those could be anticipated, so much as the tiny changes in identity that resulted. Having to internalize a slightly different version of yourself was too close to experiencing a doppelgänger. Or perhaps hanging with a sib, fresh home from a semester abroad.
+
+Ioan#tracker had never been abroad, had no siblings. Just new memories.
+
+Ey set aside eir work --- a simple bit of nothing for a blogging organization that really didn't matter but nonetheless offered some reputation --- and sat back to deal with the squirming, greasy feeling of the merger.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan Balan#{{ page.instance }} was forked on suggestion of one of Ioan#tracker's friends as a way to inspect and experience life among a flashcult. Although the lifespan of the group was likely to be measured in months, or even weeks, Ioan figured it was a worthwhile investigation. Ey had an investigative journalism gig that could use a story like this.
+
+The forking had gone quite according to plan. Ioan#tracker had no reason to expect otherwise, of course, and when the instance was rendered in front of em, the two shared a perfunctory handshake and went over notes one last time before the instance headed out to catch transit to as close to the flashcult as ey could get.
+
+\#{{ page.instance }} took little time to settle into life among the cultists. Ioan was affable, likable. It was part of why ey had found the work of an investigative journalist easy, and why ey had quickly gone from low to high reputation in the field. The problem ey kept running into was boredom, rather than burning out.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan#tracker was left feeling let down, as ey perused what ey had been left of #{{ page.instance }}'s state. Ey used a fairly standard, off-the-shelf algorithm to cut down on the sheer amount of state ey would have to sift through to gain something from the instance's brief --- ey checked the date --- three weeks, two days of existance. It was enough to gain most of the knowledge and a good portion of the emotional and intellectual slices from the state, which was all ey needed for eir work. A full merge would've taken too long, and may have even been counterproductive: ey needed an amanuensis, not a recording device, for eir reporting.
+
+The 'assignment', such as it was, had been fairly straightforward, and Ioan#tracker had expected little of interest from the state dump. The flashcult was strange, but not too out of the ordinary, so ey sped up eir perusal, skimming.
+
+A sharp jolt of fear.
+
+A pain that stretched from physical to existential.
+
+EOF.
+
+Ioan#tracker sat up straighter, brow furrowed. Ey skipped back through a few chunks of state to where ey had started to get bored.
+
+-----
+
+The flashcult was strange, but not too out of the ordinary. Ioan#{{ page.instance }}, with no journalistic duties, found eirself getting into the swing of things with ease.
+
+It was a sort of weird vacation, performing weird rituals that slowly began to make a weird sort of sense, knowing that at some weird moment, ey would either get too bored and quit or receive a SIGTERM. When ey caught the signal, ey would either have have to acquiesce and quit right then, find a place to step aside and quit, or risk crashing. But mostly lots of loafing around.
+
+As work, being an amanuensis was merely inoffensive. Not super interesting, kind of relaxing, and maybe something interesting would happen that eir tracker could turn into a story.
+
+It was during one of the rituals --- a call-and-response prayer wherein the members seemed to be working on memorizing progressively longer digits of numbers --- when the co-cultist beside em let out a soft sigh that turned into a quiet giggle.
+
+Then she turned to em, grinned beatifically, and winked.  Winked!
+
+Ioan#{{ page.instance }} watched her raise her hand and call the ceremony to a halt, saying almost dreamily, "I found them."
+
+Faced turned toward em, all smiling that same, kind, peaceful smile.  Ey sat dumbly, looking from face to face.  "I...yes?" ey managed.
+
+"You're the one," a voice chimed in.
+
+Another added, "The reporter. You're the reporter."
+
+There was a thrill of fear that ran up #{{ page.instance }}'s spine. It had never been a strictly undercover operation, but neither had ey been forthcoming about why ey were there in the first place.
+
+Ioan#{{ page.instance }} lifted eir hands from eir lap, palms up in a placating fashion. "Well," ey began. "I am a reporter, no denying, but I'm not here on offic-*urk!*"
+
+There was a sharp blow to the back of eir neck, knocking em flat to the ground, then a weight settling solidly onto eir back. One of the other members had sat on em.
+
+"Congrats, Ana," said the cultist on eir back.
+
+"Three weeks and a day, getting better," another grinned, and others soon chimed in, reaching in to shake hands with the young woman who had originally pointed em out.
+
+Ioan#{{ page.instance }} picked out the face of the lector in the crowd, an older person of indeterminate sex who had always struck em as rather vacuous. It was a difficult task, from eir viewpoint on the ground, and since all the adherents wore identical clothing, there were few clues.
+
+"This is the tenth iteration. As we discussed before you arrived, we'll tell you, now."
+
+The fear continued to well within #{{ page.instance }}, growing in intensity.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan#tracker set eir usual algorithm aside for the merger, requesting that the entirety of the instance's state, from that last ritual on, be merged with em. It wasn't the first time ey had done such a thing, but it was still rare enough for em to do so that ey had to look up how. Despite eir career depending on it, ey had never been all that good at the whole dissolution thing. Ey never even figured out how to name eir instances, relying instead on the random string of digits that the system generated for em.
+
+Once that had been organized, ey moved out onto the wrap-around deck and settled into one of the Adirondack chairs out there. Such things, ey suspected, were built primarily for thinking.
+
+Ey closed eir eyes, and let memories wash over em.
+
+-----
+
+The fear continued to well within #{{ page.instance }}, growing in intensity.
+
+"We're practicing, you see." The lector paced a slow circle around Ioan#{{ page.instance }} as they went on. "We start something interesting, wait for a reporter, and find them out. That's what we're practicing. Finding out who's watching, who's the reporter."
+
+Ana giggled once more, "It's a class, get it? An experiment, a dissection. You're the subject."
+
+The lector nodded and, having completed their circuit, leaned down to meet #{{ page.instance }}'s wide-eyed gaze. "And now we've got it reliably under a month. Time to make it known. What's your branch name?"
+
+"Ioan Balan#{{ page.instance }}," ey stuttered. "Bu-but why are you...what are...why are you doing this?"
+
+"We're looking for reliable ways to find out the reporters because," they paused, withdrawing a syringe from the billowy sleeve of their tunic. "Because some day we may not want to be seen."
+
+That wellspring of fear turned to a geyser.
+
+In the system, there was no real need for an actual syringe, so they had taken on a new, codified meaning of something that would modify an instance in some core fashion. Intent was thick in the air, so Ioan#{{ page.instance }} had no doubt that this was some sort of destructive virus.
+
+"Wait," ey gasped, finding eir breath coming in ragged, erratic bursts.
+
+There was no time to continue with mere words, only a hoarse shout. Eir fear spiked beyond what it felt ey were capable of containing as ey watched the hand bearing the syringe slide calmly toward them to efficiently slip the needle behind eir ear.
+
+Eir final thought before eir instance crashed was surprise at just how much it hurt to die. It was a pain that spread from eir head through eir body, from the physical reality of the sim to some existential plane.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan#tracker found eirself clutching at the arms of the deck chair, eir own breathing shallow and fast. Ey felt some of the same fear that eir instance had felt.
+
+What should ey do?
+
+A quick search showed ey couldn't turn over the instance. Little was actually 'recorded' in a useful fashion that any sort of authorities (such as there were) could use. The instances were eirs and eirs only. Ey certainly didn't want to confront the cultists, either as emself or through an instance. Ey didn't know how to change eir instances like some others did, so ey would just look like Ioan#{{ page.instance }} back from the dead.
+
+Ey realized that all ey could really do was what ey knew how to do best.
+
+Be a reporter.
+
+It was what the cult wanted, but ey felt the words and experiences stirring within em already. Hell, it's what *ey* wanted, too.
+
+Finally, an interesting assignment.

_posts/2017-01-23-apres-un-reve.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Apr\xE8s un r\xEAve"
+description: A young woman reluctantly goes through with the uploading procedure, risky though it is, to reconnect with her lover.
+img: # Add image post (optional)
+tags: [Post-Self, Short Story, Rated G]
+author: # Add name author (optional)
+---
+
+> *Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image  
+> Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage,  
+> Tes yeux étaient plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,  
+> Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l'aurore;*
+
+Echoes of Grace singing, memories and emotions, clashed with the doctor's words. "I know you've signed the waivers, but I need a verbal confirmation. Do you understand this?"
+
+Sylvie nodded. It was strange not to feel her hair, always so frizzy and buoyant, not following the motion a scant second too late.
+
+"The uploading process will be fatal and irreversible. There is some risk, about one and a half percent, that it won't work." The doctor paused and picked up a pen. She added, "Won't work after the point where your body will have died, that is. Do you understand?"
+
+A swallow, dry, and another nod. "What will happen in that case?"
+
+"Your family will receive a payout of ten million francs CFA. Your body will not be available for a burial, unfortunately." The doctor looked abashed. "The results of the process are --- ah, not pretty."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"One last bit, then. After the uploading process, successful or not, your blood, organs and tissue will be donated --- or, well, sold --- to a tissue bank in central Africa. Your family will receive ten percent of this, and the Centre the other ninety. This is to help defray the cost of the process."
+
+Sylvie thought for a moment, rubbed her hand over her smooth-shaven head. "About how much will that be?"
+
+"The cut to your family?" The doctor fiddled with her pen, twirling it across delicate dark fingers. "Lately, we've been getting about a hundred million francs, so again, about ten million. Not a bad payout, hmm?"
+
+Not bad indeed. Sylvie had little love for her family, minus her brother, so the payout wasn't a huge incentive, as it was for others. She just hoped Moussa wound up with a chunk of it.
+
+Unlikely, given her mother.
+
+She nodded her assent.
+
+"So then. Your surgery is scheduled in one hour. You have fifteen minutes before prep, which means fifteen more minutes to back out if you should choose. I'm going to head back to the team and leave you be to think this over." The doctor gestured to her right, "Dial zero on the phone on the desk if you wish to cancel."
+
+The doctor stood and leaned forward, offering her hand. Sylvie lifted herself out of her chair and accepted the handshake, feeling as though she needed to be careful of those delicate fingers. The grip was strong, though.
+
+As the doctor slipped out of the room, Sylvie settled back into the chair. She closed her eyes against the sight of all the posters advertising the procedure. "Upload today!" they said. "Experience a life beyond need!" they promised. "Work without pressure! Fork at will!" they hollered. Everything was so loud, so loud.
+
+She had them all memorized, anyway. Right now, she just wanted quiet. She just wanted to think of Grace.
+
+Grace with her silvering hair.
+
+Grace with her fair and smooth skin.
+
+Grace with her liquid laughter and lovely singing.
+
+They’d fallen in love within months, and shared only a scant few years together before being separated again. An impenetrable boundary of distance, of emulated sensorium and embodied flesh.
+
+Grace's decision hadn't been Sylvie's. Uploading, the thought of uploading, made Sylvie's skin itch and eyes ache. To be removed from this world and sent to another, to the System, didn't appeal to her.
+
+It did appeal to Grace.
+
+Grace with her failing voice.
+
+Grace with her deteriorating coordination.
+
+Grace with her pain, her depression.
+
+For Grace, it was a way to escape her body. That body that Sylvie loved so much, and was a prison to Grace. A voluntary procedure --- "Help combat overpopulation!" the posters howled --- but  also a way to neatly sidestep the MS slowly claiming her body and mind.
+
+After the upload, Grace had communicated with Sylvie through text, through mails sent to her terminal which she'd pour over at work. She begged Sylvie. *Come join, come upload,* she said. *The posters, they're all true, they're all right.*
+
+The thought *still* made her skin itch and her eyes ache, but all the same, she kept dreaming of Grace. Dreaming of softer eyes, of a voice more sonorous. Her Grace shining like the dawn.
+
+So she'd relented.
+
+> *Tu m'appelais et je quittais la terre  
+> Pour m'enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,  
+> Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues,  
+> Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entrevues,*
+
+Sylvie's mind was filled with Fauré, with that rolling, lilting theme. With Grace's voice.
+
+"We're going to keep you awake, okay? We need to, in order to tell when the upload is complete, but you'll under local anesthesia. It'll make you feel a little dreamy, may have visual disturbances." The doctor's smile was kind. "Some report it to be enjoyable."
+
+"Okay. How long will the upload take?"
+
+"The procedure will be about forty five minutes to prep you for upload, and then the upload will happen in two stages," the doctor said. "You'll be uploaded to a local node at our center, which will give you access to a waiting room of sorts for the System proper. The upload to the System will take several hours --- it's a lot of data, you understand --- so the waiting room will usually have you fork and the copy will be uploaded."
+
+"Create a copy of myself and let that be uploaded while I watch," she murmured. Sylvie thought for a moment, "What about the copy that remains?"
+
+"It's free to quit, like a program on your terminal quitting. But they --- the, ah, sysadmins --- usually request that it stay around in case the upload to the System gets interrupted for some reason."
+
+"And what will I feel if things go wrong?"
+
+The doctor hesitated, looked to her team. It was another team member, a man with a thick French accent, who responded. "We don't really know. The local node will pick up on it and alert us. Death just looks like death to us."
+
+Sylvie nodded. Tried to nod, at least. She was firmly strapped down. "Alright."
+
+There was a pinprick at the crook of her elbow. A feeling of coolness spread up her arm, into her chest. A tightness, there, and then a tightness along her neck. A brief moment of panic as she tried to flex her fingers.
+
+"Starting the neuromuscular blocker. This will paralyze your voluntary muscles, so don't panic about the feeling," the anesthesiologist mumbled, distracted. He tapped her forearm, sending a pins-and-needles flash through the right half of her body. "But it doesn't numb you. That will be the next one, the anesthetic."
+
+Sylvie attempted to speak, but only managed a grunt of assent.
+
+The anesthesiologist nodded, "Good. Here it comes, then."
+
+The coolness was replaced with a comfortable warmth.
+
+Not warmth, she realized. Nothingness. Floatingness. Leaving-the-earth-ness. Gone-ness.
+
+"Sylvie, can you hear me? You won't be able to speak or blink or nod, but can you try and take two quick breaths? It may be difficult. We'll intubate if necessary."
+
+Sylvie obeyed. Or thought she did, at least. She couldn't tell if the breaths were actually happening. It seemed to be enough for the anesthesiologist, whose shadow across her vision bowed and stepped out of sight.
+
+Time wandered.
+
+Voices rang with the tenor of bells, though she could still understand them. Surgeons talking to technicians.
+
+A dull, basso organ note of something grinding, her vision vibrating, blurring the sight of the light above the bed.
+
+The light took the form of Grace, and Sylvie more readily gave in to the effects of the drug.
+
+Grace with her angelic smile. Grace lifting her up, away from the earth. Grace running, running into the ring of that surgeon's lamp. Clouds, clouds parting.
+
+The organ note screamed up through several octaves.
+
+Calm, ringing voices.
+
+That yearning song tinkling through her mind. She was unable to tell whether it came from herself, or from one of the techs. Or maybe from Grace. *Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image...* Tinkling and flowing. Rocking. Drunken. Drunken on dreams.
+
+Minutes fled by. Hours. Days, perhaps. Always, in front of her, her angel. Pure white skin that contrasted beautifully against her own, cream spilled in coffee. Always lifting her up. How far did they have to go?
+
+Grace was drifting away from her, receding.
+
+The light flared in intensity. Somehow became black. A shining blackness amid a field of more blackness.
+
+Tugging, pulling.
+
+Prying.
+
+A snap.
+
+A sense of wrongness, of gravity.
+
+Falling away. Layers of self peeling back, each successive shedding revealing something more raw, more primal. Molting. The boundary between her Self and the blackness complicating, fraying, fading.
+
+Grace was gone, too, faded to nothing.
+
+*Come back!* Sylvie shouted into the nothingness. Her fists, raw and exposed to their very core, to the concept of Fist sans physical representation, pounded at the blackness. Pounded at herself.
+
+*Come back! Come back! Grace!* She wailed. Screamed. Sobbed.
+
+*Grace...*
+
+A whisper against building chords, Grace's sweet voice.
+
+> *Hélas! Hélas! triste réveil des songes  
+> Je t'appelle, ô nuit, rends moi tes mensonges,  
+> Reviens, reviens radieuse,  
+> Reviens ô nuit mystérieuse!*
+
+The team stood still. There was no written protocol as to what one should do while the local node processed the upload, but they always remained silent. The doctor held her breath every time.
+
+A small pinging noise. The local readout flashed red.
+
+Shoulders sagged around the room.
+
+"Error in processing upload." The tinny speaker sounded impersonal. Perhaps it was designed that way to play down the loss. "Irrecoverable data corruption. Please check all contacts before continuing or contact System support for a technician for a full rig inspection."
+
+"Well." The anesthesiologist's voice, so human,  contrasted with the words from the speaker. "That's that, then."
+
+"That's that," the doctor echoed. She sighed and backed away from Sylvie's body. It was empty, now. A husk. "I'll start the paperwork and call her family and the insurance company. Get the payout processed as soon as possible."
+
+The other team members nodded. None of them looked happy.
+
+"Go on, get her cleaned up and sent to the handlers." She trudged out of the room slowly, her feet dragging. Pulling off her gloves, one by one, she added, "At least someone will get something out of this. Alas."
+
+Prayers began around the corpse.
+
+<!--
+In a sleep which held your charmed image
+I dreamed of happiness, passion-filled mirage,
+Your eyes were softer, your voice pure and sonorous,
+You shone like a sky lit by the dawn;
+
+You called me and I left the earth
+To flee with you to the light,
+The heavens for us were opening their clouds,
+Splendors unknown, glimmering glimpses of the divine
+
+Alas! Alas! Sad awakening of dreams
+I call you, O night, bring back your lies,
+Come back, come back radiant,
+Come back, O mysterious night!
+-->

_posts/2017-05-08-the-fool.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: The Fool
+description: A student and a motherly badger explore questions of identity through a tarot reading.
+img: # Add image post (optional)
+tags: [Sawtooth, Short Story, Furry, Rated G]
+author: # Add name author (optional)
+---
+
+The badger looms over a small table, the short sleeve of her smock tugged down toward the table by a glass candy thermometer. A deck of colorful cards rest neatly stacked on its surface.
+
+Contrary to expectations, the room is bright and spacious. No hint of incense or dark velour drapes, just a simple living room in a simple home, a simple badger and some simple cards. She can't be older than fifty, and she's of a more motherly bent than a mystical one.
+
+*More motherly than my mother, at least*, I think. *More earthy and far less mystical.*
+
+"Tell me about your day, Avery," she begins, and as I speak, she shuffles a worn deck of cards, nodding along with me. She draws cards yan tan tethera, and lays them face up on the table with a casual slowness that does little to distract from my words. Still, my language is stilted, and I find myself tracing the edges of the table with my gaze or watching her paws rather than making eye contact.
+
+"Now," she says when I trail off to an uneasy silence. The badger, the table and cards, a bright room with motes in afternoon sunbeams; an image more meaningful than I anticipated. And me --- dingy clothes draped over a broad frame I never wanted --- out of place. "Here are three cards. Look, and tell me the first thing you notice."
+
+"Notice?" I ask. I sound dubious even to myself.
+
+"Notice," she confirms. "What do you see? When you look at the cards, what jumps out at you? Colors, motions, angles and lines. What do you see?"
+
+I stare at the badger. She stares back, then lets out a kindly laugh and gestures down at the cards.
+
+Three cards, laid out in a line. I move my stare to those, more bewildered than anything, trying to pick out singular things. "From each of them? One at a time?"
+
+She shrugs, smiling not unkindly.
+
+*Odd,* I think. *How such a small task could feel overwhelming.*
+
+I puff out a breath of air, whiskers bristling, and tap at the first card. "Well, this one's upside down, for starters. The, uh...Page of Wands." Digging through memories, I try, "A page is like a squire or something, right? Someone who helps a knight?"
+
+"Yes, a young person, someone in training." She grins and nods down to the remaining stack of cards. "There are knights in the deck, too, but that's for another time."
+
+Whiskers still canted forward, I nod and hesitate for a moment. "So, what does it being upside down mean?"
+
+"You tell me."
+
+I roll my eyes. Still, she sounds kind rather than petulant or snide, so I think about upside-down cards. Upside-down figures, upside-down and tipped over, upset in the literal sense of the word. Upside-down meanings. Meanings inverted, reversed, turned over.
+
+"I think I see." I intend it as the beginning of a sentence, but seeing the badger's smile widen, I leave it at that. I shut out the other cards, focus on the Page. "In training, hmm? They looks like they're investigating or contemplating. The, uh...I guess the wand. The wand is the only thing growing, the only thing with green in the entire scene."
+
+"Learning about life. Investigating growth." The badger nods, but neither confirming nor sage. Simply agreeing. "But reversed."
+
+"Not learning?" At this, I sense her expression close down. It's not a visible thing; it's a sensation of her movement of thought being put on hold. "Not...not doing anything with learning, perhaps?"
+
+The badger nods. I can see the clip on her thermometer holding it to the over-washed fabric, see beads of sugar still clinging to glass, bobbing with her movements. "Wands are for beginnings, for doing. Or perhaps activating is better." She sets a paw next to the card. "This Page --- a bear, maybe? I've never figured that out --- is learning, but not moving, not beginning. There is knowledge, but no decision."
+
+"Activation energy!" I blurt, and, seeing questions in her eyes, continue. "Like in chemistry. It's dorky, but there has to be enough energy for an electron to jump from one sphere to the next; it just sits there otherwise. It needs the proper amount of activation energy to get going."
+
+Questions turn to understanding, but her gaze stays locked on mine, waiting.
+
+"I don't have the energy."
+
+"Perhaps not. Or perhaps you do, but you're --- you or something within you --- is not letting it reach the activation. The energy may be there, but blocked."
+
+I have to restrain myself from a snide smile. A reaction to my mom's mysticism, maybe. To crystals and blocked energy. In the badger, though, I sense only earnestness. "Energy as in will? Purpose?"
+
+She shrugs. My choice, apparently.
+
+"Everything's yellow in the card--"
+
+"Energetic color, yellow."
+
+"--yellow except for the black of the salamanders on their coat-thing."
+
+She nods, murmurs down to the card, "His creations, perhaps. How many full ones do you see?"
+
+I lean closer, nudging glasses further up my blunt snout. "Two, maybe three out of a dozen or so."
+
+"If the card were upright, those other ones would be creations yet to happen." Her voice carries knowledge, and more authority than she's shown yet. "Reversed, that becomes flipped around. It could be creations abandoned, or it could be things you're afraid to start.
+
+"These cards named after people or titles --- the page, the knight, the king, the queen --- they're sometimes about people. Maybe this card's about you. Or they all could be. Maybe--"
+
+I smirk, nod my head toward the second card. "So I'm the fool?"
+
+"Maybe they're just facets of yourself." She finishes, returning my smirk.
+
+Thus chastened, I look at the second card. "Okay, well, there's a dog, one of those breeds with short fur, though it doesn't look like any of the dogs I've met. He's--" I catch myself, seeing androgyny in the dog's features and tamping down the yearning for my own. "They're stepping toward the edge of a cliff, with a little spirit thing dancing at their feet. They have one of those sticks with a bag tied to the end, but their tunic thing is what has me thinking. It's all growing things." I lean in closer and add, "And little splashes of water. Green and blue with flowers on navy."
+
+We sit in silence for a moment while I think about the card more.
+
+"There's a good balance of colors, come to think of it. More than the Page, at least. Blue and green and red and yellow." I hesitate, staring at the lean canine muzzle: the balance continues there, masculine and feminine, hard and soft, focused and uncaring. I say nothing, and wonder why.
+
+The older woman nods slowly. "It's a fancy shirt, no denying. It'd look good on you."
+
+I laugh, to which she looks up, smiling. "Seriously. It's a good mix. You're a good mix, too. But you wear all drab colors. Why's that?"
+
+There's a sudden flush to my cheeks, at my appearance being so deliberately addressed. I lay my ears back. A blush along with the first hints of annoyance. These are soon replaced with simple embarrassment. "I don't want to-- I mean, I don't think I'd look good in bright colors or fancy clothes."
+
+"I think you would." She hastens to continue, speaking over my mounting disagreements, "I think you'd look good, if you dressed how you wanted. Don't you?"
+
+I frown at her. She continues, "You didn't say you don't want to dress in bright colors and fancy clothes. You started to say you didn't want to do something else."
+
+I held my breath. Anger is the wrong word for what I feel. Frustration? Humiliation, perhaps. Am I so transparent?
+
+"I don't want to," I begin in a rush of pent-up breath, feeling that struggle blown out with it. My shoulders sag, and I complete the statement more slowly. "I don't want to be seen like that."
+
+"The fool, here, they're everything. They're the beginning of all things, and they've already got all of the endings inside themselves. At the beginning of all journeys, there's the fool: taking that first step is a fool's gamble, after all." She pauses, looking at me earnestly, intently. "You caught yourself earlier, you said 'he' and then switched to 'they'."
+
+I hunch down into my slouched shoulders, muzzle dipping as I struggle for words. "They looked-- I mean, It's on my mind, I guess."
+
+"I'll come clean," she admits after a pause, dark paws fiddling with the remainder of the deck, straightening cards. "Your mom told me you were coming, so I know that much. Even if she hadn't, though, it's written on your face. I mean this in the best possible way, Avery, but you don't make a very good man."
+
+I close my eyes. I shut out the cards, the motherly badger. Motherly in the sense of speaking truths, in the sense of knowing children, in having seen them grow up. Motherly in lived experience. Experience lived in the moment, not in some dream world of crystals and chakras. *More motherly than my mom,* I think.
+
+When I open my eyes, her gaze has softened.
+
+"Why three cards?" I ask, deflecting.
+
+"Past, present, and future." She laughs.
+
+I nod, then sit up a little straighter, murmuring, "So it's more that past me that didn't have the activation energy?"
+
+"Or didn't want to use it, yes."
+
+"That makes more sense, then."
+
+"How so?"
+
+I shrug, continuing, "If I'm at the beginning of something now, it's because of how much time I spent fretting --- and not starting --- before."
+
+She nods. "And are you at the beginning of something now?"
+
+"I think so." I sound dubious, even to myself.
+
+"Why now?"
+
+"College," I say.
+
+"Away from home?"
+
+"Mmhm."
+
+She nods again. "It's a little freeing, isn't it? Being away from parents. So you, like the Page of Wands, have been investigating, leaving all that energy pent up inside. And now you're ready to...to what? Take that step?"
+
+I catch myself fiddling with the hem of my shirt. It's an olive color, faded further into drabness by countless washings, no fancy tunic; even her washed-out smock is brighter than my shirt. It doesn't go with my fur. Nor do the well-worn khakis. A darker animal dressed in those would look rough and tumble, ready for a hike. A mountain lion looks like a mess of dirty laundry.
+
+I look up from my dull self to the table once more, speaking to the cards. "I have an appointment to start talking about it --- talking about gender --- with a counselor."
+
+"Congratulations," the badger says, smiling. And I realize she doesn't need to say anymore. I realize *that's* what I needed from my mom. I realize that's probably why my mom sent me here. I realize that there's probably more to my mom than I gave her credit for.
+
+I realize I've stopped thinking of this --- the tarot card reading --- as something mystical.
+
+I speak up, "The third card, then."
+
+The badger returns her gaze to the table.
+
+"It feels impenetrable to me."
+
+She laughs and shakes her head. "It's not a book. You're not writing a report on its deeper meanings. You're picking up on some of those meanings, but you don't have to do it right away or all the time. Or at all, for that matter." Still grinning, guides my attention back down to the card with a gesture, badger and cougar looming over the table. "Just tell me what you see."
+
+Abashed, I return her smile as best I can. "Alright. It's a...well, I want to say a woman and a child being ferried across a lake or something, but the boat they're in has six swords in it. They're upright, like they've been stabbed through the bottom of the boat."
+
+"Stabbed? Like they're going through the wood?"
+
+"Yeah."
+
+"Is water coming up around them?"
+
+I look harder. The bottom of the boat is pitch dark. "I can't tell, but no one seems in a rush to get them out, anyway."
+
+This gets a chuckle. "No, no they don't. Maybe they're plugging the holes in the boat. Maybe it's best to leave them in."
+
+Nodding, I keep looking at the card. There are lines to draw the attention. The swords, the boat, the pole of the oarsman, the horizon, the water...the water. "The front of the boat, where the swords are, isn't sinking. The people still weigh something, though. Look, the back of the boat's low in the water."
+
+She nods, "Maybe they--"
+
+"Like they don't weigh anything," I add hastily, cutting her short.
+
+"--don't weigh anything, yes."
+
+I lay my ears back and grin, "Sorry, didn't mean to trample."
+
+She returns my grin, pats my tan paw in her black one. "You're excited. It's really nice to see."
+
+"So why swords?"
+
+"I don't know. What do swords do?"
+
+I laugh. "Cut and stab. Kill people. Stuff like that."
+
+"Fair enough," she chuckles. "Why would one do that?"
+
+Her words stop me short. "To...to kill," I begin. "But that's what I just said. Are you asking me why people kill each other?"
+
+She nods.
+
+"To get something," I murmur, fumbling for words. "To gain something. To get what one wants, or needs."
+
+"So, since this is the Tarot and there's bound to be a lot going on here, can we just say the swords are a tool?"
+
+"Well, I'm not about to hack and slash my way to get what I want."
+
+She leans in close to me, stage-whispering, "I'll let you in on a secret. None of the cards in the swords suit --- in any suits --- show blood. Death, yes. Change, definitely. But no blood. It's hardly hacking and slashing."
+
+"But they're still--"
+
+She holds up a paw, "They're still swords, but they're tools. Swords show work. Strife, sometimes, sure; striving toward a goal. But what they is show work. These swords aren't working right now, they're just standing there. So where is the striving?"
+
+"Behind them?" I ask. "They figures are all facing away from something."
+
+"Or toward something."
+
+"So," I say hesitantly. "I'm going to go on a journey?"
+
+She laughs, "Can you guess what my next question would be?"
+
+I shake my head.
+
+"My next question would be: are you? And then you sit and think about it for a moment."
+
+"I sit and think a moment, then say: no, of course not, it's about the work of going through something. The journey is the work." I hesitate, then nod and continue, more sure of myself. "Because I'm here at the beginning. I'm the fool, ready to take the step, and then I just have to take the next and keep going."
+
+She smiles and urges me on with a little gesture of her paw.
+
+"So if I was stalling by investigating every possibility, never starting," I say, nodding back to the first card, the Page of Wands. "Then I guess what I'm focused on is taking that first step, and after that, taking the next."
+
+"You're doing my job for me," the badger laughs.
+
+My smile falters. "Fair enough, but what do I do?"
+
+"That's advice, kid." That soft smile, again. She flips the cards over, one by one, and continues, "Advice comes from people, not from cards. And if I'm going to give you advice, you're going to need to tell me what's actually going on."
+
+She leans forward, folding her arms on the table, and looks past the cards and to me.
+
+So I tell her. I tell her all that stuff from childhood, all those stupid things --- the dress-up, the questions, the uncomfortable guidance, the frustration at forced roles. I tell her all those things that meant nothing, may still mean nothing, and yet add up to a picture of a different me than who I am now. A different shape, a different body, different face and voice and name.
+
+I speak more freely than at the beginning of the session.
+
+I tell her about my mom, about telling her bits and pieces of my feelings, and her insistence at first that it was just a blockage of energies, and then her reluctant acceptance. I tell her about my dad, and how terrified I am of him and his iron grip on masculinity. I tell her about leaving for school and deciding that becoming my own self mattered more than their financial assistance and what belongingness they could offer.
+
+"Your mom sent you to me," she states again, after a comfortable silence. "Did you tell her any of this?"
+
+I shake my head. "She knows just that I'm, er--"
+
+"That you're transgender?" she finishes for me. "Would that be fair to say?"
+
+"I...yes, that's fair."
+
+"But you don't want to say it?" she asks, kind eyes on my own. "You don't have to, can just say yes or no."
+
+"No. I mean, I don't want to say it, but I should. Maybe that's part of the first step." I hesitate for a second, ears flat and eyes averted, before murmuring, "She just knows that I'm trans."
+
+The badger nods, unclipping the thermometer from her smock and turning it over in her fingers. "Alright. And she sent you to me for advice? She told me to talk to you, mentioned vague facts."
+
+"Yeah, she told me to go to you to work on things." I give a wry smile and add, "Her words, not mine."
+
+She laughs and sits back in her chair, slouching and twirling that thermometer. "Your mom is nuts," she says. "I mean that in the kindest way, of course: I love her dearly. Have since school. I suspect she wishes the world worked differently for her. And for you, for that matter."
+
+The unabashed laugh and words of affection are contagious and have me grinning. "Yeah, she's nuts," I echo. "Still, can't say I'm upset with what I got out of this."
+
+"The cards, you mean?"
+
+"Yeah. I was expecting fortunes, I got--"
+
+"You got what you had when you came in the door," she asserts. "And a chance to talk it through. Now, you want my advice?"
+
+"Yeah. I want to know what you think I should do next."
+
+"About which bit?"
+
+"Coming out, I suppose." I scuff at the back of my neck, paw feeling clumsy. "Maybe starting transition."
+
+"Well, it sounds like you're on your way to both, right?" She clips the thermometer back to her smock and straightens the remainder of the tarot deck in deft paws. "You've told your mom, and you have that appointment, right?"
+
+I nod, brushing fingertips over the overturned cards left on the table. It felt like we were both acknowledging their presence in our own ways. "But I still haven't told dad, and I'm still freaked out what the counselor will say."
+
+"Anxiety, then?" she offers, waving a paw above the cards. "A bit of the Page of Wands still left over?"
+
+I nod again, silent.
+
+"Do you want to dig at that?"
+
+"Mmhm. Do you have any thoughts on how to get past that?" She shuffles the cards and opens her mouth to speak, but I interrupt, "Wait, don't tell me. Now you'll ask if *I* have any thoughts on how to get past that."
+
+Her laugh is kind and her fingers sure as she slips another card from the top of the deck, laying it flat on top of the first three.
+
+The image shocks me enough to get me to sit up straight, as if by gaining some distance from the card itself I could escape it. "What the hell?"
+
+"The ten of swords," she says, voice level, conversational.
+
+I count the swords sticking out of the anonymous figure's back. Ten. A feline laid flat on his front, a dark sky, a calm shore, and ten swords buried in his back, each as high as the cat himself.
+
+I clear my throat and manage, "I thought you said there wasn't any bloodshed in the swords."
+
+"Do you see blood?"
+
+Despite everything urging me not to do so, I lean in close and inspect the figure. "No," I admit. "Though his cloak is red."
+
+"The color of passion. And yellow, the color of action."
+
+"The dawn's yellow, too," I offer. I sound dubious, even to myself.
+
+"Dawn, then?" The older woman looks down at the card curiously. "Dawn or sunset?"
+
+I frown and shake my head. "Dawn, I think. It always feels like dawn chases the night, but sunset gives in to it."
+
+"Poetic," she says, and her smile is earnest.
+
+I count the swords again. "One in his ear, one in his neck. Three or four in his back." I stifle a giggle and murmur, "That's a lot of swords."
+
+Her eyes brighten. "Isn't it? Overkill, in the truest sense of the word. Like an overreaction."
+
+A thought occurs to me, and I lean in over the table. "Staring at the dawn, killed ten times over. Look, the water's even clear, like the--" I lift the last card up to peek, and continue, "Like the six. Like me staring at coming out and poking a billion holes in the idea without ever taking the step."
+
+Her eyes stay bright. "Maybe it's an alternative to the six, then. Too much emotion, not enough action. Passion and action pinned down, rather than the work of the six. You could keep taking those steps, or you could keep killing yourself with indecision."
+
+I nod eagerly and ask on a whim, "What's it like reversed?"
+
+She gives a little shrug and turns the card over for me to see. "The swords fall out --- that's a relief --- but he's still dead, isn't he? Resigned to his place on the shore."
+
+"Sure enough," I laugh. "Wait, 'he'?"
+
+"You said it first," she says playfully. "Seriously, though, most of the figures are ambiguous. Or androgynous, I think. What you read into them can mean something if you let it."
+
+"It could be nothing," I mumble. "Or it could be the old me. The 'he'."
+
+She shrugs. My choice, apparently.
+
+A chime interrupts us, me staring at the card and her smiling at me. A clock tolling slow hours. I check my watch to confirm it. Five.
+
+"Oh jeez, I'm sorry. It's way later than I thought."
+
+She laughs, "Conversations go where they will. There's no rush. I can pull together dinner for two if you want to stay." She taps at the thermometer with a grin, "I even made marshmallows, though they'll be sticky still."
+
+"No, it's alright. Thank you. I'm getting pretty tired, as it is." I shrug, realizing just how true that statement is. "This took a lot out of me."
+
+"It does that. It's a wonder we need exercise at all, when just thinking about things wears us out."
+
+I laugh with her, nodding.
+
+"Still," she continues. "You're in town, now. Don't be afraid to stop by, say hi. There's lots more we can talk about, cards or no. Don't wait for your mom to push you my way."
+
+I lever myself up from the chair, swishing ropy tail once or twice to make sure it hasn't fallen asleep, and offer my paw to the badger. "I won't. I know she thinks we'll work on things, but I just want to talk. This was more than I expected. I didn't know I needed--"
+
+She bypasses my offered hand and gives me a firm hug around the middle. Startled, I hold still. She smells of sweets. Sweets and baking.
+
+I feel unfortunately tall. A rectangle. A lummox. A big, dumb cat.
+
+I also feel understood, appreciated. Welcomed. I return the hug carefully. Then, with her farewell in my ears, take that first step out into the evening air.
+
+And then the next.

_posts/2017-08-09-welcome-to-jekyll.markdown

@@ -1,25 +0,0 @@
----
-layout: post
-title:  "Welcome to Jekyll!"
-date:   2017-08-09 21:04:35 -0600
-categories: jekyll update
----
-You’ll find this post in your `_posts` directory. Go ahead and edit it and re-build the site to see your changes. You can rebuild the site in many different ways, but the most common way is to run `jekyll serve`, which launches a web server and auto-regenerates your site when a file is updated.
-
-To add new posts, simply add a file in the `_posts` directory that follows the convention `YYYY-MM-DD-name-of-post.ext` and includes the necessary front matter. Take a look at the source for this post to get an idea about how it works.
-
-Jekyll also offers powerful support for code snippets:
-
-{% highlight ruby %}
-def print_hi(name)
-  puts "Hi, #{name}"
-end
-print_hi('Tom')
-#=> prints 'Hi, Tom' to STDOUT.
-{% endhighlight %}
-
-Check out the [Jekyll docs][jekyll-docs] for more info on how to get the most out of Jekyll. File all bugs/feature requests at [Jekyll’s GitHub repo][jekyll-gh]. If you have questions, you can ask them on [Jekyll Talk][jekyll-talk].
-
-[jekyll-docs]: https://jekyllrb.com/docs/home
-[jekyll-gh]:   https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll
-[jekyll-talk]: https://talk.jekyllrb.com/