Marsh

marsh/content/014.tex

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 We lingered in silence for the remainder of the evening, the four of us piled into a bed now stretched to fit all of us. Two of my cocladists and their partner, and now me. Who knew what I was? There was the friendship that we had built over the last few days. There was the camaraderie that we had built through work. There was the acquaintanceship that had been there from years prior.
 
-And now there was more. I didn't have words for it --- latent romance? A crush? --- and Dry Grass was asleep for much of our time together. It wasn't the time for conversations, it was time for just resting, something I realized I dearly needed as well. We all did, as we napped off and on for some time until the clock hit one in the morning, at which point I stepped back home to spend the rest of my night with Hanne.
+And now there was more. I didn't have words for it—latent romance? A crush?—and Dry Grass was asleep for much of our time together. It wasn't the time for conversations, it was time for just resting, something I realized I dearly needed as well. We all did, as we napped off and on for some time until the clock hit one in the morning, at which point I stepped back home to spend the rest of my night with Hanne.
 
 She was already in bed, curled around a body pillow, though not yet asleep.
 
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ I kissed on her nape. ``Yeah, we'll see. It's a weird way to come about a relati
 
 ``Mmhm. It's really weird talking about this now, though. All this stressful stuff going on, and we're talking about relationships.''
 
-``We talked about that a bit, actually,'' I said. ``Tule suggested that it was a bit of focusing on the good things, but Dry Grass said it might be more like a `protective measure'. Something about trauma bonding.''Building more relationships to pin ourselves down after so many were broken''.''
+``We talked about that a bit, actually,'' I said. ``Tule suggested that it was a bit of focusing on the good things, but Dry Grass said it might be more like a `protective measure'. Something about trauma bonding. ``Building more relationships to pin ourselves down after so many were broken''.''
 
 ``That's a kind of cynical way of looking at it.''
 
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ We lay in silence for a while, and I found myself lingering on the thoughts of h
 
 ``You were talking about 2399,'' she said, then laughed sleepily. ``I asked you to sell me on the year. You made a pretty convincing argument that it was a good year.''
 
-``I stand by that,'' I said, grinning. ``But yeah, we were talking about the past, asking about life back phys-side. I said,''Am I not allowed to be a bit maudlin?'' I was being really sappy.''
+``I stand by that,'' I said, grinning. ``But yeah, we were talking about the past, asking about life back phys-side. I said, ``Am I not allowed to be a bit maudlin?'' I was being really sappy.''
 
 ``You should've said that instead.''
 
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ She furrowed her brow. ``I thought that's what you'd done, actually.''
 
 ``How, though? It's not like hormones do anything here.''
 
-I shrugged. ``I met up with a bunch of other folks doing the same thing --- actually surprised I didn't run into Hold My Name in the process --- and we all talked about the various ways we could go through the process. Some hunted down doctors who had uploaded and were willing to do things like help act out the process. I mostly just forked once a month from that cis body into what I am bit by bit. I let my voice change, bound my chest, added surgery scars, each bit step by step.''
+I shrugged. ``I met up with a bunch of other folks doing the same thing—actually surprised I didn't run into Hold My Name in the process—and we all talked about the various ways we could go through the process. Some hunted down doctors who had uploaded and were willing to do things like help act out the process. I mostly just forked once a month from that cis body into what I am bit by bit. I let my voice change, bound my chest, added surgery scars, each bit step by step.''
 
 ``That's wild,'' she said. ``What's this got to do with Marsh, though? Feeling maudlin over gender?''