Updates with 2023/2024 edits

mitzvot/content/022.tex

@@ -1,139 +1,101 @@
-\hypertarget{debarre-2350}{%
-\chapter{Debarre — 2350}\label{debarre-2350}}
-\markboth{Debarre — 2350}{}
+\hypertarget{ioan-bux103lan-2350}{%
+\chapter{Ioan Bălan — 2350}\label{ioan-bux103lan-2350}}
+\markboth{Ioan Bălan — 2350}{}
 
-Neither Debarre nor End Waking had visited Michelle's field in decades, and certainly not since it had become Douglas's. End Waking had last seen it on the day that she had quit in 2306, and had had little desire to return since. There were no dandelions in the forest; he had specifically requested so from Serene.
+It took about six hours for True Name to recover from the merge to where she could stand up and walk well enough to get a glass of water. Her expression remained glazed and she was unable to speak. It wasn't until the next morning that she was able to hold a conversation, though she remained quiet and largely confined to her room, refusing the offer of coffee.
 
-It had been much longer for Debarre, going clear back into the 2200s, back when Michelle and Sasha were still alive and coherent enough to speak to without getting overwhelmed into silence every few minutes. The memories of her were painful enough as it was—that last visit with her in End Waking's forest especially—that he'd never had the courage to come back, and then never a reason, which came with its own ache.
+May spent much of that time by her side. Ey wasn't sure what it was that the two did while in her room, if it was just May sitting by the skunk's side, if she was just being present, if the two were having their own quiet conversations, or sharing what affection she was comfortable sharing with a down-tree instance she had resented enough to shock so severely.
 
-Given how much the clade that she'd left behind was struggling, though, it felt fitting to accept when Douglas invited him and End Waking over to talk with Ioan.
+All three, ey suspected. Ey checked in on them a few times, knocking and listening for permission to enter. Each time, True Name remained curled in bed with May seated nearby, whether on a chair beside it or sitting up on the bed itself. Ey'd ask if they needed anything, they'd both decline, and then ey'd go back to pacing holes in the rug or the yard or around Arrowhead Lake.
 
-``Ey's in a funk, and from what ey says, I think you two are the only others that know why,'' he had said, paused, then added, ``Except maybe those I don't think any of us want to see.''
+The rest of the time, May was out with em, almost always as close as she could be, whether that was tucked in against eir side on the beanbag, hugging around eir middle from behind while ey cooked, or, at one point, requesting that ey sit on the floor outside the bathroom while she showered, just so that she could talk and, in her words, feel eir presence.
 
-Both of them stood still after arriving, just bathing in—or struggling against—the waves of memory that came with the sudden onslaught of warmth and sun and the baked goods scent of dandelions thick in the air.
+The mood throughout remained somewhere between anxious and remorseful.
 
-Ioan greeted them at the door. Ey seemed happy enough, if tired. Still smiling and bowing to them as ey usually did. They finished their greetings and settled on the grass in front of the house along with Douglas, End Waking having refused to go inside. After, though, ey had stared down into eir glass of lemonade and spoke little.
+That evening, True Name requested that they eat dinner out at the lake rather than at home, saying, ``I am feeling too cooped up by walls and yet more walls.''
 
-Finally, Debarre nudged em gently with an elbow. ``Alright, Ioan, you're gonna need to spill it at some point, here. What's going on? All we were told is that you were feeling rough about the last few days.''
+Ey supposed it made sense, now that she had the competing memories of End Waking and however many personality traits that came with. He had only visited Ioan and May a scant handful of times, and then always out in the yard, refusing to go indoors.
 
-Ey sighed and plucked a dandelion. ``Right, sorry, you two. Or three, I guess. I know I've been a bit of a mope of late. You alright to talk about True Name?''
+So, they packed up a simple dinner of sausages, zucchini, and potatoes to cook and stepped out to the lake.
 
-``Ioan, I appreciate you asking, but please do not worry about us,'' End Waking chided. ``If we have come to help \emph{you}, you need not spare our feelings. We can pretty well guess who would be at the center of this.''
+The tents were still set up and the second bundle of firewood remained untouched, leaning against one of them, so Ioan and May watched as True Name tiredly built and lit the fire. She left them sitting on one of the logs before it, watching the flames go from fast and loud to something quieter and hotter, while she disappeared up the hill into the forest. She returned some time later with a bundle of arm-length sticks, all nearly as straight as dowels, which she built into a spit on which they could roast the sausages while the potatoes baked near the coals of the fire. It was all done with a practiced ease borne from decades of memory.
 
-``I'm pretty sure it's me, actually,'' ey said with a wry smile. ``I've been stuck between May and True Name for days now, or years if you count the time since the convergence and I started trying to smooth things out with the coffee dates.
+The food was pleasantly smokey and well cooked, though otherwise unseasoned. True Name remarked on this part way through the meal, saying, ``If you call the food bland again, May Then My Name, I will call you lame again.''
 
-``I've just been struggling with it all. It's been too much from the moment everything with True Name happened. The last few days were the worst, though. True Name didn't really handle the merge all that well. She collapsed and was nearly unresponsive for several hours, and since then, she's been struggling to integrate various chunks of memories.''
+The humor felt out of place, and certainly went over Ioan's head, but at least it got May smiling again, something she'd not done in more than a day.
 
-``My feelings towards her work? That I built my identity around not being her?''
+``I am pleased that you made it through, my dear,'' May said. ``I will not apologize again, I have done so enough already, but I am pleased all the same.''
 
-``That and your relationship with Debarre.''
+``I have grown weary of being apologized to, yes,'' she replied. ``And my feelings on the events remain complicated, but I thank you for thinking of me.''
 
-The weasel and skunk both looked at each other, ears splayed.
+``I'm glad, too,'' Ioan added, unwilling to let the dinner once more fall into silence. ``How are you feeling otherwise?''
 
-``I'd thought of that, but, uh\ldots{}'' Debarre cleared his throat. ``Well, actually hearing it put like that casts it in a bit of a different light.''
+She shrugged. ``Uncomfortable. Fractured. I have spoken to End Waking only a few times since he requested revocation of his access to our secure materials. I knew that he was upset, but not just how, and not to what extent.'' She sighed, then added, ``And now I am left with that.''
 
-``I hope that she does not mind the memories of sex to go along with the resentment,'' End Waking said, then laughed when Debarre poked him in the side. ``We are all adults here, my dear.''
+``Thus `fractured'?''
 
-``I'm the baby, I think,'' Douglas said. ``I'm seventy-two.''
+``Yes. I must admit that much of my time while down and out was spent struggling to maintain a sense of myself as True Name. Had I simply accepted everything at face value and incautiously, I think I would have gone mad. As it is, I feel perilously close.''
 
-``So young.'' The skunk grinned. ``Debarre and I both have two centuries on you. Still, I am pretty sure that we can acknowledge the existence of sex, is what I mean.''
+May sniffled and looked off toward the lake in the deepening evening.
 
-``And it doesn't exactly sound like she's a stranger to that herself, anyway.''
+``I understand what you were trying to do, May Then My Name. I understand why you planned that, how you managed to talk us both into it, and what you hoped to get out of it, but \emph{you} must understand that what you did was set two existences within me. One was set on goals that I believed in—\emph{still} believe in—while the other regrets everything that made me me.'' The skunk's voice sounded far more tired than angry, enough to keep May from winding up in tears again, though she did set her food aside. ``I do not think that End Waking believed in anything. His life was spent un-believing that which he was, which we were.''
 
-End Waking blinked, taken aback. ``She actually told you about Zacharias?''
+``What does that leave you, now?''
 
-``Who?'' Douglas asked.
+``I do not know yet, Ioan. It makes me too full of being, of time, to be just one thing. It will likely take me several days to settle into\ldots something. To settle into myself, whatever that now means.''
 
-``An\ldots erstwhile lover, as she put it,'' Ioan said carefully. ``I probably shouldn't go too much into that, though.''
+They fell into silence again while Ioan and True Name finished their food and May looked down at her paws or into the fire.
 
-``Agreed,'' Debarre said. ``But as you were saying, she was having trouble?''
+``Thank you for joining me out here. I am both glad to be outdoors and intensely uncomfortable sitting on a fucking log,'' she said, smiling tiredly. ``I do not think that I will stay out here. The greater part of me demands a comfortable bed.''
 
-``Yeah. I wasn't expecting her to get completely taken out, but May did kind of force it on her all in one go. She lasted a few days, but I think she was pushing herself pretty hard to appear strong. She crashed really hard yesterday and, despite a pretty pleasant morning, had to step out to Arrowhead Lake, and when she came back, she looked like she was about ready to start yelling at us. May was also trying to stick around as long as she could, I think, since she crashed almost immediately. We made it through the night, but she couldn't even speak this morning.''
+``Those fucking cots are awful,'' May grumbled, sounding forced in her humor. ``Like a hammock, but far worse.''
 
-``That's a shitload to have to deal with, yeah.''
+``I do not think that even End Waking enjoys them, so it is easy enough for the True Name part of me to win out on that subject.''
 
-Ey nodded. ``Friend almost gets assassinated, almost goes crazy from a merge, and disappears. Partner freaks out after a conversation, then freaks out when the merge goes sideways and mentions she was thinking of merging down, herself, then requests that I disappear. It's just\ldots a lot.''
+``What did he-- what do you remember enjoying?'' Ioan asked. ``I want to hear the good things you have, now, too. I feel like we're all tiptoeing around all the bad memories and conflicting feelings. Tell me something good.''
 
-``Wait, \emph{May} wanted to merge down?'' Douglas said. ``Wasn't expecting that.''
+True Name raised her eyebrows, then let her gaze drift up to the brightening stars. ``I remember teaching myself to hunt, promising myself that I would start small with snares and then work up from there, thinking that I would not let myself eat until I could eat food that I had caught myself. I remember getting so hungry and weak by the third day that I pinged Serene to see if she could help. She laughed and ruffled my fur and called me a dumbass, saying that she had not included fauna because I had not requested it, so of course I did not catch anything. She brought me a hamburger and I ate it so fast I got sick.''
 
-``Well, I don't know quite how much `wanted' fits, but I asked if she was thinking about it and she said yes. I couldn't quite piece together why, though. After End Waking merged down, she mentioned that there was at least a part of her that was feeling vengeful, so I think I was worried that maybe she was considering piling on her own vengeance, or that maybe she would be trying to help make her a better person.'' Ey shrugged and added, ``Or both. She did seem to have True Name's best interests at heart when she forced the merge. At least mostly.''
+Ioan and May laughed.
 
-End Waking nodded. ``She did mention being torn, yes. She wanted to kick her out but also wanted to help her get away from Jonas.''
+``I remember each time I decided to cave and bring into the sim something new. I remember deciding that I needed a more efficient way to heat my tent than just relying on my fur and camp blankets, and then creating the stove. I remember getting so sick of just meat and what few vegetables I could grow at the time and deciding that I would need something like bread or tack for the calories. I remember learning about how hard it was to actually carve a bow and work with metal to create knives and axes, and I remember how it felt to bring each one into existence, a little bit of failure to accomplish a little bit of triumph.
 
-``She's certainly softening on her.''
+``I remember the eighth or ninth winter out there, when the cold started to feel less terrifying because I knew what to do. I remember waking up one morning fucking freezing, building the fire back up, and shivering in front of it, then laughing for the sheer joy of it. The joy of bundling up, the joy of the air burning inside my nostrils, the joy of discomfort.''
 
-``And how're you taking it?'' Debarre asked. Something about Ioan—eir posture, eir face, something—made it seem like this was the question ey was dreading the most.
+Ioan listened, entranced. The cadence of her speech had changed. It still had that well-spoken and dramatic air to it, still held the lack of contractions and all the small doublings-back and anaphora that seemed to come with being an Odist, but it was also more austere than it had been. Less purely functional and more cerebral, perhaps.
 
-There was a long silence before ey answered. ``It's really getting to me. I don't even know why, either. I think it honestly would help True Name in the end if it were just May merging down, but having that be the case with her memories of us together feels like\ldots well, it kind of makes me jealous. Those are our memories that we made together. Our fights and good times, our affection--''
+``I remember the first time I went a year without seeing anyone, then the first time I went two. That was terrifying. I was sure that I was losing my grip on reality. I decided to make sure that I talked to someone at least once every few months after that to keep myself grounded. I remember when the Artemisians arrived and you two brought your play over, and being utterly delighted at all of the subtle ways you found to insult each other.''
 
-``Probably most of the memories, there,'' Debarre stage-whispered, getting a smirk out of Ioan.
+May grinned and elbowed em in the side. ``That one was Ioan's fault.''
 
-``Yeah. Our affection and our sex, too, for that matter. Suddenly, True Name would have all that. I think it also started grating on me because of how\ldots real End Waking's was. It wouldn't just be a library for her perusal, but she will have actually lived them. She will have actually--'' Ey frowned, as though digging for the words.
+True Name smiled and nodded. ``You should be pleased with it, my dear. Oh, and I remember tasting whiskey for the first time in years and being surprised at how much it burned. A Finger Pointing's offer to bring a case over was quite tempting. It reminded me that I love the surprise that comes with forgetting things, or at least as close as we can get. The taste of liquor had fallen way back in my mind, and the feeling of the burn of whiskey sent it rocketing right back up to the top.''
 
-``She'll have actually loved you, maybe?'' Debarre guessed.
+``That doesn't sound so bad,'' Ioan said, smiling.
 
-Eir face fell and ey sighed. ``Yeah. That. Putting it that way makes it feel terrible, but it's exactly that.''
+``It is not all unpleasant, not by a long shot. As much as I worked to keep my sense of self while integrating, I was also struck by wonder, and for that, I am grateful.''
 
-``I was pulling back when she and Zacharias were getting close,'' End Waking said, sounding thoughtful. ``And I have been her. We were both Michelle. I know that she is capable of experiencing romantic feelings. They will not be alien to her.''
+``Was the merge a net-positive thing?''
 
-``And now she's been \emph{you,}'' Debarre added. ``And you've got romantic feelings, too. At least, I hope so.''
+She laughed. ``I cannot possibly know that, Ioan. I suspect there is no net value, or indeed any value, to be placed on simply having those memories. It will make my life more difficult or it will not, but I do not think it will make it better or worse. I will be what I am to become.''
 
-End Waking pushed him over onto the ground. ``If you imply that I do not have romantic feelings for you again, I will make you hunt our meals for a week.''
+Ey nodded.
 
-He laughed. ``Love you too, E.W.''
+``But, May Then My Name?''
 
-``What I am saying, though, is that it will not be alien to her. She will have experienced love for others, and the loss of that love. She will have already experienced love for others through another's memories and experiences, even. You can trust her to integrate that, I believe.''
+The skunk looked nervously at her cocladist, as though worried of some reprisal. ``Yes?''
 
-``Even though she was struggling with integrating those memories of yours?''
+``Thank you for thinking of me.''
 
-``Perhaps especially so. I think that she is struggling because it clashes with her personality, not that she feels that she might love Debarre. Though, my dear,'' he said, nodding to Debarre, ``I can guarantee that just about every Odist is at least a little in love with you.''
+May only nodded, swallowing back tears.
 
-He shook his head and waved the comment away. ``Yeah, yeah.''
+``I remember a few days ago, too. I remember when you came to the forest, remember watching, awkwardly, while you cried on Debarre's shoulder after I told you about\ldots well, after we spoke. I remember hearing about all of your hatred over the years, about the resentment that you still have for me. I remember how it was that you talked me into this, how helpless I was before it. I remember all of it.''
 
-More than one of them had confessed as much to him over the centuries, and it wasn't until he'd actually conceded that something about End Waking landed in that sweet spot of attraction and personality match enough to at least try dating that they'd stopped. He was thankful that they seemed happy enough to live vicariously through him. He had liked Sasha and Michelle, loved her in that sympatico that true friends can share, friends who had shared trauma, so he didn't begrudge them their feelings, but any more felt pretty far out of his league as a gay man.
+There was no more holding back the tears at that, though she did her best to cry silently.
 
-Instead, he nudged Ioan with his elbow again. ``So if you don't need to worry about it from True Name's side, and you know you're worrying about it from your own side, how do you feel about it from May's point of view?''
+True Name smiled more kindly than she had yet that night. ``But still, you thought of me. `I do not want her to die', you said. You said that you do not know why you still care about me, and you said that to your cocladist perhaps not yet knowing that I would have that memory as well. You two are both meddlesome brats, but thank you for thinking of me.''
 
-``How do you mean?''
+May tucked closer against Ioan's side and buried her face in eir shirt to cry, making a rude gesture at her down-tree instance before hugging her arms around eir waist.
 
-``Well, do you have any worries about her? Do you think she does? Has she talked about it at all?''
+``I think that means `no problem','' ey said. ``But I don't speak skunk all that-- ow! She bit me!''
 
-``Not much. She said she'd been considering it, but that seeing how the current merge was making her struggle had her in doubt. I told her I want to make sure it'd be consensual on everyone's behalf, this time. I guess--''
-
-``Whoa, wait,'' Douglas interrupted, frowning. ``She didn't even talk with True Name about this merge?''
-
-``They talked a few times in a cone of silence, so maybe then, but otherwise not that I saw. She just stopped True Name in the middle of ranting about her calling and sent End Waking a message to merge, far as I could tell.''
-
-``That's kind of shitty.''
-
-Ey shrugged. ``I suppose, but no need to pile on her or anything, I think she's beating herself up over it worse than any of us could do.''
-
-Douglas nodded. ``Well, that bit I believe. Think that contributed to her overflowing?''
-
-``Almost certainly, yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, End Waking, but while I don't think it's solely tied to external events, they can have an effect on it.''
-
-The skunk nodded. He'd started panting in the heat of the sun, so it took him a moment to reply. ``It comes over us like a wave. Some of us more quickly than others. It is slower in onset for me than for either of them, I believe.''
-
-Debarre chimed in. ``I usually have a few days warning. I've gotten mine already and was planning on heading out today, but we both wanted to come, anyway.''
-
-``Is it hard for you?''
-
-End Waking held up a paw. ``I want to respect Debarre's decision to share or not, but I would prefer not to be here for this conversation.''
-
-``Sorry, End Waking. You don't need to answer, Debarre.''
-
-The weasel shrugged. ``No, it's fine. E.W. and I have talked about it, and I get where he's coming from. It can wait.''
-
-``Yes. He is not disallowed. We simply have our own, separate conversations about that, and it is important to me that Debarre feel comfortable talking about me with his friends, too. I cannot be the only one in his life.''
-
-``Alright, makes sense. May's said similar, for that matter.'' Ey toyed with the flower ey'd plucked before, saying, ``We actually talked about other relationships shortly before this all went down, about how she'd act if she started to fall for someone else and how she'd feel if I did. One thing we didn't talk about was someone else having feelings for either of us, whether or not they'd come about them on their own or through a merger.''
-
-``I'm sure there's shitloads of people in love with May Then My Name,'' Debarre said, laughing. ``But she's good at having that conversation, and you're both good at talking, so.''
-
-``Too good, perhaps.'' End Waking stood. ``I am overheating and feeling restless, so I am going to return to the forest. Ioan, I do wish you the best, and I would like you to keep in touch as you are able. I am concerned about your partner, as well as for True Name, in my own way. Please keep yourself safe so that you can keep the both of them safe in turn.''
-
-Ioan nodded and stood as well to bow to the skunk. ``Thanks. It really does mean a lot. I'll keep you in the loop, if nothing else.''
-
-After returning the bow, End Waking held out a paw to Debarre. ``Can you return with me? Just for a few minutes.''
-
-He nodded and accepted that paw. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, so even just the touch as they stepped away from the sim was worth it.
+True Name laughed. ``It is no less than you deserve, I am sure. But come, once you are able to, let us walk to the rock at the end of the lake. I want to see the stars before we head back.''