post-self/books
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Actions Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Updates with 2023/2024 edits

Browse Source
This commit is contained in:
Madison Scott-Clary
2024-03-19 22:06:22 -07:00
parent ba7bc7c95e
commit 512eb9553f
207 changed files with 22827 additions and 5074 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

486
mitzvot/content/035.tex
View File

@ -1,483 +1,193 @@
\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
\hypertarget{ioan-bux103lan-2350}{%
\chapter{Ioan Bălan—2350}\label{ioan-bux103lan-2350}}
\markboth{Ioan Bălan—2350}{}
``I cannot help but feel that I am walking into my own execution tomorrow,'' True Name admitted. ``I know that I am leaving behind a fork, that I will not be completely destroyed, but that does not wholly negate the sense of impending death.''
Of all that had happened over the past several weeks, Ioan was surprised to find that it had taken until now for literally anything to feel like it had been planned. Clearly none of them had planned on Jonas coming after True Name, but all of the decisions that had followed had been made on the spot. Snap decisions that had led to True Name moving into their house, to End Waking merging down, to the three of them all overflowing at once.
Ioan and May both nodded.
All of those had been made under what felt like intolerable pressure, and it was only now that they had time enough to relax. There was an uneasy (and certainly temporary) truce between Jonas and True Name that had finally given them enough time to properly consider a decision instead of feeling compelled to make it right away.
``Is it just the finality of it all?'' May asked.
Ey'd harbored a concern, one borne out of stress, that May might just merge down without talking further, but ey kept that to emself, doing eir level best to reason emself out of it. The last thing they needed at the moment was eir mind playing tricks on em.
``Perhaps. Perhaps it is just the inability to predict beyond that point. I am coming up to a corner I have never seen around, and whatever predictive powers I may have fail me.''
And she certainly didn't. In fact, she drew the negotiations that followed that first discussion out by nearly a week, putting lie to that concern. Much of these discussions took place between the two skunks as they walked out on True Name's prairie.
Ioan could at least understand the worries about heading into the unknown. The same feeling had been dogging em since after eir meeting with Jonas, since ey'd seen that cool look on his face when ey'd apparently preempted so much of the upcoming meeting's discussion. One minute, that would feel like a good thing—perhaps they would make it through essentially unscathed—and the next ey'd worry that ey'd made a complete mistake, that ey'd somehow tipped their hand by letting Jonas know just how predictable he was.
At first, ey'd felt left out. After all, didn't ey also have boundaries to negotiate and concerns that needed addressing?
Neither True Name nor May could say one way or another when ey'd voiced eir concerns with them.
After bringing this up with May, however, she had laughed and poked em in the belly, explaining, ``I do not mean to leave you out of anything, my dear. We are discussing elements of the past that kept me from merging down, and elements of the future of the relationship between me and her. We are building trust between us that she will respect those boundaries. You are not missing anything so important, but if you would like, I am happy to keep you apprised of the general content.''
The whole day had been scattered for them. May spent much of it glued to eir side as ey did eir best to organize eir notes in eir head for the upcoming meeting. She couldn't seem to pin herself down to one set of feelings, first laughing and joking about beating Zacharias up, then burying her face against eir shoulder and refusing to speak, ears laid flat.
``Given how anxious I've been, I'd appreciate that,'' ey had said. ``But no need to share anything private.''
For her part, True Name couldn't seem to stay pinned to any one of her three identities.
And so now ey got updates on the conversations with sensitive or personal information held back.
Ey was at least getting more adept at spotting them in her features. There was a bright focus when that of True Name—the old True Name, that was—came to the fore. Her expression would become attentive, defaulting to a slight smile and eyebrows (such as they were on a skunk's features) just slightly raised. When that of End Waking showed itself in her, she'd keep her eyes half-lidded, and her gaze was far more attuned to any movement. The rest of her own movements would still, as well. She would walk quieter, more gracefully. She would speak less.
They spent much of their time discussing various parts of May's life and how comfortable she'd feel sharing those through a merge, and if not, why not. Surprisingly, they also talked with End Waking several times, the third skunk of the stanza coming out to visit her prairie so that they could discuss the ramifications of their merge and how to be more thoughtful with May's.
And when that of May came to the fore, that was when ey was at eir most confused.
That first meeting had been more silence than not, more walking and thinking and not looking at each other than anything. They paced back and forth along the bank of the river, then stared into the oxbow pond, each occasionally failing to start a conversation. They had greater success with subsequent meetings, but they were never comfortable.
Ey had had no idea how to feel about her back when she was just True Name. Had ey really been so hesitant to call her a friend? Memories tattled on em, there: ey'd shied away from the term or qualified it every time it arose. That had only loosened up when her life was at risk, when she'd been forced to move in with them, and ey'd been forced in turn to acknowledge that her words, \emph{I suppose it is just nice to have a friend}, had stuck with em more than ey'd cared to admit. The rest of that conversation had been full of equivocations, clarifications, delineations, and all those habits of guardedness from two decades of wariness over anything that carried a whiff of manipulation had tried to assert themselves over em once more.
This wasn't to say that ey didn't have a chance to sit with them at times and discuss eir thoughts on the matter, of course.
But no, there was something about the Ode clade that just happened to click with the Bălan clade, no matter what form or name they took, that just fell directly into friendship. It was the way they spoke, perhaps. Those complete sentences that left em uncoiling parts of emself ey hadn't known were coiled in the first place.
``Feelings are complex, Ioan,'' True Name explained as they sat around a low fire before her tent. ``If they are created by memories, then there is little that I can do to completely control how I might feel about something beyond picking and choosing the memories carefully. However, one can never be sure which memories may lead to which feelings. If they come from something more intrinsic to one's personality and thought patterns, then it is even more difficult to attempt to control them.''
Ey didn't know what it was that they saw in em in turn. There was the unspoken matter of the pronouns of the owner of the Name, and, as May had once whispered to em late one night, eir tendency to lean on rumination, on quietness and exactitude, that reminded her of someone she refused to name. Were they so alike, em and whoever had touched Michelle Hadje so long ago? Had ey and Michelle been contemporaries phys-side, would they have wound up in a relationship? Ey had no clue how to ask such a thing of them.
Ey nodded. ``That much I can certainly understand. I trust that you'll be built up from your various histories rather than simply May's feelings tacked onto you.''
All ey knew is that, as Codrin had put it in a letter, ``The Odists love hard and they love deep and they love fast, and it's hard not to become intoxicated beneath all that love.''
``Yes. I cannot predict how I will feel about anything after this, much less you. Your relationship and existing boundaries will take precedence over whatever happens, though. I will respect that.''
So, what was ey to do when that of eir partner, of the one ey loved most in the world, shone through in someone else? When that of May rose to prominence in True Name's expression, she was not May. She wasn't May at all. She was of three minds, and none of them were wholly absent whenever one asserted primacy.
Ioan bowed eir thanks.
And yet there it was, all that drew em towards May, even if it wasn't her, right in front of em. What was ey to do with that?
``I have been wondering how your feelings toward Debarre have shifted,'' End Waking said.
That ey didn't know, that ey hadn't the language, kept em from speaking of it with True Name just yet. It wasn't out of any need to hide, not out of any embarrassment—though ey'd freely admit to eir shyness—that ey kept it from her. Ey just didn't know how to say that, when she seemed most like May, ey was at eir most confused without turning it into a series of questions and I-don't-knows.
``It is complex, not least of which because I accepted the whole of your merge so blithely. I will not be doing the same with May Then My Name's.''
The one time ey'd brought it up with May, the idea still as yet unseasoned, she had done as she ever would, and teased em gently about `falling in love with her' and then settled into a series of gently probing questions, trying to tease out things that ey already knew but did not yet have the words for.
He frowned.
It hadn't gone anywhere. Ey'd eventually had to put the conversation on hold out of a combination of stress and the feeling that ey ought to keep True Name's discussion on her newfound multiplicity in the face of May's desire for some more complete unity to emself.
``I am sorry,'' True Name said, shrugging helplessly. ``There is little that I could have done in the moment to avoid it, and there is certainly nothing that I can do now to fix it.''
So they did what they could to prepare or relax for the rest of that last day. True Name walked her prairie several times over, then came in and sat close by, then busied herself up in her head. May clung to em. Ey sorted notes.
May dipped her muzzle and apologized as well, saying, ``I do feel bad about how that worked out, no matter how much you tell me it is okay.''
There was no discussion whether or not she would be staying with them that night. The three of them simply wound up in eir and May's bed, sitting or kneeling on the soft mattress while they did their best to talk about little nothings. Ioan tried to explain Romanian curses to them. May and True Name spoke earnestly about a movie ey'd never heard of. And under it all, an ever-rising current of stress lay, slowly taking over their words until they couldn't speak any longer, could only curl beneath the covers, sharing some more fundamental comfort.
``It is not okay,'' End Waking said, then hastened to add when his cocladist flinched away, ``It is what we have to work with, and it is perhaps what the moment called for.''
Surprising all three of them, they did manage to get at least some sleep that night. It wasn't \emph{good} sleep, as, at one point or another, each of them woke with a start, but they managed a few hours of dozing.
May nodded, still cowed.
Once the sky began to lighten, though, they pulled themselves blearily out of bed, Ioan making four mugs of coffee—two black, two sweet and milky—so that they could troop back out onto the plain and wake End Waking up—or, as it turned out, greet him at the small fire he'd started—and offer him a cup.
``I am of two minds,'' True Name said. ``I remember having loved Debarre. I remember still loving him, and perhaps even I, even True Name, still love him in some roundabout way. However, I am what I am, and that is a being of two minds. That of me which is you, End Waking, loves him, and that of me which is True Name, respects him from a distance, respects his distaste for me, that feeling I engendered to minimize his impact within the council by making it purely emotional, as uncomfortable as it was to do so.''
``There is no more rehearsing to be done,'' he said, once they'd shed some of their grogginess. ``We risk practice making permanent, at this point. All we can do is hope to remain as centered as possible throughout.''
``The same as you did with me and Codrin?'' Ioan asked. ``With the History, I mean.''
Both of the other skunks nodded, and Ioan had to quell eir instinct to disagree. They were too tired, too keyed up, too quick to overanalyse to get anything out of forking across the prairie to wargame however many countless scenarios. Better for the four of them to sit around the low fire, sip their coffee, and watch the sun rise, May slouched against eir side and True Name and End Waking sitting apart, silent.
She nodded. ``It was-- it felt like a necessity at the time. I am not some cold, unfeeling bitch, it is just that my drive and my abilities, such as they are, outweigh—or at least outweighed—those feelings. I worked to distance myself from them.''
Eventually, however, coffee long gone, they forked. End Waking and True Name's down-tree instances each went to their tents to sit and meditate as best they could, while May and Ioan's down-tree instances returned home to try baking a cake—something demanding enough while still remaining relatively mindless.
``I remember so little of that,'' May said.
The only words they spoke to each other was May saying, ``Good luck, have fun, and do not die.''
True Name shrugged. ``As you intentionally moved towards feeling, I worked to contain and compartmentalize it within myself after you came into being. I became a being of negative commandments. I lived the 'shalt not's while you performed your \emph{mitzvot} of loving and caring.''
The four forks held hands and paws and, with nothing other than a shared, shaky breath, stepped from the sim.
May sighed.
End Waking immediately flinched, crouched. They found themselves in a boardroom. A large plain of a table, notepads and pens, a second table huddling against the wall with a pitcher of water and a stack of too-small glasses.
``I will not say that I am proud of it, my dear, but neither will I say that I regret it. It is what it is specifically because I was what I was.''
And yet it still felt too small—even to Ioan, who spent more of eir life inside than unbound in a forest, the ceiling was just a few inches too low, the chairs just a few inches too close to the walls. Too small, and yet too long. There was room for a table half again as long, and yet the table was set in one end of the room, leaving the other end unbalanced, empty other than a wheeled whiteboard. End Waking, who hadn't been indoors, never mind in a room too small, in nigh on a century, looked on the verge of panic. His eyes were wide, tail hiked and bristled, paws clenched in a way that reminded em of May.
``Perhaps you will learn from your merge,'' End Waking said.
``I do not know if I can--''
``Perhaps. Perhaps it will become a part of me, perhaps it will live within me alongside that of you and that of True Name.''
May squeezed his paw tightly. ``You do not need to keep these memories, skunk, but you cannot leave.'' She added in a near whisper, ``Please do not leave me.''
``Still feeling fractured?'' Ioan asked.
His nod was jerky, distracted, but still a nod.
``I am of two minds, Ioan. I do not know if I will feel\ldots I do not know. I am not comfortable speaking further on this just yet.''
And yet, the room was empty. \emph{Perfect time to pull the late-to-the-meeting power move.}
They spent the rest of the night in quiet, May leaning against eir side while True Name and End Waking spoke quietly about the plain and the forest.
Sure enough, 11:00 rolled around, no Jonas.
Finally, though, a week to the day after the decision had been made, Ioan awoke to find May and True Name already sitting at the table, speaking earnestly in a cone of silence. Once they noticed em, True Name waved it away and May grinned, saying, ``Sorry, my dear. We did not want to wake you.''
It wasn't until nearly ten after that the door swung lazily open and Jonas strolled in, followed by Zacharias and the rest of the eighth stanza—\emph{no, Zacharias is part of that, too,} ey thought. \emph{There's only Odists, Jonas, and me here.}
Ey poured emself a cup of coffee before joining them. ``Appreciate it. Hope I'm not interrupting.''
``True Name! Delighted to see you, delighted,'' Jonas said, grinning widely and giving the barest hint of a bow.
True Name shook her head. ``We are discussing our plan for the day.''
The skunk had apparently amped up all that she could of her old self, as her smile was earnest and wide, and her bow the perfect mix of polite and friendly. ``Glad you could make it, my dear. I trust you have been well?''
Ey bought emself a moment by taking a sip of coffee. ``Is today the day, then?''
He shifted smoothly to accommodate this response. ``Quite well, quite well. Feels like it's been a bit of a vacation for the both of us, eh? You enjoy a bit of time off at the lake?''
``May Then My Name thinks so, but we were also waiting for you to join us to make sure.''
That grin of hers widened, and she nodded. ``Quite a bit, actually. We never quite got to roasting marshmallows, but it is really hard to go wrong with potatoes roasted in the embers. They get a little smoky, even the insides.''
``Well, if it were solely up to me, I'd just spin my wheels worrying about it until we ran out of time, so I suppose I'm alright with it. What all will go into it?''
End Waking stared at True Name as though she was an Artemisian, suddenly having made their way across the light-days back to Lagrange. Hell, Ioan was staring at her like she was an alien. So quickly and smoothly had her anxiety been transmuted into this calm, friendly social efficiency that it was as though the last months had been erased from her features.
``Well,'' True Name began, a fork appearing next to her. ``First I fork and she will head to the tent.''
There was some other conversation going on here, ey realized. It wasn't just that they were talking pleasantries before a meeting, but that there was an exchange of information that took place on some subtler plane of existence. They were feeling each other out, listening to tone of voice more than the content of words, watching features and postures rather than seeing an old friend. There was some deeper level of communication that ey simply couldn't latch onto.
The new instance of True Name bowed. ``Then the perilous path was planted, And a river and a spring On every cliff and tomb,'' she said before waving goodbye and padding back out through her room.
With that in mind, ey could at least do eir best to focus on the less direct forms of language around the room.
Ioan stared after the departing skunk and shook eir head. ``You guys are so weird.''
True Name had talked em through the stanza and their roles beforehand, at least. She herself had been focused on the politics, of course, but also acted as consensus builder among the members of her stanza.
They both laughed.
Ey knew well that May had been focused on swaying individual hearts and minds toward a cause that initially had been True Name's, and then later simply shaped by her as best as could be managed.
``Then we will set up a space for me to rest in the meantime,'' True Name continued. ``And then I suppose that is all there is to it. May Then My Name will fork and quit and I will process the merge.''
End Waking had been instrumental in tracking, understanding, and to whatever level possible, influencing financial markets phys-side, though he'd admitted to Ioan, one night out on the plain, that the chances that he'd actually had a dramatic effect on the markets was astoundingly low and that the financial trajectory had likely been set by forces larger than they could manage—at least, that was the hope that had kept him going.
``And your fork is just there in case something goes wrong?''
Ey knew the two 'Why's from the history: Why Ask Questions, Here At The End Of All Things was the frightfully friendly crowd-rouser who had worked with groups of individuals sys-side, while Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help had focused on similar tactics phys-side. However, given that her task was limited to text, she seemed notably out of her element in in-person interactions, coming off as petty and cruel as often as funny and sarcastic.
``Or if the result is not acceptable.''
The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer had acted as a manager, scheduler, and clerk for the enterprise. Wickedly intelligent, she had done more than block in times for meetings; she had organized meetings between precisely the right individuals at precisely the right times.
``\,`Not acceptable'?''
To Know One's True Name Is To Know God had settled comfortably into data analysis, collecting both the raw data that she could from the perisystem feeds and the net phys-side as well as the information collected by her cocladists and the Jonases. She was a being of reports.
``If the merge does not go well or if I wind up being unable to work as I would like.''
To Know God Is To Answer Unasked Questions had done her best to specialize in the fields of information and game theory, but this had more often come down to simple information security and hygiene. She decided where and how far information traveled.
``Or if all of my emotions get overwhelming,'' May added. ``Since I do rather have a surfeit.''
Do I Know God When I Do Not Remember Myself and Do I Know God When I Do Not Dream worked as a mismatched pair. When I Do Not Remember worked as a propagandist while When I Do Not Dream worked almost entirely on the perisystem, translating back and forth for her cocladists and finding the best way to worm her way through the inter- and intrasystem text channels.
Ioan leaned over and ruffled a hand over the skunk's ears. ``Yeah, you definitely do.''
Were ey pressed to name each of them without knowing this information, ey didn't think ey'd be able to. Ey knew the three skunks of the stanza and could readily tell them apart, but the rest simply looked like a gaggle of the very same woman: short, soft, round face and curly black hair. However, there were indeed differences there to be seen. Why Ask Questions was just a centimeter or two taller and more open of expression. When I Do Not Remember and When I Do Not Dream both had a hunch to their shoulders that ey could not quite explain; perhaps a posture that stuck after too much writing.
``Yes, yes, and you love me for it.'' She laughed and pushed eir hand away, straightening the mussed up fur. ``Breakfast first, though, and then we can work from there.''
As it was, ey did eir best to guess, and when introductions made their way around the table, ey found eir guesses to be correct in each case.
After another Scandinavian-style breakfast, the three of them re-organized True Name's room. The bed was set in a corner instead of up against one wall, allowing a collection of pillows to be placed against the walls in case she wanted to lean against them or organize them into a nest.
At last, the parade of bows and greetings out of the way, each of the thirteen—counting em, Jonas, and Zacharias—pulled out a chair and sat down, though ey noted that End Waking didn't sit so much as hover on the very edge of his seat. He still looked wide-eyed, feral.
``Are you sure you don't want to set up something out in the prairie?''
``Aaalright,'' Jonas said, plopping his hands, palm down, on the table. ``To business. I'm pleased to see you're alive, but can't say that I'm pleased to see you're about.''
``I did consider it, but May Then My Name talked me out of it, stating that she would like to be at hand without having to spend all of her time out there, herself. Besides, if I learned one thing from End Waking merging down, it was that the less I have to think about my body, the easier it is to focus on my mind. Comfort will only ever help.''
``I imagine not, no,'' True Name replied, folding her paws on the table before her. ``From what Ioan says, you know the general facts of what I know. There has been a long-running plan, perhaps mostly operating as a back-up, to shift one or more of me to the side depending on the status of the System. This revolved around the use of Zacharias as a tool to shape my responses while incomplete information kept me from recognizing this. Tell me, though. Are you still leaning on the multiple-Systems-multiple-governments strategy?''
They also supplied her with ready water, juice, and a few comforting snacks on one of the bedside tables so that she wouldn't have to get up just to go to the kitchen.
Jonas nodded. ``Yes. Oligarchy on Pollux, \emph{status quo} on Castor, and invisible monarchy here on Lagrange.''
Another beanbag was added by the bed, in case she requested that they stay in there for any length of time, and a more comfortable bench-swing was added to the balcony in case she needed to go outside but wasn't feeling up to walking down to the prairie itself.
``You believe that this tripod will be the most stable political structure?''
It felt like rather a lot of preparations to make just for a merge, but then May had last merged down 83 years before ey had uploaded—nearly 64 before ey'd even been born—and after seeing how intense End Waking's merge had been, none of them felt up to cutting any corners and having to rush comfort after the fact.
``I know you don't agree, but it's not a tripod, True Name. By this point, the three Systems are so far apart that they are no longer three branches of the same government. They're three countries, and three countries with identical governments yet divergent societies are unstable.''
Finally, though, there was nothing left to do, no further preparations to be made that weren't just stalling, so May took eir hand to hold em still so that ey'd quit pacing.
True Name made that setting-aside gesture, as though tabling the topic for the moment. ``And you,'' she said, nodding to Zacharias. Her expression was calm, curious, interested. ``You have been working on this with Jonas since around systime 36?''
``I don't even know why I'm fretting so much, I'm not even the one merging.''
``Oh, thereabouts,'' he said, grinning. ``Though if I am honest, I have always been working with the two of you. It is not that your own goals had no effect on me, my little stink bug. I played Jonas as much as I played you, and I played my own game when I could.''
True Name smiled faintly and shrugged. ``I am fretting too, do not worry.''
``Bullshit,'' True Name said calmly, turning back to Jonas. ``And so what is it that--''
``It is a big event,'' May added. ``It will be an even bigger merge and, while it may be more comfortable than End Waking merging down as she has said, it will be no less complex.''
``Oh, fuck you,'' Zacharias laughed. ``You do not get to dismiss me so easily. You and I rule together, quite literally, in another life. There is no reason that I should simply be waved away.''
Ey sighed and nodded, squeezing her paw before tugging eir hand free. ``Right. I'll relax and leave you to the rest of it.''
``Nah, it's bullshit,'' Jonas said, just as calm as True Name. ``If you were worth anything to this conversation, you would've been part of the preparations.''
``Please stay, Ioan,'' True Name said quietly.
``What--''
``Stay?''
``You say that you are part of the stanza, do you not?'' The Only Time I Dream, the manager of the enterprise, said.
``Yes. Please stay. I do not think it will be dramatic, but, well\ldots{}'' She hesitated and frowned. ``You are a grounding person. Is that not what my counterpart on Castor said about Codrin? I appreciate your presence.''
``I am, but--''
Ey considered any number of responses ey could give before just nodding. If nothing else, ey didn't want to hold either of the skunks up from what would most certainly affect both of them more than it would em.
``I see no evidence of such.''
May forked and the new instance climbed up onto the bed with True Name, the two skunks kneeling, facing each other, amid all the blankets and pillows.
``But May Then My Name--''
\AddToHookNext{shipout/after}{\includepdf[pages={1},noautoscale=true,fitpaper=true]{assets/merge}}
``May Then My Name, do you claim Zacharias as yours?''
Both Ioan and True Name watched as the down-tree instance of May scrubbed her paws over her face vigorously for a moment, gave a shaky wave, and then quit. True Name winced and screwed her eyes shut, and the May who had knelt with her on the bed reached out and took the skunk's paws in her own.
She shrugged. ``Claim? No.~I do not know this Zacharias.''
``Go ahead.''
``That is--''
It was still another ten seconds or so before True Name managed to relax enough to permit the merge to progress, and even then the only visual indication was a slow slump of her shoulders and a relaxing of the muscles of her face.
Jonas laughed, ``Just shut up, Zacharias.''
Ioan stuffed eir hands in eir pockets and did eir best to feel rooted to where ey stood, hoping against hope that ey could keep from pacing. May watched True Name carefully, eyes searching her features for what ey could not tell. She seemed almost frozen, breathing shallowly despite the relaxed set of her features.
``No,'' the fox growled, his whiskers all abristle and claws digging at the tabletop. ``I played my role, but that does not mean that I am some disposable Judas here. A role is as much the actor as it is-- \emph{stop!}''
And ey stood and watched them both.
There was a loud thump beneath the table, though this time, Zacharias appeared to have pulled his foot away in time to keep his toes from being stomped on. Instead, he pushed himself away from the table and to his feet. A brief flicker of ungrounded rage flashed across Jonas's face, but was quickly replaced by that bright, friendly grin.
The three of them stayed like that for nearly five minutes—two skunks kneeling on the bed while ey watched from beside it—before True Name moved again.
``Fine, fuck you too, then.''
``Oh\ldots oh, I cannot\ldots{}'' she whispered, and started to sag over to one side.
There was no signal—or if there was, Ioan missed it—for Guōweī to step into the sim, hand already raised as if for a slap, a short blade held between his fingers. Unassuming, easy to carry, symbolic, and certainly crowded with whatever virus it was that induced a crash in one's instance.
May shushed her quietly and helped her to lay out on her side before settling down with her. They curled together, still facing each other, nearly snout to snout and still holding paws.
What happened next happened almost too quickly for em to comprehend. Zacharias shouted, but the cry was cut off in a muffled \emph{oomf} as an instance of May appeared near him, almost totally overlapping the space that he'd occupied. The collision algos knocked him backwards with enough force to slam him against the door, leaving him to crumple to the floor.
Ey stood and watched. Then ey sat on the beanbag and watched. Watched and waited, though ey wasn't sure what for.
Guōweī's palm came down flat against May's shoulder, but there was no time to see whether or not the virus would affect an instance so far diverged, as that instance of her quit and was immediately replaced with another one, this overlapping the assassin's space, knocking him back nearly a meter, only for the skunk to fork again to repeat the maneuver. With the momentum already in play, this sent the man flying, his head cracking against the wall hard enough to leave a sizeable dent in the drywall.
It was more than an hour before May forked beside em, took eir hand, and led em from the room. Neither of the skunks on the bed had moved or made a sound other than May asking True Name if she was okay at one point and the other skunk shaking her head.
And then it was over. Zacharias's yell faltered, and he stared up, wide eyed, with his gaze darting between Jonas and the remaining instance of May. Jonas had lurched away, looking more disgusted than startled.
Once the door was shut behind them, May let out a shaky sigh and padded over to the kitchen. ``That was very hard.''
``Get the fuck out of here,'' the instance of May growled. ``And if I ever, \emph{ever} see you again, you had better believe that I will take you out myself.''
``Why, do you think?'' ey asked.
And then the instance quit, followed less than a second later by the fox rolling to the side to slip out of the sim. Ey imagined that if Jonas, True Name, and May would all do their best to destroy the fox on sight, the chances of seeing him again were low indeed.
She took a moment to pour herself a glass of water before replying. ``I want to be here with you, and I also want to be in there with her, and I also want to go back in time and tell her I do not want to merge, and I also want to go back in time and merge instead of End Waking, and\ldots a-and\ldots{}''
Ey'd never seen a look like that on May's face, though, even at the height of her hatred for True Name. That had been hatred, yes, but this was rage.
``Come here, May.''
``What just happened?'' ey whispered to May, who gave eir hand a squeeze in her paw and shook her head.
She clutched the water to her chest with both paws, stumbling blindly around the kitchen counter so that ey could guide her to the beanbag.
``Are we done fucking around, yet?'' True Name asked, voice flat. ``Because I just want to know what it is that you want of me so that I can get back to my life.''
She sat down and let Ioan rub her back. Only once she could manage a sip or two of water, she said, voice hoarse, ``Did I fuck up, Ioan?''
``Your \emph{life?}'' Jonas asked, incredulous. ``You want to get back to your life?''
Ey was still teasing apart the day—or perhaps the last month—but all the same, ey did eir best to respond to what ey suspected lay beneath the surface of the question. ``Do you think she resents you for not just letting her be True Name?''
``Life, yes,'' she said. ``Alive. Living. I want to get back to breathing and eating and drinking and sleeping. Do not take my words too far.''
May whined and set the water glass aside, shifting on the beanbag until she could rest her head on eir thigh. ``I worry that the real reason she wanted to do this was because there is no going back to who she was. One of those `fuck it, burn it all down' situations.''
He laughed, shooting his cuffs. ``Well, if \emph{that's} all you want, then we could have done without all this fuss, couldn't we?''
``There could be some of that, but is that so bad?''
``This fuss is necessary, remember,'' When I Do Not Remember, the propagandist, said, to which Jonas sighed.
``I do not know,'' she mumbled.
``All you need to do is just\ldots go away. Just disappear. Just be gone, True Name. Curl up around your little Name thing and stay there.''
``Can you imagine her being okay staying as True Name and being all cooped up for the rest of eternity?''
May's expression had settled back to calm, but ey could feel the tension in her paw increase, and beyond her, ey could see End Waking bare his teeth. The Odists on Jonas's side of the table flinched. None of them looked pleased. Even Why Ask Questions, jovial as she usually was, seemed to be gritting her teeth.
She snorted. ``God, no. I think she would lose it.''
\emph{Wait, does} he \emph{know?} ey wondered. If ever there was a way to keep a group of Odists in check, that might just be it.
``Same, yeah. She'd probably try to pull a Dear or something.''
Only True Name, of all of them, remained calm. Serious, yes, but calm. ``What does disappearing and being gone look like to you, Jonas?'' she asked. ``Do you\ldots what? Want me to hide away in a locked-down sim forever?''
``And hate every minute of it. You heard her, she likes who she was and all that she did. I cannot imagine her letting that go.''
``I wouldn't say no,'' he shot back.
Ey nodded and combed eir fingers through the fur on the nape of her neck. ``So she'll be left with a complex view of that—or, well, a couple of them, I guess—maybe enough for her to change how she moves through the world. Think it'll be enough for Jonas?''
``No.''
``I thought not.''
``So,'' she said with exaggerated patience. ``What does me disappearing look like to you?''
``You just can't be around. You can't be you anymore. You can't be walking around and having people point and say, ``Hey, it's that piece of shit skunk!'' You need to just disappear, because anything else is just going to destabilize your precious System. Imagine! True Name, who didn't die, wants to bring back political parties! I'm prepared for that, but I don't think you are.''
``We are of one mind on that.''
Jonas snorted. ``Fuck if I believe you on \emph{that.}''
Ioan watched with increasing intensity. The actual words of the conversation aside, True Name's calmness seemed to be overwhelming Jonas's restraint. He seemed to be having a hard time holding back snark, all that sarcasm that made for good entertainment, perhaps, but was increasingly unbecoming for what ey thought of as a politician.
Here was the Ode clade slowly diverging past reconciliation, here ey was mumbling all the more as the skunks had pointed out, and now Jonas Prime, for all his stability seemed to be having a hard time maintaining his own brand of control.
Eir frown deepened. Perhaps this was more than just a political dispute.
She shook her head, but whether at his words or his audacity, ey couldn't tell. ``Alright, disappear. You want me to stop being a figure and start being a person. You want me to be other than I am.''
``Yep,'' he said, grin tight and false.
``I have already begun,'' she said, and with a brief pause, ey saw her face and shoulders relax, a sudden shift towards an expression ey knew intimately from eir partner falling across her features. She continued in a voice softer than what it had been. Lilting, less space between the syllables. ``Because I already am May Then My Name Die With Me--'' Another pause, another shift, one more towards stony and stoic, voice suddenly dry and simple, almost weary. ``--and I am already Do I Know God After The End Waking.'' Finally, she fell back into that first register. ``And some part of me remains True Name, and yet I am none of these. I could not go back to that which I was even if I wished to. Tell me what it is that you want. Lay your terms on the table plainly, and we will come to an agreement.''
Jonas raised his eyebrows at the shifts in expression and voice. The frowns around the table on the faces of the other Odists only deepened.
``How can I even begin to trust you on that? You merged your two cronies, so what? You going to go cuddle-camping with Zacharias or something? You're still you.''
Both May and End Waking bristled at this, but neither spoke.
``I am not what I was, Jonas. That which was True Name does not simply sit next to that of my cocladists. They are impossibly entangled. I am not what I was.''
``I can tell, sure, but you know that's not enough, True Name.''
``You have not offered your terms. We cannot come to agreement without.''
His voice was intent, serious in a way ey hadn't seen before. ``I am saying that you need to disappear. There is no stable future for the System if you show up in anything close to the same form as you were, and you know that. You were almost assassinated, and doubtless more than you three--'' He nodded at May, End Waking, and Ioan. ``--know. You show up as you are, and everything crumbles, or at the very least, starts to shift in unstable ways. Plan A was you gone, but plan B relies on you understanding that there's no recovery from a failed plan A that involves you.''
``Why did you not just ask me?''
``Would you have stepped down?'' he asked with a sneer.
She frowned. ``Doubtless you had other cards to play that did not involve Guōweī, some other leverage that did not involve death. You could not convince me, but all this high drama is over the top for you.''
``I was bored. It sounded fun. You were right there. Why not?''
``You were bored,'' she said coolly. ``You were bored, so you decided to hire someone to kill me.''
Ioan watched Jonas's smile fall back into that uncaring cruelty, increasingly ungrounded.
He waved his hand imperiously. ``And I'm getting bored now. I'm surprised you're still hung up on this, True Name. You're the theatre geek--''
``Jonas,'' When I Do Not Remember murmured, her voice a low warning. He only grinned.
True Name sighed. ``Right. So now you\ldots what, want me to look different? Sound different? I am ready to commit to staying out of the business. You want me to act the part or something? Your terms.''
``You need to go away, True Name. I don't fucking care \emph{how.} You make it happen or I will.''
There was a moment's thoughtful silence from the skunk, her paws gripping the edge of the table, before she stood, pushed her chair back in, and turned away. Then in the most stunning display of forking ey'd ever seen, True Name began to change.
Ioan had seen eir share of Dear's exhibitions, not to mention those of other instance artists the fox had introduced em to along the way, and the forking involved in all of them had been perfect. They were well rehearsed dances of duplication that told a story.
However, they were, whether by association with Dear or by the art itself, fanciful. The duplication was supposed to evoke a sense of magic, of wonder—or the closely related terror.
In eir own work in theatre, both as an actor and as a playwright, ey'd found use for forking within a story that had remained more grounded, more tied to day to day life, and those performances had seen a success of their own through May and A Finger Pointing's guidance.
The Odists as a whole were more familiar and comfortable with forking than anyone ey'd ever met, even among the most dispersionista of dispersionista clades. Both May and Dear navigated that aspect of their lives with a grace ey could only dream of. Even the explosions of foxes or skunks during times of excitement were skillfully done.
This, though, went beyond that.
As they watched, True Name began to change. She worked with a singular sense of purpose that left no doubt as to what she was doing. An instance flickered into being before herself and watched with a critical eye as skunk after skunk blinked into existence. Each one bore some slight change from their immediate down-tree instance. Sometimes an array of skunks would wind up in a line before that observing instance, which would nod at one or the other in approval to leave the others to quit. And when a change was accepted, the down-tree instance would quit.
This smooth modification of form was in and of itself impressive for how naturally she began to change—not only did the instance watching have to keep track of what change was happening and what would come next, but so did those doing the actual changing; they all had to be on the same page—but what left em truly impressed was the speed. She began her work with about one fork per second, but before long the changes ramped up to two a second. Three. Nearly four changes per second of forks flickering into and out of existence, all while the orchestrating instance watched, her eyes flicking this way and that across them.
And then, it was over.
The result was a skunk slightly shorter than True Name had stood, though still a few centimeters taller than May. She was heavier, as well, with a curve to the hips and belly that was familiar to em from eir partner, but unlike May, this softness was more\ldots well, natural wasn't quite the right term, but where May's weight seemed to be designed to add a sense of both harmlessness and comfort to her form, this new form of True Name simply looked like a pudgy thirty-something who had settled into a comfortable weight long ago and never bothered to change.
Her face had shifted as well, becoming plainer in ways ey couldn't quite explain. Where True Name had always had some aspect of larger-than-life about her, she now just looked\ldots normal. Still a furry, still living in that form that was more comfortable to her than humanity, but normal.
Most striking, though, was the pattern of fur. While much of it was covered now, ey'd seen the way it had shifted during the process. Gone were the two parallel stripes, the ones ey had grown to love on May, replaced with a set of white splotches in the black of her fur. The white atop her head remained, disconnected from the patch between her eyes and two others high on her temples. The pattern was eye-catching: the patches seemed to travel in a few uneven lines down over her back and sides, one of them showing a hint of a whorl, another a slight zigzag, and others that were almost round spots. This pattern seemed to be mirrored along her spine, leading to a pleasant symmetry. A quick query of the perisystem infrastructure told em that there was indeed a spotted variety of skunk, described much as ey had seen: spotted fur, shorter tail, a shorter snout that fit somewhere between that of a skunk and that of a weasel like Debarre.
Gone were the stripes. Gone, also, were the slacks and blouse, traded in for a linen tunic and a pair of loose-fitting Thai fisherman pants.
When ey was finally able to tear eir eyes away, ey saw that every Odist in the room had picked up expressions that verged from taken aback to startled and angry. May, for her part, looked startled at the display, yes, but also excited and ready. It was the same look she got before performances.
``May, what--''
``One moment, my dear,'' she said, then turned to face this new True Name with a grin. ``Will there be a change of name?''
There was a vanishingly faint hint of rehearsal to the words, well masked to anyone who didn't know her as intimately as ey did. Ey realized this must be their plan. Hers and True Name's and End Waking's, the one they'd been working on for days.
``There\ldots there has to be,'' When I Do Not Remember said, gaze still locked on True Name, and a brief tense from May confirmed that the trap had been sprung.
While he lacked the context for whatever had surprised her cocladists, even Jonas sounded impressed by the display. ``I won't let you leave as True Name. Stability, remember? That name means too much here.''
The other seven members of True Name's stanza nodded as one, and Unasked Questions said, ``You cannot be us. You cannot be who you were.''
The skunk bowed. ``You may call me Sasha.''
Ioan didn't know what ey expected from the room, but pandemonium wasn't it. May was clapping her paws delightedly and End Waking was grinning and shaking his head. Both bore the traces of rehearsal.
Jonas simply burst out laughing, and ey couldn't miss the bitterness in it.
All of the rest of the Odists, however, were shouting. None of them looked pleased.
``Not Sasha of the Ode clade, just Sasha,'' she said calmly but loud enough to be heard. ``I will not relinquish the form, just as I will not relinquish the past, but if you want me out this badly, so be it. I rescind my membership in the clade.''
``As do I,'' End Waking said, getting a smile from Sasha.
``\emph{That} name is unacceptable!'' When I Do Not Dream hollered. ``No.~You will pick something else.''
``No, I will not.''
``Shut the fuck up, When I Do Not Dream,'' Jonas shouted. ``All of you, shut the fuck up.'' He turned to Sasha and grinned icily, eyes now burning overbright. ``You always were a little snot. You want to be Sasha? You want to dive back into mediocrity and wear your weakness like a badge? Please, by all means, be my guest. Beg for pity again. Hunt down all your little friends who kept you feeling just bad enough that they could baby you without letting you think you were their plaything.''
At this, most of the stanza bridled, and there were a few louder murmurings.
Jonas waved it away. ``Crawl back to Debarre and\ldots fuck, what was his name? user11824? Crawl into their arms and let them prop you up long after you should've died.''
Murmurings grew to angry mutterings.
Jonas only laughed, and that bitterness was all the more evident. ``Go. Be Sasha. Live your silly little life. And you,'' he said through clenched teeth, jabbing a finger toward Ioan. ``Write your little story. That's what you're here for, isn't it? Write your little romance and fuck your little girlfriends and put on your little plays.''
May rolled her eyes.
``Get out. All of you.''
The rest of the stanza left, quit, or were swept—the sim didn't seem to render them any different. Ioan guessed swept, given that Guōweī's unconscious form also disappeared.
All through Jonas's tirade, Sasha wore a half smile. It wasn't rehearsed, wasn't self-satisfied. She simply looked present. She looked confident in herself in some more earnest way than she had in years, as though she had changed beyond just her appearance. When it was clear that he was finished, she bowed politely.
``See you around?''
``Fuck off.''
She laughed and reached out to take Ioan's hand in her paw, then they stepped back home, followed closely by May holding End Waking's paw.
Once back on the plain, End Waking groaned and fell to his knees, paws digging into the soil around the tussocks of grass, then quit. May and Ioan followed suit.
When their down-tree instances returned to the field from inside—May bearing a (rather lopsided) cake—they were just in time to see True Name bow to Sasha and quit. It was the last change, ey supposed, the true relinquishing of her name.
There was a long moment of silence on the plain, then Ioan let out a ragged, pent-up breath, eir shoulders sagging. ``Can someone tell me what the fuck just happened?''
``Sasha did the one thing she could have done to piss Jonas off most,'' May said, grinning. ``He went in thinking he'd take everything from her and left with no wind in his sails. Well done, my dear.''
Sasha beamed and bowed with a flourish.
``And you knew this?'' ey asked.
She nodded. ``To an extent. We had discussed several options, but many of the changes were new. I saw her unwind all of the changes from the last centuries--''
``All the way back to Praiseworthy's suggestions before Secession,'' the other skunk said proudly.
``--and other than the spotted skunk thing, she looks just like\ldots well, Sasha. Nice touch, by the way.''
``I do not think I could have gotten away with staying the same skunk, even if I look similar enough while clothed. But yes, I am back to the me of\ldots shit, when did I make Sasha like this? 2110?''
Ioan shook eir head, dizzy. ``This is what you looked like before uploading?''
``What my—\emph{our}—av looked like, yes, all except the change to a spotted skunk. They always felt too flashy, back then, and I just wanted to look like myself offline except a furry. Completely unremarkable and a species no one likes.''
``The outfit was my suggestion,'' End Waking said. ``It always was our favorite, but for some reason, we never brought it with us to the System, and I knew the rest of the stanza would pick up on that quite easily.''
Sasha nodded.
``I am proud of you, Sasha,'' he continued. ``I do not yet know why I feel compelled to say that, but I am proud of you. You have much to make up for, your own penance yet to serve, but that you have done this at all is a good step forward.''
Ioan sighed and sat down heavily in the grass. ``You're all completely nuts.''
The three skunks laughed.
``Why didn't you tell me?''
``For your story,'' Sasha said. ``You had to go in there with an untainted view in order to write a more earnest story at the end.''
``So,'' ey said, organizing eir thoughts out loud. ``May and End Waking--''
``E.W.'' the skunk corrected. ``I am E.W. of no clade.''
The other two skunks perked up and grinned wide.
Ioan blinked, hesitated, then continued. ``May and\ldots E.W. merged down and you\ldots I guess feel more like you used to? Back phys-side, I mean. Enough to head back to who you were before the clade began, I mean. Is that even possible?''
``It is not a statement of reality, dear. I cannot reintegrate those aspects of myself that are not up-tree from me, and even if I could, there are those who no longer exist or who have left Lagrange,'' she said, that slight smile growing. ``It is a statement of hope, perhaps, or a desire for completion. It is an understanding of the ways in which I fall short expressed in my very name. Will this sense of a truer life last? Perhaps. It will certainly not always feel good, and will at some point cease feeling new, but I plan on owning it for as long as I am able.''
``And how is it that this pisses off Jonas?'' Ey snorted. ``He certainly sounded pissed.''
Sasha knelt across from Ioan, followed shortly by E.W. and May to either side of em, May summoning up plates and cutting thick slices of cake. It was strange to see so many smiles, still strange to see May so happy around her down-tree instance and stranger still to see E.W. even in the same sim.
``What Jonas was expecting was for me to remain True Name in everything except form and name,'' she said. ``He was expecting someone deeply cowed by his political genius—and do not underestimate him, he \emph{is} still a genius. He felt that he had won his spot as rightful leader of Lagrange, if such a thing can even be said to exist. He thought that he had beaten me down and left me either unable to continue or unwilling to try.''
May added, ``I suspect that he is starting to crack.''
Ioan nodded.
``Perhaps,'' Sasha said. ``He has not seemed fully grounded in many years, but again, do not underestimate him.''
Ioan jumped at a brief sensorium ping, a request to enter, followed shortly by Debarre popping into existence behind May, who had apparently admitted him. ``What was so urgent that you pulled me away from lunch and\ldots{}'' he trailed off, squinting at this new skunk. ``Who\ldots but you're\ldots what?''
Sasha stiffened where she knelt. ``Debarre,'' she said, bowing her head. ``A pleasure to see you.''
The weasel said nothing, looking stunned.
``This is-- was Tr--''
``Sasha. I am Sasha. I was her as well,'' she said, voice gentle but insistent enough to stop Ioan from continuing.
He stepped back a half pace, crouching as though to flee on foot. ``Sasha\ldots? What the fuck?''
Ioan, still feeling eir head spinning from so much happening so quickly, tried to pin down eir open question in eir mind while still watching the exchange intently.
``I am not what I was, Debarre. I am not True Name. I am not May or E.W.'' She hesitated, then continued, ``I am not even the Sasha you remember, but I am, I think, closer to being her than any of the Ode clade is currently.''
``Bullshit,'' he growled. ``If there's even a little bit of True Name in you, you can't be her. If you're even the slightest bit her I'm fucking out of here.''
``Wait, my love,'' E.W. said. ``Please stay.''
Debarre hesitated.
``If I am still here, do you not think that I agree with her? At least to a large enough extent to trust her?''
The weasel straightened up and, when May gestured to the spot beside E.W., he slowly lowered himself to a crouch as though still ready to bolt. ``I'll listen, but this had better be good.''
Sasha bowed, sitting quietly and fiddling anxiously with the hem of her tunic while May caught him up on the events of the past few months, letting the other three of them interject with corrections and confirmations. Throughout, Debarre waited, and while he didn't relax fully, by the end of the discussion, he was at least sitting all the way down.
``So now you're Sasha,'' he said slowly.
``A new Sasha. Related, but not the same Sasha you and I remember.''
``I'll buy that at least,'' he muttered. ``You still make me really fucking nervous.''
She smiled faintly. ``Do not worry, my dear. I make myself nervous.''
At the affectionate \emph{my dear}, the weasel jolted back.
``My apologies,'' Sasha said quickly. ``I was not thinking. If you would like me not to use that phrase, I will do my best not to. I just have enough\ldots well, I am different enough now that it comes automatically.''
``You have enough of E.W. in you, you mean.''
She nodded.
``I\ldots well, yeah. Not from you.'' He hesitated, eyes averted, and added, ``Please.''
``Of course.
``So tell me how this gets you anything.''
Ioan sat up straight once more, unpinning eir question. ``You were saying that Jonas thought he'd beaten you.''
``Right, yes. He thought that he had left me so broken that I might fade away or even quit of my own accord. Instead, I became the one thing he could not control.''
``How, though?'' ey asked.
``Because of the \emph{History}. The System knows about me. It knows about the Council of Eight and about Sasha and Michelle Hadje. It also knows about True Name, though, and to see that True Name has stepped down and become one of the few sympathetic figures in that same story once again means that he cannot touch me. He cannot risk reinforcing being seen as a villain--''
``Or more of one,'' May muttered.
``--by coming after me. Not only that, but with the expectation that the Sasha who was on the Council was in the right when seen in contrast to True Name, I will be seen as a balancing force rather than a co-conspirator. Him working against that risks being seen as either unbalancing an effective system or a return to a two-party system that no one wants.''
``It is not a win, \emph{per se},'' E.W. added. ``She has not beaten Jonas, but she has entered into a stalemate with him.''
``Can't he still come after you, though? It's not like the whole System knows.''
``That is why he was so upset at you, as well, my dear,'' May said. ``You will write your book and your play, and he will just have to brace himself as best he can.''
``But I haven't yet, though.''
``Of course, but if he had decided to take Sasha out anyway, you would still be left to write about \emph{that}. Your name is already trusted enough on the System that if you were to write something after her assassination, it would still have gone poorly for him. If he had taken you out as well—something I doubt he was prepared to do anyway—he would be in even deeper shit.''
Ey shook eir head. Ey was feeling very far behind but needed to understand if ey was to write this book. More, ey needed to understand for emself. ``So why not become Michelle?''
``Because look at me,'' Sasha said, laughing and spreading her arms. ``I am a furry. A \emph{skunk} furry, no less. There is benefit to being something that is just a little silly, just as there always has been. Even after all these years, it is difficult to take someone pretending to be a small furry animal seriously, so that disarms me in the eyes of the observer.''
``So he will just leave you alone?''
``He will have to if he wishes to remain in his position. He answers to his desire for power, I answer only to my desire for stability and continuity. In that I remain earnest in my conviction,'' she said by way of answer. ``Even that of me which is E.W. and May. E.W. cannot love his forest if politics overwhelm his existence. May cannot hold onto her devotion. These things I know.''
May nodded slowly. ``You are not wrong. I would not have used such words, but you are not wrong.''
``That of me which remains True Name has settled down,'' she continued. ``And she still holds to the idea that politics is a means to an end. She is good at it. She enjoys it. She is willing and able to utilize it.''
``So,'' Debarre said. ``When did you realize this might even work?''
``It was a chance I took. One that might have failed, yes, but a good chance. It was all those times he talked about how you and Michelle were not fit to lead. Jonas had a view of me that was as inaccurate as it was easy to use against him. I have my political acumen and you have your own small group.''
Ioan watched Debarre stiffen, making note of his response. It didn't feel like the type of thing to include in the story, but it did make rather a lot of the weasel's words and actions make more sense.
``You're nuts,'' Debarre said, rubbing his paws over his face to cover that response. ``You're all fucking nuts.''
Ioan gestured wildly toward the weasel. ``Confirmation! Fucking nuts!''
The three skunks laughed while ey and Debarre leaned across the circle to shake hands.
The skunk rolled until her face was nearly pressed against eir belly to let em pet. ``I do not know,'' she mumbled. ``I do not think even she knows.''