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\chapter*{Ioan Bălan — 2305}\label{ioan-bux103lan-2305}}

Ioan sat back and rubbed eir eyes. Time had gone all funny with all this research.

As with so many of eir previous projects, ey had fallen into a state of free-running sleep and single-minded focus. Ey would work for a few hours, suddenly get impossibly tired, nap for what felt like fifteen minutes, and wake up three hours later. Then ey'd work for twenty hours straight, neglecting to eat.

Ey had researched it at one point and entertained the idea that it might be part of some larger sleep disorder, or an perhaps attention disorder, something grander. Ey had put it off as just one of eir many neuroses.

\emph{Less than healthy.}

There were never any complaints about the quality or quantity of work ey got done while free-running. Ey didn't slip up or stumble. Didn't make any more mistakes than when ey stuck to a schedule. Made fewer, perhaps. And being methodical got one quite far as a historian and writer. Ey would write the same quality work at the beginning, middle, and end of eir waking periods.

What it did \emph{not} do, however, was endear oneself to one's housemates. Ioan\#tracker quickly grew frustrated with eir own forks, whether or not they used a cone of silence, so ey knew the feeling intimately. It was implicit that ey would, as a fork. It was always a problem when multiple Bălan instances stayed in the same house while on separate projects, each on a separate schedule, and ey was nothing if not a Bălan.

Here, at least, ey'd been lucky enough to be invited by eir\ldots client? Patron? Had been invited by Dear to stay at its place.

So that's how ey found emself rubbing eir eyes in front of a simple, if painfully modern, desk in a studio apartment attached to eir\ldots employer's? Friend's? Eir friend's equally modern house.

The studio apartment really was a studio, too: someone — perhaps the other Odist Dear had mentioned — had used it for painting. Rightfully so: the exterior wall was floor to ceiling glass looking out over that sere prairie. The landscape, Dear's partner had explained, was the work of Dear's cocladist, Serene; Sustained And Sustaining, `born' when their down-tree instance, Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars had forked to explore her twinned interests of forming oneself and of forming one's surroundings in ever greater detail.

Ioan's head spun whenever ey thought about the clade, but the longer ey spent around Dear, the more ey found emself liking it. Ey was curious to get to meet another Odist.

If it weren't for the window-wall, opaquable, the apartment would have felt like a cell. Simple cot. Desk. The kitchenette the one concession to freedom. The walls were whitewashed concrete. The floor that same pale hardwood. The fixtures all brushed steel. No doors to the rest of the house, nor anywhere but outside. No restroom. One was expected to either turn off elimination or do so outside.

\emph{There's a cheap joke to be made there,} ey had thought on first moving in. \emph{Dear lifting its leg against some tree. But I doubt its body ever had that functionality enabled.}

Ioan shook eir head and rubbed at the rest of eir face. Ey was daydreaming — eveningdreaming? — and that made em wonder how long ey had been awake.

``Probably some horrid number of hours,'' ey mumbled to the wall.

A sensorium ping; a gentle impinging of Dear upon eir senses. Half-sensed words: \emph{``Does the wall reply often?''}

Ioan spun around. Dear was standing, prim and dapper as always, at the door through the glass, paws clasped before it.

``You scared the hell out of me!''

Dear's serene smile widened into a grin. \emph{``Sorry, Ioan. I will wait until after the wall responds, next time.''}

``Jackass.''

\emph{``Foxass,''} Dear corrected, accenting the word with an exaggerated swish of its tail. \emph{``Have some news. Walk with me?''}

Ioan nodded and stood. ``Glad to. I'm hitting a wall, here.''

The fennec adopted a look of concern. \emph{``Do not hit your friends, Ioan.''}

``Ha ha.'' Ioan rolled eir eyes. ``Something's got you in a state today. Tonight. Whatever.''

\emph{``Tonight.''} Dear's smile softened and it beckoned out toward the prairie. \emph{``Come, walk. Storm scheduled in an hour, let us catch all of the nice smells.''}
