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\chapter{Ioan Bălan — 2350}\label{ioan-bux103lan-2350}}
\markboth{Ioan Bălan — 2350}{}

With May out of the house and True Name doing\ldots well, whatever it was that she did in her room by herself, Ioan was left emotionally and intellectually stalled out, stuck by emself in an empty den. Ey sat for a while on the couch, staring out into the slowly melting snow on the deck and ruminating. Then, giving in to the urge to pace, ey slipped on the boots ey kept for just such occasions and slowly tramped a ring around the outer edge of the yard, first reveling in the crunch of the icy top layer of the snow, then the sweat ey worked up when, on the third lap, the snow began to drag at eir feet, and then finally the solidity of the uneven path ey'd worn down into the snow, a marker of energy spent.

The pacing gave em time and space. It let eir emotions spool out into nothingness while eir thoughts were left crunched beneath the treads of eir boots. Ey didn't know what ey thought about. Ey didn't know what ey felt. Ey just walked.

Ey knew that, at one point, ey wondered if eir command to mirror the back yard for True Name's room meant that it made a new back yard or whether it just mirrored the view out the window. If it were the latter, would she be watching em? Would she be wondering why ey walked? Would she scoff? Would she wish for a way to crush her own worries down into the ice?

And then the train of thought was gone, lost amid some whorl in the steam of eir breath.

An hour's walking gained em sore hips, a sweat-soaked shirt, and a well-trod trail around the outside of the yard.

``Fucking cold,'' ey grumbled, stomping the lingering snow off eir boots and the hems of eir slacks on the way up the stairs to the balcony. Ey kicked the boots off outside the door and shuffled inside. Ey could fork emself warm and dry, sure, but why do that when there was a perfectly good shower right there?

So, ey lingered under the hot water for fifteen minutes, and instead of whorls of breath, the crunch of ice, the nothingness of slate-gray skies, eir thoughts and emotions dribbled down eir face in rivulets of water, swirled once, twice, disappeared down the drain.

\emph{Dissociating,} ey thought, laughed to no one.

Brushed eir hair. Stared, unseeing, at emself in the mirror. Dressed in clean clothes—sweater vest? Sweater vest—and wound up sitting on the couch once more.

True Name peeked out of her room and bowed to em from just outside her door. The sound of the door and the movement out of the corner of eir eye startled em back to reality. ``Sorry, True Name. Everything okay?''

``Yes, thank you, Mx. Bălan.'' She smiled apologetically—such a strange look on her. ``I am not the greatest of cooks, but would you like me to make dinner tonight? I do not believe May Then My Name will be joining us, and it is getting dark.''

``Huh?'' Ey whirled back around toward the picture windows and frowned. Sure enough, it was dimming into evening already. ``Oh, well, sure, I guess. I'm sure whatever you make will be fine. Sorry I'm so spacey.''

The skunk padded into the kitchen and waved the apology away with a paw. ``You are fine, my dear. You are allowed to space out. It has been a dramatic few days, so I do not blame you. Can you please grant me ACLs enough to create ingredients?''

After a pause to will it so, ey nodded. ``Sure, should be good now.''

``Thank you.''

Ey felt strange staring out into the yard—the opposite direction of the kitchen—while True Name cooked, so ey grabbed a notebook and moved to the dining table where, should ey be able to pull eir thoughts together, ey could write, and if ey couldn't, ey could at least talk with the skunk without twisting around in eir seat.

Ey could not, it turned out. Ey flopped the notebook shut again and leaned back in eir chair. ``What're you cooking?''

``Chicken\ldots rice\ldots stuff. It is college food.''

Ey laughed. ``Right, I'm familiar. Sounds good. Certainly cold enough out there.''

``Of course, yes. May Then My Name would have the same recipe, would she not?'' The skunk clattered about for a few more minutes, and then, apparently satisfied, leaned back on the counter behind the stove. ``I do not understand your affection for the weather, but I am happy to make warm things while it is about.''

``Hopeless romanticism, I guess,'' ey said. ``But whatever. Are you feeling better?''

True Name shrugged, eyes locked in a glassy stare out the windows. ``I do not know if better is the correct word. I feel lighter, perhaps, having said what I did to May Then My Name. Conflicted, as well, that I feel lighter and yet she feel the burden of knowledge heavy enough to need to step away. For that, I apologize.''

Ey nodded. ``She sent me a few brief pings. She's with End Waking and Debarre at the moment. No clue when she'll be back.''

``I am pleased to hear that she is safe.''

``Now that you've had some space from it, can you tell me any more about what you told her that set her off?''

``I am not ready to get deep into it, Ioan, I hope you understand.''

``Of course. I'm just worried. I guess. Did it have to do with her specifically?''

She didn't respond. The skunk's gaze never wavered. Her posture remained relaxed and comfortable, and for that, ey felt all the more anxious.

``Well, maybe you can tell me what spurred the conversation?''

``Right, yes,'' she said, deflating somewhat with a sigh. ``What do you believe, Ioan?''

``Excuse me?''

``What do you believe? You do not strike me as religious, but surely you believe in something. The sanctity of life? Love? Art?''

Ey sat up straighter, frowning at her. ``That's a surprisingly difficult question to answer.''

``It is not at all surprising. It is easy to provide a noun and say that one believes in that. The irreversibility of time, perhaps? Your cocladist and Dear spoke to that in the \emph{History}.''

The conversation was taking a decidedly Odist turn. Coming at the topic sideways, grand statements that came tinged with a sense of awe. They all seemed prone to falling into the style of speaking and ey fell for it every time. ``Mmhm. Several times.''

``But what does it mean to believe in something like that? Or the sanctity of life or love or art? Or God, for that matter? `Belief' as a word is a stand-in for a concept so broad as to be intimidating or impossible. One may say as Blake did, `For everything that lives is holy', but encompassing that within one's mind is truly terrifying.'' She finally broke her thousand-yard stare out the window and smiled faintly to em. ``Still, I believe in what I do, Ioan. Really, \emph{truly} believe. I feel called. I feel led. I am good at it. I wake up thinking about it, spend my day working with it, and fall asleep thinking yet more about it. We have an existence which is fundamentally different from that of phys-side, and I cannot put into words how much I love that. It is more than a want, I have a need so integral to my being for it to continue that I would not be True Name without it, and I love being True Name.''

``But now\ldots{}''

``Yes, `but now'. But now I am stuck in an impossible limbo built by Jonas. My entire existence these last two hundred years has been defined by a belief that I thought Jonas and I shared, and in a few minutes, he tore it to the ground, burnt the pieces to ash, and then ground the ash beneath his heel.'' She laughed and shook her head. ``So melodramatic, is it not? But that is how it feels to have one's belief turned hollow and stale.''

``Do you overflow?''

The skunk had lifted the lid of the pot of rice to stir. If it was anything at all how May cooked it, it was a stiff rice porridge made with chicken stock, cheese stirred in at the last minute—`poor skunk's risotto', she called it. She seemed keen to use her time cooking to think, so ey waited in silence.

``I do. More frequently and in much shorter bursts,'' she said, finally. ``Every few days, I will walk sims and I will get lost. Well and truly lost. Dear loses control of its tightly directed energy, May Then My Name loses control of that wellspring of love within her, and I lose control of my sense of control.''

``Really? Every few days? Is that because you're stretched so thin with all your forks?''

She shook her head and, deeming the rice to be done, slid it off the heat. ``I started walking in 2124, my dear. A few years before May Then My Name was forked, back when it cost too much to be so cavalier with forking. It is not so dramatic as your partner's.''

Ey nodded. ``Were you overflowing earlier today?''

She chopped the chicken breasts she'd sauteed into strips, focusing on the task, then on plating up the food, before responding. ``Perhaps, Ioan. Perhaps.''

They ate in silence, then. It was interesting picking apart the way the two skunks' recipes had diverged over the years. True Name's was spicier, May's more savory and with more vegetables.

They made it most of the way through the meal before they were alerted to May's arrival by the sim's sensorium ping.

Ioan set down eir fork and slid out of eir chair to greet her as she stepped out of the entryway. Ey was pleased to see her face washed of tears and expression washed of distress. She looked tired, to be sure, but no longer ready to murder someone.

``I brought gifts, my dear. I do not know if--'' She paused as she caught sight of True Name.

The other skunk had also stood and was bowing deeply to her up-tree instance. ``May Then My Name, I apolog--\emph{hrk!}''

May pressed the waxed cotton-wrapped parcel into Ioan's hands and bounded over to True Name, shoving her out of her bow in order to get her arms around her for an awkward hug. ``That is for what happened,'' she said, then socked her solidly on the shoulder. ``And that is for how you told me.''

True Name stumbled back from the greeting, blinking rapidly and rubbing at her arm. She looked as baffled as ey felt. Watching May interact with True Name these last few days had been something of a roller coaster, whether it was the abject fury ey saw within her whenever the topic of her cocladist's goals—or perhaps calling—came up or the strange protectiveness that had led her to offer their home to her. Those were stressful enough; this was overwhelming.

Ey shuffled back to the table, slid the packet onto it, and fell heavily into eir chair. ``What just happened?''

May laughed and dotted her nose against eir cheek before settling down into her usual seat. ``I am sorry that that was weird, and I am sorry that I ran away earlier. I was able to get a lot off my chest, and I feel much better for it. Oh, you did eat! That is okay, I did too, but I think these may make good dessert.''

May's nearly manic tone and the tension in her cheeks showed something deeper going on beneath the surface, but given her chatter and the still-shocked look on True Name's face, this didn't seem to be the time to ask.

``May Then My Name, I know that I--''

``If you talk about earlier, I will hire Guōweī myself,'' May interrupted sweetly. ``I promise that there will be time to talk about it soon, but for now, I need something else, alright?''

``Of course,'' True Name said, frowning. ``In that case, what is in the package?''

``End Waking made these corn\ldots pancake\ldots things. Fritter cakes? Something like that. They were savory, but they might go well with honey as a sort of dessert. There are only two, but we can split them.''

Ioan and True Name exchanged a glance, then watched as May unwrapped the griddle cakes and swiped a pot of honey into being beside them. She broke off a piece, drizzled honey on it, and ate it.

``Well?'' ey asked.

``It is fine. I do not know that it is a dessert. Have you ever had chicken and waffles, my dear?''

Ey shook eir head, reaching for a piece of the (slightly soggy) cake and the pot of honey.

``It is not that, but it reminds me of it. Savory and meaty but also sweet and bready.''

Ey frowned as ey chewed on the morsel. Ey could see it being truly delicious if it had not been cooked in venison grease specifically. The gaminess made it a strange mix.

``Good, but not great,'' was True Name's assessment, to which May nodded vigorously.

They finished the griddle cakes all the same, keeping up the banal chatter. It felt good, ey realized, to talk about nothing. Day after day of serious talks had worn on em more than ey realized, and ey made a silent note to thank May later for forcing them into something more pleasant. The greeting she'd given True Name was weird, but it definitely broke the suspense that had dogged them all week.

After dinner, ey cleaned up the dishes by hand while True Name went back to her room and May settled onto her beanbag, getting a thoughtful look on her face that usually meant she was working mentally.

Once ey was finished, ey settled down beside the skunk, letting her squirm in next to em and get an arm around eir middle. Ey blinked a cone of silence into being over them. ``It's good to have you back,'' ey said, hugging around her shoulders. ``What was that all about?''

She snagged eir free hand and put it atop her head. A clearer demand for pets there was not. ``Mm? You mean me being a chipper ditz?''

Ey laughed, stroking over her ears. ``Well, I was going to ask about the hug, mostly. My guess about you being chipper was to get us to finally talk about something light rather than yet more intense or depressing stuff.''

``You are right on that one, yes,'' she mumbled. ``We doubtless have more heavy shit to talk about, but I spent hours crying today, and if we did not break out of that cycle, I would have spent yet more in tears.''

``I won't bring it up, then.''

``Good.'' She poked em in the belly, then went back to her hug. ``Though as to the greeting, I meant it when I said I got a lot off of my chest. I spent a lot of time thinking and a lot of time talking to End Waking and Debarre, and I have some ideas for moving forward.''

``Oh?''

She shook her head beneath eir hand and tightened her grip around em. ``I do not want to discuss them now. I am tired and cried out and you are comfortable and good to me.''
