\cleardoublepage
\begin{quote}
\itshape\Large
Odist who still remembers (unfortunately)
\end{quote}

\cleardoublepage

\subsection*{Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire}
% Warmth

When Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled, my down-tree, sought to forget the Name, I was a fork it left behind in the event that its attempt would render it unwhole in some way. This endeavor was a great feat, mind; it asked of itself something that, as far as we knew, had never been done before.

In this time, it was still a skunk; it was still a woman. It was during this process that Dear became what it became, that excitable fennec whose tongue was sharp as a knife. I do not come from this Dear; I come from the Dear before, the Dear who still remembered the Name, the Dear who \emph{decided} to forget the name through this great effort.

So I sat and read my book and waited while it took a walk. I was there for some hours, contemplating what it might become—what \emph{I} might become, really—and the significance to me of the Name. I will not betray Dear's confidence by confiding a why that I did not ultimately embrace, but suffice it to say that I had second thoughts.

Dear did not. When it returned, beaming, now a fennec, its pronoun markers changed, its poise somewhere between Michelle's willingness and Praiseworthy's enigma and Rye's attentiveness, I saw someone who was me only hours ago. I saw this someone and knew if I quit I would become it.

I would become it and, as it informed me it was satisfied, forget the Name. After these hours alone with my thoughts, I looked upon this too-familiar visage, this haunting echo of a ghost I always felt, and felt \emph{dysphoric}. Some of what it became was appealing; I liked that it was smaller, that it leaned into a sort of creature-queerness. Those were traits I later embraced myself.

But there was this \emph{irreverence} that rankled. Its body had been made into a transgression. It was incredibly hot to think about the likes of True Name or Qoheleth meeting it and averting their eyes as if from some sudden nakedness. Dear's very existence was a kind of nakedness we were \emph{all} all too familiar with. And I would rather have ownership—\emph{sole} ownership—over my identity.

So I smiled, set my book aside, stood, bowed, and stepped from the sim. I made a point not to speak with Dear for some months lest I corrupt my own intention. I notified it, of course, that I intended to take on the name Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire, but I spent most of that time feeling a kind of near-regret.

One method to make a difficult decision between two mutually exclusive options is to first flip a coin; when it comes up one or the other, you may find yourself relieved or suddenly overcome with regret. It is in this relief or regret that you learn which you most want. In that time sitting in wait for Dear's return, I learned I did not want to forget; \emph{I} wanted to move \emph{past} the Name.

And I did, in time. I started to learn about construct design; I recalled how, in those hazy days when the System was young, there was a great need to recreate those things we take for granted. Who will reinvent the apple, the chive, the plate of lasagna? A cladist still feels hunger if they do not tune their sensorium elsewise, but the System did not come pre-loaded with ingredients or meals; someone had to \emph{make} them.

I was late to this party; I was forked in Systime 57, and all the heavy lifting had already been done. So I decided I would find those who remembered less widely-known foods, particularly obscure fruits, and interviewed them in the hopes of recreating these memories as best I could. I met all kinds during this time, but also Qoheleth, for I took an interest in archaic fruits as well. It was through him that I first brushed shoulders with My.

She became a sort of gender role-model for me, demonstrating the appeal to me of trans transgression, of being deliberately difficult to define. Why difficult? For her, it is confrontation; she is what she is, and she will not hide herself whether it is clear or unclear what, exactly, she is. She is a \emph{trans} woman; a woman who is, pointedly, trans.

And I was that skunk who was then neuter, like Dear. Some years later, I became this skunk whose identity sloshes from phrase to phrase between queer woman and creature-queer and nonbinary. Some find it annoying to perform gender with me in embracing the cycling of pronouns that I have settled into, and it is in that very transgression that I find my euphoria.

In this euphoria, I reclaimed my identity from that need that led Dear to do what it did. I became comfortably ambivalent towards the Name in terms of self. But there was still this implicit relationship that all Odists must grapple with more or less, and it was through construct artistry that I came to terms with that gut-wrenching memory.

That memory of our friend who was taken from us for nothing. Of our friend who was so traumatized by what happened to em that the void never stopped calling. Of our friend with whom we dance in every waking moment—in our dreams too, really—and with whom the act of forking or creating a construct is a kind of wordless conversation.

I could not face that memory every single time I made a thing or played with Motes or forked to solve some scheduling conflict. There is, frankly, no compelling plot here; I spent decades leaning into this art with the intent to find my own way, to lean not on this unspoken presence. No particular words of wisdom, no definite experiences showed me the answer.

One day, I realized my thoughts drifted elseward without much effort. I thought about em when I thought about em, not just because I was forking or dreaming something into being. I realized this and I breathed a sigh of relief.
