Prep

content/prelim/006.md

@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ The next to arrive were Warmth In Fire and Jess, both of whom launched themselve
 
 I'd met Jess a few times before at dinner parties or the like, and she definitely shared Hanne and I's fondness for snarky banter, and was just as prone to falling into witty repartee as we were.
 
-For some reason, though, I'd yet to actually meet Warmth In Fire beyond the brief introduction we'd had in the field. Despite Dry Grass's average height and soft build, Warmth In Fire was quite short and wiry. Where Dry Grass was comfortable to move through life at a steady pace with measured speech, the skunk was spunky and energetic, speaking quickly and smiling readily, quick to hug — I received my own after Hanne — and quicker still to fork to accomplish such affection. They seemed to live in a pleasant sort of transgression, from the constantly shifting pronouns to the almost childlike performance that nonetheless seemed to be performed with a wink and a nudge, as though ey knew just how subversive such kid-like vibes could be.
+For some reason, though, I'd yet to actually meet Warmth In Fire beyond the brief introduction we'd had in the field. Despite Dry Grass's average height and soft build, Warmth In Fire was quite short and wiry. Where Dry Grass was comfortable to move through life at a steady pace with measured speech, the skunk was spunky and energetic, speaking quickly and smiling readily, quick to hug — I received my own after Hanne — and quicker still to fork to accomplish such affection. They seemed to live in a pleasant sort of transgression, from the constantly shifting pronouns to the almost childlike nature that nonetheless seemed to be performed with a wink and a nudge, as though ey knew just how subversive such kid-like vibes could be.
 
 Hold My Name, in contrast, stood tall and confident. She leaned more on Dry Grass's steady nature, though seemed perfectly content to keep up with Warmth In Fire's speedy intensity, at one point scruffing an instance of the skunk — who was nearly a meter shorter than her — to pull it into a bearhug. She was also visibly and effortlessly transfeminine in a way that I attempted to live into in my own trans identity. I liked her immediately.
 
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@ At that delayed payoff, the rest of us laughed in earnest. Warmth In Fire, halfw
 
 "Okay, okay, I'll give you that one," Lily said, still grinning. "That was pretty good. Still atrocious, but at least the good kind of atrocious. I'm sorry for the other night."
 
-"That was only last night, my dear. We do seem to be living at a high skew, do we not?" Dry Grass bowed to her. "I appreciate it, Lily. I cannot apologize for my clade, but I will all the same do my best to live as a counterexample to the stories you have heard that rankle so much."
+"That was only last night, my dear. We do seem to be living at a high skew, do we not?" Dry Grass bowed to her. "I appreciate it, Lily. I cannot and will not apologize for my clade, but I will all the same do my best to live as a counterexample to these stories you have heard that rankle so much."
 
 "Yeah, thanks," Lily said, more down to her glass of wine than to Dry Grass. "I was thinking, actually, and part of the reason I wanted to come over and see you on...uh, neutral ground, I guess, is that I had a question about your clade."
 
@@ -177,21 +177,21 @@ I glanced surreptitiously at Lily, who was keeping herself still, tightly under
 
 Another glance at Dry Grass showed her watching Lily warily in turn.
 
-The moment of tension passed uneasily, as Warmth In Fire spoke up next. "I will say as I always do, my dear: your anger is based around a memory that does not fit the reality of the situation. I have met Sasha through my friendship with the fifth stanza, who ever stood up for her, even when she was True Name. I have eaten dinner with her. I have watched the way she smiles. I have watched the distance at which she holds herself from time to time. I have seen the flashes of regret-tinted understanding when topics of the past crop up. She is not who she was, but neither was she who you say she must have been. I cannot even linger in discomfort around her."
+The moment of tension passed uneasily, as Warmth In Fire spoke up next. "I will say as I always do, my dear: your anger is based around a memory that does not fit the reality of the situation. I have met Sasha through my friendship with the fifth stanza, who ever stood up for her, even when she was True Name. I have eaten dinner with her. I have watched the way she smiles. I have watched the distance at which she holds herself from time to time. I have seen the flashes of regret-tinted understanding when topics of the past crop up. She is not who she was, but neither was she who you say she must have been. There was no wickedness in her, and I cannot even linger in discomfort around her."
 
 Hold My Name sighed, tired gaze level on her partner. This carried the cadence of an old argument, one had dozens or hundreds of times before.
 
 Lily only gripped her glass tighter.
 
-"She is no murderer. Not of Qoheleth, and certainly not of Michelle," Warmth In Fire continued confidently, the gravity of their words held in tension with the ineffably childlike openness of her expression. "Yes, you may hate her, and yet I cannot. Yes, my down-tree, Dear, loathes her, and yet I do not. Yes, my down-tree, Rye, has complicated thoughts, but on one thing she and I agree: she is no longer who she was. We are both suckers for character development. I am Dear. I am Rye. I am Praiseworthy, and Michelle too, but I am also my own person."
+"She is no murderer. Not of Qoheleth, and certainly not of Michelle," Warmth In Fire continued confidently, the gravity of their words held in tension with the ineffably childlike openness of her expression. "Yes, you may hate her, and yet I cannot. Yes, my up-tree, Dear, loathes her, and yet I do not. Yes, my down-tree, Rye, has had her complicated thoughts in the past, but on one thing she and I agree: she is no longer who she was, and even who she was is obscured by careful fictions. We are both suckers for character development. I am Dear. I am Rye. I am Praiseworthy, and Michelle too, but I am also my own person."
 
-"I know, Bean," Hold My Name said, voice as tired as her gaze --- and, perhaps, the argument. "You have said this countless times before, and I appreciate the balance that brings, but I am also my own person separate from you. I hate her, you do not. We are allowed to not be alike."
+"I know, Bean," Hold My Name said, voice as tired as her gaze --- and, perhaps, the argument. "You have said this countless times before, and I appreciate the balance that brings, but I am also my own person separate from you. I mistrust her, you do not. We are allowed to not be alike."
 
 The skunk nodded, waiting for her cocladist and partner to continue.
 
 "I did not even like Qoheleth all that much. I thought he was a putz who had lost his marbles," she said, smirking. "But Michelle–"
 
-Warmth In Fire waved its paw jerkily, a flash of despair washing over eir features. "Michelle was murdered, yes, but the act of violence took place at the root of her trauma. Of *our* trauma, My." The skunk was crying now, quietly and bitterly. "The act of violence that led to us being so fucked up — beautifully, wonderfully fucked up — and which led to the creation of the System also destroyed someone centuries later because she was never given help. It was her right to quit as she did, leaving us ten clades and not one, but her murderers were all of us who did not help, not some wicked machinations of only one of us."
+Warmth In Fire waved its paw jerkily, a flash of despair washing over eir features. "Michelle was murdered, yes, but the act of violence took place at the root of her trauma. Of *our* trauma, My." The skunk was crying, quietly and bitterly. "The act of violence that led to us being so fucked up — beautifully, wonderfully fucked up — and which led to the creation of the System also destroyed someone centuries later because she was never given help. It was her right to quit as she did, leaving us ten clades and not one, but her murderers were all of us who did not help, not some wicked machinations of only one of us."
 
 At the sudden force of their words, Hold My Name's expression shifted to one of alarm, and she reached out to take up one of her partner's paws. Dry Grass did much the same.