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# 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."
Sleep was the first obstacle they ran into.
Ioan and May both nodded.
While True Name had, at one point, sat up long enough to drink half a glass of water, she had yet to leave the bed, and with her still down for the count, the instance of May that had remained was unwilling to leave her side, even for dinner, which she declined.
"Is it just the finality of it all?" May asked.
"You don't think sleeping with her will be enough to keep you comfortable through the night?"
"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."
She rolled her eyes and poked em in the stomach with a dull claw. "It is not just that I do not want to sleep alone. I want to sleep with you."
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.
Ioan blinked, laughed, and rubbed at the back of eir neck. "Right, sorry, I guess I've been stuck on logistics mode for a bit."
Neither True Name nor May could say one way or another when ey'd voiced eir concerns with them.
"Is this not emotional?"
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.
"It is! I'm just...overwhelmed or something."
For her part, True Name couldn't seem to stay pinned to any one of her three identities.
May nodded and looped her arms up around eir shoulders. "That much I understand, my dear."
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.
"Would it make sense if I added a cot or something in there? I could at least sleep nearby."
And when that of May came to the fore, that was when ey was at eir most confused.
She perked up and tilted her head. "One moment. Or...well, come with me."
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, *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.
May led em to True Name's room where the skunk was slouched over on the bed, head resting in the other instance of May's lap, the two of them tucked into the nest of pillows in the corner.
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.
"Let me reduce--" The May who had stayed with Ioan quit, leaving the other instance of her to quickly incorporate the merge and continue, "--conflicts. True Name, are you able to speak?"
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.
The answer was a long time coming. "Some," she croaked.
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."
May nodded. "I am not going to leave, but it is getting close to bedtime. I am also not comfortable not being near Ioan. May ey sleep in here with us?"
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.
True Name slowly rolled her head to the side enough to squint at Ioan through one eye. Her cheek-fur was a mess of tear tracks. "Ioan?"
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 can make a cot by the bed," ey said, then laughed. "Or just another, smaller bed, I guess. No need to make one of those uncomfortable things."
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.
She slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position, though she remained half-slouched against May. "Can you...make the bed bigger?"
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.
"Well, I mean..." ey shrugged helplessly, looking to May.
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.
The skunk tilted her head back against the wall, looking up to the ceiling thoughtfully. "I do not see why not, I suppose," she said, sounding distant.
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.
"Worried?" True Name mumbled.
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.
Ioan shifted eir weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "I just, uh," ey stammered. "I don't want to make things weird. I can't even imagine all you're going through."
Surprising all three of them, they did manage to get at least some sleep that night. It wasn't *good* sleep, as, at one point or another, each of them woke with a start, but they managed a few hours of dozing.
True Name laughed hoarsely. "It is not a comfortable...time for us, no." She sighed, sat up further, and rubbed at her face. "Preference...make bed larger and join...second choice, other bed."
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.
Ey nodded. "I can make the bed bigger. Should I make a second set of covers?"
"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."
She swallowed several times in a row, a sign of tears to come ey well knew from May. "Can I ask...can you two..."
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.
May got her arms around the skunk and shushed her gently. "We will work it out."
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.
Ioan hesitated a moment longer before willing the bed to expand another half meter in width. A second set of covers and pillows spooled themselves out onto it as well, just in case.
The only words they spoke to each other was May saying, "Good luck, have fun, and do not die."
Ey paced back and forth a few times, shook eir head, then waved a hand again to bring a set of pajamas into being on the bed. Sleeping in eir usual dress of a pair of boxers didn't seem quite appropriate at the moment.
The four forks held hands and paws and, with nothing other than a shared, shaky breath, stepped from the sim.
May blinked down at the clothes, giggled quietly, and shook her head. *"You are such a nerd,"* she subvocalized through a sensorium message so as not to disturb True Name. *"It is a good idea, but you are a total nerd."*
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.
Ey shrugged helplessly, gathered up the loose lounge pants and shirt to go change.
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.
*"I have no clue how tired I even am,"* ey sent once ey returned. *"Or if I'll even be able to sleep here."*
"I do not know if I can--"
*"If you need to sneak off to sleep in our bed, you can."*
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."
*"I'm* also *unwilling to sleep without you, so..."*
His nod was jerky, distracted, but still a nod.
Her expression softened. She tilted her muzzle down to whisper something to True Name, and when she received a nod in response, she signed *okay* and patted the bed to invite em up.
And yet, the room was empty. *Perfect time to pull the late-to-the-meeting power move.*
Ey nodded and climbed onto the (now much larger) bed so ey could settle down beside May in the nook of pillows. Getting eir arm around her, ey let her rest her head on eir shoulder. It was a little awkward with True Name still slouched against her side, but it worked well enough.
Sure enough, 11:00 rolled around, no Jonas.
*"I'm surprised she's so...physical,"* ey sent.
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 --- *no, Zacharias is part of that, too,* ey thought. *There's only Odists, Jonas, and me here.*
*"She was not, at first, but I suspect she is working her way from past to present. She slowly got closer and closer as she learned how I did the same."*
"True Name! Delighted to see you, delighted," Jonas said, grinning widely and giving the barest hint of a bow.
It made sense, at least. Whenever ey'd dealt with a longer merge --- eir longest had been around thirteen months, and a particularly boring project at that --- it always felt like the memories were interleaving themselves in with the ones ey already had, histories slowly zippering themselves into consensus. Conflicts, then, were the snags one encountered along the way, and one would have to dump energy into either reconciling or discarding memories. It was a very consuming task, and that True Name had been able to speak at all was far more than ey could have done.
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?"
*"Think it's overriding the bits of her and End Waking that aren't keen on touch?"* ey asked.
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?"
*"Must be."*
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."
*"How are you doing with 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.
She sighed, at which True Name squinted up to her, then over to Ioan, offering a weak smile before settling back into processing.
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.
*"I do not know, my dear. It has activated all of my care instincts, so I am happy to make her comfortable in all of the ways I know how. It helps, then, that those are all of the ways she knows now, too, or at least is learning. If I focus on that, I feel very positive. It is only when I get distracted and ruminating that I begin to spiral. It is more comfortable for me to focus on caring for someone now than it is to think about boundaries or Zacharias or Jonas."*
With that in mind, ey could at least do eir best to focus on the less direct forms of language around the room.
Ey kissed between May's ears, murmuring, "You're a good person, May."
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.
The skunk lifted her snout to tuck it up under eir chin.
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.
"You two...are disgusting," True Name mumbled. "Keep it up."
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.
May laughed and tightened her grip around her briefly. "Hush, you. We will work on going to bed soon. I hope that you can get some sleep."
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.
She only shrugged.
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.
"Well, either way, I will let you keep the corner nest and be right here. Ioan can take the outside."
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.
"Keeping em...away?"
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.
May frowned. "I am keeping myself close to you."
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.
"I kid. I have not...even gotten there, yet," True Name said, slowly pushing herself up once more and frowning at just how far away the glass of water was. Ioan leaned forward to grab it for her. She drank carefully. "But if it...also keeps awkwardness down...that is good, too."
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.
Ioan accepted the glass from her once she finished, re-filling it from the pitcher they'd brought in and setting it on the windowsill near the nook so that she could get to it herself. "We can talk about that later. For now, I think it'll work alright."
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.
True Name nodded and settled down into her nest of pillows.
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.
May and Ioan stayed up a little longer, chatting through sensorium messages to let True Name process in peace. Cognizant of her mention that she felt better when not thinking about boundaries, ey kept the topics light, asking about favorite things and letting her rant about plays from her past that she'd hated.
"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."
Nearly an hour later, just as May started to nod off, True Name yelped and sat up, scrambling back against the wall away from them. "You know!" she shouted. "Codrin knows!"
"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?"
It took only a moment for understanding to click into place. Both ey and May sat up to give her a bit more space.
Jonas nodded. "Yes. Oligarchy on Pollux, *status quo* on Castor, and invisible monarchy here on Lagrange."
"Hush, my dear," May said, voice soothing. "It is okay. Remember Dear's letter."
"You believe that this tripod will be the most stable political structure?"
"I...I cannot-- It is too much!"
"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."
Ioan held still, hands flat on eir thighs. The urge to wipe the sweat from eir palms was pressing against em, but ey wanted to at least appear calm, even if ey didn't feel such.
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?"
May began to crawl towards True Name, then stopped when her cocladist shied away from her. "Codrin has not spoken it aloud, not even with True Name#Castor. I confirmed with Dear: ey only said *that* ey heard it, and that is all that ey told Ioan."
"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."
She snatched a pillow from the pile and clutched it to her chest, wide-eyed. "Why?"
"Bullshit," True Name said calmly, turning back to Jonas. "And so what is it that--"
"Ey couldn't be the only one," Ioan said quietly. "We don't do as well under pressure as you, we don't...well..."
"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."
"Keep secrets?" she growled.
"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."
May held up her paws disarmingly. "They keep secrets very well. They just do not keep many."
"What--"
She glanced sharply at May, then said to Ioan, "Ey did not tell you the Name? No one else knows?"
"You say that you are part of the stanza, do you not?" The Only Time I Dream, the manager of the enterprise, said.
"No. The message was individual-eyes-only. I haven't even shown May." After a moment's thought, ey added, "But I can unlock it for you, if you want. It's in an exo I haven't looked at since."
"I am, but--"
"Sweep the whole sim," she snapped.
"I see no evidence of such."
Ey nodded, swept the sim of everyone but the three of them, and instructed the perisystem architecture to print out the *0 individuals swept* receipt onto a slip of foolscap, which ey handed over.
"But May Then My Name--"
"Move back, May Then My Name," she instructed, quieter this time. When May obliged, the skunk crawled closer to em and set up a cone of silence with secure visual ACLs. She was panting and shaking, though ey was pleased to see that at least the anger that had swelled briefly had subsided once more into something more manageable. Ey didn't think any of them were up for a shouting match. Once she'd knelt beside em, whispered, "Show me."
"May Then My Name, do you claim Zacharias as yours?"
Ey drew the sheet out of the air, holding it up for True Name to see the fully redacted text, then unlocked it for her eyes only and handed it over.
She shrugged. "Claim? No. I do not know this Zacharias."
She read it through top to bottom a few times, set it down and kneaded her paws against her face, then picked it up to read it once more.
"That is--"
Finally, shoulders sagging, she handed it back. "Re-secure it and destroy it, please."
Jonas laughed, "Just shut up, Zacharias."
Ey did so and held up eir hands. "I'm sorry, True--"
"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-- *stop!*"
She patted eir arm with a shaking paw. "Please do not apologize." After dropping the cone of silence, she continued, "I should have...I should have learned from...I am sorry."
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.
May held out a paw once more, and this time True Name took it, letting herself be guided back to the nest of pillows, where she slumped down once more, expression glassy. "Could themself have peeped --- And seen my Brain --- go round ---" she mumbled.
"Fine, fuck you too, then."
"Rest, my dear. It is okay," May said quietly. "Do you want company?"
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.
"Too much...but I..." After a shuddering breath, she shook her head. "I will...be fine. We will speak later."
What happened next happened almost too quickly for em to comprehend. Zacharias shouted, but the cry was cut off in a muffled *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.
May nodded and crawled back over to Ioan, nudging em to lay down so that she could tuck in against eir front. She remained tense, and when ey sent a gentle sensorium ping, she sniffled and shook her head.
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.
Tiredness eventually won them over, though, and, despite the room being mirrored from what ey was used to, the bed was the same, comfortable one ey'd slept in for the last century, the house held the same sense of 'home' as ever. May curled against eir front as she always did, and while it was strange seeing True Name just beyond her, it was still where ey belonged.
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.
The last thing ey remembered before falling asleep was watching the way True Name had curled to face May, the two skunks holding each others' paws once more, and thinking to emself, *This isn't how I pictured things winding up if I had somehow been able to fix things between them, but it could certainly be worse.*
"Get the fuck out of here," the instance of May growled. "And if I ever, *ever* see you again, you had better believe that I will take you out myself."
-----
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.
Waking brought confusion. Something about the inversion from their normal bed, of having fallen asleep on eir other side than ey usually did, induced a subtle sense of vertigo at first. The pajamas were also bunched up around em strangely, adding a subtle sense of constriction. As sleep slowly seeped away, though, the feeling lessened and ey was able to relax in the warmth beneath the covers.
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.
Warmer than expected, perhaps. May was still in eir arms, as usual, but the position felt off with the addition of a second warm bulk.
"What just happened?" ey whispered to May, who gave eir hand a squeeze in her paw and shook her head.
Ey tried to puzzle it out through the fog of doziness that still surrounded em. Eventually, ey gave up and levered eir eyes open, blinking a few times to bring the world into focus.
"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."
At some point in the night, True Name had apparently rolled over and wound up curled in May's arms, much as she was curled in eirs, and with with eir arm resting atop May's, ey was left hugging two skunks.
"Your *life?*" Jonas asked, incredulous. "You want to get back to your life?"
Ey lay there for a while, groggily trying to piece together eir thoughts on the situation. As far as ey could remember in eir still sleep-addled state, ey'd never been this close to True Name before. There had been the occasional casual touch, a few touches out of necessity --- grabbing her hand to get away from Guōweī, lifting her after End Waking's merge --- but even going back to when ey'd first met her, there'd been very little touch. It made sense, given her personality, and yet here she was, all cuddled up with the two of them. If nothing else, ey should probably decide whether or not to extricate eir arm from the situation to ease that awkwardness.
"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."
Ah well, ey was probably worrying too much about this, just laying there and ruminating.
He laughed, shooting his cuffs. "Well, if *that's* all you want, then we could have done without all this fuss, couldn't we?"
*"You almost certainly are, Mx. Bălan,"* came the barest whisper of a sensorium message. *"Especially if you are mumbling."*
"This fuss is necessary, remember," When I Do Not Remember, the propagandist, said, to which Jonas sighed.
Ey jolted at the words impinging on eir senses, getting a sleepy grumble out of May.
"All you need to do is just...go away. Just disappear. Just be gone, True Name. Curl up around your little Name thing and stay there."
*"Sorry,"* ey replied to True Name.
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.
There was a note of amusement, of almost-laughter, as she sent, *"It is okay, dear. What are you worried about? You only mumbled the last bit."*
*Wait, does* he *know?* ey wondered. If ever there was a way to keep a group of Odists in check, that might just be it.
Eir mind raced as ey tried to figure out how best to explain what ey'd been cycling over.
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...what? Want me to hide away in a locked-down sim forever?"
*"I rolled over sometime in the night --- I do not know when, I was memory-sick --- and have been staying still to keep from waking you two. Would you like me to move?"*
"I wouldn't say no," he shot back.
*"No..."* ey replied hesitantly. *"But you guessed right. I hope this isn't weird or anything. If you need to--"*
"No."
*"Ioan, I asked after your preferences,"* she chided. *"I am okay, I promise."*
"I thought not."
Ey hid the heat rising to eir cheeks by burying eir face in May's fur. *"Right, sorry. You're okay there. I'm just being awkward."*
"So," she said with exaggerated patience. "What does me disappearing look like to you?"
Ey felt True Name relax. *"We both are. It is comforting and awkward in equal measure. One third of me is very happy to be held, one third would really rather not be touched, and one third is simply confused. I am of three minds."*
"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."
*"Have you finished merging, then?"*
"We are of one mind on that."
There was a subtle rustle of fur against pillow as the skunk shook her head. *"I have the memories in place, but there are many conflicts yet to process. It is easier to put those on hold, at least, so that I can make fun of you for mumbling for a little bit."*
Jonas snorted. "Fuck if I believe you on *that.*"
Ey smirked. *"Har har. All the same, I'm glad you made it through to this far, at least."*
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.
*"Thank you, Ioan. As am I."*
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.
They fell back into silence then. Ioan spent a while marveling at the mix of coziness and strangeness. It *was* comfortable, there with the two skunks. May was in eir arms as she should be, and True Name, similar as she was, fit well enough in the mix. The strangeness, then, came from the knowledge that she was specifically True Name. This was so counter to what ey knew of her from the years prior, especially the version of her that she'd become over the past few weeks since End Waking's merge.
Eir frown deepened. Perhaps this was more than just a political dispute.
Ey could already tell that she'd changed, though, even beyond the fact that she'd wound up as close as this. Her speech patterns were shifting once again, losing some of their formality, finding their way back to ground from the high-minded patterns she'd picked up from her other cocladist, and yet they weren't totally those of May, either. They didn't sound the same, just more alike than they had before.
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."
She was tripled, now. She was True Name and she was End Waking and she was May. Whether or not she would become something new or remain thus ey didn't think even she knew. The adjustment would certainly take time for everyone. Ey liked End Waking quite a bit as a friend, but that friendship was different than that of eirs with True Name. Ey was friends with May, but in that way that partners were still friends beneath the romance of a big-R Relationship, and there was certainly no comparison to be made between the other small-r relationships. If she was of three minds, so was ey.
"Yep," he said, grin tight and false.
*"Unrelated to comfort or awkwardness, I am going to get up to make coffee,"* she sent, nudging em out of rumination once more. *"I did not sleep, and if I do not have coffee soon, I shall surely die."*
"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."
May grumbled again when True Name rolled away from her, gathering the remainder of the covers and a stray pillow up to replace the space that had been left by her cocladist's absence. Ey couldn't tell if the skunk was actually awake or not, but she settled down once more, if nothing else.
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.
True Name sat up and scrubbed at her face with her paws, wiping the grit of sleep --- or perhaps tears --- from her eyes. She grinned down to em. *"My assessment remains. You two are so cute that it is disgusting."*
"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."
Stifling a laugh, ey rolled eir eyes. *"Blame May."*
Both May and End Waking bristled at this, but neither spoke.
*"Way ahead of you, dear,"* she sent as she crawled out of bed. *"I will make coffee and then I will need some alone time on the plain. I will ensure there is enough for all."*
"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."
There was a quiet clattering from the kitchen, mugs being shifted about and the coffee pot being set in place, doubtless another instance of her making enough noise to let them know what she was up to.
"I can tell, sure, but you know that's not enough, True Name."
It was enough to wake May the rest of the way, the skunk stretching out against eir front and yawning wide before she shifted about to face em. "Pillows," she mumbled, peeking down at the bundle she still held in her arms. "Oh, did I...?"
"You have not offered your terms. We cannot come to agreement without."
Ioan nodded, placing a kiss atop her head. "She said she rolled over against you, yeah."
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."
"Sorry, Ioan."
"Why did you not just ask me?"
"It's fine by me, I slept through most of it," ey said, chuckling. "She and I talked about it a bit before you woke up. She's confused about it, but seemed like she needed it."
"Would you have stepped down?" he asked with a sneer.
"She is learning my wicked ways," she mumbled against eir front. "I am happy to hear that it was helpful and that you are okay with it, though."
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."
"Mmhm. How about you?"
"I was bored. It sounded fun. You were right there. Why not?"
May yawned again before poking her nose up against eir chin. "I do not know. I slept through it, too, apparently. It fits with what I said earlier, though. I am pleased to care for those around me."
"You were bored," she said coolly. "You were bored, so you decided to hire someone to kill me."
"She also called us disgusting again."
Ioan watched Jonas's smile fall back into that uncaring cruelty, increasingly ungrounded.
"That is because we are. Is that her making coffee?"
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--"
Ey nodded, nudging her snout with eir chin.
"Jonas," When I Do Not Remember murmured, her voice a low warning. He only grinned.
"Good girl."
True Name sighed. "Right. So now you...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."
A few minutes later, True Name returned, carrying three mugs of coffee. Ioan and May pushed themselves up to sitting so that they could accept.
"You need to go away, True Name. I don't fucking care *how.* You make it happen or I will."
"I am sorry I shouted last night. I think I understand Dear's letter better now."
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.
May nodded.
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.
"I was wondering if you didn't know about...all that before last night, honestly," Ioan said.
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.
"I have been fed bad and incomplete information for years now. I had not suspected just to what extent. I am still frightened, if I am honest, but I will trust you two on this. It is complicated and bound up in emotions I do not understand, but I will trust you." She shook her head. "But I cannot speak of it any more right now."
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.
"Heading outside?" ey asked.
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.
She nodded. "Yes. I will need an hour or so of nothing but the morning and the grass."
This, though, went beyond that.
"Of course."
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.
May nodded. "Take the space you need."
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.
True Name leaned over enough to dot her nose against the skunk's cheek. "Thank you, dear. If you cook breakfast, I will refrain from telling Ioan embarrassing stories."
And then, it was over.
"Asshole." She laughed. "Where did this humor come from?"
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...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.
"Your guess is as good as mine, at this point."
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...normal. Still a furry, still living in that form that was more comfortable to her than humanity, but normal.
"She seems to be doing well," ey said, once she'd made her way outside and down the stairs to the prairie.
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.
"It helps that I did not drop a merge onto her unexpectedly. She had more to process, but more preparation to do so."
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.
"She said she's done getting the memories in order but working on conflicts now."
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 nodded. "About a third of the way done, then."
"It's really gratifying to see it going so much more smoothly this time."
"May, what--"
"Agreed, yes," she said between sips. "I was not expecting her to turn into a cuddlebug, but I suppose that will level out before long. Was that awkward, this morning?"
"One moment, my dear," she said, then turned to face this new True Name with a grin. "Will there be a change of name?"
Ey shrugged. "A little, I guess. Just hard making it work in my head. Doesn't fit with what I remember of her."
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.
"I cannot picture you getting cozy with *just* True Name, no. I can barely picture her getting cozy with anyone, and that is certainly not even bringing End Waking's general touch-aversion into the equation."
"There...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.
"I'd assume she got cozy with Zacharias, if they were together."
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."
May's expression soured. "We will need to talk about him soon, but I cannot talk about him now."
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."
"Of course."
The skunk bowed. "You may call me Sasha."
She made a setting aside gesture, stepping back to the previous topic. "Did that feel like crossing a boundary?"
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.
"Not particularly, no. It just felt like me being awkward, more than anything."
Jonas simply burst out laughing, and ey couldn't miss the bitterness in it.
"That is good, then." She finished her coffee and waved the mug away. "I do not know how to feel about it, myself, because I do not know what she will be like when she has finished incorporating the merge. She is not yet settled enough, so I will forgive much that I might not otherwise."
All of the rest of the Odists, however, were shouting. None of them looked pleased.
"It's not like she was hitting on me or anything," ey said, laughing.
"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."
She smirked. "Are you sure?"
"As do I," End Waking said, getting a smile from Sasha.
Ey reached over to tug on one of her ears gently. "Yes, I'm sure. I'm dense, but not *that* dense."
"*That* name is unacceptable!" When I Do Not Dream hollered. "No. You will pick something else."
The skunk tilted her head at the tug, laughing. "Has your opinion of her as a friend changed?"
"No, I will not."
Ioan tilted eir head. "How do you mean?"
"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."
"I do not imagine that you felt the same about her when she was just True Name as you do now about who she has become. Or is becoming, at least."
At this, most of the stanza bridled, and there were a few louder murmurings.
"Well, no," ey hazarded. "But I don't know just how, yet."
Jonas waved it away. "Crawl back to Debarre and...fuck, what was his name? user11824? Crawl into their arms and let them prop you up long after you should've died."
"Me either."
Murmurings grew to angry mutterings.
They reconvened over a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs and potatoes with toast.
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."
"I instructed my fork to quit," True Name said by way of opening the conversation.
May rolled her eyes.
"Feeling positive about the merge, then?" ey asked.
"Get out. All of you."
"Yes. Having worked through some conflicts, it will not be easy, but I am comfortable with the direction in which it is going." She took a bite of toast piled high with egg and potato, chewing thoughtfully. "It is not all positive, but it has given me hope for a pleasant life moving forward."
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.
"Was your life unpleasant before?" When May frowned at em, ey held up eir hands. "Sorry, maybe that's impertinent. It's not important."
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.
True Name shook her head. "It is okay. It was, yes. It was fulfilling. I felt hopeful and comfortable with the path I had chosen. The work itself was starting to grate on me, but that had less to do with the work than the coworker. Pleasantness was never a focus for me, however."
"See you around?"
May, having subsided, finished her bite of toast before asking, "Did you have hope for happiness with just End Waking's merge?"
"Fuck off."
"No. Not at all." She reached out a paw to give one of May's a squeeze, adding quickly, "Again, I understand --- now more than ever --- why you did what you did, and I do approve of it in light of what is happening with Jonas, but it was an uncomfortable duality in comparison to this more comfortable plurality and I may yet settle into a new singularity. I do not know."
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.
May smiled gratefully, returning that squeeze.
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.
"Meeting up with my fork hammered that point home pretty well. She looked...well, I will not elaborate on the differences I saw. Seeing myself through her eyes, I can tell that she was pleased as well."
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.
"I am very happy to hear that," May said. "Not least of which because you seem to be building a new self rather than simply a raw combination of us."
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?"
True Name nodded, finished her plate before setting it aside. "Thank you for breakfast, May Then My Name. Your secrets are safe for another day-- ow!"
"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."
"Your high station does not preclude you from being kicked, my dear," May said sweetly. "You deserved that."
Sasha beamed and bowed with a flourish.
The skunk preened.
"And you knew this?" ey asked.
Ioan watched the exchange, grinning. Beyond just what she'd said, ey could read relief in May's features. That resentment towards her down-tree instance had never quite gone away, ey knew, and, on some level, it likely never would. Still, that True Name was, as the skunks had said, rebuilding herself into a new person seemed to have brought out a new sense of friendliness within eir partner that had been lacking to that point.
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--"
Ey wondered if she would go through a reevaluation of who True Name had been before, much as ey had. It was certainly enough that she felt more positive, but ey --- em and Codrin#Castor, perhaps --- seemed to have dropped much of that resentment that had lingered in May and so many others, though whether that was due to a difference in temperament or the relatively short time they'd known the skunk in comparison, ey couldn't tell.
"All the way back to Praiseworthy's suggestions before Secession," the other skunk said proudly.
"Is it just me, or is eir mumbling getting worse?" True Name stage-whispered to May.
"--and other than the spotted skunk thing, she looks just like...well, Sasha. Nice touch, by the way."
She whispered back, "Perhaps the centuries are catching up to em. Is this how the Bălans crack? Should we warn Dear?"
"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...shit, when did I make Sasha like this? 2110?"
"Are all skunks such pests?" Ey smirked.
Ioan shook eir head, dizzy. "This is what you looked like before uploading?"
They laughed.
"What my --- *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."
"I mumble more when I'm stressed, that's all."
"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."
"Are you stressed now, my dear?" May asked.
Sasha nodded.
"It's a stressful time overall, even if this particular morning is pleasant enough."
"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."
"It feels rather like the morning after a sleepover, yes," True Name said.
Ioan sighed and sat down heavily in the grass. "You're all completely nuts."
May nodded eagerly.
The three skunks laughed.
"I've never had one of those, so I'll have to take your word for it. Do those always come with cuddling up in the morning?"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Both skunks splayed their ears and dipped their snouts.
"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."
"It depends on the sleepover," May said, adding to True Name, "Are you feeling well enough to discuss boundaries now?"
"So," ey said, organizing eir thoughts out loud. "May and End Waking--"
She hesitated. "We can begin the conversation, though I will need to address further conflicts before long."
"E.W." the skunk corrected. "I am E.W. of no clade."
"To be clear," Ioan said. "I'm okay with it, it was just unexpected."
The other two skunks perked up and grinned wide.
True Name gave a hint of a bow. "One thing that came up in our discussions leading up to the merge is that the one with the greater restrictions in a relationship defines the boundaries. Right now, I suspect that may be one of you two. I am the outsider, here. I have never had to have a conversation such as this."
Ioan blinked, hesitated, then continued. "May and...E.W. merged down and you...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?"
"My comment about you building up a new self has gone a long way towards soothing any fears," May said. "I think I was worried you might incorporate my memories of the last few decades wholesale and wind up feeling exactly the way that I do about Ioan."
"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."
True Name shook her head. "I have taken to heart your requests and declined the personal memories you suggested. There are many conflicts," she said, speaking more slowly. "Perhaps due to your feelings about me as I was, so I am not sure how I feel yet, but...well, may I speak earnestly?"
"And how is it that this pisses off Jonas?" Ey snorted. "He certainly sounded pissed."
May and Ioan both nodded.
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.
"On that point, I remember enough to know why it is that you love Ioan. I can see what it is that you see in em. It is as if..." She trailed off, ears pinned flat. "This is so fucking embarrassing. I am sorry. Uh...it is as though there is a world in which I could do the same, but I do not know how to get from here to there. Again, I am sorry, May Then My Name."
"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 *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."
There was a long silence around the table while Ioan and May digested this. True Name spent it resting her head in her paws and staring down at her plate.
May added, "I suspect that he is starting to crack."
It was May who broke the silence, saying simply, "May."
Ioan nodded.
True Name sniffled and lifted her head. "Sorry?"
"Perhaps," Sasha said. "He has not seemed fully grounded in many years, but again, do not underestimate him."
"Stop calling me May Then My Name."
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..." he trailed off, squinting at this new skunk. "Who...but you're...what?"
"I--"
Sasha stiffened where she knelt. "Debarre," she said, bowing her head. "A pleasure to see you."
"Do not make it weird, True Name," May said, laughing. She held out a paw toward the skunk "Just fucking call me May already."
The weasel said nothing, looking stunned.
"Right. May," True Name said, gingerly resting her paw in her up-tree instance's.
"This is-- was Tr--"
"I do not know how you get from this world to that one, either, should that even be something you want, but," she said, taking a deep breath, "so long as you come by that path earnestly and we discuss it in the moment, it is your path to take. Do you have any thoughts, Ioan?"
"Sasha. I am Sasha. I was her as well," she said, voice gentle but insistent enough to stop Ioan from continuing.
Ey held up eir hands. "Don't look at me. I don't have a clue."
He stepped back a half pace, crouching as though to flee on foot. "Sasha...? What the fuck?"
They laughed.
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.
"We'll see, I guess," ey said, shrugging. "It's all way too much for me to take in right now."
"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 *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...well, I am different enough now that it comes automatically."
"You have enough of E.W. in you, you mean."
She nodded.
"I...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 *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, *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 *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 *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.
"Perhaps that is a good place to pause," True Name said. "This conversation has those conflicts begging for attention."
"Of course, my dear," May said, giving her paw a squeeze. "Go and walk. There will be time for discussions to come, especially once we are finished with this unpleasant political business."