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# Ioan Bălan --- 2350
# Debarre --- 2350
The stream of Odists who came to visit Sasha in the days and weeks after the excursion to Jonas's was surprising. They seem to have accepted her change in identity far easier than expected. There were no instances of deadnaming (unless they were specifically talking about her past as True Name, as requested), no fights, no arguments.
When Debarre received the ping from End Waking, he quickly excused himself from dinner and dashed out into the back yard to respond. The last time he'd received a message in the middle of a period of overflowing, it had been when the skunk's leg had been impaled on a branch, so he hoped against hope that it wasn't the entire tent washing away in a flood this time. It was getting on in spring --- still a bit early for floods, but one never knew...
Not everyone was happy, to be sure. Many of the discussions from those who stopped by were quite serious and, even though many took place in cones of silence, Ioan could easily guess that there was much in the way of airing of grievances. As far as ey could tell, though, it was done with an eye towards catharsis and reconciliation.
"E.W.?" he said. "What's up? You okay? Is the tent?"
Serene, for instance, came over the day after the whole kerfuffle, surprising the three of them well into the evening. They'd settled for a middle ground of dinner out on the extended balcony --- close enough to the house for them to cook a proper dinner without leaving Sasha feeling cooped up inside --- when the ping against their sensoria caused the three to jolt as one.
"The tent is fine, my dear," he replied. "I apologize if I interrupted, but I have some news regarding May Then My Name, Ioan, and True Name, and you requested that I message you. Besides, I need to speak about it with someone other than them. Someone not an Odist."
"That will be Serene!" May said excitedly, setting her half-finished plate down and hopping to her feet. "I opened the ACLs to a few, hope you do not mind."
He frowned down to the lawn, kicking at a tuft of crabgrass. "Well, if you're getting in touch, I'm assuming it's urgent."
"Opened-- wait, when?" Ioan asked, setting eir own plate down. "And to how many?"
There was a sense of a sigh from the other end. "I am sorry, Debarre."
But the skunk was already gone, bounding inside to greet the fox with a hug and excited chattering.
"Fuck, I'm sorry, E.W. That came out way snarkier than intended. I understand. I only meant to ask if it was the type of thing where I should fork and come by right away."
Ioan and Sasha followed more sedately, both waiting until May had gotten her greeting out of the way before bowing to Serene.
"Please," End Waking said, sounding relieved. "There is nothing to be done, but I am very impatient to speak with someone."
"Ioan, a pleasure! It has been too long," she said, grinning widely. The grin faded, and she nodded to the spotted skunk. "And Sasha."
"You? Impatient?" Debarre laughed. "I'll be right over."
"Serene, thank you for stopping by. I was not expecting to see you so soon."
He forked off Debarre#RelEW and watched him step from the sim, then spent another few seconds looking out into the yard, trying to remember the last time anything had been so important that it had required him leaving immediately. Something other than a tree falling on his boyfriend, that is.
"I do not imagine so. May Then My Name has been conspiring behind the scenes, so this was all worked out ahead of time."
"Oh? How cheeky," Sasha said, laughing. "Were you really that confident that everything would work out, dear?"
May shook her head. "Reasonably confident, but I want Arrowhead Lake back no matter what, so I arranged for us a little meeting."
"Skunks, I swear." Ioan shook eir head. "Well, welcome all the same. We've got pasta, if you'd like."
Once she'd heaped a plate high with food, Serene followed them out onto the balcony to join them for the rest of their meal. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of the plain. "I suppose this was the best one could do on short notice, yes?"
"It wasn't too much, and it fit the need, yeah."
"It has served its purpose," Sasha said. "And it is not so bad close up. A little too flat, perhaps, but the river is nice."
Serene nodded and finished a mouthful of food before setting her fork down again. "I have at least come bearing a gift."
"Did you find your student?"
"Yes. He was still about, though he has...changed much in the intervening years. He was not as pleased to see me as I might have liked."
Sasha dipped her snout. "I am assuming that he has picked up on the sentiment surrounding the clade."
Serene nodded. "He read the *History* and came to the same conclusion that the rest of the System did. Our name is not mud, but, my dear, relationships changed after that knowledge became public."
"I understand."
"I do not want to hear you say that you are sorry, Sasha. I do not think that is how this works as you are now, not for me. I do not want to hear your justifications and explanations; I can understand them as well as anyone. I just want to hear your acknowledgement."
After setting her plate and fork down on the low table again, Sasha folded her paws in her lap, sat for a moment in silence, then said, "For as much as I tried to do --- for as much as Jonas and I both tried to do --- I do not think we had nearly the effect on the world around us we thought we did, not on the grand scale. We played our games of politics and influence, but it was a game of relationships from start to finish, you are correct. True Name changed relationships. May Then My Name changed relationships. E.W. played his part. I do not know if it was for the better or the worse, but I do acknowledge that it made a good many of them far more difficult."
"Well, okay. Perhaps one apology."
"I am sorry, Serene; Sustained And Sustaining."
There was another moment of silence, then Serene's wild grin returned. "Well, that felt good. Praiseworthy did all that shit, too, so, fuck it. Let me finish my food and I will fuck your sim up but good."
Ioan blinked, looking between skunk and fennec. "Wait, that simple?"
"Of course, my dear," Serene said around a mouthful of pasta. "I already told you of my thoughts on the matter. I have done my processing."
"And now you cannot simply say something about skunks being brats," May chimed in. "Though I am pretty sure we all knew that foxes were, too."
Serene made a rude gesture, still grinning.
Once they'd finished dinner, Serene stood, stretched, and then leaned against the balcony railing staring out over the plain. Her expression was calm, pleasant, though focused on something ey couldn't see. "Ioan, I will need ACLs over at least the exterior, including your yard, though I will do my best to keep it intact."
Ey nodded, focused, and made the grant.
"Thank you. Now, you may stay out here and watch, but I warn you that it can be a bit dizzy-making."
Ey exchanged glances with the two skunks and shrugged. "I think we're all eager to see."
"Suit yourself. It was your dinner. Thank you, by the way."
There was no further announcement. Nor, even, any change in Serene. She still looked out over the railing with a dreamy, far away look on her face even as the world dropped out beneath them.
The plain rippled and flexed, arching up high to the sky as though stretching after a long nap. Trees pried their way from the soil. Rocks broke free from the land. The river --- the one immediately before them, at least --- collapsed into itself to form a wide lake. The rest of the distant echoed versions of the plain where not occupied by the immediate mountains crinkled into some more complex geometry, the remainder of the range echoed outside the valley.
It *was* a little vertigo-inducing, too. The worst of it wasn't due to the sudden change in the shape of the landscape, but in just how, well...serene it all was. The river shaping itself into the lake was not accompanied by some grand splashing of waves, but simply the remaking of the water. There were no falling rocks or grand earthquakes, just the reshaping of the world. The light shifted. Gravity swayed, settled. All of it was silent, anechoic.
And then it was done.
"H-holy fuck," ey managed, clutching at the railing of the balcony. Both May and Sasha stood defiantly against the change, though neither looked as casual as the fox.
"I have set your house up the hill a ways from the default entry point to the old sim. That it was already on stilts proved quite useful. The angle of the sun may be a bit different, but not so much as to be a problem," she said, gesturing them down the steps from Sasha's side of the balcony. They landed on a flagstone pad set into the bed of pine needles, a small trail winding its way down the slope toward the water. She gestured toward the small ridge that rose next to them. "I had to modify the terrain a little bit to keep your yard level. You should be okay, but if you run into erosion problems, do let me know. I have been told of your affinity for weather, Ioan."
Sure enough, the fence remained level, wrapping around a small rectangle of hidden grass and dandelions, the tops of lilac bushes overflowing.
The path teed with the long familiar deer trail that wound around the lake, and, out of habit, they all started down towards the rock.
"Fauna?" Serene asked.
"Please." Sasha smiled sheepishly. "I would not like a repeat of that particular mistake."
Grinning and nodding, Serene kept up her steady pace, humming a little under her breath. There was no change that ey could see, though ey imagined her counting deer, rabbits, squirrels, and birds into existence.
For eir part, ey simply walked, hand in paw with May, and marveled. Ey'd discovered the lake decades ago, had spent countless days out here on walks, and at least one night camping. Still, it felt somehow new. Ey was rediscovering this place that ey'd not seen in months --- though ey'd spent longer stints away from it in the past --- and marveling at the detail all over again. A glance back over eir shoulder showed eir flat-roofed house peeking shyly from amid the trees, but other than that, it was, ey assumed, the same as it had been.
After so long away and after so much stress it felt all the more real.
They sat on the rock near the end of the lake and enjoyed the last of the sun. It was a little tight for four, but May tucked quite nicely up against eir side and Sasha, having slipped more into an E.W. mindset, had settled off to the side. She looked antsy, and ey suspected she'd request time to hike soon enough.
"How is the rest of the clade taking this?" she asked. "I sent a clade-wide message, but have not received responses."
Serene looked up from where she was investigating a few pine needles plucked from a branch on the way over with a discriminating eye. "I think that reactions will be largely positive even if they are not universally so. Several of my stanza have been been talking, and many feel as I do. It is fine, I am sure, and I have processed what I needed to and gotten what I wanted."
"Of course. I have been abandoned by the rest of my stanza, but at this point, the larger part of me does not want to have anything to do with them, anyway. I do not imagine Loss For Images and her ilk will take it well. I do hope that A Finger Pointing and I will have a chance to speak soon, as I am now enough May that I would enjoy attending a play or two."
"'May'?" Serene said, tiling her head and looking to the other skunk. "Have you forgiven her, then?"
May nodded. "Forgiven is maybe not the best word. I have internalized the way things are and accepted the way things were. I am pleased to know Sasha and who she has become."
The other skunk smiled faintly, nodded. "Though for all Ioan talked about trying to fix things, I place the largest part of who I have become on you, dear."
"I wasn't going to say anything," Ioan said, grinning.
May elbowed em in the side. "Hush, you."
"I will not laugh at you two too much, then." Serene laughed anyway, though not unkindly. "What are your plans moving forward? I trust that you are essentially locked out of what you were working on as True Name."
"Yes, and while there is a part of me that remains disappointed about this outcome, there is little to be done about it but move forward." Sasha brought her tail around to her lap to brush it out. It was shorter than a striped skunk's tail, it seemed, and less thickly furred. "I will take a vacation, first. I will sleep a normal amount. I will eat good food. I will wear myself out on the hunt and take what comfort I can while I remain here. I will rest, and then I will write."
"Write? Really?"
"Yes. I must be careful not to be seen as overtly influencing lest I bring on Jonas's ire, but I would like to share the story of the last few centuries from my point of view. I do not know who will be interested except perhaps our two clades, but I will write."
"Well, if it's anything like the *History*," Ioan said, "it'll wind up wildly popular and then fade into part of the mythos of the System."
May grinned. "And all will be as it should."
"Of course. I will not complain. So long as I am better able to understand who I have become and fill my time with something fulfilling, then I will be happy."
"*Will* you be happy?" Serene asked.
There was a long silence as Sasha finished brushing out her tail and spent a few minutes simply staring across the lake, perhaps mapping the opposite shore and marking spots for future exploration.
Finally, she said, "I think that I will be. I am of three minds and will ever be such. I will have moments of happiness, moments of sadness and terror and regret, but they will ever be in thirds."
"Are you okay with that?"
Sasha stood and stretched, finally turning her gaze back to them. "Himself has but to will And easy as a Star Look down upon Captivity And laugh."
With no further explanation, she bowed and edged around them on her way down off the rock. She moved quietly and efficiently, and it was a matter of moments before they lost sight of her in the trees.
They sat and shared quiet stories of the past through the remainder of the evening.
"Well, shit," he muttered, turning to head back inside. "This is gonna be a mess."
-----
The next Odists to visit were A Finger Pointing and Slow Hours, once more arriving as a pair and hugging Sasha in turn. They set up a cone of silence and spoke together for a scant twenty minutes before dropping it again and inviting Ioan and May to join. They pulled the beanbag a little closer to the couch and settled down on it together to listen.
Debarre#RelEW was greeted by the sight of End Waking kneeling in the clearing across from May Then My Name.
"It is easy to say that all is full of love," Slow Hours began, smiling to Sasha. "But now, I think, you have a sense of your own."
"Oh, company," he said, frowning. "Wasn't expecting two of you."
The skunk smiled and bowed her head.
"You messaged...wait, does that mean you are a fork?" May Then My Name said, frowning at End Waking.
"Life will be easier for a while, and then it will be harder. You will share your loves, first with another and then with solitude, and with each you long for the other until you return." Her expression slipped into a lopsided grin. "Does not matter one fucking bit, though, so I would not worry."
"It does, yes."
"Mere breath?" Sasha asked, grinning.
"I never knew you had it in you," she said, sounding proud. To Debarre, she said, "Did this asshole tell you why I am here?"
"A chasing after the wind, yes."
He gave her a hug before sitting down with them. "He said it had something to do with you, Ioan, and True Name, and that he needed to talk to a non-Odist. That's why I was surprised."
"And you will come to a performance," A Finger Pointing added. "I am no oracle, but if you do not come, I will hunt you down myself. It has been too long, my dear."
She grinned. "You will have your chance, my dear. I will not be here long. I needed to step out for a moment, and figured I would catch End Waking up. I am happy to see you as well, though."
She laughed. "Of course. So many threats to hunt me down, these days. But yes, thank you."
"Happy to see you too. You're always welcome over to my place, too."
"And if you do not watch me perform my monologue, I will trim your claws too short in your sleep," May said. "There is a monologue night coming up soon."
"Of course, yes. This did involve End Waking, though, so alas, I could not go make you uncomfortable with my flirting."
"Far worse than being hunted down, that. I will be there."
He shoved at the skunk, who giggled.
May preened.
"Well, okay. What's up? You finally merge down?"
After that, they fell into comfortable conversation. Sasha joined Ioan and May on the beanbag to get some pets --- the talk having apparently nudged the affectionate part of her to the fore --- while Slow Hours spoke in fewer 'will's and 'shall's and settled down into the normal conversational mode of the rest of the Odists. They spoke of performances past, going all the way back to before the founding of the System, back to their time in high school. The four Odists performed a small segment of the Dickinson play they always seemed to quote from, a first for any of the Bălans in the nearly fifty years their clades had been entangled.
She blinked, looking startled. "Yes, actually. How did you guess?"
Ey didn't understand, but ey didn't need to.
"Ioan mentioned it when we talked last. How'd it go? Did she explode?"
-----
"Not at all, no. Actually..." She shrugged, poking at the dirt with a twig. "Actually, I am finding myself rather fond of her, now."
It was nearly a month before Debarre, Douglas, and Sasha agreed to meet. Debarre's side of the negotiations remained stiff and distant, the weasel initially refusing to see Sasha after that first meeting. Douglas seemed to have set aside any sense of caution, speaking with palpable excitement. As soon as he'd learned of the change of name back to something more closely associated with his distant relative, he'd hardly spoken of anything else.
"Bullshit," he growled.
Eventually, though, meeting was set up for dinner on the dandelion-dotted field, a small potluck picnic late in the evening so that the skunks wouldn't overheat in the sun.
"Debarre," End Waking murmured.
Everyone arrived simultaneously by Debarre's request so that no one was left waiting for anyone else. Ioan, May, and Sasha stepped into the sim just in time to see Debarre and E.W. arriving. The six of them stood in a circle in front of Douglas's stoop, dandelions and evening bumblers tickling at their ankles.
May Then My Name waved a paw. "It is okay. You do not have to like her. You do not even have to interact with her. End Waking wanted you to know about some of the practical considerations, but neither of us are planning on swaying your opinion of her."
Or, at least they stood in a circle for a moment. Sasha almost immediately stumbled back from the group, turning in two slow, wavering circles before falling to her knees.
He frowned and leaned back on his palms. "Sorry. I guess I'm just worried about you. She's not exactly known for her openness and honesty without ulterior motives, so."
"Sasha?" Ioan said, startled.
She smiled wanly. "No, she is not. A fact I have not forgotten. Needless to say, I merged down, and she is making plans to meet up with Jonas, now."
"Too much," she mumbled shakily. "Too much at once."
"That falls more in line with practical concerns," he conceded. "And Jonas still wants both of you there?"
May padded over to kneel next to her. "May I hug?"
"As far as I know, yes," End Waking said. "I have spoken with True Name several times over the last few weeks and she has a plan of sorts. I do not know how successful it will be, but it is better than nothing."
After a moment of strained silence, Sasha slumped against May's side, and the two sat together while she let out that overwhelming emotion within a cone of silence.
"Wait, *you've* been talking with her, too?"
Ioan, Debarre, E.W., and Douglas took the time to set up the picnic, a rickety table bearing plates of various salads, roasted vegetables, and the makings for venison sandwiches, courtesy of E.W.. They moved in silence, hesitantly, each pausing every now and then to watch as Sasha slowly worked to calm herself.
"Yes."
"That was not the greeting that I had intended," she said, once she had cleaned up in Douglas's house and joined them at the table to pick up a plate. "I was hoping that I would be able to greet you all politely, settle into some easier conversation, but that of True Name has not been here in too long. This place is too charged with memories, as are your faces. Even for that of E.W. and May, there is too much bound up in the last few months."
He shook his head. He could already feel his hackles up, and this wasn't helping. "Can't fucking believe it."
"Are you feeling better now?" Douglas asked.
May Then My Name frowned, leaned over to hug him around the shoulders, and whispered, "I am going to leave you to it, but first, remember who you were, who you are, and imagine who you will become. Let go, have fun, but above all, remember that you love him and that he loves you. Those are the rules of engagement."
She nodded. "I am leaning on the other portions of myself now. I will have much processing to do yet, but tonight is for dinner with friends, or at least with those I hope will be friends."
After a moment's hesitation, he returned the hug. Had she said it in anything less than her most earnest voice, he might have scoffed, but as it was, he could see himself falling for the gentle manipulation as though from a meter above. He could resent her, but she had said exactly what it was that he needed to hear.
"I certainly hope we can be friends." Douglas laughed. "I mean, those are the first words we've ever really spoken to each other, but I'm happy to have the chance to meet you."
Because of course she had. She was May Then My Name Die With Me. She knew just how to. She was built to.
"Or at least meet a third of me."
"You're such an asshole," he whispered back, then kissed her cheek to take any sting out of the words. "I'll do my best. Now, shoo."
"Well, yes, but you're still a new person to me and very...uh," he trailed off, frowning down to his plate. "Well, very close to someone I've thought a lot about, I guess."
She laughed and licked at one of his whiskerpads. "Yes, yes."
She smiled and leaned over to pat his shoulder. "We will talk, dear. That part of me has heard so much about you and is so colored by what the other parts of me know, that I am eager to learn, as well."
After she leaned over to pat End Waking on the knee, she stood up and stepped out of the sim.
Debarre remained stiff and awkward, even as they settled down on the blanket to eat, plates piled high with various dishes and cups of sangria set carefully in the grass behind them. He wouldn't make eye contact with Sasha and seemed hesitant to speak even to Ioan and May.
Debarre rubbed his paws over his face. "Where's your root instance? Within an hour's walk?"
Eventually, he cleared his throat, set his plate down, and stared steadily at Sasha. "I think you owe me an apology. At least from the, uh...what did you call it? The True Name part of you?"
End Waking nodded. "Up-river, yes. Would you like me to walk you there?"
As she had done with Serene, Sasha set her plate down as well, folded her paws in her lap, and bowed to the weasel. Ioan could tell by the set of her features and the straightness of her shoulders that she was indeed doing her best to keep that part of her at the fore. "I am sorry, Debarre. The things that I did were for what I thought was best, but they wound up hurting a good many people. They were not fair to you and I apologize for the pain I caused. While I do not think I even *could* anymore, I will all the same endeavor not to act in such single-minded ways again."
He shook his head. "Give me some time to think. There's still some of me that's stuck on dinner parties, then another chunk on this whole thing, and another still on May telling me about these rules of engagement or whatever."
Ioan couldn't read Debarre's expression well enough to gauge his thoughts on the matter, but judging by the way he loosened up and joined in more of the conversations after that, speaking even with Sasha, he seemed to at least have accepted the words to an extent.
The skunk smiled faintly. "Twenty minutes' walk up-river, then. He will know that you are coming."
Debarre and E.W. stayed for a few hours after dinner, long enough to see the first stars show themselves above the field, before they stepped back to the skunk's sim.
After End Waking quit, Debarre started to trudge up the faint trail that they'd already worn heading up along the river.
Shortly after, Sasha stood, the other three following suit. She hugged Ioan and May around the shoulders and gave each of them a touch of the nose to the cheek. "If you two do not mind, I would like to go for a walk with Douglas and speak with him alone."
He knew that May Then My Name was right, that he probably needed to at least take into account that if Sasha and Michelle could change enough to make the Odists, then surely True Name could change enough to become someone that even her up-tree instances could like, just as he knew that he probably shouldn't take that out on his boyfriend, frustrated as he was.
They nodded and returned the hugs and kisses, getting hugs from Douglas as well before they stepped back home.
Still, it was hard to square the image of End Waking and True Name meeting up voluntarily. What was it that he'd said when Ioan had come by asking after camping supplies? *"I need to be better to her than she might be to me"*?
"Do you think Douglas still puts too much stock in who you used to be?" Ioan asked once they were home and comfortable.
*Remember that you love him,* he thought, even as he trudged up the path. *Even if you're working to undermine all that shit that she's done with Jonas, at least you still love E.W.*
May was a while in answering. "Perhaps, yes. We are not Michelle, have not been for centuries. None of us are Sasha --- least of all Sasha."
The skunk was crouching at the edge of the stream, washing his paws after having apparently just finished gutting a trio of large trout.
Ioan nodded, brushing out the skunk's tail with a fine-toothed comb as ey'd been commanded. "He really relaxed after uploading, at least. Just a few little spikes in interest when certain things came up."
"I understand if you are upset, Debarre," he said, keeping his gaze on his paws as he scrubbed rather than looking up to him.
"As hyperfixations go, it is a relatively innocuous one," she said, yawning. "But I am at least pleased to see that he is both engaging with other things and finding fulfillment in this aspect of his life when he can."
"No," Debarre said, sitting down next to him. "Or, well, I am, but it's whatever. I just don't see how something as stupid as May Then My Name merging down solves anything about this. Suddenly, you two are all buddy-buddy?"
"Besides, it's not like you guys don't hyperfixate on things."
End Waking shook his paws free of most of the water before drying them on the hem of his cloak. "We are not. I am pleased that she is no longer who she was, but she is not a friend. She is not me."
"Mmhm," she mumbled sleepily. "But all the same, we have been slowly drifting away from what we used to be over the years, and in the face of all that we have seen, that is not such a bad thing."
"But you're visiting her!"
"How do you feel about her apology?"
"On business, such as it is. May Then My Name has asked me over a few times." The skunk finally looked at him, gaze level and expression flat. "Did you not say that you would rather she not die?"
"How do you mean?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that you need to interact with her. I don't want her to get offed by some asshole politician, but I also don't particularly want her in my life."
Ey shrugged. "It felt...I don't know, a little rehearsed, maybe."
End Waking shifted from his crouch to sitting cross-legged on a rock on the bank of the river. "I do understand that, yes. I do not particularly want her in mine, either, but I am now a part of hers, whether she likes it or not. I have been able to help her process some aspects of the merge and also tell her more of how I feel to her face. Once this is over, she will not need to be a part of my life any more if I so desire, and I can move on to defining myself through something other than penance."
May curled in against eir side, yawning once more. "Perhaps. She said what Debarre needed to hear, I think, and it was no less earnest for that. As much as he means to us, that is no bad thing, either."
Debarre scratched a claw through the dirt of the bank, worrying a pebble free so that he could throw it into the river while he thought. Finally, he nodded, saying, "Okay, I get that. What will you define yourself as, then? Like, don't get me wrong, I'm happy you aren't her, and in part specifically *because* you aren't her, but that's not the only reason I love you."
-----
"I do not know, my love," he said after a long silence. "If I am defined by not being her, by not being what I was, then what is left? I cannot say my love for you, because all of the clade has that to some extent. I cannot even say that I have being an Odist, because, after all these years and with all of her changes over the last few months, I am not even sure that I am that."
Ioan wasn't sure why ey kept feeling surprised at the number of loose threads from just one event that needed tying. The business with Qoheleth had been about as complicated, and had required meeting with several other Odists in order to finish the story, and each one came with a different tenor.
"You can be just End Waking," Debarre said gently. "Like, you can just drop the clade and be that nerd who lives in the woods."
The same was true here, as well. Many members of the clade --- some of whom ey'd not yet met --- visited and requested time with Sasha or with the three of them. Still, ey realized, this culmination came after two and a quarter centuries for some, so perhaps it made sense.
The skunk laughed and elbowed him in the side. "We have rather turned our clade identity into idolatry of a sort, have we not?"
Not all of these interactions went smoothly.
"Don't get me wrong, I like where you came from, but I won't be pissed if you drop your clade signifier. Hell, maybe you can even start saying things like 'don't' and 'isn't'."
Barely a month after that dinner with Debarre and Douglas on the field, two of the most dramatic happened within the span of a week.
"Do not push your luck."
May stumbled in the middle of a Wednesday morning rehearsal, falling to her knees, panting, before pushing herself to her feet. She managed to make it through the rest of the scene before forking off so that she could continue as best she could while her root instance ducked back home.
They laughed.
Once there, she darted over towards where Ioan sat at eir desk, working through the process of writing Jonas's book. She knelt beside em, clutched a pawful of eir shirt and set up a cone of silence. Ey felt the ACL-scape of the cone shift several times until it was just about as secure as could be made.
"You don't have to have this sorted out, though." He shrugged, adding, "You don't even have to stop seeing True Name. I'm sorry I got angry there. I think I just got upset because any chance that you might start liking her felt like something of a betrayal."
"May? What--"
"I am a ways off yet from liking her, Debarre. I will not say never, but I have gotten to the point where I tolerate her. I will not betray you, though. You or your reactionary friends or whatever she called them."
"Zacharias! He has been pinging me once every few seconds for the last minute!" She was on the verge of hyperventilation, eyes wide and tail bristled. "I do not know what-- *fuck!*"
Debarre scrambled to his feet, eyes darting around through the trees. "What the fuck?"
Ioan slid from eir chair as the skunk started to slump over to the side. Ey helped her to her feet and over to the beanbag. "May, what's happening?"
"The sim is empty, my dear," the skunk said calmly. "I empty it every time someone enters."
"He keeps...quitting and...sending high-priority merges..." she gasped. "The cone will not...stop those..."
"Yeah, but--"
"You okay for a few seconds?"
"I think about you a lot, Debarre. Certainly more than anyone else I think about. I have pieced together enough."
Slumped over on the beanbag, the skunk nodded.
He growled. "Well, shit. I mean, I guess I'm an obvious enough choice for it."
Ey stepped from the cone, where May had clearly blocked sensorium messages from the fox, so that ey could holler into a message, "What the fuck do you want?"
"You are, yes, and doubtless the powers that be have been keeping their eye on you since the dissolution of the Council. I do not know the specifics, nor do I want to. As I said, I will not betray you." End Waking smiled wryly, adding, "And I do not think I am of much interest to any of them, anyway. I rarely leave, and I never enter a building when I do. I am more focused on my next meal than anything else."
"Ioan! I need to...can I--"
"Skunks just wanna get fat."
"No. No coming over."
End Waking grinned toothily. "It is not *not* true."
"A neutral place?"
"Well, anyway. Fair enough. I don't imagine you'll be ratting us out, and you're right that they probably already know. I'm just glad that you've been sweeping the place."
"Do you need May there?"
"Yes!"
Ey sighed. "I'll ask. No guarantees."
"No, I...no," the skunk mumbled once ey stepped back into the cone. She'd managed to sit up and while the panicked look on her face had calmed, the beginnings of rage had taken its place. "He cannot come here."
"Maybe Douglas's to keep him from being too much? If Sasha's reaction was anything to go by, it might quell him, or at least keep him distracted."
The skunk sat, silent, for a moment, holding onto one of eir hands tightly. "Will Douglas be around to sweep if needed?"
Ey nodded.
"Now?"
"Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure I trust that he'll leave you alone if we put him off."
"I--"
They were interrupted by a rapidly crescendoing thudding sound followed by the scrabble of claws on the glass of the sliding door, Sasha finally finding purchase and whipping it open. May dropped the cone of silence.
"What the fuck is happening?!" Sasha shouted.
"You too, then?"
Sasha frowned, straightened up, and brushed out her tunic. "Yes. He just about knocked me out with the amount of adrenaline he sent my way. You look ready to go, though. Do you have a plan?"
"We're going to meet him at Douglas's field. That's about the start and end of it, though." Ioan took a deep breath and tried to tamp down the urge to pace. "Do you want to come?"
Ey watched a complex set of emotions play out over her features. She stood still for nearly a minute, working to master them, before nodding. "Yes. Let us get this the fuck over with."
Ioan sent a message to Zacharias spoken aloud for the skunks' benefit. "The Field#002a0b1."
The reply was frantic. "What?! No!"
"There or no meeting."
"F-fine."
Ioan helped May to her feet and placed a kiss atop her head before the three of them forked and stepped from the sim.
Douglas stood at the top of his stoop, arms crossed, frowning. "Ioan, what is this?"
"Zacharias made it out of the whole thing alive," May growled. "And now he is losing his mind and wants to meet. I will not have him at our home."
Douglas's frown deepened. "So you're bringing him here? The ACLs are pretty locked down right now."
"Yes. I do not want to meet him at all, but I do not imagine he will simply leave me alone." She spent a moment composing herself, plastering a mask of confidence over her anxiety. "We need somewhere where someone can sweep him if need be."
"If you say so," he said, paused, then continued, "Alright, he should be able to enter."
Ioan nodded and sent a ping to Zacharias.
He arrived within a fraction of a second, yelped, and fell backwards, paws balled up into fists and pressed tight against his eyes.
"How long has it been for you, my dear? Since you were forked?" May said, kneeling down before the fox. Her voice had grown cloyingly sweet, that 'my dear' taking on a spiteful tone.
"Y-yes," he gasped. "Did...did we have to meet here?"
"Where better?" Sasha said. She stood nearby, arms crossed, impassive, looking almost bored, though Ioan could see the energy it was taking for her to keep that up.
Zacharias moaned. He forced himself to lower his paws to the ground, gripping at clumps of grass and dandelions. Finally, he opened his eyes and stared out toward the horizon of the field. "I--"
"What did you want, my dear Zack? You sounded nearly on the verge of panic," May said.
"It is Jonas!" he said, finally snapping out of his daze. "Jonas! He has gone crazy! He killed all of my instances!"
"Did you expect anything else, little loverfox?" Sasha asked. There was no humor or sweetness in her voice, the last two words carried venom in them.
"I...I mean--"
"You are the root instance, I am assuming?"
He nodded, the movement jerky and uneven. "I have not left home since. I dug a new one, you see, and he found that one somehow."
"And what can we do for you?" May asked.
"Help! You can help me get away from that...that lunatic!"
Sasha frowned. "Can you not dig another home?"
He reached out to clutch at May's paws. She startled backwards, but did nothing to push him away. "I cannot...I cannot just disappear! Months! It has been months since I have seen anyone. Anyone! I have to...to be near--"
"No," she said flatly.
"But--"
"No." The skunk shook her head, leaned forward and touched her nose to his. "Not me. Not Sasha. Not us. You are on your own, Zacharias. I will not accept any further messages or merges. No contact."
He slouched once more, eyes still wide. "May Then My Name, I--"
"No contact." She extracted one of her paws from his and slapped him firmly across the snout. "And that is for before."
Yelping, he fell back onto an elbow. He opened his mouth to respond, but May had already nodded towards Douglas, who swept him from the sim.
She remained kneeling for a moment, then started to shake, crumpling down onto the grass, panting heavily. Ioan knelt beside her until she'd cried herself dry while Douglas and Sasha sat on the steps leading up to his house, watching in silence.
"I've never seen you like that before," he said, once they'd made their way inside, the four of them clutching glasses of water. "I knew he was a shitbag, but goddamn."
"I am...not okay," she said, whispering down to her glass. "I am not okay."
"It is not a mode either of us are comfortable with," Sasha said quietly, "but it is the only mode that would have gained us peace. Any weakness would be taken as an opening."
Douglas nodded. He didn't look convinced.
"I am sorry. After 226 years, one learns to use contempt with precision, however dear the cost." She reached out to take one of May's paws in her own. Both of them looked exhausted. "Even so, I do not expect that is the last we will hear from him."
They didn't stay long after. Ioan eventually promised Douglas that they'd catch up another time and then gently nudged the skunks to quit and merge back down.
The rest of the day was silent. Ioan and May collapsed onto the beanbag and stayed there through much of it, each processing in their own way, while Sasha disappeared outside to lose herself in the wilderness, not returning until late that evening, bearing a lanky hare and double-pawful of chantarelles, which she cooked down into a simple stew. They ate on the balcony to enjoy the late summer's evening as best they could.
Sasha joined them in bed that night, and they took what comfort they could from each other's company.
-----
The more dramatic of the meetings, however, came that weekend. It was quieter, perhaps, but bearing more weight, more finality.
The rest of the week had remained tense, with Sasha wafting in and out of the house to follow her unsettled moods while May remained quiet, nearly silent, nearly always stuck by Ioan's side. Ey knew ey should probably start laying in supplies for her overflowing, but ey was still distracted trying to pick apart the events with Zacharias. In light of eir desire to keep both of them safe and close, much of the fury that had come with eir first meeting with the fox threatened to reappear every time ey thought about the two skunks.
Which, naturally, was quite often.
It was not exactly the best of timing, then, when If I Am To Bathe In Dreams, an elegant, if severe-looking, skunk arrived late on a Saturday afternoon on a few minutes' notice and bowed formally to the three of them.
"Ioan, I believe Jonas hired you as an amanuensis?" she said.
"He did, yes. Do you need me for that, too?"
"Please. This story is not over, will not be over for a long time yet. Listen. Watch."
Sasha immediately picked up on the mood and stood up straight after returning the formal bow. She offered In Dreams a seat and something to drink, both of which were declined, then said, "How may I help you?"
"I have a request from both my stanza and that of Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver. You will also be presented with this request in writing as an individual-eyes-only message."
Sasha nodded. "I understand."
"We request no contact from you, your stanza, or the Bălan clade moving forward."
"Wait, what?" Ioan said. May edged around a little ways behind em, clutching at eir arm.
"You are too entangled in the matter. No contact with this situation means no contact from you, May Then My Name Die With Me, or E.W. *né* Do I Know God After The End Waking. This request is in effect until further notice, and applies to our stanzas on Castor and Pollux as well, where Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled will be presented with the same request. None of us are on Artemis, but I will also be passing this on to Sorina Bălan. This includes general intraclade communication; we will add visibility exceptions to our messages and request that you do the same."
"I understand, accept, and offer you my best," Sasha said, bowing once more.
"I do not want your best," In Dreams said, voice flat. "Ioan?"
Ey blinked, hesitated, then bowed in turn. "I understand and accept."
"And May Then My Name?"
It took the skunk a moment to swallow back a rising wave of emotions before she could manage a shaky nod and a hoarse, "Understood."
"We are of one mind, then," she said, bowed, and stepped from the sim. A few seconds later, three sheets of paper scrolled out of the air above the dining table, all set as individual-eyes-only for each of them. Ioan read through eirs several times with a hollow feeling in eir chest.
Sasha stood still for a long minute, head bowed, then stepped outside without a word, at which point May burst into tears.
Ioan did eir best to comfort her, but after an hour, she gently pushed em away. "I need...I need the house to myself, please."
"Should I head to Douglas's?"
She shook her head. "I do not know, Ioan. I just...I just need the house. If you can...I mean, if Sasha will let you stay at her tent, you can stay, but I need the house."
"Now?"
Nodding, she wrapped her arms around em and squeezed tighter than ey knew she could. "I love you more than anything, my dear, but yes. Now."
Ey waited until ey could breathe properly after the squeeze, then kissed the top of her head. "I love you too, May. Please be safe, okay?"
She nodded once more, relinquished her grip on em, and nudged em out toward the back door and outside.
Sasha had set up a tent similar to E.W.'s, though she had skipped the process of building it herself, instead creating from similar materials off the exchange. She'd set it up nearly on the other side of the lake from their house, so that she could have the solitude that she needed without having to create some new sim of her own. When the need for space struck her, it never quite got to the point that it did with E.W. She would need away from their presences, she would say. They felt like a constant weight on her shoulders. Light, yes, but continually present.
Ah well. This was the first time that May had overflowed in this living situation --- and so dramatically, too --- so perhaps it would be helpful after all.
Ey took eir time walking around the shore of the lake, using it to vent the emotions that had built up over the last few hours through tears, through shouting into a cone of silence, cursing.
"Ioan? Goodness," Sasha said.
Ey'd managed to mostly clean up with a handkerchief, though clearly eir eyes were still red-rimmed and eir countenance...well, who knew? Glum, perhaps?
"Hi Sasha," ey said, sitting down on the step leading up into the tent. The skunk had been writing at the small desk she'd acquired, but she moved to join em. "May's not in a good spot. She suggested I stay with you, if that's alright."
She frowned, nodded. "That bad?"
"Well, she kind of kicked me out of the house, yeah."
She laid her ears flat. "We are perhaps both overflowing in our own ways."
"Oh, shit. I wasn't thinking. Douglas--" Ey moved to stand, but she grabbed eir wrist.
"I had seen this coming, if I am honest, so it is not hitting me quite so hard as her. I will be okay."
Ey nodded, slowly settled back onto the step. "If you say so."
Sasha patted eir hand and bade em stay while she got up to stoke up the fire in her stove and fry up a simple meal of potatoes and vegetables. Ey couldn't tell if it was just bland --- as E.W. preferred --- or if eir mind was too busy to process taste, so ey mostly just pushed the food around on the plate.
"Without contraries is no progression," Sasha murmured after they'd finished. "Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence."
Ey started to ask what she meant, paused, then looked the words up in the perisystem architecture. "Blake? And here I thought you all were mostly into Dickinson."
She chuckled and elbowed em in the side. "This may be a True Name thing."
"Are you leaning into the "Good is the passive that obeys reason; Evil is the active springing from Energy" on this, then?"
"Nothing is so simple, dear," she said, shaking her head. "Blake was not of our kind, he would not have understood. He did get that right, though, in that we are a people of dualities. May sees in Zacharias all that she cannot --- must not --- be. In Dreams and Hammered Silver see in me that which they are not --- could not be --- and yet we are not what we are without our opposites. Every idea's opposite is just the absence of the idea itself."
"Maybe." Ey sighed. "It's all a bit over my head."
"I am also a little bit all over the place," she admitted. "These events have me going in three different directions at once. The Ode clade is crumbling and I cannot deny that some...that much of that is on me. I am sorry, Ioan."
"I don't even know what to think about that," ey said, shaking eir head. "It's kind of a lot."
"That it is. You are a good person, though. You love your partner. She knows this. I know this. You are good to her and it will all be okay. We may hope for neat endings but all we get are more beginnings." She smiled, adding, "And yes, you may stay until she is feeling better."
"I have never caught anyone hitchhiking on you, though I have on May Then My Name and Ioan." He shrugged, gathered up the line of fish. "But speaking of fat, can we go back to cook these? I am not ready for you to stay over, but I would like to eat dinner with you, if you are up for it."