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Madison Scott-Clary
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# Ioan Bălan --- 2350
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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Ioan and May both nodded.
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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.
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"Is it just the finality of it all?" May asked.
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"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."
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"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."
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"Opened-- wait, when?" Ioan asked, setting eir own plate down. "And to how many?"
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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.
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But the skunk was already gone, bounding inside to greet the fox with a hug and excited chattering.
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Neither True Name nor May could say one way or another when ey'd voiced eir concerns with them.
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Ioan and Sasha followed more sedately, both waiting until May had gotten her greeting out of the way before bowing to Serene.
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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.
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"Ioan, a pleasure! It has been too long," she said, grinning widely. The grin faded, and she nodded to the spotted skunk. "And Sasha."
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For her part, True Name couldn't seem to stay pinned to any one of her three identities.
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"Serene, thank you for stopping by. I was not expecting to see you so soon."
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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.
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"I do not imagine so. May Then My Name has been conspiring behind the scenes, so this was all worked out ahead of time."
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And when that of May came to the fore, that was when ey was at eir most confused.
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"Oh? How cheeky," Sasha said, laughing. "Were you really that confident that everything would work out, dear?"
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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.
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May shook her head. "Reasonably confident, but I want Arrowhead Lake back no matter what, so I arranged for us a little meeting."
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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.
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"Skunks, I swear." Ioan shook eir head. "Well, welcome all the same. We've got pasta, if you'd like."
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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.
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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?"
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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."
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"It wasn't too much, and it fit the need, yeah."
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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.
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"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."
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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?
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Serene nodded and finished a mouthful of food before setting her fork down again. "I have at least come bearing a gift."
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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.
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"Did you find your student?"
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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Sasha dipped her snout. "I am assuming that he has picked up on the sentiment surrounding the clade."
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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.
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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."
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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.
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"I understand."
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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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."
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"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."
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"Well, okay. Perhaps one apology."
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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.
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"I am sorry, Serene; Sustained And Sustaining."
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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.
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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."
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The only words they spoke to each other was May saying, "Good luck, have fun, and do not die."
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Ioan blinked, looking between skunk and fennec. "Wait, that simple?"
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The four forks held hands and paws and, with nothing other than a shared, shaky breath, stepped from the sim.
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"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."
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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Serene made a rude gesture, still grinning.
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"I do not know if I can--"
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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."
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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."
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Ey nodded, focused, and made the grant.
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His nod was jerky, distracted, but still a nod.
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"Thank you. Now, you may stay out here and watch, but I warn you that it can be a bit dizzy-making."
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And yet, the room was empty. *Perfect time to pull the late-to-the-meeting power move.*
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Ey exchanged glances with the two skunks and shrugged. "I think we're all eager to see."
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Sure enough, 11:00 rolled around, no Jonas.
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"Suit yourself. It was your dinner. Thank you, by the way."
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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.*
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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.
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"True Name! Delighted to see you, delighted," Jonas said, grinning widely and giving the barest hint of a bow.
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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.
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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?"
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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.
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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?"
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And then it was done.
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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."
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"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.
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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Sure enough, the fence remained level, wrapping around a small rectangle of hidden grass and dandelions, the tops of lilac bushes overflowing.
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With that in mind, ey could at least do eir best to focus on the less direct forms of language around the room.
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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.
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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.
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"Fauna?" Serene asked.
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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.
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"Please." Sasha smiled sheepishly. "I would not like a repeat of that particular mistake."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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After so long away and after so much stress it felt all the more real.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"How is the rest of the clade taking this?" she asked. "I sent a clade-wide message, but have not received responses."
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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.
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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."
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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"'May'?" Serene said, tiling her head and looking to the other skunk. "Have you forgiven her, then?"
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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.
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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."
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"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."
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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."
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"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?"
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"I wasn't going to say anything," Ioan said, grinning.
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Jonas nodded. "Yes. Oligarchy on Pollux, *status quo* on Castor, and invisible monarchy here on Lagrange."
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May elbowed em in the side. "Hush, you."
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"You believe that this tripod will be the most stable political structure?"
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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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?"
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"Write? Really?"
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"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."
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"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."
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"Bullshit," True Name said calmly, turning back to Jonas. "And so what is it that--"
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"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."
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"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."
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|
||||
May grinned. "And all will be as it should."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"What--"
|
||||
|
||||
"*Will* you be happy?" Serene asked.
|
||||
"You say that you are part of the stanza, do you not?" The Only Time I Dream, the manager of the enterprise, said.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"I am, but--"
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"I see no evidence of such."
|
||||
|
||||
"Are you okay with that?"
|
||||
"But May Then My Name--"
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"May Then My Name, do you claim Zacharias as yours?"
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
She shrugged. "Claim? No. I do not know this Zacharias."
|
||||
|
||||
They sat and shared quiet stories of the past through the remainder of the evening.
|
||||
"That is--"
|
||||
|
||||
-----
|
||||
Jonas laughed, "Just shut up, Zacharias."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"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!*"
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
The skunk smiled and bowed her head.
|
||||
"Fine, fuck you too, then."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Mere breath?" Sasha asked, grinning.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"A chasing after the wind, yes."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
She laughed. "Of course. So many threats to hunt me down, these days. But yes, thank you."
|
||||
"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 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."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Far worse than being hunted down, that. I will be there."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
May preened.
|
||||
"What just happened?" ey whispered to May, who gave eir hand a squeeze in her paw and shook her head.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
Ey didn't understand, but ey didn't need to.
|
||||
"Your *life?*" Jonas asked, incredulous. "You want to get back to your life?"
|
||||
|
||||
-----
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
He laughed, shooting his cuffs. "Well, if *that's* all you want, then we could have done without all this fuss, couldn't we?"
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"This fuss is necessary, remember," When I Do Not Remember, the propagandist, said, to which Jonas sighed.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Sasha?" Ioan said, startled.
|
||||
*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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Too much," she mumbled shakily. "Too much at once."
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
|
||||
May padded over to kneel next to her. "May I hug?"
|
||||
"I wouldn't say no," he shot back.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"No."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"I thought not."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"So," she said with exaggerated patience. "What does me disappearing look like to you?"
|
||||
|
||||
"Are you feeling better now?" Douglas asked.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"We are of one mind on that."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
Jonas snorted. "Fuck if I believe you on *that.*"
|
||||
|
||||
"Or at least meet a third of me."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
Eir frown deepened. Perhaps this was more than just a political dispute.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
"Yep," he said, grin tight and false.
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
Both May and End Waking bristled at this, but neither spoke.
|
||||
|
||||
They nodded and returned the hugs and kisses, getting hugs from Douglas as well before they stepped back home.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"Do you think Douglas still puts too much stock in who you used to be?" Ioan asked once they were home and comfortable.
|
||||
"I can tell, sure, but you know that's not enough, True Name."
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"You have not offered your terms. We cannot come to agreement without."
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"Why did you not just ask me?"
|
||||
|
||||
"Besides, it's not like you guys don't hyperfixate on things."
|
||||
"Would you have stepped down?" he asked with a sneer.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
"How do you feel about her apology?"
|
||||
"I was bored. It sounded fun. You were right there. Why not?"
|
||||
|
||||
"How do you mean?"
|
||||
"You were bored," she said coolly. "You were bored, so you decided to hire someone to kill me."
|
||||
|
||||
Ey shrugged. "It felt...I don't know, a little rehearsed, maybe."
|
||||
Ioan watched Jonas's smile fall back into that uncaring cruelty, increasingly ungrounded.
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
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--"
|
||||
|
||||
-----
|
||||
"Jonas," When I Do Not Remember murmured, her voice a low warning. He only grinned.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"You need to go away, True Name. I don't fucking care *how.* You make it happen or I will."
|
||||
|
||||
Not all of these interactions went smoothly.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"May? What--"
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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!*"
|
||||
This, though, went beyond that.
|
||||
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"He keeps...quitting and...sending high-priority merges..." she gasped. "The cone will not...stop those..."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"You okay for a few seconds?"
|
||||
And then, it was over.
|
||||
|
||||
Slumped over on the beanbag, the skunk nodded.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Ioan! I need to...can I--"
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"No. No coming over."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"A neutral place?"
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Do you need May there?"
|
||||
"May, what--"
|
||||
|
||||
"Yes!"
|
||||
"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 sighed. "I'll ask. No guarantees."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
The skunk sat, silent, for a moment, holding onto one of eir hands tightly. "Will Douglas be around to sweep if needed?"
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
Ey nodded.
|
||||
The skunk bowed. "You may call me Sasha."
|
||||
|
||||
"Now?"
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure I trust that he'll leave you alone if we put him off."
|
||||
Jonas simply burst out laughing, and ey couldn't miss the bitterness in it.
|
||||
|
||||
"I--"
|
||||
All of the rest of the Odists, however, were shouting. None of them looked pleased.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"What the fuck is happening?!" Sasha shouted.
|
||||
"As do I," End Waking said, getting a smile from Sasha.
|
||||
|
||||
"You too, then?"
|
||||
"*That* name is unacceptable!" When I Do Not Dream hollered. "No. You will pick something else."
|
||||
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
"No, I will not."
|
||||
|
||||
"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?"
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
At this, most of the stanza bridled, and there were a few louder murmurings.
|
||||
|
||||
Ioan sent a message to Zacharias spoken aloud for the skunks' benefit. "The Field#002a0b1."
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
The reply was frantic. "What?! No!"
|
||||
Murmurings grew to angry mutterings.
|
||||
|
||||
"There or no meeting."
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
"F-fine."
|
||||
May rolled her eyes.
|
||||
|
||||
Ioan helped May to her feet and placed a kiss atop her head before the three of them forked and stepped from the sim.
|
||||
"Get out. All of you."
|
||||
|
||||
Douglas stood at the top of his stoop, arms crossed, frowning. "Ioan, what is this?"
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
Douglas's frown deepened. "So you're bringing him here? The ACLs are pretty locked down right now."
|
||||
"See you around?"
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"Fuck off."
|
||||
|
||||
"If you say so," he said, paused, then continued, "Alright, he should be able to enter."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
Ioan nodded and sent a ping to Zacharias.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
He arrived within a fraction of a second, yelped, and fell backwards, paws balled up into fists and pressed tight against his eyes.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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.
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
|
||||
"Y-yes," he gasped. "Did...did we have to meet here?"
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"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.
|
||||
Sasha beamed and bowed with a flourish.
|
||||
|
||||
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--"
|
||||
"And you knew this?" ey asked.
|
||||
|
||||
"What did you want, my dear Zack? You sounded nearly on the verge of panic," May said.
|
||||
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--"
|
||||
|
||||
"It is Jonas!" he said, finally snapping out of his daze. "Jonas! He has gone crazy! He killed all of my instances!"
|
||||
"All the way back to Praiseworthy's suggestions before Secession," the other skunk said proudly.
|
||||
|
||||
"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.
|
||||
"--and other than the spotted skunk thing, she looks just like...well, Sasha. Nice touch, by the way."
|
||||
|
||||
"I...I mean--"
|
||||
"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?"
|
||||
|
||||
"You are the root instance, I am assuming?"
|
||||
Ioan shook eir head, dizzy. "This is what you looked like before uploading?"
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"And what can we do for you?" May asked.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"Help! You can help me get away from that...that lunatic!"
|
||||
Sasha nodded.
|
||||
|
||||
Sasha frowned. "Can you not dig another home?"
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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--"
|
||||
Ioan sighed and sat down heavily in the grass. "You're all completely nuts."
|
||||
|
||||
"No," she said flatly.
|
||||
The three skunks laughed.
|
||||
|
||||
"But--"
|
||||
"Why didn't you tell me?"
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
He slouched once more, eyes still wide. "May Then My Name, I--"
|
||||
"So," ey said, organizing eir thoughts out loud. "May and End Waking--"
|
||||
|
||||
"No contact." She extracted one of her paws from his and slapped him firmly across the snout. "And that is for before."
|
||||
"E.W." the skunk corrected. "I am E.W. of no clade."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
The other two skunks perked up and grinned wide.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"I am...not okay," she said, whispering down to her glass. "I am not okay."
|
||||
"And how is it that this pisses off Jonas?" Ey snorted. "He certainly sounded pissed."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
Douglas nodded. He didn't look convinced.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
May added, "I suspect that he is starting to crack."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
Ioan nodded.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"Perhaps," Sasha said. "He has not seemed fully grounded in many years, but again, do not underestimate him."
|
||||
|
||||
Sasha joined them in bed that night, and they took what comfort they could from each other's company.
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
|
||||
-----
|
||||
Sasha stiffened where she knelt. "Debarre," she said, bowing her head. "A pleasure to see you."
|
||||
|
||||
The more dramatic of the meetings, however, came that weekend. It was quieter, perhaps, but bearing more weight, more finality.
|
||||
The weasel said nothing, looking stunned.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"This is-- was Tr--"
|
||||
|
||||
Which, naturally, was quite often.
|
||||
"Sasha. I am Sasha. I was her as well," she said, voice gentle but insistent enough to stop Ioan from continuing.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
He stepped back a half pace, crouching as though to flee on foot. "Sasha...? What the fuck?"
|
||||
|
||||
"Ioan, I believe Jonas hired you as an amanuensis?" she said.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"He did, yes. Do you need me for that, too?"
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"Please. This story is not over, will not be over for a long time yet. Listen. Watch."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
"Wait, my love," E.W. said. "Please stay."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
Debarre hesitated.
|
||||
|
||||
Sasha nodded. "I understand."
|
||||
"If I am still here, do you not think that I agree with her? At least to a large enough extent to trust her?"
|
||||
|
||||
"We request no contact from you, your stanza, or the Bălan clade moving forward."
|
||||
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."
|
||||
|
||||
"Wait, what?" Ioan said. May edged around a little ways behind em, clutching at eir arm.
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"So now you're Sasha," he said slowly.
|
||||
|
||||
"I understand, accept, and offer you my best," Sasha said, bowing once more.
|
||||
"A new Sasha. Related, but not the same Sasha you and I remember."
|
||||
|
||||
"I do not want your best," In Dreams said, voice flat. "Ioan?"
|
||||
"I'll buy that at least," he muttered. "You still make me really fucking nervous."
|
||||
|
||||
Ey blinked, hesitated, then bowed in turn. "I understand and accept."
|
||||
She smiled faintly. "Do not worry, my dear. I make myself nervous."
|
||||
|
||||
"And May Then My Name?"
|
||||
At the affectionate *my dear*, the weasel jolted back.
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"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.
|
||||
"You have enough of E.W. in you, you mean."
|
||||
|
||||
Sasha stood still for a long minute, head bowed, then stepped outside without a word, at which point May burst into tears.
|
||||
She nodded.
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"I...well, yeah. Not from you." He hesitated, eyes averted, and added, "Please."
|
||||
|
||||
"Should I head to Douglas's?"
|
||||
"Of course.
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"So tell me how this gets you anything."
|
||||
|
||||
"Now?"
|
||||
Ioan sat up straight once more, unpinning eir question. "You were saying that Jonas thought he'd beaten you."
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
"How, though?" ey asked.
|
||||
|
||||
She nodded once more, relinquished her grip on em, and nudged em out toward the back door and outside.
|
||||
"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--"
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"Or more of one," May muttered.
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"--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."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"It is not a win, *per se*," E.W. added. "She has not beaten Jonas, but she has entered into a stalemate with him."
|
||||
|
||||
"Ioan? Goodness," Sasha said.
|
||||
"Can't he still come after you, though? It's not like the whole System knows."
|
||||
|
||||
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?
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"But I haven't yet, though."
|
||||
|
||||
She frowned, nodded. "That bad?"
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"Well, she kind of kicked me out of the house, yeah."
|
||||
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?"
|
||||
|
||||
She laid her ears flat. "We are perhaps both overflowing in our own ways."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"Oh, shit. I wasn't thinking. Douglas--" Ey moved to stand, but she grabbed eir wrist.
|
||||
"So he will just leave you alone?"
|
||||
|
||||
"I had seen this coming, if I am honest, so it is not hitting me quite so hard as her. I will be okay."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
Ey nodded, slowly settled back onto the step. "If you say so."
|
||||
May nodded slowly. "You are not wrong. I would not have used such words, but you are not wrong."
|
||||
|
||||
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.
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
"So," Debarre said. "When did you realize this might even work?"
|
||||
|
||||
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."
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
She chuckled and elbowed em in the side. "This may be a True Name thing."
|
||||
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.
|
||||
|
||||
"Are you leaning into the "Good is the passive that obeys reason; Evil is the active springing from Energy" on this, then?"
|
||||
"You're nuts," Debarre said, rubbing his paws over his face to cover that response. "You're all fucking nuts."
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
Ioan gestured wildly toward the weasel. "Confirmation! Fucking nuts!"
|
||||
|
||||
"Maybe." Ey sighed. "It's all a bit over my head."
|
||||
The three skunks laughed while ey and Debarre leaned across the circle to shake hands.
|
||||
|
||||
"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."
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user