Edits

content/read/037.md

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ True Name, despite maintaining careful control of her expression, still appeared
 
 Answers Will Not Help, however, was a mess.
 
-Her form rippled between species, and with it, so too did her expression. She would veer wildly between barely constrained laughter and agony, all while tears coursed down her cheeks or left tracks in fur. She managed to keep quiet for the most part, though occasionally a snippet of poetry would escape her: here a line of the Ode, there a bit of Dickinson. She had even startled Tycho at one point by quoting something ey didn't quite recognize: "I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap..."
+Her form rippled between species, and with it, so too did her expression. She would veer wildly between barely constrained laughter and agony, all while tears coursed down her cheeks or left tracks in fur. She managed to keep quiet for the most part, though occasionally a snippet of poetry would escape her: here a line of the Ode, there a bit of Dickinson. She had even startled Tycho at one point by quoting something ey didn't recognize: "I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap..."
 
 This wild dissociation from the world around her was made all the more unnerving by the fact that ey could tell that she was having a difficult time staying within common time. 
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ Codrin nodded toward her, "By your leave, True Name?"
 
 "Please, Mx. Bălan." She sounded quite relieved.
 
-"Prior to the founding of the System two hundred thirty-one years ago, long distance communication and interaction took place over a global network. It worked much as it does here, in that there are designated locations --- sims, a name which has stuck with us --- and we interacted through forms such as these. The origin of our System came about shortly after a brief period of political unrest wherein some political entities released a type of virus into the implanted hardware we used to connect to the 'net. Those who came across too much information relating to this unrest had the virus triggered and were trapped in a vegetative state, locked within their minds." Ey paused and looked to True Name, who nodded. Answers Will Not Help just hugged her arms to her front, looking pale as she silently mouthed some litany ey couldn't guess. "Michelle Hadje, the root instance of the Ode clade, to which True Name and Why Ask Questions belong, was one of these individuals. The lost, they called them. Dear, my partner, is an Odist as well, and mentioned to me beforehand that a malleable sense of time sounded much like what it experienced during that period."
+"Prior to the founding of the System two hundred thirty-one years ago, long distance communication and interaction took place over a global network. It worked much as it does here, in that there are designated locations --- sims, a name which has stuck with us --- and we interacted through forms such as these. The origin of our System came about shortly after a brief period of political unrest wherein some political entities released a type of virus into the implanted hardware we used to connect to the 'net. Those who came across too much information relating to this unrest had the virus triggered and were trapped in a vegetative state, locked within their minds by that hardware." Ey paused and looked to True Name, who nodded. Answers Will Not Help just hugged her arms to her front, looking pale as she silently mouthed some litany ey couldn't guess. "Michelle Hadje, the root instance of the Ode clade, to which True Name and Why Ask Questions belong, was one of these individuals. The lost, they called them. Dear, my partner, is an Odist as well, and mentioned to me beforehand that a malleable sense of time sounded much like what it experienced during that period."
 
 "You are not normally like this," Turun Ka said. A statement rather than a question. "My counterpart on Castor describes you as solely in the form you primarily occupy here, and Why Ask Questions solely in, *lu*...a human form. You are both described as calm, confident, and politically adroit."
 
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ Codrin's eyes darted over to Answers Will Not Help --- as, ey noticed, did the r
 
 "I cannot feel em!" Answers Will Not Help interrupted, nearly shouting. Tears were streaming down her face, now. "I cannot...here...b-beside whom..."
 
-Something akin to anger or fear tore through True Name's exhaustion and she sat bolt upright, glaring down the row of emissaries to Answers Will Not Help. "Why Ask Questions, my dear, please do try to remain present," she said, voice eerily calm, soothing.
+Something south of fury and north of terror tore through True Name's exhaustion and she sat bolt upright, glaring down the row of emissaries to Answers Will Not Help. "Why Ask Questions, my dear, please do try to remain present," she said, voice eerily calm, soothing.
 
 The silence at the table was absolute. All delegates on both sides held still, and Codrin suspected that all of the emissaries from Castor were holding their breath. All had experienced the laser-focused wrath of at least one of the Odists in the weeks leading up to the conference.