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content/read/008.md

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-# Michelle Hadje --- 2124
+# Codrin Bălan#Castor --- 2325
 
-Michelle Hadje mastered the urge to vomit.
+After their 'deaths', such as they were, Dear cackled madly and ran about the still roaring bonfire, prancing and leaping, forking dozens of copies as it went. Its sim had been set up in the Launch Systems, both Castor and Pollux, precisely as it had in the L<sub>5</sub> System, down to all of the decorations and flames. As soon as they had transferred themselves over to those Systems --- something which they had been told would take several minutes across the micro-Ansibles connecting the three systems, but which was as subjectively instantaneous as any normal transit --- they were alone. The crowd was gone, the singing was gone, and any chance of reversibility had gone with them. There was no way that Codrin or Dear or Dear's partner could ever go back. The transit was one-way. *"There is no going and there is no back,"* Dear had been saying for months now.
 
-She knew that she could change this. Change all of these things from so many dreams that pressed in against her. She knew that she could will them away, or perhaps spring for a fork that would simply...not have them. She had enough reputation, by now, to fork a dozen times over. Some perks came with being on the council, after all.
+*"It is done! It is done!"* the fox hollered. *"It is done and those poor saps did not even get to finish their song! Oh, to see their faces! Crumbling sim, friends forever cut off!"*
 
-But she hadn't, and she was not quite sure why.
+Dear's partner also laughed, hopping to their feet and chasing after the fox in a drunken dash, leaving Codrin to sit and smile and watch and think.
 
-At one point, she had entertained the idea that it was out of a need to keep some part of herself tied to the her of eight years ago, the panicked and wild-eyed woman who had scrimped and saved all that she could to get a one-way ticket into the System. Perhaps she needed to keep some tenuous connection to the Michelle left so changed by getting lost that year on year become madness on madness.
+There was no more Codrin in the L<sub>5</sub> System. Ey was only here. Ey couldn't remember being there, for were the sims not the same? And if ey had never been there, had ey ever really existed there? Ey was only memories, and perhaps that is all ey had ever been. Navel gazing and existential crises mixed with the glee of having actually *done* something. No longer just the passive amanuensis, but now the active participant.
 
-But that wasn't quite it. Perhaps, instead, she felt as though she wasn't worth it. She hadn't been able to save her friends, not in the end, and it was only by dint of luck that she managed to survive the years after that terrible day her mind was wrapped in on itself, squeezed, stretched, knotted, and all her thoughts and all her dreams were mirrored back upon her. Perhaps she deserved these bouts of lingering disconnection, depression, dissociation, derealization, depersonalizeation.
+Or, well, nearly so, for it was Dear who talked em into this, as it was so good at doing.
 
-That wasn't it either, though. She may sometimes feel the weight of responsibility, but thoughts as gloomy as that came only when she was feeling particularly peaky.
+When Dear and its partner finally collapsed into a laughing heap amid the dandelions and shortgrass, Codrin stood, raised eir hands to the fire-dimmed sky, and addressed fox and human and flames. "Hwæt! We great three have made it! We have made it to safety and sanctuary!"
 
-Lately, her best guess as to why she kept this madness draped around her was the slew of memories of RJ that hit her at unexpected intervals. She could feel em, sometimes, as a ghost, perhaps, or a wish, a dream, but then that feeling would disappear and she'd be left with despair and the urge to vomit and the flickering of herself.
+Dear rolled up and immediately focused on Codrin with a singular intensity that ey had seen countless times before and yet never gotten used to.
 
-Michelle.
+"We three, the heroes, the shield-bearers of Elf Hive had long since sought the beast. It lived in the caves, they said. It dwelt in the fields and disguised itself as tall grass, ready to ensnare the traveler. It was as large as a mountain and crouched beside the valley, unseen, traversed, summited, and still it claimed lives in its hunger. Who knows the truth, now, but us three? None who met its gaze had ever lived to tell the tale, and none now will ever hear, for we are the only ones who have seen it face to face and lived, and yet we escaped only by jumping from the world up to the heavens.
 
-Sasha.
+"We sought it by night until we realized that it was not there--"
 
-Michelle.
+*"We sought it!"* Dear shouted, hoisting a tankard that had appeared in its paw.
 
-Sasha.
+"We sought it by day, supposing that that is where it must be hiding--"
 
-That last hypothesis encompassed much of the previous two, and would explain why the looming tenth anniversary of the founding of the System seemed to make it all the worse. Ten years since the founding, eleven years since RJ disappeared, giving emself up to the act of creation.
+*"Sought but did not find!"*
 
-Ah well. She had lingered long enough outside the coffee shop, so she swallowed down her rising gorge and mastered a few waves of shifting form, skunk fur and human flesh fighting for dominance. The human form won today: round of face rather than mephit snout; curly, black hair rather than thick black fur. It would do. She would be Michelle for the meeting.
+"We looked to the morning, supposing that it might dwell between the two, but morning is the time of creation! The beast of destruction cannot live there. And so we sought in the evening gloaming and there we found the slavering teeth--"
 
-The Council of Eight, for all its high status and demand, met in incognito in unassuming, downtempo sims rather than some conference room or grand palace. The eight of them would trickle into the sim over the course of a few hours, set up camp on a hilltop or in a cafe, enjoy the ambiance, and then set up a cone of silence to discuss business. They had been noticed once or twice, but never hounded and certainly not attacked.
+"The jaws that bite, the claws that catch." Dear's partner chimed in, lifting their own tankard.
 
-Debarre and user11824 were there already, slouching before their coffees in comfortable silence. Both looked up and waved to her when she entered, so she requested a mocha and joined them around the table.
+"And we braved them. We braved, but though we tried, we could not best them. There was no fight to be had--"
 
-"Hey Sa--er, Michelle. Hows tricks?" Debarre asked.
+*"No swords could cut it!"*
 
-"Tricksy, as usual." She smiled wanly. "How about you two?"
+"No spears could pierce it!"
 
-user11824 shrugged. His features were nondescript to the point where Michelle doubted that he even needed to work at being incognito. Eyes simply slid over him without pausing. "Bored. Boring. Bored."
+"--and all we could do was hold off its attack to run away until true darkness fell and we could finally rest. The next morning we would take off running, and hope to gain some distance, but always the beast was there, ready and waiting--"
 
-"How are you bored? There's always too much to do." Laughter came from behind her, followed by a friendly touch to the shoulder. Jonas, on the other hand, was perilously handsome, well past the point of standing out, and friendly with a casual ease that left all feeling envious.
+*"Ready to pounce!"*
 
-"Yeah. Boring shit."
+"So we grew weary, for nothing we did could not be undone by the beast. It *did* dwell in the grass! It *did* live in caves! It *was* the mountain! It was all these things and more."
 
-Jonas slid into the seat next to Michelle, coffee in hand. There were a few minutes amiable chatter as the other four octarchs trickled in: two well-dressed women, one well-dressed man, and one slouching form of indeterminate gender (and occasionally species) that looked more like a discarded pile of rags than anything.
+"So much more, yes."
 
-Michelle blinked, and a cone of silence spread around the table. The proprietor raised an eyebrow, but made no other move to acknowledge it.
+"So, the best that we could do," Codrin said with an air of finality. "Was to leave behind the earth, the realm of the physical, to leap up and up--"
 
-"So," she began, rubbing her hands over her face. "I know we just had a meeting, so I am sorry for stealing you all again, but I have a thing to ask of you all. A question, for sure, but it may morph into a favor, depending on the answer."
+*"Up and up!"*
 
-"Boring one?" user11824 asked.
+"Up and up!"
 
-Michelle forced a tired chuckle and wobbled one of her hands over the table. "Maybe. Probably. Most things are boring to you."
+"--and ascend directly to the heavens to live as gods!"
 
-He rolled his eyes. More chuckles around the table.
+The three of them all lifted their newly created tankards high, spilling spruce beer and laughing as they shouted, "Hail! Hail!" before drinking deep.
 
-Swallowing down another wave of Sasha washing across her body, she continued. "I would like to create ten forks to delegate responsibility. Would that be okay?"
+"You, my dear, are quite drunk," Dear's parter said, grinning.
 
-Jonas frowned. "That'd be pretty expensive."
+Codrin giggled. "That I am!"
 
-"Would it be worth the expenditure?" the pile of rags rasped.
+*"But that was delightful! Much better than signing a waver that we might be lost and then waiting for the appointed time."* Dear paused, tilted its head, and adopted a sly grin that surely meant trouble. *"But I do not think that that is* actually *what happened, for when God hath ordained a creature to die in a particular place, He causeth that creature's wants to direct it to that place."*
 
-Michelle quelled the instinct to shrug again, nodding instead. "I think it would be. Just temporarily. At least for the next year or so. I will shift my role to a more managerial one, acting as consensus builder for my clade. I would not gain any more say in votes."
+Codrin sat down on the ground as the other two had and awaited Dear's version of the events.
 
-"Would you take on additional responsibility, too?"
+*"I knew that because from the moment that God opened up the heavens and reached down to touch me on my crown and opened my third eye--"* It forked into a version of itself which had such a feature. *"--that I was to seek far and wide for those who saw the world as I did and guide them into a fullness of being that no one had ever seen before right up until that ordained moment of my death.*
 
-"I can. I am always happy to do my share of the work, and if that share increases ten-fold while I shift to a consensus point, I will be okay with that."
+*"In short, I began a cult."*
 
-Debarre gave a lopsided smile. "If it's simply about more hands on the ground, I see no problem with it. It's your reputation to spend, and..." He hesitated, smile fading to a more serious expression, continuing, "And if it helps you out, then it's probably for the best. I'm sorry Michelle, but you look like hell."
+Its partner laughed. "You might well have, given the chance."
 
-She forced herself to keep tears out of her voice. "I feel like hell, if I am honest. I will ensure none of the forks have...all this."
+*"Shush, you. I began it in all good intentions. I had seen the truth as revealed to me by God itself --- for is not God made in the image of me? --- and certainly the best that I could do to help my fellow man was to lead them to the truth. The truth is beautiful and cruel. We are not meant to own a thing! We are meant only to suffer, and by suffering, be purified, and by being purified, ascend from this mortal plane through the cosmic vibrations to something akin to ecstasy!*
 
-Nods around the table. A woman from the well-dressed trio spoke up. "I'm comfortable answering your question with a 'yes'."
+*"Power, as the tired saying goes, corrupts, and I bore power. Eventually, I attained absolute power, at least among my followers. I was their prophet, was I not? We were not meant to own a thing, yes, but as the ephemeral physical items passed through our lives, I sampled the greatest among them. The truth may be cruel and we are meant to suffer, but is not even the highest pleasure a form of suffering of its own? Orgasm is called the little death, is it not?"*
 
-They went around the table, and none of the others challenged the first vote. Michelle slouched in relief, letting her control slacken and her form blur for a few moments.
+Both of the fox's partners laughed.
 
-"Does that answer mean that you have a favor to ask?"
+*"And so I took what I wanted and did it all in the name of suffering and poverty. I believed it as hard as the rest of my followers, though. There was no cynicism, back then, down in the physical plane, where all is tainted by evil. I was a prophet and the prophecy applied to me, as well.*
 
-She nodded to Debarre. "A two-part favor. I would like some help delegating to my forks, if we even have ten things that need doing, and then I would like a week off."
+*"There was no hope of a grand death, I knew that. I knew that I would die in the agony of flames--"* It gestured at the bonfire still roaring. *"--and I knew when, so I was expecting the hammering on my door and the shattering of its hinges. I was expecting my team of tame Judases to come crashing into my meditation chamber. My followers! Some of the greatest and best among them! They all came for me, and I let them in full knowledge haul me to my feet by my very scruff --- grab me there and I go limp as a kitten!"*
 
-Jonas laughed. "You're allowed a vacation, Michelle. Go for it. I'm sure we can all find something for your new clade. The Hadje Clade?"
+Both of the audience members grinned at this. Both knew it to be true.
 
-"The Ode Clade."
+*"I let them drag me to my pyre, my last great possession, my last great suffering, and I wept with joy at the beautiful, terrifying, and irreversible agony of that final moment. Even my screams contained ecstasy!*
 
-Debarre stiffened in his seat, frowned. Michelle did her best to maintain her tired mien, keeping her gaze on Jonas.
+*"The cosmic vibrations welled up within my heart and my mind and my soul and my body and when there was nothing left of me but ash, I found myself here, surrounded by love and peace and all that I could possibly desire!"*
 
-"No clue what that means, but hey, Michelle-slash-Sasha of the Ode Clade it is."
+With that, it bowed dramatically and sat back down amid the applause.
 
-"Do we applaud? Is this exciting?" user11824 asked. He looked honestly befuddled, and Michelle admitted that she could use a life so bound by boredom that excitement could go unnoticed.
+When both Codrin and Dear had stared at their partner for a long few seconds, they finally held up their hands and surrendered to the pressure. "Fine, fine, but I'm not the storyteller that you two are, so you'll have to forgive my tale."
 
-"It's exciting for me. I get to sleep in."
+*"Pish and also tosh, my love. I look forward to it."*
 
-Laughter around the table.
+"You are also very drunk, fox."
 
-The pile of rags shifted, rasping its words. "Are we comfortable with this as a general rule? Perhaps we would all benefit from a fork here and there to help us out."
+*"But of course!"*
 
-"Can we come up with a mechanism for tracking hands on the ground, as you so eloquently put it?"
+They clambered to their feet and stretched their arms upward, then nodded. "Alright. My appearance here began shortly after Dear's. Its gift of prophecy was accurate more often than not, and, at first, it was humbler than any single one of us could possibly hope to be.
 
-Michelle nodded eagerly to the sharp dressed man. "Please. It is not my intention to take more work just so we can do more things my way."
+"That, you see, was the secret to its power. It was not simply that it would think of others any time a choice was presented between itself and them, though that was surely true, but that it seemed to exist without ego. Completely without. It would forget to eat. It would forget to drink. It would even, though I am happy to count this as a rarity, forget to breathe. Why would it? In its mind, the self was non-existent, and by that point, breathing had come under its own control, such was its mastery of self, and if it was always focused on the betterment of others, it could neglect itself. I wouldn't be surprised if its heart would forget to beat some day.
 
-"And we'll have to be careful not to overextend our reach. There being only the eight of us kind of limits our capabilities by necessity."
+"This is the source of the passion in its followers. When one sees that total reduction of the self in the service of others, that does not inspire greed in nearly as many people that you might suspect. Instead, they are unable to help themselves before that one. It's almost impossible to resist the paradoxical allure of one such as that, and perhaps some more primal need draws one to try and equal that nadir."
 
-"We can be open about it, set limits for ourselves. Maybe no more than ten per council member."
+For as much as they had downplayed their ability, Codrin was pleasantly surprised at the fluidity of their telling, and ey sat as rapt as Dear.
 
-"It might be handy to fork further for personal reasons down the line," Michelle said, carefully avoiding Debarre's gaze. "I can think of a hundred things I would like to do."
+"I had a gift of prophecy, myself, though I had not understood it until joining this cult -- and yes, it was a cult. It was during a nine-day fast and I had been meditating for at least thirty six hours straight, and in that, I received word from God in the form of a vision: our dear leader's death, it cackling in the flames, and I saw the reason why.
 
-The weasel's frown deepened.
+"It was after that that I started to notice it, the slow regrowth of its ego. It started with little things, at first, a morsel of that required food more than the rest of us received, or an extra smile of particular friendship between it and one of the others.
 
-"Sounds fair enough. I figure we've all got personal lives outside this," one of the women said.
+"I kept this to myself, at first, but eventually it began to grate on me more than I cared to admit. The strange thing about anger, though, is that it has the roots in the self, and so I felt that it was keeping me anchored where I made no further progress on my journey to utter selflessness.
 
-"Yeah, boring ones."
+"So I did what any other acolyte would do and began to talk with the others in secret. I was not the only one, it turned out, though I was the only one who had seen the inevitable conclusion. When I mentioned this to my co-conspirators, though, they immediately grew wide-eyed and listened to what I had to say. I didn't put the pieces together at the moment, but soon enough I began to feel the subtle nudges toward assuming the role of prophet.
 
-"You're such a drag. Take up fishing or something. Then you can be bored with purpose."
+"I don't know who began the mob. Was it Aya? I think it was Aya. I think it was her who began the chant and then began the roar. It was her who battered down Dear's door and dragged it, strangely limp, strangely smiling, out to the bonfire, and it was her who threw it on, for it had become a slight creature long ago."
 
-"I've got a stack and a half of trashy novels to plow through."
+*"It was! Aya, that bitch."*
 
-"There's some changes I've been meaning to make. Maybe I can even figure out how to make it like a real demolition process, too. Putting a sledgehammer through drywall? Exquisite. Simply exquisite."
+"And then, of course, it was her who grabbed my hand and thrust it up into the air, proclaiming me as the next prophet. It was unanimous. I was to be the one in charge.
 
-The chatter continued around the table. Michelle focused on her mocha, studiously avoiding Debarre's searching gaze.
+"And you can surely guess my fate. You can surely see that it had come much sooner too, as all of those little luxuries that Dear had accumulated were now mine, and I succumbed as I knew I must to temptation.
 
-The cone of silence was dropped, and council members left at their own pace until only Michelle, Jonas, and Debarre left.
+"Weird though. They skipped the fire and went straight to beheading!" They finished with a bow and sat down grinning at the hearty applause. Both Dear and Codrin leaned in to give them a kiss on the cheek.
 
-"So, what's the deal with the clade name? And why are you two being so weird around each other?" Jonas asked.
+There was silence for a while as the three of them sat and drank their ale and looked at the fire or looked at each other or looked at nothing. Perhaps they left to walk the prairie. Perhaps they huddled by the fire in shared warmth. Who knows? It did not matter in that moment. They were home, and they were together.
 
-There was a moment's silence, then Debarre murmured, "You tell him."
+It was only later, when Dear and Codrin had curled together in bed --- Dear's partner having fallen asleep on the couch --- that the fox elbowed Codrin in the side, and ey could hear the grin in its voice. *"Beowulf? You are such a nerd."*
 
-"A friend of mine --- of ours --- wrote this poem, an ode, and I was thinking that I would name the instances after lines from it. A hundred lines, ten stanzas. That gives me ten first lines to start with, and I can go from there."
+Codrin laughed and buried eir face in the fox's scruff. "Did you doubt that I knew of Beowulf?"
 
-Jonas shrugged. "Well, fair enough, if strange. You didn't answer why you two got all weird, though."
+*"Oh! I did not doubt, but the fact that you pulled that out to start a story time makes me giddy. How long had you been planning on doing that?"*
 
-"Complicated stuff. Both Michelle and--"
+"It wasn't planned. It just struck me in the spur of the moment."
 
-"We were both among the lost," she interrupted, shooting Debarre a warning glance.
+*"I knew there was a reason I loved you."*
 
-Jonas held his hands up to forestall further conversation. "This is between you two. You can share what you want when you've got it sorted out."
+Codrin poked a finger against the fox's stomach, getting a yip in return. "Did you doubt that, too?"
 
-Debarre nodded sullenly. Michelle looked down at her hands.
+*"It is always nice to have confirmation."*
 
-"While we're on complicated subjects, I have an admission to make." Jonas looked sheepish. "I have a small clade of my own on the side. All for personal stuff, of course, nothing tied to the Council."
+"Happy to oblige."
 
-Debarre tilted his head, then laughed. It was an earnest laugh, full-throated, and Michelle`realized that Jonas had said precisely the right thing to cut through the tension.
+There was silence for a bit. Codrin began to nod off.
 
-"Do you have some equally stupid clade name?" Michelle said, grinning.
+*"Codrin?"*
 
-"Oh, just the Jonas Clade. I'm going to keep forking as long as I have reputation, I figure, so we've been naming ourselves with syllables. There's plenty enough of those. I'll stay Jonas Prime, but there's already a Ku, Ar, and Re Jonas."
+"Mm?"
 
-"Fucking nerd."
+*"When you write back to Ioan and May Then My Name, will you send those stories instead of what our actual reasons were?"*
 
-Jonas batted his eyes at Debarre. "Thank you. I try."
+"Don't they already know those?"
 
-After a bit more chatter, Debarre made his goodbyes and left the sim.
+*"The surface ones, yes. Not the emotional ones, though. Not the ones from the heart. Not the drive to get out, get away."*
 
-Michelle and Jonas tacitly agreed to go for a walk down the street. The sim was of a comfortable, small town plaza, so it was a pleasant enough walk. They made their way to a central fountain and, while Jonas sat on the rim and watched, Michelle dumped hunk after hunk of reputation to create her ten forks. They alternated between looking like Michelle and looking like Sasha. Each introduced herself in turn.
+Codrin nodded, silent.
 
-"I Am At A Loss For Images In This End Of Days of the Ode Clade."
+*"If you can do me a favor, Codrin, can you send only the ones from tonight?"*
 
-"Life Breeds Life But Death Must Now Be Chosen."
+"You don't want them to know the real ones?"
 
-"Oh, But To Whom Do I Speak These Words."
+*"No."*
 
-And on down the list of first lines. Eventually, a crowd of eleven stood near the fountain, in front of a bemused Jonas.
+The finality of the word brooked no argument, and Codrin left it at that. "I'll get them sent over in the morning."
 
-"So, what next?"
+*"Thank you."* Even the fox sounded on the edge of sleep. *"I think May Then My Name will enjoy that too. She is probably already poisoning Ioan with talk of myths and legends, if I know her."*
 
-"What is next is that I get assignments from the Council and then take a fucking vacation. I plan on sleeping for at least three days straight."
+"Ey'll rise to the occasion, I'm sure. That's as much up eir alley as history is."
 
-Jonas laughed. "I wholeheartedly endorse this course of action. One of you want to take on an assignment today?"
+*"You two do make good storytellers."*
 
-After a short conversation, one of the skunks stepped forward. "Sure. What kind of assignment?"
+"Well, your clade does seem to attract quite a few stories."
 
-"Which one are you again?"
+Dear laughed and wriggled itself closer against Codrin leaving space for its partner when they would inevitably crawl back to a real bed.
 
-"The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream."
-
-Jonas winced. "Got something shorter I can call you? Even if only in informal settings?"
-
-She laughed. "Oh, sure. Let us go with 'True Name'."
-
-"Much better! Alright, your assignment is to work with me on the individual rights conversation."
-
-"Is that heating up?"
-
-"Yeah, there's some real grade-A stupidity going on out there." Jonas paused to wave to the rest of the Ode Clade, which left the sim *en masse*. "Lots of this and that about how software can't be an individual blah blah blah. One particularly vile shithead suggested that if we wanted to be treated as individuals, we would need to contribute to society as equals with those still in the embodied world. He suggested we could split the System and dump individuals into flight computers and software rigs and other expert systems to run those so that they wouldn't have to keep designing them."
-
-True Name frowned. "What a dick. Is that kind of opinion common out there? I am still coming off the mountain of work that was the reputation market."
-
-"Not so common now, but those voices are getting louder by the week."
-
-"Damn."
-
-"Damn indeed. Thankfully, those aren't the only voices. The DDR still has a good number of folks who remember the lost and just how fucked up it was for whole-ass people to be dumped into nothingness, and that sounds awfully similar to becoming a glorified flight sim."
-
-"But that is on the DDR. Do we get votes? Do we even have access?"
-
-"We do not, no. All we can do is read the forums. What we do have is the ability to communicate."
-
-"Influence, you mean."
-
-Jonas smiled, nodded. "Influence."
-
-"I did pretty well in debate class."
-
-"Good, we'll have need of that. And you can write, too. Your proposals are a thing of beauty."
-
-"Oh? A joy for ever? Their loveliness increases?"
-
-Jonas looked blank.
-
-True Name laughed. "Never mind. Let us go change some minds."
+*"Do you think the Codrin on Pollux did the same?"* Dear mumbled.
 
+Ey was awake only enough to say, "I hope so."