Sure enough, once they made it back to the forest, End Waking leaned over to nose at Debarre's cheek, pulled his paw away, and looked off into the woods. Whenever it was time for him to ask Debarre to leave, he'd go through a little swell of anxiety.

"I am sorry, my love. I know that it is not the easiest on you that I always do this."

"Hey, I said I was leaving today," he said as reassuringly as he could. "It's not coming out of the blue."

End Waking nodded. "You are always allowed to keep in touch."

"Mmhm."

"And you can drop by as long as you give me some notice, preferably a day."

"I will."

"And if you hear from May Then My Name or Ioan, please let me know."

"E.W., shut up," Debarre said fondly. "See you soon, okay?"

The skunk wilted, a look somewhere between relieved and resigned coming over his face. "Yes. Soon. Thank you, my dear."

"Of course. Love you, E.W."

"Love you too."

There was nothing else for it, then. With one last wave to the skunk (already heading off into the woods), he stepped back to the Hadjes' field.

Ioan and Douglas were still standing where he'd left them, so he waved again. "Sorry, back for a little bit."

"On your own again?" Ioan asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. It's been building up for a long time. We agreed I'd head off when the tent was done, and we just got the nets all hung yesterday. Hey, can we go inside, though? He was right, it's pretty fucking hot out here with fur."

Douglas laughed. "I'll never get you guys, him all in black fur and you wearing black clothes over yours. Yeah, come on. There's more lemonade."

Ioan held back enough to let Douglas take the lead, falling in step with Debarre, instead. "Does it bother you?"

"Hmm? E.W. asking me to leave?"

"Yeah."

He thought for a bit, then shrugged. "Bothers, yeah, but that's really about it. Helps that I usually just quit and merge down with #Tracker, so it's not like I've got *just* the relationship to worry about. I've got my own stuff going on besides him, and other relationships that merge in every now and then."

"That sounds handy, at least."

"His overflowing is also way less dramatic than May Then My Name's, which sounds pretty painful to watch."

Ioan nodded.

"Sorry, Ioan. Don't mean to keep it all on the surface for you."

Ey shrugged. "I asked, it's alright."

Once they were all inside and Debarre had cooled off, Douglas asked, "So what do you think about all this?"

"'All this'?" He laughed. "Way too fucking much to say one way or another. Narrow it down?"

"Oh, I meant the stuff with End Waking merging down. I'm still stuck on May asking him to do that without talking it through with True Name, first."

"Well, like I said, she was conflicted about it when she brought it up. Said she wanted her to disappear into ignor...ignoble..."

"Ignominy?" Ioan offered.

"Right, yeah. But she also said that she wanted her to get out of this mess and away from Jonas, 'that living, breathing sack of shit', in her words."

They laughed.

"But I'd been thinking much the same, I guess. If she does disappear, I'd probably feel at least a little bit of vindication for the way she jerked us all around without us realizing it and all that shit she did with the Council. I'd also feel like there was a fraction less of my friend around, though, too. I love E.W., I'm happy he's in my life, we get along well for the most part, but there's also this layer of, like...well, he was part of Sasha and Michelle, and they and I went through a lot together."

"You talk about those two facets like different people," Ioan said. "Sorry, not to derail. Just that I noticed that. None of the Odists do."

"Most, maybe. I picked it up from Hammered Silver, who spent probably more time with them than anyone. All their instances feel singular, I imagine, but they were two instances in one. Sasha was this really emotional, really caring person. It wasn't that Michelle wasn't, just that when she was at the fore, she was much more...I don't know. Logical? Rational?"

"And when it was both? When she was in flux, or whatever?"

"Then she was just tired," he said, smiling at memories. "But right, before I totally lose track, you asked how I feel. Uh, I guess I feel scared."

Ioan furrowed eir brow. "Really?

"Yeah. That she collapsed made me confront the fact that, no, I don't really want her dead or anything, that I really would hate to lose her. Even if she's not the part of my friend I like the most, not a part that I even remember seeing before, she's still *a* part of them." He hesitated, then added, "And it changed E.W. Not the forking and merging itself, but that he even did that. It sounds like May Then My Name used the fact that True Name was all worked up to force her to accept the whole merge all at once. She kind of did the same with E.W. I don't know what her message was, but it looked like it scared the shit out of him, so he kind of did it without really thinking. They'd been talking about Zacharias the last few days, I do know that."

"Since her and True Name's conversation about him?"

"Now that you mention it, yeah. He's been a bit different since."

"Different how?" Douglas asked.

"Like...still all worried, and still a little in shock, but also like a little bit of a load was taken off. He's been a bit lighter. Silly, even. You heard him, though. He even said he's worried for her. I can't explain it, and we never really talked it through. It's not bad, but I can still tell."

Ioan nodded and rubbed eir palms against the legs of eir slacks as ey always seemed to do during stressful conversations. "He did seem a bit freer of speech today," ey mused. "But that makes sense. He finally got to tell her how he feels, and they didn't even have to talk to each other."

"Has May Then My Name changed, too?"

"I can't tell. She's been so wrapped up in trying to live around someone she doesn't really like, and then with all of the fallout from the merge. Maybe she has? She's at least been able to talk with True Name without blowing up at her, and they've even had some conversations that seemed enjoyable at times, so, maybe?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Really? The way she talked about True Name for a while there...whew."

"That bad?"

"Did she not talk about her to you?"

Ey shrugged. "Every now and then, and sometimes she'd get pretty pissed, but it was only once a year or so."

"Mm, about the same amount, but maybe she kept it a bit...I dunno, gentler for you, since you were meeting up with True Name. She'd come over once a year or so and just go off for a while. It kinda became routine. She'd vent, then we'd have a good day."

Ioan switched to rubbing eir hands over her face. "I don't even know what to do about her."

"Nothing," Douglas said. "Nothing but love her and keep talking, I mean. She's a grown woman, she can work out her feelings well enough. Hell, she's already seeing a therapist."

Ey slumped back dramatically against the couch cushions. "Why does *everyone* tell me to stop fixing others' problems for them? Even the intellectual side of me is in on the game."

They laughed.

"It's so hard to actually internalize. I'll catch myself trying to mend her and True Name's relationship or make May feel better or whatever, and I'll have to force myself to relax."

"It's not a bad thing," Debarre said. "I mean, you still shouldn't do that all the time, but it's at least a sign that you're just a good person who wants to do right by eir friends."

Ey smiled gratefully. "I'm at least trying. May's done her own fair share of trying to help, but that at least fits her M.O. One more question, then I think I need to table the topic for a bit."

"Sure."

"Do you think it was the right thing to do?"

"Yeah," he said, surprising himself with how readily the answer came to him. "I don't think it would have worked if E.W. had just merged down without all the other dramatic shit. I think she would've just rejected it, or if she did accept the merge, just cherry-picked parts of it. As it is, though, with Jonas after her neck and May Then My Name using all her wiles to convince both her and E.W., I think it's worth it, though she probably would've preferred to fork first. I don't honestly see her coming out of this still in power or whatever, but if she *does* make it out, I think it'll help her move on."

Ioan stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully, occasionally mumbling to emself.

He shrugged to Douglas and asked, "Well, I skipped breakfast and I'm not ready to merge back down yet. Want some food? That'll at least be more pleasant."

After another hour's conversation over lunch --- much happier conversation, thankfully --- Debarre stepped back to his home sim and quit to let #Tracker catch up on the current happenings.

Debarre#Tracker conducted a thorough security sweep and, finding no bugs, those little hidden instances he'd grown so paranoid of, he sighed and slouched back in his desk chair, rubbing paws over his face. "Well, shit. This complicates things, doesn't it?"

He queued up a sensorium message to Yared, user11824, and a few other friends he'd kept in touch with while following along with (and occasionally meddling in) the political affairs of the system. 'Reactionary elements' indeed.
