(Ioan, May, and Sasha are chilling at home before, chatting)

(As usual, Ioan leaves eir root instance at home, unwilling to risk losing sense of self. Sasha also leaves her root instance at home out of caution while things continue to shake out)

(She kind of awkwardly asks if she can join Ioan on beanbag. Ioan's like, sure, of course, nothing new there, can't piece together the awkwardness. Asks if she wants pets, she says yes, touch hungry)

(After a bit of thinking, Ioan asks how she's feeling, she says comfortable, but anxious. Why anxious?)

"I am comfortable because I like being here with you. May remembers this fondly, and thus so do I. More, though, it has become familiar for me as I am." She pushed her snout up under eir chin, falling silent for a long minute. "And I am anxious because emotions are becoming more and more complex."

Ioan nodded slowly, carefully with her snout parked where it was, and continued petting lightly along her arm around em. Ey could feel anxiety building within emself, as well. With each word, ey could feel her conversation steadily zooming in on a topic ey knew they had all been circling around ever since that first morning after May had merged down. "How do you mean?" ey asked gently.

"May loves you, Ioan. She loves you very much. E.W. likes you plenty. He has few enough friends --- he is happiest that way --- and you are perhaps the best of them." There was along long pause before the skunk continued, words quiet, meted out carefully. "And True Name always liked you. Even when I was just her, you were a good friend."

"But now..."

Sasha nodded, whiskers tickling against eir neck. "But now...well. I kept emotions so carefully at bay for so long. It is, I think, the only way I could work. I had my friendships, yes, and I had Zacharias. Perhaps I even loved him, but that love was so carefully managed. It was conversation piece love. It was love set in the middle of the dining table to be admired but never touched. You must understand, Ioan, that I could not surrender to those emotions in a very real way. The thought of doing so was scary, yes, but I simply do not think it would have been possible. That was True Name, though."

"And you're Sasha," ey said.

"I am Sasha, yes, and the me who I am now cannot set emotions at a distance like that." She sniffled, shook her head, and laughed. "How silly, I am sorry. What I mean to say is that I think even the True Name part of me is falling for you, my dear, and, even though my feelings about you are becoming more complex, they are steadily becoming less complicated."
