## Codrin Bălan#Pollux --- The Bălan clade

> systime 227 (2351)  
>
> Pollux---Lagrange transmission delay:  
> 38 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes
>
> Pollux---Castor transmission delay:  
> 76 days, 22 hours, 34 minutes

All,

Last night, I mentioned off-hand that I felt like things were "settling into a new normal", at which Dear and Serene both threw cookies at me. It took a while to get them to stop laughing to explain that "new normal" had become something of a forbidden phrase back phys-side prior to the creation of the System. Something about it just didn't sit right with people, I guess, so everyone would just wrinkle their noses whenever it came up like someone had said something particularly disgusting.

That was before my time, though. Why it needed to trigger a food fight is beyond me, but I never claimed to understand foxes.

All the same, it really does feel like we're settling into a new sort of normal, here. We wake up, make coffee, have some breakfast, then each head off to do our own work.[^boring] We've mostly been just getting lunch on our own since I'm spending much of the day out of the house, these days. We'll meet back up for dinner, then just relax together until bed.

Food has honestly been the biggest adjustment for me. For a while, Dear and I just stopped eating. █████ cooked just about everything, and while each of us know how to make some of our own favorites, even just engaging with food left a sort of longing for how things had been. Wasn't required, was painful, why bother?

It was Serene who knocked us out of that particular slump. Dear was starting to get particularly jittery, lots of restless forking, and I pulled her aside to mention that I thought it might be on the way to overflowing, to which she readily agreed. We wound up heading out for sushi at a place that floats plates of sushi down to you along a little canal that winds its way between the tables --- J2? Do they have that on Lagrange? Well, turns out you can special order there, too, and they'll float a whole boat down to your table. It's built like a full three-masted ship,[^barque] complete with little cloth sails, and on each of the decks, rolls are piled up or splayed out in neat rows. We ate way, *way* too much sushi, and the two foxes got in a small contest of adding larger and larger amounts of wasabi to their bites until both had tears streaming down their faces.

Again, I've never claimed to understand them.

After that, we tried to make sure we ate at least once a week, then at least a day. It took us a while to sort out just how, though, as none of us are spectacular cooks. I make a pretty good tocană and a few other stews besides, but those are mostly cold-weather food. The Odists have their own stock set of recipes, but we've had to make up a few on the fly. There have been a lot of salads, a lot of sandwiches. Still, it gives us all a chance to sit down together and just stop whatever it is we're working on, a little marker for when the day ends and the evening begins.

Evenings have largely been slow and calm, relaxing on the couch or out on the patio. We've gone exploring a few times, too. As mentioned previously, Serene redid much of the sim to add some variety to the otherwise unending plain. To the east, it continues uninterrupted, while to the west, after a scant mile of hillocks, craggy, aged mountains jut up at a steep angle. These take the form of flat planes of red rock broken at acute angles pushing up from the earth directly west of the house, followed by a more conventional range. To the north, this continues along a ridge that slowly transforms into a line of boulders and sandstone ridges. To the south and further west, the hills are covered in a dense pine forest. Directly to the south of the house, a river runs out of the mountains to travel south and east. It's lined with willows, oaks, and cottonwoods. There was much good-natured ribbing of Serene for the latter. *"Cheap plastic trees! Sneeze-factories that shed branches at the slightest breeze!"* Dear had opinions.

Our explorations have largely been to the south and west, where we've been hunting down my cairns. Serene somehow built the terrain up beneath them so that they remain dotting the slopes of the hills, between trees, or atop mountains (we skipped the climbing part of that to go check). We've camped out there a few times, but it's been a lot of day hikes.

I'm told that we'll soon get inter-System A/V transmissions, though it'll be restricted to still images for bandwidth's sake. I'll make sure you get some pictures of us as well as of the landscape.

There have been a few bumps as we sort things out. Obviously, we still occasionally wind up feeling low from █████'s absence. There's been a few days where one or the other of us winds up in a sulk, though we're increasingly getting used to this new life.

Dear and Serene have also wound up in feedback loops a few times. Remember when I wrote "Two foxes in the same house? Never again"? Well, I still have my occasional moments of regret. One of them will get a little extra sarcastic and the other will try to one-up them. Or, worse, one will get a little snippy, and it'll turn into a quick volley of shitty comments followed by a sulk, then back to as it was before.[^asitwas] When this happens, either I'll step out, or I'll kick them both out to deal with it. It's been a quick adjustment, honestly; far easier than when █████ was here. Maybe just because there are fewer different interpersonal dynamics at play? I'm still thinking about it.

I have seen █████ a few times, for what it's worth. It's not like they just up and cut contact. We've gotten coffee a few times, and they stopped by for an incredibly awkward dinner party. While we have largely worked out that things are just kind of over between us and them, that doesn't mean that our feelings have just dissipated --- nor, indeed, have theirs: "It's still a break-up, I'm still hurting over it, even if it's for the best."

And you know, as I take a look back at who we were, at who Codrin#Castor is and, hell, who you and Aurel are, I see where they're coming from. We can't stay the same forever. Our happinesses change as the world around us changes. We can't possibly remain the same, but neither can we possibly change in exactly the same ways. Something like this was bound to happen eventually, and it has me thinking that there will probably come a day when Dear and I drift apart. I don't know if that'll be any easier for being the second time around, or just differently hard, but I suppose one upside of the whole thing is that it has me focusing on the love I have in front of me.

Speaking of the love in front of us! Aurel and Sasha? What a delight! At first, I was surprised that it took as long as it did, but then I realized that Sasha's far more complex than just "May Then My Name plus two friends". Then I was surprised that Ioan and May Then My Name's relationship didn't just expand to include her, but of course not everyone's relationship structure need mirror ours (never mind the fact that I don't even know what the dynamic is between May Then My Name and Sasha; it sounds friendly enough, at least).

**IOAN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL**

If I may ask, how has the dynamic worked when you're Aurel, when you're away from May Then My Name but still with Sasha? I can't imagine it's entirely comfortable to spend much time away from her, even if you're still with someone you love. You live in the same building,[^building] if I'm understanding this right, but I'm assuming you're hardly seeing your other partner all of the time, right?

I guess I ask because there's at least a small analogy to be made between our two situations, in that I'm no longer with █████ but still with Dear. I know --- or at least suspect --- that it's not exactly the same, as Aurel's still a fork, however long-lived, and thus not *not* in a relationship with May Then My Name, just that that's on pause.

If I'm to keep seeing █████ on occasion, then I'm going to have to figure out how to interact in a way that isn't strictly in a relationship, yet also isn't as fragile as I feel.

All the same, I wish the three/four/six/seven/however-you-count-it of you the best.

Also, some of your letters are starting to sound a little despondent when it comes to Rareș. Are you okay? Is there anything we can help with? I will admit that I know a bit more about...the current status,[^library] but I'm not going to dump that on you without your permission.

**END IOAN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL**

All my love. Dear and Serene both send theirs as well.

Codrin Bălan#Pollux

[^boring]: I could expand on the arguments surrounding how to catalog the Artemis data dump, but it's boring even for me.

[^asitwas]: I don't mean "pretending it didn't happen", mind. They seem to accept these little spats as part of cohabitation. They take them seriously, address the issue, but then just get on with life. It's taken a bit of getting used to, as it's different from how Dear interacts with me. I haven't figured it out at all, but I guess when you have a fight with yourself, you get over it far quicker.

[^barque]: A barque, perhaps? Cue a Bălan-style research binge...

[^building]: I'm trying to picture this: it goes your and May Then My Name's bedroom, the den/kitchen, then a door to Aurel and Sasha's bedroom, then their own den/kitchen? Like a duplex? Do you use that door often? Do you see each other out on the deck? Eat together? I'm hungry for details.

[^library]: It comes with working in a library. We just know things. It just kind of happens.
