The stream of Odists who came to visit Sasha in the days and weeks after the excursion to Jonas's was surprising. They seem to have accepted her change in identity far easier than expected. There were no instances of deadnaming (unless they were specifically talking about her past as True Name, as requested), no fights, no arguments.
Not everyone was happy, to be sure. Many of the discussions from those who stopped by were quite serious and, even though many took place in cones of silence, Ioan could easily guess that there was much in the way of airing of grievances. As far as ey could tell, though, it was done with an eye towards catharsis and reconciliation.
Serene, for instance, came over the day after the whole kerfuffle, surprising the three of them well into the evening. They'd settled for a middle ground of dinner out on the extended balcony --- close enough to the house for them to cook a proper dinner without leaving Sasha feeling cooped up inside --- when the ping against their sensoria caused the three to jolt as one.
"That will be Serene!" May said excitedly, setting her half-finished plate down and hopping to her feet. "I opened the ACLs to a few, hope you do not mind."
"Opened-- wait, when?" Ioan asked, setting eir own plate down. "And to how many?"
But the skunk was already gone, bounding inside to greet the fox with a hug and excited chattering.
"Ioan, a pleasure! It has been too long," she said, grinning widely. The grin faded, and she nodded to the spotted skunk. "And Sasha."
"Serene, thank you for stopping by. I was not expecting to see you so soon."
"I do not imagine so. May Then My Name has been conspiring behind the scenes, so this was all worked out ahead of time."
"Oh? How cheeky," Sasha said, laughing. "Were you really that confident that everything would work out, dear?"
May shook her head. "Reasonably confident, but I want Arrowhead Lake back no matter what, so I arranged for us a little meeting."
"Skunks, I swear." Ioan shook eir head. "Well, welcome all the same. We've got pasta, if you'd like."
Once she'd heaped a plate high with pasta, Serene followed them out onto the balcony to join them for the rest of their meal. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of the plain. "I suppose this was the best one could do on short notice, yes?"
"It wasn't too much, and it fit the need, yeah."
"It has served its purpose," Sasha said. "And it is not so bad close up. A little too flat, perhaps, but the river is nice."
Serene nodded and finished a mouthful of food before setting her fork down again. "I have at least come bearing a gift."
"Did you find your student?"
"Yes. He was still about, though he has...changed much in the intervening years. He was not as pleased to see me as I might have liked."
Sasha dipped her snout. "I am assuming that he has picked up on the sentiment surrounding the clade."
Serene nodded. "He read the *History* and came to the same conclusion that the rest of the System did. Our name is not mud, but, my dear, relationships changed after that knowledge became public."
"I do not want to hear you say that you are sorry, Sasha. I do not think that is how this works as you are now, not for me. I do not want to hear your justifications and explanations; I can understand them as well as anyone. I just want to hear your acknowledgement."
After setting her plate and fork down on the low table again, Sasha folded her paws in her lap, sat for a moment in silence, then said. "For as much as I tried to do --- for as much as Jonas and I both tried to do --- I do not think we had nearly the effect on the world around us we thought we did, not on the grand scale. We played our games of politics and influence, but it was a game of relationships from start to finish, you are correct. True Name changed relationships. May Then My Name changed relationships. E.W. played his part. I do not know if it was for the better or the worse, but I do acknowledge that it made a good many of them far more difficult."
There was another moment of silence, then Serene's wild grin returned. "Well, that felt good. Praiseworthy did all that shit, too, so, fuck it. Let me finish my pasta and I will fuck your sim up but good."
Once they'd finished dinner, Serene stood, stretched, and then leaned against the balcony railing staring out over the plain. Her expression was calm, pleasant, though focused on something ey couldn't see. "Ioan, I will need ACLs over at least the exterior, including your yard, though I will do my best to keep it intact."
There was no further announcement. Nor, even, any change in Serene. She still looked out over the railing with a dreamy, far away look on her face even as the world dropped out beneath them.
The plain rippled and flexed, arching up high to the sky as though stretching after a long nap. Trees pried their way from the soil. Rocks broke free from the land. The river --- the one immediately before them, at least --- collapsed into itself to form a wide lake. The rest of the distant echoed versions of the plain where not occupied by the immediate mountains crinkled into some more complex geometry, the remainder of the range echoed outside the valley.
It *was* a little vertigo-inducing, too. The worst of it wasn't due to the sudden change in the shape of the landscape, but in just how, well...serene it all was. The river shaping itself into the lake was not accompanied by some grand splashing of waves, but simply the remaking of the water. There were no falling rocks or grand earthquakes, just the reshaping of the world. The light shifted. Gravity swayed, settled. All of it was silent, anechoic.
"H-holy fuck," ey managed, clutching at the railing of the balcony. Both May and Sasha stood defiantly against the change, though neither looked as casual as the fox.
"I have set your house up the hill a ways from the default entry point to the old sim. That it was already on stilts proved quite useful. The angle of the sun may be a bit different, but not so much as to be a problem," she said, gesturing them down the steps from Sasha's side of the balcony. They landed on a flagstone pad set into the bed of pine needles, a small trail winding its way down the slope toward the water. She gestured toward the small ridge that rose next to them. "I had to modify the terrain a little bit to keep your yard level. You should be okay, but if you run into erosion problems, do let me know. I have been told of your affinity for weather, Ioan."
Grinning and nodding, Serene kept up her steady pace, humming a little under her breath. There was no change that ey could see, though ey imagined her counting deer, rabbits, squirrels, and birds into existence.
For eir part, ey simply walked, hand in paw with May, and marveled. Ey'd discovered the lake decades ago, had spent countless days out here on walks, and at least one night camping. Still, it felt somehow new. Ey was rediscovering this place that ey'd not seen in months --- though ey'd spent longer stints away from it in the past --- and marveling at the detail all over again. A glance back over eir shoulder showed eir flat-roofed house peeking shyly from amid the trees, but other than that, it was, ey assumed, the same as it had been.
They sat on the rock near the end of the lake and enjoyed the last of the sun. It was a little tight for four, but May tucked quite nicely up against eir side and Sasha, having slipped more into an E.W. mindset, had settled off to the side. She looked antsy, and ey suspected she'd request time to hike soon enough.
Serene looked up from where she was investigating a few pine needles plucked from a branch on the way over with a discriminating eye. "I think that reactions will be largely positive even if they are not universally so. Several of my stanza have been been talking, and many feel as I do. It is fine, I am sure, and I have processed what I needed to and gotten what I wanted."
"Of course. I have been abandoned by the rest of my stanza, but at this point, the larger part of me does not want to have anything to do with them, anyway. I do not imagine Loss For Images and her ilk will take it well. I do hope that A Finger Pointing and I will have a chance to speak soon, as I am now enough May that I would enjoy attending a play or two."
"'May'?" Serene said, tiling her head and looking to the other skunk. "Have you forgiven her, then?"
May nodded. "Forgiven is maybe not the best word. I have internalized the way things are and accepted the way things were. I am pleased to know Sasha and who she has become."
The other skunk smiled faintly, nodded. "Though for all Ioan talked about trying to fix things, I place the largest part of who I have become on you, dear."
"I wasn't going to say anything," Ioan said, grinning.
"I will not laugh at you two too much, then." Serene laughed anyway, though not unkindly. "What are your plans moving forward? I trust that you are essentially locked out of what you were working on as True Name."
"Yes, and while there is a part of me that remains disappointed about this outcome, there is little to be done about it but move forward." Sasha brought her tail around to her lap to brush it out. It was shorter than a striped skunk's tail, it seemed, but no less thickly furred. "I will take a vacation, first. I will sleep a normal amount. I will eat good food. I will wear myself out on the hunt and take what comfort I can while I remain here. I will rest, and then I will write."
"Yes. I will be careful not to be seen as overtly influencing lest I bring on Jonas's ire, but I would like to share the story of the last few centuries from my point of view. I do not know who will be interested except perhaps our two clades, but I will write."
"Of course. I will not complain. So long as I am better able to understand who I have become and fill my time with something fulfilling, then I will be happy."
"*Will* you be happy?" Serene asked.
There was a long silence as Sasha finished brushing out her tail and spent a few minutes simply staring across the lake, perhaps mapping the opposite shore and marking spots for future exploration.
Finally, she said, "I think that I will be. I am of three minds and will ever be such. I will have moments of happiness, moments of sadness and terror and regret, but they will ever be in thirds."
"Are you okay with that?"
Sasha stood and stretched, finally turning her gaze back to them. "Himself has but to will And easy as a Star Look down upon Captivity And laugh."
With no further explanation, she bowed and edged around them on her way down off the rock. She moved quietly and efficiently, and it was a matter of moments before they lost sight of her in the trees.
The next Odists to visit were A Finger Pointing and Slow Hours, once more arriving as a pair and hugging Sasha in turn. They set up a cone of silence and spoke together for a scant twenty minutes before dropping it again and inviting Ioan and May to join. They pulled the beanbag a little closer to the couch and settled down on it together to listen.
"It is easy to say that all is full of love," Slow Hours began, smiling to Sasha. "But now, I think, you have a sense of your own."
"Life will be easier for a while, and then it will be harder. You will share your loves, first with another and then with solitude, and with each you long for the other until you return." Her expression slipped into a lopsided grin. "Does not matter one fucking bit, though, so I would not worry."
"And you will come to a performance," A Finger Pointing added. "I am no oracle, but if you do not come, I will hunt you down myself. It has been too long, my dear."
"And if you do not watch me perform my monologue, I will trim your claws too short in your sleep," May said. "There is a monologue night coming up soon."
"Far worse than being hunted down, that. I will be there."
After that, they fell into comfortable conversation. Sasha joined Ioan and May on the beanbag to get some pets --- the talk having apparently nudged the affectionate part of her to the fore --- while Slow Hours spoke in fewer 'will's and 'shall's and settled down into the normal conversational mode of the rest of the Odists. They spoke of performances past, going all the way back to before the founding of the System, back to their time in high school. The four Odists performed a small segment of the Dickinson play they always seemed to quote from, a first for any of the Bălans in the nearly fifty years their clades had been entangled.
It was nearly a month before Debarre, Douglas, and Sasha agreed to meet. Debarre's side of the negotiations remained stiff and distant, the weasel initially refusing to see Sasha after that first meeting. Douglas seemed to have set aside any sense of caution, speaking with palpable excitement. As soon as he'd learned of the change of name back to something more closely associated with his distant relative, he'd hardly spoken of anything else.
Eventually, though, meeting was set up for dinner on the dandelion-dotted field, a small potluck picnic late in the evening so that the skunks wouldn't overheat in the sun.
Everyone arrived simultaneously by Debarre's request so that no one was left waiting for anyone else. Ioan, May, and Sasha stepped into the sim just in time to see Debarre and E.W. arriving. The six of them stood in a circle in front of Douglas's stoop, dandelions and evening bumblers tickling at their ankles.
Or, at least they stood in a circle for a moment. Sasha almost immediately stumbled back from the group, turning in two slow, wavering circles before falling to her knees.
May padded over to kneel next to her. "May I hug?"
After a moment of strained silence, Sasha slumped against May's side, and the two sat together while she let out that overwhelming emotion within a cone of silence.
Ioan, Debarre, E.W., and Douglas took the time to set up the picnic, a rickety table bearing plates of various salads, roasted vegetables, and the makings for venison sandwiches, courtesy of E.W.. They moved in silence, hesitantly, each pausing every now and then to watch as Sasha slowly worked to calm herself.
"That was not the greeting that I had intended," she said, once she had cleaned up in Douglas's house and joined them at the table to pick up a plate. "I was hoping that I would be able to greet you all politely, settle into some easier conversation, but that of True Name has not been here in too long. This place is too charged with memories, as are your faces. Even for that of E.W. and May, there is too much bound up in the last few months."
She nodded. "I am leaning on the other portions of myself now. I will have much processing to do yet, but tonight is for dinner with friends, or at least with those I hope will be friends."
"I certainly hope we can be friends." Douglas laughed. "I mean, those are the first words we've ever really spoken to each other, but I'm happy to have the chance to meet you."
"Well, yes, but you're still a new person to me and very...uh," he trailed off, frowning down to his plate. "Well, very close to someone I've thought a lot about, I guess."
She smiled and leaned over to pat his shoulder. "We will talk, dear. That part of me has heard so much about you and is so colored by what the other parts of me know, that I am eager to learn, as well."
Debarre remained stiff and awkward, even as they settled down on the blanket to eat, plates piled high with various dishes and cups of sangria set carefully in the grass behind them. He wouldn't make eye contact with Sasha and seemed hesitant to speak even to Ioan and May.
Eventually, he cleared his throat, set his plate down, and stared steadily at Sasha. "I think you owe me an apology. At least from the, uh...what did you call it? The True Name part of you?"
As she had done with Serene, Sasha set her plate down as well, folded her paws in her lap, and bowed to the weasel. Ioan could tell by the set of her features and the straightness of her shoulders that she was indeed doing her best to keep that part of her at the fore. "I am sorry, Debarre. The things that I did were for what I thought was best, but they wound up hurting a good many people. They were not fair to you and I apologize for the pain I caused. While I do not think I even *could* anymore, I will all the same endeavor not to act in such single-minded ways again."
Ioan couldn't read Debarre's expression well enough to gauge his thoughts on the matter, but judging by the way he loosened up and joined in more of the conversations after that, speaking even with Sasha, he seemed to at least have accepted the words to an extent.
Debarre and E.W. stayed for a few hours after dinner, long enough to see the first stars show themselves above the field, before they stepped back to the skunk's sim.
Shortly after, Sasha stood, the other three following suit. She hugged Ioan and May around the shoulders and gave each of them a touch of the nose to the cheek. "If you two do not mind, I would like to go for a walk with Douglas and speak with him alone."
Ioan nodded, brushing out the skunk's tail with a fine-toothed comb as ey'd been commanded. "He really relaxed after uploading, at least. Just a few little spikes in interest when certain things came up."
"As hyperfixations go, it is a relatively innocuous one," she said, yawning. "But I am at least pleased to see that he is both engaging with other things and finding fulfillment in this aspect of his life when he can."
"Besides, it's not like you guys don't hyperfixate on things."
"Mmhm," she mumbled sleepily. "But all the same, we have been slowly drifting away from what we used to be over the years, and in the face of all that we have seen, that is not such a bad thing."
Ey shrugged. "It felt...I don't know, a little rehearsed, maybe."
May curled in against eir side, yawning. "Perhaps. She said what Debarre needed to hear, I think, and it was no less earnest for that. As much as he means to us, that is no bad thing, either."
Ioan wasn't sure why ey kept feeling surprised at the number of loose threads from just one event that needed tying. The business with Qoheleth had been about as complicated, and had required meeting with several other Odists in order to finish the story, and each one came with a different tenor.
The same was true here, as well. Many members of the clade --- some of whom ey'd not yet met --- visited and requested time with Sasha or with the three of them. Still, ey realized, this culmination came after two and a quarter centuries for some, so perhaps it made sense.
Barely a month after that dinner with Debarre and Douglas on the field, two of the most dramatic happened within the span of a week.
May stumbled in the middle of a Wednesday morning rehearsal rehearsal, falling to her knees, panting, before pushing herself to her feet. She managed to make it through the rest of the scene before forking off so that she could continue as best she could while her root instance ducked back home.
Once there, she darted over towards where Ioan sat at eir desk, working through the process of writing Jonas's book. She knelt beside em, clutched a pawful of eir shirt and set up a cone of silence. Ey felt the ACL-scape of the cone shift several times until it was just about as secure as could be made.
"May? What--"
"Zacharias! He has been pinging me once every few seconds for the last minute!" She was on the verge of hyperventilation, eyes wide and tail bristled. "I do not know what-- *fuck!*"
Ioan slid from eir chair as the skunk started to slump over to the side. Ey helped her to her feet and over to the beanbag. "May, what's happening?"
"He keeps...quitting and...sending high-priority merges..." she gasped. "The cone will not...stop those..."
Ey stepped from the cone, where May had clearly blocked sensorium messages from the fox, so that ey could holler into a message, "What the fuck do you want?"
"No, I...no," the skunk mumbled once ey stepped back into the cone. She'd managed to sit up and while the panicked look on her face had calmed, the beginnings of rage had taken its place. "He cannot come here."
They were interrupted by a rapidly crescendoing thudding sound followed by the scrabble of claws on the glass of the sliding door, Sasha finally finding purchase and whipping it open. May dropped the cone of silence.
Sasha frowned, straightened up, and brushed out her tunic. "Yes. He just about knocked me out with the amount of adrenaline he sent my way. You look ready to go, though. Do you have a plan?"
"We're going to meet him at Douglas's field. That's about the start and end of it, though." Ioan took a deep breath and tried to tamp down the urge to pace. "Do you want to come?"
Ey watched a complex set of emotions play out over her features. She stood still for nearly a minute, working to master them, before nodding. "Yes. Let us get this the fuck over with."
"Yes. I do not want to meet him at all, but I do not imagine he will simply leave me alone." She spent a moment composing herself, plastering a mask of confidence over her anxiety. "We need somewhere where someone can sweep him if need be."
"How long has it been for you, my dear? Since you were forked?" May said, kneeling down before the fox. Her voice had grown cloyingly sweet, that 'my dear' taking on a spiteful tone.
"Where better?" Sasha said. She stood nearby, arms crossed, impassive, looking almost bored, though Ioan could see the energy it was taking for her to keep that up.
Zacharias moaned. He forced himself to lower his paws to the ground, gripping at clumps of grass and dandelions. Finally, he opened his eyes and stared out toward the horizon of the field. "I--"
He reached out to clutch at May's paws. She startled backwards, but did nothing to push him away. "I cannot...I cannot just disappear! Months! It has been months since I have seen anyone. Anyone! I have to...to be near--"
"No." The skunk shook her head, leaned forward and touched her nose to his. "Not me. Not Sasha. Not us. You are on your own, Zacharias. I will not accept any further messages or merges. No contact."
She remained kneeling for a moment, then started to shake, crumpling down onto the grass, panting heavily. Ioan knelt beside her until she'd cried herself dry while Douglas and Sasha sat on the steps leading up to his house, watching in silence.
"I've never seen you like that before," he said, once they'd made their way inside, the four of them clutching glasses of water. "I knew he was a shitbag, but goddamn."
"It is not a mode either of us are comfortable with," Sasha said quietly, "but it is the only mode that would have gained us peace. Any weakness would be taken as an opening."
"I am sorry. After 226 years, one learns to use contempt with precision, however dear the cost." She reached out to take one of May's paws in her own. Both of them looked exhausted. "Even so, I do not expect that is the last we will hear from him."
They didn't stay long after. Ioan eventually promised Douglas that they'd catch up another time and then gently nudged the skunks to quit and merge back down.
The rest of the day was silent. Ioan and May collapsed onto the beanbag and stayed there through much of it, each processing in their own way, while Sasha disappeared outside to lose herself in the wilderness, not returning until late that evening, bearing a lanky hare and double-pawful of chantarelles, which she cooked down into a simple stew. They ate on the balcony to enjoy the late summer's evening as best they could.
The more dramatic of the meetings, however, came that weekend. It was quieter, perhaps, but bearing more weight, more finality.
The rest of the week had remained tense, with Sasha wafting in and out of the house to follow her unsettled moods while May remained quiet, nearly silent, as she stuck by Ioan's side. Ey knew ey should probably start laying in supplies for her overflowing, but ey was still distracted trying to pick apart the events with Zacharias. In light of eir desire to keep both of them safe and close, much of the fury that had come with eir first meeting with the fox threatened to reappear every time ey thought about the two skunks.
It was not exactly the best of timing, then, when If I Am To Bathe In Dreams, an elegant, if severe-looking skunk, arrived late on a Saturday afternoon on a few minutes' notice and bowed formally to the three of them.
Sasha immediately picked up on the mood and stood up straight after returning the formal bow. She offered In Dreams a seat and something to drink, both of which were declined, then said, "How may I help you?"
"I have a request from both my stanza and that of Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver. You will also be presented with this request in writing as an individual-eyes-only message."
"You are too entangled in the matter. No contact with this situation means no contact from you, May Then My Name Die With Me, or E.W. *né* Do I Know God After The End Waking. This request is in effect until further notice, and applies to our stanzas on Castor and Pollux as well, where Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled will be presented with the same request. None of us are on Artemis, but I will also be passing this on to Sorina Bălan. This includes general intraclade communication; we will add visibility exceptions to our messages and request that you do the same."
Ey blinked, hesitated, then bowed in turn. "I understand and accept."
"And May Then My Name?"
It took the skunk a moment to swallow back a rising wave of emotions before she could manage a shaky nod and a hoarse, "Understood."
"We are of one mind, then," she said, bowed, and stepped from the sim. A few seconds later, three sheets of paper scrolled out of the air above the dining table, all set as individual-eyes-only for each of them. Ioan read through eirs several times with a hollow feeling in eir chest.
Sasha stood still for a long minute, head bowed, then stepped outside without a word, at which point May burst into tears.
She shook her head. "I do not know, Ioan. I just...I just need the house. If you can...I mean, if Sasha will let you stay at her tent, you can stay, but I need the house."
Sasha had set up a tent similar to E.W.'s, though she had skipped the process of building it herself, instead creating from similar materials off the exchange. She'd set it up nearly on the other side of the lake from their house, so that she could have the solitude that she needed without having to create some new sim of her own. When the need for space struck her, it never quite got to the point that it did with E.W. She would need away from their presences, she would say. They felt like a constant weight on her shoulders. Light, yes, but continually present.
Ah well. This was the first time that May had overflowed in this living situation --- and so dramatically, too --- so perhaps it would be helpful after all.
Ey took eir time walking around the shore of the lake, using it to vent the emotions that had built up over the last few hours through tears, through shouting into a cone of silence, cursing.
Ey'd managed to mostly clean up with a handkerchief, though clearly eir eyes were still red-rimmed and eir countenance...well, who knew? Glum, perhaps?
"Hi Sasha," ey said, sitting down on the step leading up into the tent. The skunk had been writing at the small desk she'd acquired, but she moved to join em. "May's not in a good spot. She suggested I stay with you, if that's alright."
Sasha patted eir hand and bade em stay while she got up to stoke up the fire in her stove and fry up a simple meal of potatoes and vegetables. Ey couldn't tell if it was just bland --- as E.W. preferred --- or if eir mind was too busy to process taste, so ey mostly just pushed the food around on the plate.
"Without contraries is no progression," Sasha murmured after they'd finished. "Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence."
Ey started to ask what she meant, paused, then looked the words up in the perisystem architecture. "Blake? And here I thought you all were mostly into Dickinson."
"Nothing is so simple, dear," she said, shaking her head. "Blake was not of our kind, he would not have understood. He did get that right, though, in that we are a people of dualities. May sees in Zacharias all that she cannot --- must not --- be. In Dreams and Hammered Silver see in me that which they are not --- could not be --- and yet we are not what we are without our opposites. Every idea's opposite is just the absence of the idea itself."
"I am also a little bit all over the place," she admitted. "These events have me going in three different directions at once. The Ode clade is crumbling and I cannot deny that some...that much of that is on me. I am sorry, Ioan."
"That it is. You are a good person, though. You love your partner. She knows this. I know this. You are good to her and it will all be okay. We may hope for neat endings but all we get are more beginnings." She smiled, adding, "And yes, you may stay until she is feeling better."
