update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/mitzvot/007.md

@@ -20,4 +20,110 @@ May had chosen the name Arrowhead Lake over Ioan's protests that it looked nothi
 
 Whenever ey walked out there without her, as ey did today, ey'd think about this. Maybe it had little to do with the lake itself. Maybe it had to do with the silhouettes of the pines, or something to do with way the snow lingered on pointed peaks.
 
-"Or maybe she's just a brat," ey mumbled, smiling to emself as ey walked slowly along the deer trail. 
+"Or maybe she's just a brat," ey mumbled, smiling to emself as ey walked slowly along the deer trail. "No reasoning with an Odist."
+
+Ey'd never been able to pick apart whether or not they were just normal people. Perhaps Michelle had been --- ey'd not spent enough time around her to know, and what time ey had managed had been mostly silence. Toward the end, her conversations were more interruptions than not, and although the impression ey'd gotten was that she'd been kind, gentle, while still being the type to care passionately about things or, more often, people. The impression just hadn't been a strong one, not enough time to for it to solidify.
+
+Ey'd long ago come to the conclusion, confirmed through discussions with several of the clade, that each of them was more a distillation of a singular aspect of Michelle than the whole of her. That wasn't to say that they weren't complete in their own right. What was it Codrin and Dear had said? Even True Name was a fully realized person.
+
+When the trail dipped down out of the trees toward the shore, ey stooped to pick up a handful of pebbles, enough to toss into the water once ey reached the boulder at the lake's outlet. Codrin had eir cairns, ey supposed, and ey had a heap of pebbles at the bottom of the lake, tossed in one by one over the decades.
+
+*I still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing,* ey thought, rattling the rocks around in eir hand as ey continued walking. *I don't know if I'm supposed to help either of them, bring them together again, or what.*
+
+It was still a week out from eir next meeting with True Name and while May's anxiety hadn't ticked back up, eir own had lingered. There was an unsettled feeling within em that made itself known whenever ey thought about heading to the coffee shop in a few days.
+
+"Maybe I'm not supposed to do anything," ey muttered, climbing up the boulder. "Maybe I'm just supposed to be a friend, like she says."
+
+Ey tossed a stone into the water with a small plunk and splash. That gulf remained between the two skunks, and no one seemed happy with it.
+
+*Plunk, splash.*
+
+"I don't know why it feels like I'm supposed to be the one to do something about it."
+
+*Plunk, splash.*
+
+"There's nothing for me to fix, really. They've each made their own decisions, and seem at peace with those, even if they're not happy with whatever's left."
+
+*Plunk, splash.*
+
+"And they'd probably both resent me if I *were* to do anything." Ey tossed a few pebbles in at once, a brief, watery static of splashing. "Whatever that'd even be."
+
+Ey stood at the peak of that boulder, tossing pebbles into water and thinking, mumbling to emself about May and True Name. When ey ran out of pebbles, ey sat cross-legged and looked out over the lake, unseeing.
+
+"I should just pinch myself whenever I start thinking that there's something I need to fix," ey said to the water. "Pretty sure May doesn't want it, she's happy working on her emotions without me meddling, and I'm pretty sure True Name doesn't want it, since she seems content...what was it, maintain that level of connection after so long a time of disconnect?"
+
+The lake didn't answer, not in anything other than water lapping at the shore and the chatter of the creek.
+
+"This is stupid."
+
+Ey sat for another hour, just watching the lake, the clouds, the trees, trying not to think about how complicated it was for one person to be so split among instances.
+
+The walk back was spent unwinding the thought process that led em here in the first place. Unwinding and re-coiling into a careful skein, now with fewer knots than it had had in it before, though still remained tangled.
+
+"Good walk, my dear?" May said when ey returned and plopped down onto the couch.
+
+"Very. It's nice out there."
+
+"It always is," the skunk said, walking over from where she'd been poking around in the kitchen to dot her nose atop eir head. "It could be here too, you know."
+
+Ey laughed and waved a hand toward the door picture windows facing out the balcony, out to the drifting snow. "It's pretty, May. It makes being all warm in side nicer."
+
+She leaned down to rest her elbows on the back of the couch beside em. "I am not immune to the beauty, my dear. I am just a wuss when it comes to the cold."
+
+"Well, if you ever wore shoes..."
+
+She swatted at the back of eir head and laughed. "Jerk."
+
+"Ow!" Ey laughed as well, rubbing at eir head. "Domestic abuse, I say. Want to go out for dinner?"
+
+At that, May perked up, grinning. "I take back the slap. Yes please! Can we get sushi?"
+
+"Sure, J2?"
+
+She bounced on the balls of her feet and nodded. "Yes! You, my dear, know just how to treat a girl."
+
+"Skunk girl."
+
+"Well, yes, but still." Still bouncing, she twirled around behind the couch, tail trailing along behind her. "I will get ready. I am hungry now, so too bad if you are not."
+
+One of the things that Ioan appreciated most about J2 over all of the other sushi places May had dragged em to is that it was the most amenable to em eating with eir hands. May was quite nimble with chopsticks --- no mean feat with paws, that --- but ey'd never quite picked it up, so being able to eat those little bullets of rice and fish with eir hands worked quite well.
+
+It also had a channel of water floating along between the booths, small dishes drifting by lazily for the diners to pluck from the water. It obviated the need for any staff, real or constructed, as each dish would be replaced from behind a bend in the river. With no need to pay beyond a token amount of reputation, it simply became a pleasant evening out, plates stacking up at the edge of their table, a tacit contest with other diners.
+
+"Did you get what you needed out of your walk earlier, my dear?" May asked before popping a bit of yellowtail into her muzzle.
+
+Ey shrugged, finished chewing, and said, "I guess. Was doing some thinking into that feeling that I have to fix every problem when it comes to relationships."
+
+"I have noticed that in you, yes," she said. "Beyond when we specifically talk about it, I mean."
+
+"You have?"
+
+She laughed. "You are not a sneaky person, my dear. When it comes up, it is there for me to see."
+
+"Oh, uh," ey stammered, setting eir plate to the side. "Sorry, May."
+
+"No, no, you are fine! I accept it in the spirit it is given. You want to do right by me and your friends, even when 'doing right' is not your responsibility. So long as you do not overstep boundaries, I can at least understand it."
+
+"Well, all the same, it's not like it's comfortable, either way. I don't think anyone likes feeling helpless, but I just wish I didn't get hung up on finding solutions to everything."
+
+"You know, it is weird," she said, jabbing a shrimp at em. "For someone who spent so long purely observing, a busybody tendency feels out of place."
+
+Ey shook eir head. "Observing is situational, I guess. If there's something happening that has a start and end, or which I can come home from, then I can just observe it. If it's something that's ongoing or integral to a person, especially a meaningful person, then I feel like I really want to help."
+
+She had taken the opportunity of em talking to eat the bit of shrimp she'd used as a pointer, and when she finished, she asked, "Is this a new thing?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Were you always like this? Did you always want to help when it was something integral to people you care about?"
+
+Ey frowned.
+
+"Do not get me wrong, my dear, I am not suggesting one way or another. We have only known each other for a small portion of our lives. Just that Codrin and Sorina both decided to specifically focus on that."
+
+Ey nodded thoughtfully. "Right. I don't know, honestly. Maybe? Maybe it's you, and--"
+
+She rolled her eyes.
+
+"No, I mean, maybe it's you in that you're the first person I've gotten close enough to to wind up feeling like that, at least since I uploaded."
+
+The skunk paused in the act of picking another plate from the river, letting it drift on. "Did you feel that way about your brother? Was you uploading your fix?"