update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/mitzvot/019.md

@@ -87,3 +87,37 @@ Ey didn't know why, what part of em was in charge of making such predictions, bu
 It made no sense, and yet this sudden image of True Name as the type of person who might have a relationship, who now had decades of memories of dating Debarre in the form of End Waking seemed to have set off a runaway train of thought.
 
 "Ioan?"
+
+Ey started out of eir rumination. "Mm? Sorry. Was I mumbling?"
+
+May grinned. "A little, but also you have been standing there for quite a while and you promised us coffee."
+
+"Oh! Shit, I'm sorry." Ey laughed as best ey could to banish any look of the panic ey felt from eir face. Ey brought the pot of coffee over to the table along with the cream and sugar for May and True Name so that they could top up their mugs accordingly.
+
+Ey drifted in and out of the present moment after that, surfacing now and then to do a bit of work or, at one point, to run another sweep of the house at the behest of True Name, in case she'd brought any hitchhikers with her. She hadn't, but it was probably a good idea all the same.
+
+The relatively pleasant morning fell again into a vague sense of tension within the house. Ey was sure that ey was the cause of at least a part of it, what with the way May kept checking in on em.
+
+The rest seemed to fall back to True Name, though, who, after coffee, had sagged in her chair and mentioned that she'd been holding some demanding memories at bay. "I need to deal deal with these or I am sure I will unwind like Michelle," she had mumbled on the way to her room, leading May to put down her work and curl up on the beanbag.
+
+Ey joined her, despite all of the distractions whirling around in eir head. Ey couldn't sort any of them out now, but the least ey could do was comfort eir partner.
+
+*All that crying these last few days, I wouldn't be surprised if she'll overflow soon,* ey thought while petting over her ears. *And who knows how that'll work with True Name.*
+
+A simple dinner of pasta was shared with more polite conversation, and then they broke off to their own spaces again, True Name requesting the location tag for Arrowhead Lake so that she could go for a walk "somewhere with fewer right-angles".
+
+It wasn't until they were getting ready for bed that ey pulled eir thoughts together into a coherent enough form to ask May the question that had been nagging at em all day.
+
+"Do you think you'll merge down, May?"
+
+The skunk paused in the middle of tugging off her shirt, leaving just her snout-tip and midriff exposed. "Let me think on that for a moment, please."
+
+They both finished undressing and climbed into bed, em settling back and her with her head on eir chest.
+
+"Okay. Why do you ask, my dear?"
+
+"I'm not actually sure. Maybe a little because you had a hand in End Waking merging down, but I think mostly the talk this morning about Debarre and, uh...Zacharias, was it?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I think that made me think of it because until this point, it's all been happening at one