update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/mitzvot/008.md

@@ -40,4 +40,76 @@ She shrugged. "His words, not mine. I do not know what he is planning."
 
 Ey nodded. "That's alright. I've got stuff to work on, too."
 
+Lapping at the whipped cream atop her drink, she once again scanned the crowd, which, as far as ey could tell, had not changed since she'd gotten in. Something about her posture suggested that the topic of what was happening seemed closed, however, so ey made note to ask about it later instead.
+
+They fell into work after that, silence falling while True Name focused on her messages or dealt with merges while ey dedicated a token amount of effort to eir writing while the rest of em observed the skunk out of the corner of eir eye and thought about just how much must be happening for her to admit that she was struggling. 225 years since the System seceded from the rest of Earth's governments doubtless came with a lot of celebrations and announcements to make, speeches to write, hands to shake, or whatever it was that the non-leaders of Lagrange did in such an event.
+
+Add in the twenty-five years since Launch and certainly there would be an added note of joy for many across all three Systems. Ioan was particularly looking forward to the letters from Castor and Pollux in a week and change to hear how things had gone on each of the LVs. Perhaps ey'd even hear from Sorina from Artemis.
+
+Still, True Name's mussed look and anxious expression seemed to go beyond that. Ey couldn't think of a reason related to the day that would have her in such a date. Things would be intense, but no so much so as to force her to drop her carefully constructed veneer of confidence.
+
+*Ah well, at least she got some time off,* ey thought. This was followed by a gentle chiding which ey heard in May's voice. *And you're not supposed to be fixing things, remember?*
+
+Right.
+
+Forcing emself to concentrate on eir writing at least bought em ten minutes of work, or at least more than ey'd been getting done up until that point.
+
+"Huh," True Name mumbled, frowning.
+
+"Mm?"
+
+She shook her head. "Nothing, I suppose. Just got a merge from an instance, and it sounds like Jonas is looking for me. He knows that I am--"
+
+Ey jolted back as the skunk leapt to her feet, gaze whipping about the room, then out through the windows to see what was on the street. Her tail was bristled out, ears pinned flat, and paws clenched tight, something ey'd only seen in May, and then only a handful of times.
+
+"True Name?"
+
+She held up a paw, beckoning em to silence, and, despite the way she kept searching face after face, ey could picture dozens of sensorium messages flying back and forth from her. Her frown only deepened.
+
+Ey closed eir notebook, figuring ey was pretty well ruined for work at this point, and watched the skunk carefully.
+
+When nothing of interest appeared on the street, the skunk slowly turned back to the room. Her eyes shot open wide, and ey followed her gaze out into the scant crowd of patrons. Everything was much as it had been, folks sitting and chatting, drinking their coffee, reading or doing work. She seemed to be focused in particular on an Asian gentleman walking from the back of the shop, though, where a door opened onto patio seating.
+
+"Fuck," she said, then shouted, "*Fuck.*"
+
+True Name darted around the coffee table, knocking against it hard enough to send both of their drinks spilling across its surface, and grabbed eir hand. "Go, Ioan! Go, go!"
+
+"What?!" Ey scrambled to eir feet, eyes darting between True Name and the weirdly familiar man walking towards them. "Where?"
+
+"Home! Anywhere!"
+
+It didn't seem open to discussion, and enough of her panic had built up in em that ey quickly stepped from the sim to home.
+
+To home and shouting.
+
+There was a flurry of activity down the hall from the entryway, several instances of May blinking into and out of existence, along with several more of the same man they'd seen at the shop. She was forking close enough each instance of him to exercise the collision algorithms of the sim, knocking him this way and that to keep him away from her. Eir partner was screaming, "Get the fuck out! I am not her! Get out!"
+
+"May!"
+
+A few of the skunks looked over to the door, and then suddenly another was beside em, quickly grabbing eir free hand. With a wrenching sensation, a sudden change in light and ground and gravity, the three of them stumbled into Arrowhead Lake's default entry point.
+
+May pulled eir paw roughly free of eir hand and whirled to face them, shouting, "What the fuck did you do?!"
+
+Tugging her own paw free, True Name darted away, looking around wild-eyed. "How secure is this place?"
+
+"I think May and I are the only ones who even know it--"
+
+She quickly ran a few paces into the woods, peering between the trees.
+
+"Ioan," May growled. "What the fuck just happened? Why the fuck was he in our house?"
+
+Ey shook eir head, trying to dislodge the dazed confusion. "I don't know. He was at the coffee shop, too. Who even--"
+
+"Guōweī," she said, then shouted up to True Name. "Why the fuck was he in our house? What did you do?"
+
+The other skunk had shifted from her near feral crouch to standing, rigid and staring up into the branches, a look of dire concentration on her face.
+
+When she didn't answer, May began pacing and muttering --- whether to herself or through some sensorium message, ey couldn't tell.
+
+Guōweī. The assassin. The one who had killed Qoheleth in the middle of his speech. A quick prowl through eir memories lined the face up with the name.
+
+Eventually, True Name's shoulders sagged and she stumbled down from the trees, Ioan and May both watching her, wide-eyed. She kept walking past the trail, down onto muddy beech, then out into the water. The short waves lapped up against her legs, soaking her slacks, and still she kept walking until it had made its way nearly up to her thighs., and then she screamed.
+
+It wasn't a shout, no words were behind it. It was a scream of pure, unrestrained emotion, though whether anger, fear, frustration, or something else, ey could not guess.
+
 (( TN looking particularly harried. They talk about Secession day and 25th anniversary of Launch, but the whole time she's really visibly anxious. The topic of Jonas comes up and that spikes, with her scanning the crowd. They slowly get back to talking about ??? and then she starts to get a real panicked look as more of her instances go offline, starts freaking out, looking outside, at the crowd. She spots Guowei and scrabbles along the couch to grab em by the wrist and slip out of the sim to home, hollering for em to grab May, who's already dealing with an intruding assassin, which she does by forking into an overlapping space and letting collision algos bounce him out of the way, even as they're trying to bounce all those forks from the sim. Ioan grabs May and goes to Arrowhead lake where basically all three have a panic attack (TN wades out into the lake and screams, May eventually goes to retrieve her) while TN explains the assassins. She wonders who could've sent them (Jonas has been drumming up imagined foes of late), but May asks who might know to send them after her root instance (Ioan like huh??? you've been meeting me with your root instance?), at which TN blanches (under her fur, presumably) ))