update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/neviim/local/codrin/009.md

@@ -1,3 +1,23 @@
 # Codrin Bălan#Artemis --- 2346
 
+True Name's ability to keep a steady, half-smiling expression was admirable. Even Why Ask Questions appeared to be only just barely keeping frustration at bay.
+
+Having instructed the Artemisians on how to use cones of silence, there were far fewer breaks throughout the last two days, limited to one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and a longer lunch in the middle. That did not stop them from settling into private conversation every few minutes to discuss whatever answer they might give.
+
+Ey initially found it strange that added downtime would make the delegates more tired rather than less, but after some consideration --- and a brief talk with Sarah --- ey'd come to the realization that those periods of quiet between question and answer were still spent in expectation. They were still working during those pauses. They were still in conversation, if only by way of watching and waiting, trying to guess what might have led to the need to have that discussion. Ey could not read lips, could not speak the language well enough, and certainly could not read expressions beyond eir limited notes so far, so ey was left only with guesses and suppositions.
+
+And through it all, True Name seemed to be trying to match the firstracers for patient expressions.
+
+It wasn't until that second lunch that the skunk showed any cracks. She picked up a plate piled high with salad, brought it over to the table in the center of their rest area then stepped back a few paces, where she activated a cone of silence. She brought her tail around toward her front, held in both paws, and buried her face in it. Ey could only assume by the sudden way that she bent at the waist and pinned her ears back that this was done to muffle a scream or some violent obscenity.
+
+Lunch after that had been filled with laughter and truly terrible jokes. Sarah, it turned out, collected them, and the delegates unanimously voted hers the worst.
+
+All throughout, though, Codrin couldn't shake the image of True Name throwing a very short, very tightly controlled tantrum. The sight of her letting loose so strong an emotion had immediately knocked em back to an interview decades ago, now, where she'd wound em up enough that ey'd started shouting at her in her own office, then bounced em from her sim.
+
+That, ey'd later surmised, had been intentional on her part. It had been a way for her to spin her story in a very carefully crafted way. It set it to a level that sat just on the other side of the line between plausible and absurd. It'd wrapped em up in a story that was just a little too much to be believe, and the end result was a softening of the impact of the *History*.
+
+Nothing about that experience had been done with a wink and a nudge, just as nothing about this had contained any such acknowledgement that it was intentional, but ey was nothing if not primed to expect her actions to be based in manipulation. There was a non-zero chance that this tantrum had been more for the benefit of the other delegates than anything. It was a way to show that she, too, was frustrated, just as the pun-off that had followed had been a way to loosen everyone up by lampshading the absurdity of the whole venture.
+
+
+
 After watching similar discussion of TN misunderstanding, meets up with Sarah Genet over break, discusses note from Codrin#Emissary