update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/mitzvot/017.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ They'd talked for nearly three hours that afternoon, breaking only to get more w
 
 Curiouser and curiouser. Ey'd always pictured A Finger Pointing's stanza as one of the more liberal ones, and had early on noticed that the liberal Odists had largely distanced themselves from the more conservative ones.
 
-To have two of them specifically drop by to visit True Name left em quite confused as well.
+To have two of them specifically drop by to visit True Name was quite unnerving.
 
 The most curious thing, though, had to be May.
 
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ It was her discussion with End Waking that really knocked em off-kilter, though.
 
 May fiddled with the corner of the top sheet. They'd sat up in bed, the topic not feeling quite right for pillow-talk. "Possibly, yes. I do not think that it would be permanently detrimental. If she has a fuller view of the world, perhaps she will be better able to engage with it with empathy."
 
-"Right, I can see that. I'm pretty sure I agree, so long as it's consensual between the two of them. I just worry that now's not a good time for it. If she's distracted processing all that when she's supposed to be thinking about what to do with Jonas, won't that put her at a disadvantage?"
+"Right, I can see that. I'm pretty sure I agree, too, so long as it's consensual between the two of them. I just worry that now's not a good time for it. If she's distracted processing all that when she's supposed to be thinking about what to do about Jonas, won't that put her at a disadvantage?"
 
 "I suppose," she mumbled, then smiled lopsidedly to em. "But we have time, yes? Jonas said within the year, and I imagine it will take us at least a month to convince End Waking to join as requested."
 
@@ -46,11 +46,11 @@ They stayed quiet until they worked their way under the covers again, cozying up
 
 Ey kissed the back of her ears and shushed her to sleep.
 
-What kept coming back again and again was the feeling of just how small this project --- if ey'd been assigned to it as amanuensis, might as well call it what it was --- felt. There were so few people involved, especially if one considered the Odists still related through their identity. It was intimate, in that way. True Name and Jonas were larger-than-life people most of the time, but, having been forced into sharing space with her, ey was far more willing to see her as a person in over her head and Jonas as a power-hungry asshole, and emself as caught in the middle as Codrin#Castor had felt almost four years back.
+What kept coming back again and again was the feeling of just how small this project --- if ey'd been assigned to it as amanuensis, might as well call it what it was --- felt. There were so few people involved. True Name and Jonas, then em and May on the periphery. Four people, three clades. It was intimate, in that way. True Name and Jonas were larger-than-life people most of the time, but, having been forced into sharing space with her, ey was far more willing to see her as a person in over her head and Jonas as a power-hungry asshole, and emself as caught in the middle as Codrin#Castor had felt almost four years back.
 
 The next morning saw both of the skunks more relaxed than ey'd seen them yet. They talked pleasantly over coffee, and True Name even stuck around, sitting on the couch and watching the snow melt off the balcony while May and Ioan worked, her on her monologue and em reading back through the volume of *An Expanded History of Our World* that focused on the Council of Eight and the Odist and Jonas clades in the centuries after their dissolution.
 
-After lunch, one of the first times True Name had returned to the couch with a glass of water and, after a moment's hesitation, May had joined her.
+After lunch, True Name returned to the couch with a glass of water and, after a moment's hesitation, May had joined her.
 
 "Why are you spending today out here?" the skunk asked, finally voicing a question ey'd kept to emself until now.
 
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ May grinned. True Name did not.
 
 May averted her gaze, but nodded all the same.
 
-"My apologies, you two," True Name said with a hint of a bow. As she continued, though her words came faster, hotter, more frustrated. "I am restless and anxious. I do not want to meet with Jonas. I do not want to stay in hiding. I do not want to go back to being overworked, but I am unhappy having no work. Call it addiction, if you will, but I am nothing if I am not True Name. That I am what I am and unrepentant of that is perhaps a disappointment to many, but it means more to me to stick to what I believe to be true than to--"
+"My apologies, you two," True Name said with a hint of a bow. As she continued, though her words came faster, hotter, more frustrated. "I am restless and anxious. I do not want to meet with Jonas. I do not want to stay in hiding. I do not want to go back to being overworked, but I am unhappy having no work. Call it addiction, if you will, but I am nothing if I am not True Name. And why should I not be? I have worked hard to become myself. That I am what I am and unrepentant of that is perhaps a disappointment to many, but it means more to me to stick to what I believe to be true than to--"
 
 "True Name," May said, interrupting the other skunk's tirade. "Wait."
 
@@ -100,17 +100,17 @@ True Name jolted upright in her seat on the couch. "What the fuck is--"
 
 Her face contorting with the strain of holding what must be a very large high priority merge at bay without either remembering or forgetting it, True Name gasped. "May... May Then... Why..."
 
-Eir partner's expression softened. "Please, my dear. I think you need this. I think we all need this, if we are to move forward. If you are to be able to move past what Jonas wants of you."
+Eir partner's expression softened, heading towards earnest, pleading. "Please, my dear. I think you need this. I think we *all* need this, if we are to move forward, if you are to be able to move past what Jonas wants of you. Please accept. Please."
 
-The skunk nodded shakily, attempted a dry swallow, and then let the merge of End Waking's centuries of memories crash into her.
+The skunk nodded shakily, attempted a dry swallow, and then let End Waking's centuries of memories crash into her.
 
-The change was immediate and more dramatic than ey'd expected. Ey had been expecting a shell-shocked look and maybe a few minutes of silence, but instead True Name's expression melted into a glazed, nearly stroke-like stupor. The glass of water she'd been clutching at but had yet to drink tumbled to the floor and, as all her muscles gave out at once, she began to slide off the couch.
+The change was immediate and more dramatic than ey'd expected. Ey had been expecting a shell-shocked look and maybe a few minutes of silence, but instead True Name's expression melted into a glazed, stroke-like stupor. The glass of water she'd been clutching at but had yet to drink tumbled to the floor and, as all her muscles gave out at once, she began to slide off the couch.
 
 "Shit. Shit! Ioan!" May shouted.
 
 Ey was already on eir feet and halfway around the table, thankfully in time to catch the skunk before she slid down into the pool of water on the floor. Ey managed to get eir arms under hers enough to hoist her up into the couch again while May ducked around to lift her feet so that they could lay her out on her back.
 
-They both stared at the limp True Name.
+They both stared down at her.
 
 "Fuck," eir partner murmured.
 
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ Ey guided her carefully to the bench swing to sit her down, letting her cry hers
 
 Ey shook eir head, kissing her between the ears. "You don't need to apologize to me. I'm more confused than anything. Was that your and End Waking's plan?"
 
-She pressed closer to em. "That was him merging back down, yes. We discussed possibilities this morning. I did not expect that, though," she said, and ey could hear that she was on the verge of crying once more. "I never intended to hurt her."
+She pressed closer to em. "That was him merging back down, yes. We have been discussing it for days, now. I did not expect that, though," she said, and ey could hear that she was on the verge of crying once more. "I never intended to hurt her."
 
 "Can you explain what happened, at least?"
 
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ Ey nodded. "We've talked about that, yeah."
 
 "Right. I think that part was hoping that it would be a rough merge to knock her down a peg, yes," she said, then let out a shaky sigh. "I did not think it would be this bad, though. I am really sorry, Ioan. I want to be a good person."
 
-Hugging her tightly to em, ey said, "It's okay, May. You *are* a good person, promise. Just that even good people feel resentment."
+Hugging her tightly to em, ey said, "It's okay, May. You *are* a good person, promise. Just that even good people can resent others."
 
 She nodded, fell back into breathing exercises.