update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/launch/Codrin-castor/001.md

@@ -4,15 +4,15 @@ After their "deaths", such as they were, Dear cackled madly and ran about the st
 
 *"It is done! It is done!* the fox hollered. *"It is done and those poor saps did not even get to finish their song! Oh, to see their faces! Crumbling sim, friends forever cut off!"*
 
-Dear's partner also laughed, eventually hopping to their feet and chasing after the fox in a mad dash, leaving Codrin to sit and smile and watch and think.
+Dear's partner also laughed, hopping to their feet and chasing after the fox in a mad dash, leaving Codrin to sit and smile and watch and think.
 
-There was no more Codrin in the L<sub>5</sub> System. Had ey ever existed? Ey was only memories, and perhaps that is all ey had ever been. Navel gazing and existential crises mixed with the glee of having actually *done* something. No longer just the passive amanuensis, but now the active participant, to whatever extent.
+There was no more Codrin in the L<sub>5</sub> System. Had ey ever existed there? Ey was only memories, and perhaps that is all ey had ever been. Navel gazing and existential crises mixed with the glee of having actually *done* something. No longer just the passive amanuensis, but now the active participant, to whatever extent.
 
 When Dear and its partner finally collapsed into a laughing heap amid the dandelions and shortgrass, Codrin stood, raised eir hands to the fire-dimmed sky, and addressed fox and human and flames. "Hwæt! We great three have made it! We have made it to safety and sanctuary!"
 
 Dear rolled up and focused on Codrin with a singular intensity that ey had seen countless times before and yet never gotten used to.
 
-"We three, the heroes, the shield-bearers of Elfive had long since sought the beast. It lived in the caves, they said. It dwelt in the fields and disguised itself as tall grass, ready to ensnare the traveler. It was as large as a mountain and crouched beside the valley, unseen, traversed, summited, and still it claimed lives in its hunger. Who knows the truth, now, but us three? None who met its gaze had ever lived to tell the tale, and none now will ever hear, for we are the only ones who have seen it face to face and lived, and yet we escaped only by jumping from the world up to the heavens.
+"We three, the heroes, the shield-bearers of Elf Hive had long since sought the beast. It lived in the caves, they said. It dwelt in the fields and disguised itself as tall grass, ready to ensnare the traveler. It was as large as a mountain and crouched beside the valley, unseen, traversed, summited, and still it claimed lives in its hunger. Who knows the truth, now, but us three? None who met its gaze had ever lived to tell the tale, and none now will ever hear, for we are the only ones who have seen it face to face and lived, and yet we escaped only by jumping from the world up to the heavens.
 
 "We sought it by night until we realized that it was not there--"
 
@@ -52,22 +52,23 @@ The three of them all lifted their tankards high, spilling spruce beer and laugh
 
 "You, my dear, are quite drunk," Dear's parter said, grinning.
 
-"That I am!"
+Codrin giggled. "That I am!"
 
 *"But that was good! Much better than signing a waver that we might be lost and then waiting for the appointed time."* Dear paused, tilted its head, and adopted a sly grin that surely meant trouble. *"But I do not think that that is* actually *what happened, for when God hath ordained a creature to die in a particular place, He causeth that creature's wants to direct him to that place."*
 
 Codrin sat down on the ground as the other two had and awaited Dear's version of the events.
 
-*"I knew that cause from the moment that God opened up the heavens and reached down to touch me on my crown and opened my third eye--"* It forked into a version of itself which had such a feature. *"--that I was to seek far and wide for those who saw the world as I did and guide them into a fullness of being that no one had ever seen before right up until that ordained moment of my death.*
+*"I knew that because from the moment that God opened up the heavens and reached down to touch me on my crown and opened my third eye--"* It forked into a version of itself which had such a feature. *"--that I was to seek far and wide for those who saw the world as I did and guide them into a fullness of being that no one had ever seen before right up until that ordained moment of my death.*
+
 *"In short, I began a cult."*
 
-Its partner laughed, "You might well have, given the choice."
+Its partner laughed. "You might well have, given the choice."
 
 *"Shush, you. I began it in all good intentions. I had seen the truth as revealed to me by God itself --- for is not God made in the image of me? --- and certainly the best that I could do to help my fellow man was to lead them to the truth. The truth is beautiful and cruel. We are not meant to own a thing! We are meant only to suffer, and by suffering, be purified, and by being purified, ascend from this mortal plane through the cosmic vibrations to something akin to ecstasy!*
 
 *"Power, as the tired saying goes, corrupts, and I bore power. Eventually, I attained absolute power, at least among my followers. I was their prophet, was I not? We were not meant to own a thing, yes, but as the ephemeral physical items passed through our lives, I sampled the greatest among them. The truth may be cruel and we are meant to suffer, but is not even the highest pleasure a form of suffering of its own? Orgasm is called the little death, is it not?"*
 
-Codrin and Dear's partner both laughed.
+Both of the fox's partners laughed.
 
 *"And so I took what I wanted and did it all in the name of suffering and poverty. I believed it as hard as the rest of my followers, though. There was no cynicism, back then, down in the physical plane, where all is tainted by evil. I was a prophet and the prophecy applied to me, as well.*
 
@@ -81,9 +82,9 @@ Both of the audience members grinned at this. Both knew it to be true.
 
 With that, it bowed dramatically and sat back down amid the applause.
 
-When both Codrin and Dear had stared at Dear's partner for a long few seconds, they finally held up their hands and surrendered to the pressure. "Fine, fine, but I'm not the storyteller that you two are, so you'll have to forgive my tail."
+When both Codrin and Dear had stared at their partner for a long few seconds, they finally held up their hands and surrendered to the pressure. "Fine, fine, but I'm not the storyteller that you two are, so you'll have to forgive my tale."
 
-*"Pish and also posh, my love. I look forward to it."*
+*"Pish and also tosh, my love. I look forward to it."*
 
 "You are also very drunk, fox."
 
@@ -91,9 +92,9 @@ When both Codrin and Dear had stared at Dear's partner for a long few seconds, t
 
 They clambered to their feet and stretched their arms upward, then nodded. "Alright. My appearance here began shortly after Dear's. Its gift of prophecy was accurate more often than not, and, at first, it was humbler than any single one of us could possibly hope to be.
 
-"That, you see, was the secret to its power. It was not simply that it would think of others any time a choice was presented between itself and them, though that was surely true, but that it seemed to exist without ego. Completely without. It would forget to eat. It would forget to drink. It would even, though I am happy to count this as a rarity, forget to breathe. Why would it? In its mind, the self was non-existent, and by that point, breathing had come under its own control, such mastery was its master of self, and if it was always focused on the betterment of others, it could neglect itself.
+"That, you see, was the secret to its power. It was not simply that it would think of others any time a choice was presented between itself and them, though that was surely true, but that it seemed to exist without ego. Completely without. It would forget to eat. It would forget to drink. It would even, though I am happy to count this as a rarity, forget to breathe. Why would it? In its mind, the self was non-existent, and by that point, breathing had come under its own control, such mastery was its master of self, and if it was always focused on the betterment of others, it could neglect itself. I wouldn't be surprised if its heart would forget to beat some day.
 
-"This is the source of the passion in its followers. When one sees that total reduction of the self in the service of others, that does not inspire greed in more people that you might suspect. Instead, they are unable to help themselves before that one. It is almost impossible to resist the paradoxical allure of one such as that, and perhaps some more primal need draws one to try and equal that nadir."
+"This is the source of the passion in its followers. When one sees that total reduction of the self in the service of others, that does not inspire greed in nearly as many people that you might suspect. Instead, they are unable to help themselves before that one. It is almost impossible to resist the paradoxical allure of one such as that, and perhaps some more primal need draws one to try and equal that nadir."
 
 For as much as they had downplayed their ability, Codrin was pleasantly surprised at the fluidity of their telling, and ey sat as rapt as Dear.
 
@@ -101,7 +102,7 @@ For as much as they had downplayed their ability, Codrin was pleasantly surprise
 
 "It was after that that I started to notice it, the slow regrowth of its ego. It started with little things, at first, a morsel of that required food more than the rest of us received, or an extra smile of particular friendship between it and one of the others.
 
-"I kept this to myself, at first, but eventually it began to grate on me more than I cared to admit. The strange thing about anger, though, is that it has the roots in its self, and so I felt that it was keeping me anchored where I was with no further progress on my journey to utter selflessness.
+"I kept this to myself, at first, but eventually it began to grate on me more than I cared to admit. The strange thing about anger, though, is that it has the roots in the self, and so I felt that it was keeping me anchored where I was with no further progress on my journey to utter selflessness.
 
 "So I did what any other acolyte would do and began to talk with the others in secret. I was not the only one, it turned out, though I was the only one who had seen the inevitable conclusion. When I mentioned this to my co-conspirators, though, they immediately grew wide-eyed and listened to what I had to say. I didn't put the pieces together at the moment, but soon enough I began to feel the subtle nudges toward assuming the role of prophet.
 
@@ -127,7 +128,7 @@ Codrin laughed and buried eir face in the fox's scruff. "Did you doubt that I kn
 
 *"I knew there was a reason I loved you."*
 
-Codrin poked a finger against the fox's stomach, getting a yip in return. "Did you doubt that?"
+Codrin poked a finger against the fox's stomach, getting a yip in return. "Did you doubt that, too?"
 
 *"It is always nice to have confirmation."*
 
@@ -141,7 +142,7 @@ There was silence for a bit. Codrin had begun to nod off.
 
 *"When you write back to Ioan and May Then My Name, will you send those stories instead of what our actual reasons were?"*
 
-"Don't they already know those, however?"
+"Don't they already know those?"
 
 *"The surface ones, yes. Not the emotional ones, though. Not the ones from the heart. Not the drive to get out, get away."*
 
@@ -155,7 +156,7 @@ Codrin nodded, silent.
 
 The finality of the word brooked no argument, and Codrin left it at that. "I'll get them sent over in the morning."
 
-*"Thank you."* Even the fox sounded on the edge of sleep. *"I think May will enjoy that too. She is probably already poisoning Ioan with talk of myths and legends, if I know her."*
+*"Thank you."* Even the fox sounded on the edge of sleep. *"I think May Then My Name will enjoy that too. She is probably already poisoning Ioan with talk of myths and legends, if I know her."*
 
 "Ey'll rise to the occasion, I'm sure. That's as much up eir alley as history is."