update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/marsh/002.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Champagne tinted evenings faded, as they do, into brandy-colored nights. Amber nights and fireplaces for the hell of it, me and Hanne settling in for a little bit of warmth for that last hour, not quite decadence and a ways off from opulence, but still a plush couch and a fire and snifters slightly too full of liquor.
 
-We shared our warmth, sitting side by side on the couch, and we continued to talk, talking of the year past, of years past beyond that, and of however many we decided were ahead. A hundred years? Two hundred? Only five? I made an impassioned argument for five more years of life, then laughed, changed my mind, and said I'd never die. Hanne said she'd live for precisely two hundred, give up, and disappear from Lagrange. She'd fork at a century and never speak to that version of her again, that exact duplicate, and should that instance decide to live on past two centuries, so be it, but she'd decided her expiration.
+We shared our warmth, sitting side by side on the couch, and we continued to talk, talking of the year past, of years past beyond that, and of however many we decided were ahead. A hundred years? Two hundred? Only five? I made an impassioned argument for five more years of life, then laughed, changed my mind, and said I'd never die. Hanne said she'd live for precisely two hundred, give up, and disappear from Lagrange. She'd fork at a century and never speak to that version of her again, and should that instance decide to live on past two centuries, so be it, but she'd decided her expiration.
 
 I scoffed. "What? And leave me behind?"
 
@@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ She rolled her eyes. "Tell Marsh I said–
 
 "See? You're so weird."
 
-"I guess we are," I said, smiling and nudging Hanne upright once more. A flash of *déjà vu* struck me squarely in the right temple, a headache amid the buzz of alcohol. "Hey now, no falling asleep on me."
+"I guess we are," I said, smiling and nudging Hanne upright once more from where she'd slumped against me. A flash of *déjà vu* struck me squarely in the right temple, a headache amid the buzz of alcohol. "Hey now, no falling asleep on me."
 
 "Right, sorry. Still, uh...still fifteen minutes." She grumbled and rubbed at her face. "Sorry if that came off as rude. I guess it's just outside my understanding."
 
@@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ She was not grinning now.
 
 Both Vos and Pierre shook their heads.
 
-The sight of Cress and Tule bowing their heads to whisper to each other caught my eye, and a moment later their partner, a stocky woman with curly black hair, appeared between them, looking as though she'd come straight from a party, herself. I felt a muffled pang of affection for her, lingering emotions from my up-tree instance's memories.
+The sight of Cress and Tule bowing their heads to whisper to each other caught my eye, and a moment later their partner, a short, stocky woman with curly black hair, appeared between them, looking as though she'd come straight from a party, herself. I felt a muffled pang of affection for her, lingering emotions from my up-tree instance's memories.
 
 "Stop!" Hanne said, then laughed nervously at the silence that followed. She gestured absentmindedly, pressing the bounds of the sim outward to expand the room. It had started getting actively crowded. "You're doing it again, Reed."
 
@@ -320,7 +320,7 @@ Cress and Tule's partner, I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass of the Ode clade, s
 
 "So, you couldn't quit because..." Hanne said, urging me on.
 
-"Well, I imagine the same is true for anyone with lots of memory inside them. If there's no one to merge down into, it just looks like...like..."
+"Well, I imagine the same is true for anyone with lots of memory inside them. I had my new fork, but the intent was to merge down, and I guess the system picked up on that. If there's no one to merge down into, it just looks like...like..."
 
 "Like death," Dry Grass said darkly. "It looks like death. You could not quit because, to the System, you and all of your memories would die, and the System is not built for death. That is what it felt like, is it not? It felt like you could not possibly quit without pushing the weight of the world uphill?"
 
@@ -328,7 +328,7 @@ I frowned. "Perhaps not all that, but it certainly felt like I was trying to pus
 
 "Like death," she muttered again. Pierre began to cry. "Marsh is not on the System, then, no."
 
-"So are they...is Marsh dead?" Pierre whispered, his voice clouded by tears. Vos towered over him — over all of us, really — and had always seemed as though she could weather a storm better than any stone, but now, even she looked suddenly frail, fragile in the face of the loss they were all only talking around.
+"So are they...is Marsh dead?" Pierre whispered, his voice clouded by tears. Vos towered over him — over all of us, really — and had always seemed as though she could weather a storm better than any stone, but even she looked suddenly frail now, fragile in the face of the loss they were all only talking around.
 
 "They are not on the System," Dry Grass and I echoed in unison.
 
@@ -354,7 +354,7 @@ She frowned down to her feet as she thought. "It used to be that there were rota
 
 "Well, how do we check those?" Rush said, speaking up for the first time since that initial clamor of voices.
 
-Dry Grass spread her hands helplessly. "I do not know. Again, it has been two centuries since I worked as a systech. The technology has changed much. I would need access. I would need time to remember. Time to research."
+Dry Grass spread her hands helplessly. "I do not know. Again, it has been almost two centuries since I worked as a systech. The technology has changed much. I would need access. I would need time to remember. Time to research."
 
 "Do we even *have* time?" Lily growled at her, frustration apparently winning out over panic. Cress and Tule both gave her a sharp glance.
 
@@ -368,7 +368,7 @@ Dry Grass bowed once more, forked, and the fork stepped from the sim to, I suppo
 
 "Hey, uh," Sedge said into the uncomfortable silence that fell once more. "Has anyone checked the time?"
 
-Everyone tilted their heads almost in unison. It was more a habit than anything, hardly a required motion, but the habit that Marsh had formed so many years ago had stuck with all of the Marshans throughout their own lives.
+Everyone looked up almost in unison. It was more a habit than anything, hardly a required motion — the time certainly wasn't written on the ceiling — but the habit that Marsh had formed so many years ago had stuck with all of the Marshans throughout their own lives.
 
 Systime 277+41 00:17.