<p>The next few days after Ioan’s visit and brief explanation about what had happened with True Name were full of long walks and longer silences, and End Waking politely requested that Debarre remain behind for the majority of the walks.</p>
<p>There was a sense in the air that the skunk wanted to ask him to leave again, to fall back into solitude and, though he’d never use the word around him, moping. He’d still talk, still hold up his end of the conversations, but always there would be a slight pause before speaking, always a bit more distance than usual, always something out in the forest that called to him just that much more strongly than the weasel before him.</p>
<p>It was never comfortable to be asked to leave one’s partner. He knew the reasons, could understand the drive, but to build a relationship up over however many decades it was now, and yet still need to put it on hold for months or, on one occasion, years at a time.</p>
<p>He knew he had a temper, too. He’d spent the last centuries going all the way back to Cicero’s death working on setting that aside when he could feel it getting to be too hot within him. He always worked his hardest at that around End Waking. He loved the skunk, wanted nothing but the best for him, and although he knew that End Waking was one of the more resilient of the Odists, he had also known Michelle far longer than…well, just about anyone possibly could, now, unless some old friends uploaded on the first day, maybe. Two and a half centuries was a long time to understand just how the other person processes pain and trauma, and he didn’t want to add to any of the Odists’ burden, having spent so long with Michelle when she struggled.</p>
<p>Well, except perhaps True Name.</p>
<p>There were few enough people he hated in the world, though certainly a great many who grated on his nerves, but True Name and her ilk were universally among that number. He knew he could never hurt anyone, but he had his fantasies. He knew he should never wish harm befall anyone, but some people…</p>
<p>This latest development was putting this to the test.</p>
<p>He’d continue work on the cabin while End Waking went for his walks — they’d gotten the floor and stove in place, as well as the A-frame, but the canvas of the tent still needed to be strung, and he had a few ideas for improvements — and all the while, he’d swing steadily between the poles of feeling nauseous at the thought of one less fraction of his friend in the world, one more death of one of the lost, and wild fantasies of popping champagne upon hearing that her final instance had been destroyed.</p>
<p>Part of him wondered if End Waking was going through the same. He wanted to ask, but didn’t want to risk that pushing the skunk over into requesting that he leave.</p>
<p>So, Debarre just kept working, kept fantasizing. He’d gotten the last of the canvas lashed down over the sides of the frame and was working on the front wall of the tent, so at least there was productivity to lean on, even if he couldn’t lean on his partner at the moment.</p>
<p>He whirled around to face the clearing when two sensorium pings in short order. The first came from End Waking, the word ‘company’ muttered quietly, and the second was a ping of arrival from the sim itself.</p>
<p>With the new tent, End Waking had made the default entry point around a small rise from home, leaving it a short walk around or a shorter but much steeper dash up and over the ridge.</p>
<p>Debarre opted for the latter, nearly tumbling down the other side of the hill to where the form knelt in the clearing. His partner was just making his way through the trees on the opposite side, so they converged on the visitor at about the same time.</p>
<p>May Then My Name was sobbing. It looked as though she had been for a bit, too, judging by the tear-tracks in the fur of her cheeks.</p>
<p>There wasn’t much that he could think of to say, so he awkwardly shifted from a crouch to a kneeling position beside her, getting his arms around her shoulders and gently tugging her to slouch against him. Although he rarely had reason to be comforting to May Then My Name in particular, it was familiar enough from all the way back at the Crown Pub when Sasha’d come back from some break-up or another.</p>
<p>“I will get water,” End Waking murmured, leaving the physical comfort to someone better built for such.</p>
<p>Her cry must have been nearing its end before she arrived, as she’d settled down to sniffles by the time her cocladist arrived with an enamel mug of water and a damp rag.</p>
<p>“Can you drink, my dear?” he said gently.</p>
<p>She nodded and accepted the mug with both paws to hold it steady, taking a few unsteady laps of the water before simply clutching it to her chest. “Thank you both,” she croaked, freeing up a paw to accept the damp rag to wipe her face. “I am sorry for so dramatic an entrance.”</p>
<p>“You are fine, May Then My Name,” her cocladist said. “Everything sounded quite dramatic. Please take your time, and we can discuss it later.”</p>
<p>She nodded, slouched a little further against Debarre, and sighed shakily.</p>
<p>He shot a quizzical look over to End Waking, who sent a brief sensorium ping in return. She must have gotten in touch with him before arriving, then.</p>
<p>They sat like that for another five minutes or so, another few bouts of tears hitting the skunk while he tried to be as steady as he could for her, petting over her ears. She’d leaned on AwDae more often than she had on him, all those years ago, but a friend’s shoulder was a friend’s shoulder, and he’d always offered when he could. This was, he supposed, no different.</p>
<p>When she was finally able to pull herself together enough to walk, Debarre helped her to stand and the three of them made their way back to the tent. He sat her down on one of the two fallen tree trunks that had been set before the tent to either side of the fire pit, then took her mug to refill it while End Waking started a small fire in the pit. It wasn’t that cold out, but warmth was warmth, comfort was comfort.</p>
<p>With the cup safely back in her paws, Debarre sat beside May Then My Name once more, arm around her shoulder. “Feel up to talking about it?”</p>
<p>“Um, a little, maybe,” the skunk said, voice raw. “Just in general.”</p>
<p>He nodded.</p>
<p>“True Name has been staying with us the last few days.”</p>
<p>“Sounds miserable.</p>
<p>She smiled halfheartedly. “Ioan expanded the house out to the other side with a separate bedroom. She has been spending most of her time in there, doing whatever it is that she does. Perhaps she is still pulling strings somewhere, I do not know. I do not particularly care.”</p>
<p>“Probably,” he said sourly. “I’m surprised you let her move in there.”</p>
<p>After a long pause, the skunk shrugged, saying, “It was my idea, actually. I insisted, Ioan agreed.”</p>
<p>“Why?” End Waking asked from where he crouched beside the fire.</p>
<p>“I have incomplete thoughts. In terms of logistics, it made sense to have her where Jonas could not act against her.”</p>
<p>End Waking nodded. “Yes, but why? Why did you not just let her build herself a new home? Leave her to her own devices until time, Jonas, or madness took her?”</p>
<p>May Then My Name splayed her ears. “I do not want her to die. I do not want her gone.”</p>
<p>The other skunk went silent, holding her gaze for a long moment before getting back to building the fire up to a comfortable level.</p>
<p>“I’m guessing it’s the non-logistical side of things that’s complicated,” Debarre said.</p>
<p>“Yes. After everything, I do not know why it is that I care about her.” She sniffled and scrubbed her face with the rag as though to preemptively snap herself out of an oncoming wave of emotion. “It has not been all that bad, really. Awkward, yes, but she spends most of her time in her room except at breakfast and dinner. Today, though, she requested to talk with me, and…I cannot share the specifics, but Jonas ha-has…has been…”</p>
<p>Debarre rubbed at May Then My Name’s back when that wave of emotion washed over her.</p>
<p>“I am sorry, my dear. It was a lot,” she mumbled. “Jonas has been playing her for centuries, now. He has been structuring her life for her in such subtle ways that even she was not able to see it. She…well, something happened a few years after launch. A trap of sorts. Jonas’s plans hit all at once and she has been working under his thumb since then.”</p>
<p>They sat in silence for a bit, Debarre racing through various questions, rejecting each as too personal, too mean, too off-topic. Finally, he asked, “So, why are you so upset?”</p>
<p>“That is where the specifics I cannot mention lay. Beyond that, though, I am just…torn. I am torn. I want to kick her out. I want to invite Jonas over and have him bring his pet assassin. I want her to disappear into ignominy.” She took a deep breath, continued, “But I also want her to get out of this mess. I may not want her around, but I want her to find something — anything — else to do with her life and to not have to deal with that living, breathing sack of shit anymore. No one should have to deal with that.”</p>
<p>“E.W. said he needed to be better than her. Sort of like that?”</p>
<p>She shrugged. “I do not know. It does not feel accurate to say that, but I cannot explain why.”</p>
<p>“Well,” he said, waving the point away. “I’m with you on the feeling torn bit, at least. Was just thinking about that when you showed up. Like, would I celebrate if she died? Or would I feel like there was just that much less of you around?”</p>
<p>“You think about it from the outside, my dear,” End waking said. “You think about who we were. You have the capacity to do so. May Then My Name and I have diverged so far from True Name that she has become a new entity, and I do not think that we can so easily see Sasha in her.”</p>
<p>May Then My Name was nodding. “And that is the source of at least some of my resentment towards her. I cannot see Sasha in her, and yet I was created from her. I see that of Sasha in myself, the caring side of her who got lost looking for her lost friends, and while I can <em>remember</em> those few years that I was True Name, I am not that person. I do not feel like I ever was that person. Becoming me was waking up from a dream.”</p>
<p>“A nightmare, perhaps,” the other skunk murmured.</p>
<p>“You and I have different resentments. I would say an unnerving dream that makes me all the happier to be what I am now.”</p>
<p>“You are a better person than I.”</p>
<p>Debarre through a twig at his partner. “No moping. You’re both good people. Jury’s out on True Name, but given that you two get so fucking upset whenever she’s around, I’m leaning towards not so good.”</p>
<p>End Waking smiled. It was slight, but he was pleased to see it all the same.</p>
<p>“Qoheleth, poor, stupid man that he was, had much that he was correct about, but one thing that he completely failed to understand was growth,” May Then My Name mused. “There is plenty of growth, here. That is perhaps the one thing we have more than memory, the one thing that protects us from too much memory. All that time may still drive us mad, but at least we can grow to the point where we are no longer True Name.”</p>
<p>“A-fucking-men.”</p>
<p>She laughed. “Right? Thank you two for talking, though. I know it’s not really a pleasant topic, but it has helped me quite a bit.”</p>
<p>Debarre squeezed her around the shoulders. “Of course, skunk.”</p>
<p>“You feel so much more than I do,” End Waking said. “So I cannot understand the ways in which you are torn. There is also much more than I think you are saying–“</p>
<p>“There is, yes. Sorry.”</p>
<p>“–and so I cannot offer much in the way of advice, but I can welcome you to my forest and offer you company and a meal. Will you be staying for dinner?”</p>
<p>(( Over dinner, May brings up having EW merge down, turns into a whole big discussion. EW says he’ll think about it, and will talk it over with Debarre which will be next chapter ))</p>
