<p>Neither Debarre nor End Waking had visited Michelle’s field in decades, and certainly not since it became Douglas’s. End Waking had last seen it on the day that she had quit in 2306, and had had little reason to return since.</p>
<p>It had been much longer for Debarre, going clear back into the 2200s, back when Michelle and Sasha were still alive and coherent enough to speak to without getting overwhelmed into silence every few minutes. The memories of her were painful enough as it was, that last visit in End Waking’s forest with the Bălans and a few Odists besides especially, that he’d never had the courage to come back.</p>
<p>Given how much the clade she’d left behind was struggling, though, it felt fitting to accept when Douglas invited him and End Waking over to talk with Ioan.</p>
<p>“Ey’s in a funk, and from what ey says, I think you two are the only others that know why,” he had said, paused, then added, “Except maybe those I don’t think any of us want to see.”</p>
<p>Both of them stood still after arriving, just bathing in — or struggling against — the waves of memory that came with the sudden onslaught of warmth and sun and the baked goods scent of dandelions thick in the air.</p>
<p>Ioan greeted them at the door. Ey seemed as though ey wwas enough, if tired. Still smiling and bowing to them as ey usually did.</p>
<p>As soon as they’d finished their greetings and settled on the grass in front of the house (End Waking having refused to go inside) along with Douglas, though, ey had mostly stared down into eir glass of lemonade and spoke little.</p>
<p>Finally, Debarre nudged em gently with an elbow. “Alright, Ioan, you’re gonna need to spill it at some point, here. What’s going on? All we were told is that you were feeling rough about the last few days.</p>
<p>Ey sighed and plucked at a dandelion. “Right, sorry, you two. Or three, I guess. I know I’ve been a bit of a mope of late. You alright to talk about True Name?”</p>
<p>“Ioan, I appreciate you asking, but please do not worry about us,” End Waking chided. “If we have come to help <em>you</em>, you need not spare our feelings. We can pretty well guess who would be at the center of this.”</p>
<p>“I’m pretty sure it’s me, actually,” ey said, laughing tiredly. “I’ve been stuck between May and True Name for days now, or years if you count the time since the convergence and I started trying to smooth things out with the coffee dates.</p>
<p>“I’ve just been struggling with it all. It’s been too much from the moment everything with True Name happened. The last few days were the worst, though. True Name didn’t really handle the merge all that well. She collapsed and was nearly unresponsive for several hours, and since then, she’s been struggling to integrate various chunks of memories.”</p>
<p>“My feelings towards my work?”</p>
<p>“That and your relationship with Debarre.”</p>
<p>The weasel and skunk both looked at each other, ears splayed.</p>
<p>“I’d thought of that, but, uh…” Debarre cleared his through. “Well, actually hearing it put like that casts it in a bit of a different light.”</p>
<p>“I hope that she does not mind the memories of sex,” End Waking said, then laughed when Debarre poked him in the side. “We are all adults here, my dear.”</p>
<p>“I’m the baby, I think,” Douglas said. “I’m seventy three.”</p>
<p>The skunk grinned. “So young! Debarre and I are both over two-hundred sixty years old. I am pretty sure that we can acknowledge that we can acknowledge the existence of sex, is what I mean.”</p>
<p>“And it doesn’t exactly sound like she’s a stranger to that, herself, anyway.”</p>
<p>End Waking blinked, taken aback. “She actually told you about Zacharias?”</p>
<p>“Who?”</p>
<p>“An…erstwhile lover, as she put it,” Ioan said carefully. “I probably shouldn’t go too much into that, though.”</p>
<p>“Agreed,” Debarre said. “But as you were saying, she was having trouble?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting her to get completely taken out, but May did kind of force it on her all in one go. She lasted a few days, but I think she was maybe pushing herself pretty hard to appear strong. She crashed really hard yesterday and, despite a pretty pleasant morning, had to step out to Arrowhead Lake, and when she came up, she looked like she was about ready to start yelling at us.</p>
<p>“May was also trying to stick around as long as she could, I think, since she crashed almost immediately. We made it through the night, but she couldn’t even speak this morning.”</p>
<p>“That’s a shitload to have to deal with, yeah.”</p>
<p>Ey nodded. “Friend almost gets assassinated, almost goes crazy from a merge, and disappears. Partner freaks out after a conversation, then freaks out when the merge goes sideways and mentions she was thinking of merging down, herself, then requests that I disappear. It’s just…a lot.”</p>
<p>“Wait, <em>May</em> wanted to merge down?” Douglas said. “Wasn’t expecting that.”</p>
<p>“Well, I don’t know quite how much ‘wanted’ fits, but I asked if she was thinking about it and she said yes. I couldn’t quite piece together why, though. After End Waking merged down, she mentioned that there was at least a part of her that was feeling vengeful, so I think I was worried that maybe she would be thinking of piling on her own vengeance, or that maybe she would be trying to help make her a better person.” Ey shrugged and added, “Or both. She did seem to have True Name’s best interests at heart when she forced the merge. At least mostly.”</p>
