update from sparkleup
This commit is contained in:
Madison Scott-Clary
parent
1f2ffdfb37
commit
0d05c3ec2c
|
|
@ -12,16 +12,16 @@
|
|||
<h1>Zk | 007</h1>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<article class="content">
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balancastor-2325">Codrin Balan#Castor — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<p>Codrin Balan was more nervous about an interview than ey’d ever been yet. It’s not that ey hadn’t been anxious about talking with True Name previously — ey certainly had, given the warning that Dear had left em with — but in the intervening weeks, ey had talked with No Jonas, and the news from both Codrin#Pollux and Ioan about the intervening wealth of knowledge that the Balan clade and their Odist associates had gathered.</p>
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balancastor-2325">Codrin Bălan#Castor — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<p>Codrin Bălan was more nervous about an interview than ey’d ever been yet. It’s not that ey hadn’t been anxious about talking with True Name previously — ey certainly had, given the warning that Dear had left em with — but in the intervening weeks, ey had talked with No Jonas, and the news from both Codrin#Pollux and Ioan about the intervening wealth of knowledge that the Bălan clade and their Odist associates had gathered.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dear gave no warning this time. It simply stood in the door of Codrin’s office, looking some mixture between sad and frightened, and bowed its head when ey gave it a goodbye kiss atop the snout. Ey left a fork in eir office to sit and not think of anything while ey painted terribly, the better to reduce merge conflicts down the line, and then headed back to the sim where first ey had met True Name.</p>
|
||||
<p>She was not smiling this time. She didn’t look serious, per se, just confident, competent, almost amused, but she was not smiling.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Are you ready for our interview, Mx Codrin Balan?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Are you ready for our interview, Mx Codrin Bălan?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ey nodded, said, “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Excellent.” She gestured em down to the office where first they’d met. There were no formalities. No shaking of hands, pleasant banter about which chair to use. The skunk simply sat in her chair at her desk across from em and waited.</p>
|
||||
<p>The desk was clean now. All of the notepads and pens had been cleared away, and ey wondered if what it had looked like before was, as all three interviewers were now learning, simply a means of shaping eir expectations and impressions. Did she even take notes with a pen and paper? Did she even need to? The desk, then, became a barrier between the two, a pedestal on which True Name sat and, though she was shorter than the historian, looked down on em with a singular attention. This, too, was a means of shaping their interactions for as long as they spoke.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Alright,” Codrin began, stepping up to this challenge as best ey could, drawing on all eir meager reserves of boldness to adopt the competent appearance of one who ought to be here as much as True Name. “Thank you once more for having me over and allowing me to interview you. Before I get started, is there anything that you’d like to say.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I would like to begin by preempting what I suspect are many of your questions so as to keep our discussions better focused. Through the various channels available to the Ode and Jonas clades, we know the list of individuals that you have so far interviewed, and much of the content of your interviews. We know that the Balan clade has learned much of what transpired during Secession and leading up to Launch, as well as some of what has transpired during the intervening centuries.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I would like to begin by preempting what I suspect are many of your questions so as to keep our discussions better focused. Through the various channels available to the Ode and Jonas clades, we know the list of individuals that you have so far interviewed, and much of the content of your interviews. We know that the Bălan clade has learned much of what transpired during Secession and leading up to Launch, as well as some of what has transpired during the intervening centuries.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Codrin hesitated, pen nib resting on paper, a dark blue spot of ink spreading slowly through the fibers.</p>
|
||||
<p>“With that in mind, what questions would you like to ask?” True Name’s mien lost much of its amused sheen, and she was left looking truly serious now.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why?” The word was almost forced from em, let out in a rush as though ey had been struck or perhaps wanted to ask before ey lost all courage.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -47,7 +47,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Ey let out a primal scream, a noise ey did not know that ey could even make, and then quit, letting the Codrin who still sat painting after so short an interview deal with eir memories. Ey was done.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-19</p>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-24</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</main>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -12,24 +12,24 @@
|
|||
<h1>Zk | 008</h1>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<article class="content">
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balancastor-2325">Codrin Balan#Castor — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balancastor-2325">Codrin Bălan#Castor — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<p>It took Codrin nearly a week to calm down enough to send True Name another message requesting to meet. It began with an apology.</p>
|
||||
<p>“True Name, I’d like, first of all, to apologize for becoming so heated during our last interaction,” ey said to er recording instance. “When confronted with information at such a scale, it is easy to become overwhelmed. I have since had time to read through both my notes from our meeting and the notes from Codrin#Pollux, and I think I understand better about what it was that you were trying to tell me. With that in mind, I’d like to meet up again to discuss some of the questions I didn’t get to previously, and to allow you to explain anything you would like to. Please let me know when you would like to meet. Thank you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Dear was nowhere to be found, this time. The fox had spent much of the last week alternating between requesting to be left alone and crying against eir shoulder. The story of what True Name had told em in combination from the news from Pollux had struck a deep chord with it, and when it did speak on the issue, the conversations would quickly end with <em>“I did not know. I promise, Codrin, I did not know.”</em></p>
|
||||
<p>So ey waited, ey read, and ey calmed down, and then ey scheduled eir interview.</p>
|
||||
<p>The response came five minutes later, a simple ping of acknowledgement followed by a calm suggestion that immediately would be as good a time as any.</p>
|
||||
<p>This time, when Codrin stepped into True Name’s apartment, ey was greeted by the skunk standing where she had the last two interviews, and this time, her expression was one of calm curiosity, rather that that initial warmth and its following coldness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mx Balan, it is nice to see you again.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mx Bălan, it is nice to see you again.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ey bowed. “Of course. Again, my apologies for getting so heated last time. It’s a bit of a first for me, but that was a lot to handle all at once.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I understand,” the skunk said, returning the bow before gesturing em down the hall once more. “We will have a calmer discussion this time, I believe.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They sat down on either side of the desk once more, and Codrin noted that there was now a single notepad.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, what would you like to ask me? I think it would go a bit more smoothly if you led.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ey nodded. “Alright. Let’s start with Launch this time. It sounds like you were involved with that as well. Can you tell me about that?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course. Is there any particular area you would like me to begin? Launch is a very broad topic.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, Ne Jonas told Codrin on Pollux that we — that is, the Balan clade and the liberal elements of the clade — toward beginning this project. Is that true?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, Ne Jonas told Codrin on Pollux that we — that is, the Bălan clade and the liberal elements of the clade — toward beginning this project. Is that true?”</p>
|
||||
<p>If the phrase ‘liberal elements’ or its implication that True Name must be one of the more conservatives had any effect on the skunk, she didn’t show it. Instead, she simply nodded. “Yes. A project such as this was deemed important in that it would add the spice needed to keep System life on its toes, much as Ne Jonas mentioned. Does that make sense?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose. When did the nudges come?”</p>
|
||||
<p>True name sighed and rested on her forearms on the desk. “To answer that question requires answering a different question. We began by canvasing various art institutes, actually. I do not know why we simply did not track Dear or May Then My Name or any of the Hammered Silver stanza, as that would probably have shortened our search a good deal. All the same, we came across an exhibition at the Simien Fang School of Art and Design on history and its context in the world of the System by one Ioan Balan. Do you remember that?”</p>
|
||||
<p>True name sighed and rested on her forearms on the desk. “To answer that question requires answering a different question. We began by canvasing various art institutes, actually. I do not know why we simply did not track Dear or May Then My Name or any of the Hammered Silver stanza, as that would probably have shortened our search a good deal. All the same, we came across an exhibition at the Simien Fang School of Art and Design on history and its context in the world of the System by one Ioan Bălan. Do you remember that?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Codrin lifted eir pen and blinked up to the ceiling, dredging up the memories of eir own gallery exhibition, so many years ago.</p>
|
||||
<p>Too many years, ago, ey realized. “But that was in 2298.”</p>
|
||||
<p>True Name nodded. “It was, yes.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -56,11 +56,11 @@
|
|||
<p>“So you’re…happy?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Pleased,” she repeated, laughing. “I will have time to be happy when I am dead. Until then I will continue to be pleased and continue to work.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Codrin re-capped eir pen and folded eir hands on top of eir notebook.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Does that mean we are done with the interview, Mx Balan?” True Name asked, smiling.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Does that mean we are done with the interview, Mx Bălan?” True Name asked, smiling.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m out of energy, as you put it.” Ey sighed. “Unless you have anything else to share, maybe we can put off any further questions until next time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>True name smiled and stood, brushing her paws down over her blouse to straighten some imagined crease. “Then I must thank you. It has been surprisingly fulfilling to be able to talk through all of this. It is, as your partner states, irreversibility. We cannot un-diverge from Pollux or the System. You can surely appreciate that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll have to tell it that when I get back. It’ll be excited to hear its idea out in the wild.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The skunk ushered em to the door and grinned. “It will be fucking pissed, Codrin Balan, and we both know that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The skunk ushered em to the door and grinned. “It will be fucking pissed, Codrin Bălan, and we both know that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When ey returned home and quit to merge with the Codrin that had remained behind, ey set down eir notes on eir desk, walked into the house proper, into the bedroom, and slipped, fully-clothed, beneath the sheets. The interview had not lasted more than half an hour, and yet ey felt drained.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ey must have dozed off at some point, as ey was woken by Dear crawling into the bed behind em, one of the fox’s skinny arms slinking around eir chest, and then a cold nose pressed against the back of eir neck.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Afternoon,” ey mumbled.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
|
|||
<article class="content">
|
||||
<h1 id="tycho-brahecastor-2346">Tycho Brahe#Castor — 2346</h1>
|
||||
<p>After a certain point, when you get so far from the sun, the concepts of day and night stop meaning so much, and you rely instead on long habits borne out of a necessity to sleep, and to sleep generally on the same schedule as others. And if you must do that, you might as well follow the same schedule you’ve always kept, the same day-night cycle that even Earth understands. The same clock ticks across three different Systems.</p>
|
||||
<p>And so it is that, in some wonderful serendipity, all three members of the Balan clade are asleep. Both Codrins have fallen asleep with Dear in their arms, as they so often do, while both versions of Dear’s partner curl a few inches away, never having done well being touched while sleeping. The foxes fit so nicely against their fronts, their fur so soft.</p>
|
||||
<p>And so it is that, in some wonderful serendipity, all three members of the Bălan clade are asleep. Both Codrins have fallen asleep with Dear in their arms, as they so often do, while both versions of Dear’s partner curl a few inches away, never having done well being touched while sleeping. The foxes fit so nicely against their fronts, their fur so soft.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ioan sleeps, too, and in eir arms, May dreams. She is somewhere between waking and sleeping, and has been letting herself hover there for the last hour, while she does her best work, building hypnogogic myths out of dreams and reality both. Ioan sleeps with eir arms around her, snoring gently, while she stays curled against eir front, head tucked up under her partner’s chin, tail draped loosely over eir hip. The skunk fits so nicely against eir front, her fur so soft.</p>
|
||||
<p>Perhaps the other Odists sleep and dream and snore and curl, too. End Waking does, one supposes, having worn himself out with another day exploring that endless forest, another day climbing trees and clambering through ravines. Serene probably does, too, so that she can use those dreams to build new landscapes; mountains, perhaps, or maybe a swamp. Some instances of True Name must be sleeping, because we know that she must at some point, but others are likely out and about, walking sims, or perhaps planning with any number of different Jonases, scheming and conniving and workshopping and wargaming.</p>
|
||||
<p>Douglas sleeps, out there on the dandelion-speckled meadow that he inherited from his long, long, long lost aunt, though he has since built himself a house. He sleeps alone, for though he has made many friends, he has decided that love was not for him, and that itself makes him happy.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Consent granted.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-23</p>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-24</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</main>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -12,9 +12,9 @@
|
|||
<h1>Zk | 007</h1>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<article class="content">
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balanpollux-2325">Codrin Balan#Pollux — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balanpollux-2325">Codrin Bălan#Pollux — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<p>The messages between LVs and the L<sub>5</sub> System were flying as fast and as thick as possible, given the nearly two day transmission time between the station and the launches. It was enough time for Codrin to sit and stew and plan and pace.</p>
|
||||
<p>The sheer amount of information that was being generated by the Balan clade and all of their Odist assistants and lovers was enormous, and so much of it was so important, so meaningful, so <em>weird</em> that there was little else ey felt ey could do. There was clarification that any one of them could offer the other that would take the form of a conversation, something immediate. Instead, they each had to wait four days for a response to a query. Messages became letters.</p>
|
||||
<p>The sheer amount of information that was being generated by the Bălan clade and all of their Odist assistants and lovers was enormous, and so much of it was so important, so meaningful, so <em>weird</em> that there was little else ey felt ey could do. There was clarification that any one of them could offer the other that would take the form of a conversation, something immediate. Instead, they each had to wait four days for a response to a query. Messages became letters.</p>
|
||||
<p>So there was nothing to do but go for it. Ey spent as much time as ey could digesting all of the stories, the stories of True Name and Jonas, the stories of the Odists and Yared. Ey had talked as much as Dear was willing to talk, and so there was nothing for it but to pack eir pen and paper and head to the high-rise apartment in the middle of the city that ey’d been directed to.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ne Jonas greeted em at the door and grinned wide, “Codrin! Wonderful to see you!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ey didn’t know what ey expected, but it was certainly not this. Both Codrin#Castor and Ioan had described Jonas as handsome to the point of being almost annoyingly so. The tall, blond, chiseled features type.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“I think that many phys-side would be pretty upset by that, though, right? If they learn that you’ve been pulling strings from the System to ensure that everything keeps going the way you want, won’t they rebel against that idea?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There are two things working against that supposition,” Ne said. “The first is that you misunderstand me when I say that we’ve done the cost-benefit analysis of your project and determined it beneficial. It’s beneficial to both sys- and phys-side for exactly the same reasons, though the mechanics may be different. The second is that you are misjudging just how in over your head you really are with all that we’ve done phys-side. As soon as Launch started and as soon as you were nudged to start the project — don’t frown, Codrin, you should have seen this coming — whispers were sent down the wire from the System to Earth to ensure that they would have the proper reaction to your work.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Codrin sat, silent, and stared at the man across from em. The man who had just admitted to subtly influencing billions of lives over hundreds of years through an organization made up entirely, ey assumed, of two clades. Hundreds or thousands of instances of two individuals.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suspect we’re about done with the interview, but you must understand, Mx Balan, that we are the end product of phys-side life. Stability demands that we think that way. It demands that we think of all those billions of people back on Earth as part of our garden. Not the rose bushes, but the vegetables. They are the crop that we harvest to stay alive, and therefor they must be tended with as much love and care as the roses.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suspect we’re about done with the interview, but you must understand, Mx Bălan, that we are the end product of phys-side life. Stability demands that we think that way. It demands that we think of all those billions of people back on Earth as part of our garden. Not the rose bushes, but the vegetables. They are the crop that we harvest to stay alive, and therefor they must be tended with as much love and care as the roses.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The room felt like it was elongating, stretching away from em as Ne spoke, as ey capped eir pen and got to eir feet, as ey gathered eir papers. The room was elongating and eir vision dimming around the edges.</p>
|
||||
<p>And still Ne Jonas sat, smiling kindly up to em. “That, my dear Codrin, is the big picture.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -12,17 +12,17 @@
|
|||
<h1>Zk | 008</h1>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<article class="content">
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balanpollux-2325">Codrin Balan#Pollux — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<h1 id="codrin-balanpollux-2325">Codrin Bălan#Pollux — 2325</h1>
|
||||
<p>Interview with Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled#Pollux<br />
|
||||
On the reasons for vesting entirely in the Launch<br />
|
||||
Codrin Balan#Pollux<br />
|
||||
Codrin Bălan#Pollux<br />
|
||||
Systime (relative to Pollux LV): 200+365 1208</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Codrin Balan#Pollux:</strong> Thanks for agreeing to this, Dear. I think we’re both in a better spot for it now.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Codrin Bălan#Pollux:</strong> Thanks for agreeing to this, Dear. I think we’re both in a better spot for it now.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled:</strong> Of course, my dear. I would still like to discuss some of the same topics, but I will try to be more sensitive about them.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Codrin:</strong> No worries. We’ll make it work. I’ll start where I did last time, then. How are you feeling?</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Dear:</strong> I am feeling relieved, I suppose. I am feeling relieved and tired.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Codrin:</strong> How so?</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Dear:</strong> To say that a lot has happened in the last year is not quite true. Very little that counts as dramatic or anything has happened. There were interviews by the Balan clade and that is about it. The most dramatic of those took place on the other LV however many billions of miles a way, and that was simply one of you getting bounced from a sim, yes? Nothing has happened that feels like it should lead to exhaustion, and yet I am quite worn out by the sheer amount of information uncovered.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Dear:</strong> To say that a lot has happened in the last year is not quite true. Very little that counts as dramatic or anything has happened. There were interviews by the Bălan clade and that is about it. The most dramatic of those took place on the other LV however many billions of miles a way, and that was simply one of you getting bounced from a sim, yes? Nothing has happened that feels like it should lead to exhaustion, and yet I am quite worn out by the sheer amount of information uncovered.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Codrin:</strong> Emotionally exhausted, perhaps? Like you had to relive two hundred years in the space of one?</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Dear:</strong> That is a large part of it, yes. Emotionally exhausted, worn out by the shift of understanding between our two clades. </p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Codrin:</strong> I suppose we’re pretty thoroughly intertwined now, aren’t we?</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ Systime (relative to Pollux LV): 200+365 1208</p>
|
|||
<p><strong>Dear:</strong> I do not. Is that not fantastic? I do not know, and I love that about this particular future. I simply do not know.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-22</p>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-24</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</main>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue