Codrin Balan#Castor — 2325
-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.
+Codrin Bălan#Castor — 2325
+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.
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.
She was not smiling this time. She didn’t look serious, per se, just confident, competent, almost amused, but she was not smiling.
-“Are you ready for our interview, Mx Codrin Balan?”
+“Are you ready for our interview, Mx Codrin Bălan?”
Ey nodded, said, “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”
“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.
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.
“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.”
-“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.”
+“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.”
Codrin hesitated, pen nib resting on paper, a dark blue spot of ink spreading slowly through the fibers.
“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.
“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.
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@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.