update from sparkleup
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<p>“Oh? How cheeky,” Sasha said, laughing. “Were you really that confident that everything would work out, dear?”</p>
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<p>May shook her head. “Reasonably confident, but I want Arrowhead Lake back no matter what, so I arranged for us a little meeting.”</p>
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<p>“Skunks, I swear.” Ioan shook eir head. “Well, welcome all the same. We’ve got pasta, if you’d like.”</p>
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<p>Once she’d heaped a plate high with pasta, Serene followed them out onto the balcony to join them for the rest of their meal. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of the plain. “I suppose this was the best one could do on short notice, yes?”</p>
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<p>Once she’d heaped a plate high with food, Serene followed them out onto the balcony to join them for the rest of their meal. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of the plain. “I suppose this was the best one could do on short notice, yes?”</p>
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<p>“It wasn’t too much, and it fit the need, yeah.”</p>
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<p>“It has served its purpose,” Sasha said. “And it is not so bad close up. A little too flat, perhaps, but the river is nice.”</p>
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<p>Serene nodded and finished a mouthful of food before setting her fork down again. “I have at least come bearing a gift.”</p>
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<p>Serene nodded. “He read the <em>History</em> and came to the same conclusion that the rest of the System did. Our name is not mud, but, my dear, relationships changed after that knowledge became public.”</p>
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<p>“I understand.”</p>
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<p>“I do not want to hear you say that you are sorry, Sasha. I do not think that is how this works as you are now, not for me. I do not want to hear your justifications and explanations; I can understand them as well as anyone. I just want to hear your acknowledgement.”</p>
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<p>After setting her plate and fork down on the low table again, Sasha folded her paws in her lap, sat for a moment in silence, then said. “For as much as I tried to do — for as much as Jonas and I both tried to do — I do not think we had nearly the effect on the world around us we thought we did, not on the grand scale. We played our games of politics and influence, but it was a game of relationships from start to finish, you are correct. True Name changed relationships. May Then My Name changed relationships. E.W. played his part. I do not know if it was for the better or the worse, but I do acknowledge that it made a good many of them far more difficult.”</p>
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<p>After setting her plate and fork down on the low table again, Sasha folded her paws in her lap, sat for a moment in silence, then said, “For as much as I tried to do — for as much as Jonas and I both tried to do — I do not think we had nearly the effect on the world around us we thought we did, not on the grand scale. We played our games of politics and influence, but it was a game of relationships from start to finish, you are correct. True Name changed relationships. May Then My Name changed relationships. E.W. played his part. I do not know if it was for the better or the worse, but I do acknowledge that it made a good many of them far more difficult.”</p>
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<p>“Well, okay. Perhaps one apology.”</p>
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<p>“I am sorry, Serene; Sustained And Sustaining.”</p>
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<p>There was another moment of silence, then Serene’s wild grin returned. “Well, that felt good. Praiseworthy did all that shit, too, so, fuck it. Let me finish my pasta and I will fuck your sim up but good.”</p>
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<p>There was another moment of silence, then Serene’s wild grin returned. “Well, that felt good. Praiseworthy did all that shit, too, so, fuck it. Let me finish my food and I will fuck your sim up but good.”</p>
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<p>Ioan blinked, looking between skunk and fennec. “Wait, that simple?”</p>
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<p>“Of course, my dear,” Serene said around a mouthful of pasta. “I already told you of my thoughts on the matter. I have done my processing.”</p>
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<p>“And now you cannot simply say something about skunks being brats,” May chimed in. “Though I am pretty sure we all knew that foxes were, too.”</p>
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<p>“I will not laugh at you two too much, then.” Serene laughed anyway, though not unkindly. “What are your plans moving forward? I trust that you are essentially locked out of what you were working on as True Name.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, and while there is a part of me that remains disappointed about this outcome, there is little to be done about it but move forward.” Sasha brought her tail around to her lap to brush it out. It was shorter than a striped skunk’s tail, it seemed, but no less thickly furred. “I will take a vacation, first. I will sleep a normal amount. I will eat good food. I will wear myself out on the hunt and take what comfort I can while I remain here. I will rest, and then I will write.”</p>
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<p>“Write? Really?”</p>
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<p>“Yes. I will be careful not to be seen as overtly influencing lest I bring on Jonas’s ire, but I would like to share the story of the last few centuries from my point of view. I do not know who will be interested except perhaps our two clades, but I will write.”</p>
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<p>“Yes. I must be careful not to be seen as overtly influencing lest I bring on Jonas’s ire, but I would like to share the story of the last few centuries from my point of view. I do not know who will be interested except perhaps our two clades, but I will write.”</p>
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<p>“Well, if it’s anything like the <em>History</em>,” Ioan said, “it’ll wind up wildly popular and then fade into part of the mythos of the System.”</p>
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<p>May grinned. “And all will be as it should.”</p>
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<p>“Of course. I will not complain. So long as I am better able to understand who I have become and fill my time with something fulfilling, then I will be happy.”</p>
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<p>Sasha joined them in bed that night, and they took what comfort they could from each other’s company.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>The more dramatic of the meetings, however, came that weekend. It was quieter, perhaps, but bearing more weight, more finality.</p>
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<p>The rest of the week had remained tense, with Sasha wafting in and out of the house to follow her unsettled moods while May remained quiet, nearly silent, as she stuck by Ioan’s side. Ey knew ey should probably start laying in supplies for her overflowing, but ey was still distracted trying to pick apart the events with Zacharias. In light of eir desire to keep both of them safe and close, much of the fury that had come with eir first meeting with the fox threatened to reappear every time ey thought about the two skunks.</p>
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<p>The rest of the week had remained tense, with Sasha wafting in and out of the house to follow her unsettled moods while May remained quiet, nearly silent, nearly always stuck by Ioan’s side. Ey knew ey should probably start laying in supplies for her overflowing, but ey was still distracted trying to pick apart the events with Zacharias. In light of eir desire to keep both of them safe and close, much of the fury that had come with eir first meeting with the fox threatened to reappear every time ey thought about the two skunks.</p>
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<p>Which, naturally, was quite often.</p>
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<p>It was not exactly the best of timing, then, when If I Am To Bathe In Dreams, an elegant, if severe-looking skunk, arrived late on a Saturday afternoon on a few minutes’ notice and bowed formally to the three of them.</p>
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<p>It was not exactly the best of timing, then, when If I Am To Bathe In Dreams, an elegant, if severe-looking, skunk arrived late on a Saturday afternoon on a few minutes’ notice and bowed formally to the three of them.</p>
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<p>“Ioan, I believe Jonas hired you as an amanuensis?” she said.</p>
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<p>“He did, yes. Do you need me for that, too?”</p>
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<p>“Please. This story is not over, will not be over for a long time yet. Listen. Watch.”</p>
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<p>“Nothing is so simple, dear,” she said, shaking her head. “Blake was not of our kind, he would not have understood. He did get that right, though, in that we are a people of dualities. May sees in Zacharias all that she cannot — must not — be. In Dreams and Hammered Silver see in me that which they are not — could not be — and yet we are not what we are without our opposites. Every idea’s opposite is just the absence of the idea itself.”</p>
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<p>“Maybe.” Ey sighed. “It’s all a bit over my head.”</p>
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<p>“I am also a little bit all over the place,” she admitted. “These events have me going in three different directions at once. The Ode clade is crumbling and I cannot deny that some…that much of that is on me. I am sorry, Ioan.”</p>
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<p>“It’s fine,” ey said, shaking eir head. “It’s kind of a lot.”</p>
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<p>“I don’t even know what to think about that,” ey said, shaking eir head. “It’s kind of a lot.”</p>
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<p>“That it is. You are a good person, though. You love your partner. She knows this. I know this. You are good to her and it will all be okay. We may hope for neat endings but all we get are more beginnings.” She smiled, adding, “And yes, you may stay until she is feeling better.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-11-09</p>
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</footer>
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</header>
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<article class="content">
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<hr />
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<p>May’s stint of overflowing only lasted two nights. Something about the change in context, though, about staying with Sasha instead of Douglas, made everything feel tenuous. Ioan found it difficult to sleep on the padded cot that she’d added to the tent, and eventually, she must have grown tired of hearing em toss and turn (and perhaps mumble to emself), for she sleepily climbed out of her own bed and into eirs, curling up with em after confirming that it was alright.</p>
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<p>May’s stint of overflowing only lasted two nights. Something about the change in context, though, about staying with Sasha instead of Douglas, made everything feel tenuous, delicate. Ioan found it difficult to sleep on the padded cot that she’d added to the tent, and eventually, she must have grown tired of hearing em toss and turn (and perhaps mumble to emself), for she sleepily climbed out of her own bed and into eirs, curling up with em after confirming that it was alright.</p>
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<p>Unexpected, perhaps, but by then ey was too frustrated and exhausted to think of anything else. The added comfort certainly worked in getting em to sleep, to the point where ey slept in until a ray of sun, creeping slowly, fell across eir face and warmed em awake.</p>
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<p>Sasha had apparently woken up earlier in the morning and snuck away, as there was a lukewarm cup of camp coffee sitting by the edge of eir bed and no skunk to be found.</p>
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<p>Ah well, at least the coffee was good (if gritty) and ey felt better rested than ey had before.</p>
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<p>“I think it is rather like that, though do correct me if I am wrong, May. Even when I am hiding away in my tent, I am still more present than a friend out of sim is.”</p>
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<p>“Basically,” May said. “Never mind one who knows me so intimately now.”</p>
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<p>Sasha nodded, hesitated, then said, “On that note, are <em>you</em> okay?”</p>
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<p>“I…well,” she began, sighed, and shook her head. “I am upset, and I am disappointed that I am upset. I was so ready to be done with hatred, but I am stuck with yet more of it. Hatred from In Dreams, hatred in myself. More than the experiences with In Dreams and Zacharias, that feeling is what led to the past few days of tears. I thought that I was done.”</p>
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<p>“I…well,” she began, sighed, and shook her head. “I am upset, and I am disappointed that I am upset. I was so ready to be done with hatred, but I am stuck with yet more of it. Hatred from In Dreams, hatred of Zacharias, hatred in myself. More than the experiences with In Dreams and Zacharias, that feeling is what led to the past few days of tears. I thought that I was done.”</p>
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<p>“I understand. While I am thinking of it, I would like to talk with you about Zacharias at some point — nothing serious, just strategizing future meltdowns of his. Ioan said he kept trying to force merges on you just to get your attention.”</p>
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<p>May winced. “Ugh, yeah. I have never felt something so intensely…I do not know. It felt like a violation of my personal space on an intangible level. What were you thinking?”</p>
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<p>May winced. “Ugh, yeah. I have never felt something so intensely…I do not know. It felt like a violation of my personal space on a subatomic level. What were you thinking?”</p>
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<p>Sasha tilted her head. “Now? I was going to suggest in a few days time, once you were feeling better.”</p>
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<p>“Why not? I am already a mess, I am already thinking about him, and after this, I would like more than ‘a few days time’ completely disengaged from the topic.” She giggled, adding, “Besides, the more I have to dump on Sarah the next time I see her the better, right?”</p>
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<p>“I do not think it works that way, but I am not so much of a brat as you.” Sasha finished her coffee, set the mug down with a sense of finality, and nodded. “Well, I suppose I am awake enough. If you do not mind, Ioan, may I steal your partner for a little bit longer? I would like to keep this first discussion between us, though I will ensure that you remain caught up. There is some…history behind this she should know.”</p>
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<p>They walked back, then, hand in paw, following the trail as it dipped down to the water or ducked up into the trees. Back home, back to May, back to whatever it was that life had become.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-11-09</p>
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