update from sparkleup
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<p>So, instead, they relaxed together on the couch, May with her head in eir lap while ey read and she worked on this or that, or whatever it was that she did when her eyes lost focused and she hummed quietly to herself. She’d once called it ‘going into screen-saver mode’, which didn’t sound totally accurate to what ey knew of her when ey’d looked up the reference, but ey still teased her about it every now and then.</p>
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<p>Quiet nights were good, though, and ey was pleased to just spend the rest of this one in comfort.</p>
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<p>Sleep, however, brought restless dreams. Not nightmares, certainly; they weren’t even bad dreams in any common sense of the term. They were, to the last, plagued with a sense of waiting and unease. Ey dreamt of waiting for unspecified news, sitting on uncomfortable benches in weirdly crowded lobbies. Ey dreamt of May being out of the house on some errand longer than she had said she would be. Ey dreamt of not having enough information.</p>
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<p>All the same, ey woke well rested and made it to the coffee pot before either of the skunks, so ey was able to claim ten minutes of solitude standing before the picture windows and looking out into the slowly lightening yard and the field beside it. Ey could see True Name poke her snout out from her tent, disappear, and then, a few minutes later, start trudging her way back toward the house.</p>
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<p>“Good morning, Ioan. Oh good, thank you,” she mumbled, making a bee-line for one of the mugs of coffee that sat, steaming, before the coffee machine.</p>
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<p>All the same, ey woke well rested and made it to the coffee pot before either of the skunks, so ey was able to claim ten minutes of solitude standing before the picture windows, looking out into the slowly lightening yard and the field beside it. Ey could see True Name poke her snout out from her tent, disappear, and then, a few minutes later, start trudging her way back toward the house.</p>
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<p>“Good morning, Ioan. Oh good, thank you,” she mumbled, making a bee-line for one of the mugs of coffee that sat, steaming, on the counter.</p>
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<p>“Morning. Sleep well?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged noncommittally. “I slept, I am well-rested enough.”</p>
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<p>They watched the morning head toward full brightness in silence after that, em still standing before the windows and her sitting on the couch, more focused on her coffee than anything.</p>
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<p>Ey couldn’t picture her as anything other than a skunk or perhaps whatever version of Michelle she remembered, though, and certainly couldn’t picture her named anything other than True Name. Would she also have to change her speech patterns? They weren’t totally identifiable, but now that ey thought about it, even Zacharias had shared many of them. She was an Odist through and through — more so than any other ey’d met — and all of the forking and reinforcing that May had done to grow her sense of empathy didn’t seem like something that she’d willingly undergo, either.</p>
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<p>But perhaps that’s what she’d meant by a sliver of a plan. They still had plenty of time to sort that out, at least, and perhaps she’d come up with a way that would actually work without changing herself so much that she’d cease being who she was.</p>
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<p>All the same, ey wasn’t sure that her simply incorporating End Waking was quite the type of change that Jonas would appreciate. She acted different, spoke different, and ey was sure she felt different about her work than she had, but eir suspicion was that Jonas didn’t want anything left of her that could possibly be of any threat to his power. Her incorporating End Waking’s extreme distaste for the politics of the System might be enough, it might not be, but that was a big risk to take.</p>
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<p>Ey’d apparently been silent long enough that the two skunks had drifted off into their own conversation. At least ey’d not been mumbling.</p>
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<p>Ey’d apparently been silent long enough that the two skunks had drifted off into their own conversation. At least ey hadn’t been mumbling.</p>
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<p>“Welcome back, my dear,” May said when ey leaned forward again to grab eir coffee.</p>
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<p>Ey grinned. “Thanks. Was a nice trip. Don’t mean to interrupt or anything, though.”</p>
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<p>She shook her head. “We were talking of changes.”</p>
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<p>“And the next time she asked, you just said ‘no’?”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “She asked me to consider it, and then the topic simply never came up again. I think that she was already expecting to write me off after the merge in systime 31.”</p>
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<p>“Did she wind up expressing her own emotions differently from that merge?”</p>
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<p>She opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again, frowning. “I was going to snap at you,” she admitted. “But you bring up a good point. She did not. What emotions she expressed, real or not, came more earnestly to her. She was more able to express empathy, even if it was in a very True Name fashion. She did not accept my merges — or any of those from others in her stanza — as blithely as she did End Waking’s.”</p>
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<p>She opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again, frowning. “I was going to snap at you,” she admitted. “But you bring up a good point. She did, so some extent. What emotions she expressed, real or not, came more earnestly to her. She was more able to express empathy, even if it was in a very True Name fashion. She did not accept my merges — or any of those from others in her stanza — as blithely as she did End Waking’s.”</p>
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<p>“I imagine the circumstances were a bit different,” ey said. “Why were you going to snap at me?”</p>
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<p>“I thought you were going to ask me to merge down.”</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged. “I hadn’t gotten that far in the thought process. Is it something you’re still uncomfortable with?”</p>
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<p>“I do not know, my dear. If you had asked me just then, I would have said no. If you had asked me five minutes before then, I would have said yes.” She patted eir knee, smiling. “But I will endeavor not to snap at you either way. How about you, though?”</p>
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<p>“Much the same, I think. Your answer has me wondering, though, if she was more intentional about a merge like that, it could work. She could have some of your memories of emotions that she thinks might help while still respecting your privacy.”</p>
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<p>“And that is why I did not snap at you. It is a good point, my dear. She would not have my memories wholesale, and with what memories and personality traits and whatever else goes along with a merge, she would hopefully wind up with a synthesis as she says, rather than a replacement. She would still have all 226 years of being True Name, and all those years of being End Waking, just that she would also have some of me in there.”</p>
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<p>“And that is why I did not snap at you. It is a good point, my dear. There is no need for her to have all of my memories wholesale, and with what memories and personality traits and whatever else goes along with a merge, she would hopefully wind up with a synthesis as she says, rather than a replacement. She would still have all 226 years of being True Name, and all those years of being End Waking, just that she would also have some of me in there.”</p>
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<p>“Is that something you could talk her through?”</p>
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<p>She looked thoughtfully out into the yard, at the faint greening of the lilac branches. “Perhaps, yes. We would have to be very deliberate about it, but it should be possible.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded, watching the skunk’s gaze drift in and out of focus, the way she would occasionally chew on her lip when thinking. Watched, and thought about what such a synthesis would look like. There wouldn’t be any concrete changes in eir partner, but what would this new restless, unsettled True Name look like with yet more memory heaped onto her? Ey knew ey could never know the whole of May and that ey was biased besides, but she seemed so much more happy and comfortable than her down-tree instance, even before End Waking’s merger. More comfortable, feeling less of a need to dump all of her energy into forward motion. What would that look like with True Name?</p>
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<p>“Regardless of the mechanics or how comfortable you are with it, is this something you’d even want to do?”</p>
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<p>She nodded readily. “Yes. That is the source of all this stress for me over the last few days. I want to, it is just the reality that is working against me.”</p>
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<p>“Why?”</p>
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<p>“Why do I want to?” She laughed. “Because I like who I am and I do not like who she is, but that does not mean I do not like what she can become. I want her to be happy and to feel love and to slow the fuck down for five minutes. I do not know for sure, and I acknowledge there’s a value judgment here, but I strongly suspect that these will only ever be good for her.”</p>
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<p>“Why do I want to?” She laughed. “Because I like who I am and I do not like who she is, but that does not mean I do not like what she can become. I want her to be happy and to feel love and to slow the fuck down for five minutes. I do not know for sure, and I acknowledge that there is a value judgment here, but I strongly suspect that these will only ever be good for her.”</p>
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<p>Ey leaned forward enough to snag one of her paws and give it a squeeze. “Guess we’re of one mind on that, then. Or at least mostly so; you have a better sense as to what goes into the emotional side.”</p>
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<p>She smiled gratefully and gave eir hand a squeeze. “Well, when she returns, we can expand on our thoughts.”</p>
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<p>They didn’t have to wait long.</p>
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<p>She nodded and looked to May.</p>
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<p>“If you are alright working with me through the process, then I am okay with it.”</p>
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<p>“Are you?” Ioan asked.</p>
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<p>True Name smiled lopsidedly. “So long as I can fork beforehand just in case, why the fuck not? I am already not what I was.”</p>
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<p>True Name smiled lopsidedly. “So long as I can fork beforehand just in case, why the fuck not? I am already not what I was. There is already no going back.”</p>
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<p>May scoffed and shook her head. “‘So long as you can fork’? Jesus, True Name. Of course you can fucking fork. 108 instances with daily reconciliation, and she asks if she can fork.”</p>
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<p>They laughed.</p>
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<p>“Well,” True Name said, shrugging. “Fuck it.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-07-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-07-29</p>
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