update from sparkleup
This commit is contained in:
parent
7f97383239
commit
217077c6c0
|
|
@ -23,16 +23,16 @@
|
|||
<p>He’d continue work on the cabin while End Waking went for his walks — they’d gotten the floor and stove in place, as well as the A-frame, but the canvas of the tent still needed to be strung, and he had a few ideas for improvements — and all the while, he’d swing steadily between the poles of feeling nauseous at the thought of one less fraction of his friend in the world, one more death of one of the lost, and wild fantasies of popping champagne upon hearing that her final instance had been destroyed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Part of him wondered if End Waking was going through the same. He wanted to ask, but didn’t want to risk that pushing the skunk over into requesting that he leave with the tent not yet complete.</p>
|
||||
<p>So, Debarre just kept working, kept fantasizing. He’d gotten the last of the canvas lashed down over the sides of the frame and was on to working on the front wall of the tent. At least there was productivity to lean on, even if he couldn’t lean on his partner at the moment.</p>
|
||||
<p>He jumped, startled out of work and reverie, with two sensorium pings in short order. The first came from End Waking, the word ‘company’ muttered quietly, and the second was a ping of arrival from the sim itself.</p>
|
||||
<p>He jumped, startled out of work and reverie by two sensorium pings in short order. The first came from End Waking, the word ‘company’ muttered quietly, and the second was a ping of arrival from the sim itself.</p>
|
||||
<p>With the new tent, End Waking had made the default entry point around a small rise from home, leaving it a short walk around — or a shorter but much steeper dash up and over — the ridge.</p>
|
||||
<p>Debarre opted for the up and over, nearly tumbling down the other side of the hill to where the form knelt in the clearing. End Waking was just making his way through the trees on the opposite side, so they converged on the visitor at the same time.</p>
|
||||
<p>May Then My Name was sobbing. It looked as though she had been for a bit, too, judging by the mess of tear-tracks in the fur of her cheeks.</p>
|
||||
<p>There wasn’t much that he could think of to say, so he awkwardly shifted from a crouch to a kneeling position beside her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and gently tugging her against him. Although he rarely had reason to be comforting to May Then My Name in particular, it was familiar enough from all the way back at the Crown Pub when Sasha’d come back from some break-up or another.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I will get water,” End Waking murmured, leaving the physical comfort to someone better able to provide such.</p>
|
||||
<p>Her cry must have been nearing its end before she arrived, as she’d settled down to sniffles by the time her cocladist arrived with an enamel mug of water and a damp rag.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can you drink, my dear?” he said gently.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can you drink, May Then My Name?” he said gently.</p>
|
||||
<p>She nodded and accepted the mug with both paws to hold it steady, taking a few unsteady laps of the water before simply clutching it to her chest. “Thank you,” she croaked, freeing up a paw to accept the damp rag to wipe her face. “I am sorry for so dramatic an entrance.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hush. You are fine, May Then My Name,” End Waking said. “Everything sounded quite dramatic. Please take your time, and we can discuss it later.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hush. You are fine,” End Waking said. “Everything sounded quite dramatic. Please take your time, and we can discuss it later.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She nodded, slouched a little further against Debarre, and sighed shakily.</p>
|
||||
<p>He shot a quizzical look over to End Waking, who sent a brief sensorium ping in return. She must have explained a good bit more before arriving, then.</p>
|
||||
<p>They sat like that for another five minutes or so, another few bouts of tears hitting the skunk while he tried to be as steady as he could for her, petting over her ears and murmuring reassurances. She’d leaned on AwDae more often than she had on him, all those years ago, but a friend’s shoulder was a friend’s shoulder, and he’d always offered when he could. This was, he supposed, no different.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -51,16 +51,16 @@
|
|||
<p>May Then My Name averted her gaze. “I do not want her to die. I do not want her gone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The other skunk went silent, staring at her for a long moment before getting back to building the fire up to a comfortable level.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m guessing it’s the non-logistical side of things that’s complicated,” Debarre said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes. After everything, I do not know why it is that I care about her.” She sniffled and scrubbed her face with the rag as though to preemptively snap herself out of an oncoming wave of emotion. “It has not been all that bad, really. Awkward, yes, but she spends most of her time in her room except at breakfast and dinner. Today, though, she requested to talk with me, and…I cannot even begin to comprehend the specifics, but Jonas has…ha-has been…”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes. I seem to be cursed to think about her and after everything, I do not know why it is that I care about her.” She sniffled and scrubbed her face with the rag as though to preemptively snap herself out of an oncoming wave of emotion. “It has not been all that bad, really. Awkward, yes, but she spends most of her time in her room except at breakfast and dinner. Today, though, she requested to talk with me, and…I cannot even begin to comprehend the specifics, but Jonas has…ha-has been…”</p>
|
||||
<p>Debarre rubbed at May Then My Name’s back when that wave of emotion finally washed over her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am sorry, my dear. It was a lot,” she mumbled. “Jonas has been playing her for centuries, now. He has been structuring her life for her in such subtle ways that even she was not able to see it. She…well, something happened a few years after launch. A trap of sorts. Jonas’s plans hit all at once and she has been working under his thumb since then.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am sorry, Debarre. It was a lot,” she mumbled. “Jonas has been playing her for centuries, now. He has been structuring her life for her in such subtle ways that even she was not able to see it. She…well, something happened a few years after launch. A trap of sorts. Jonas’s plans hit all at once and she has been working under his thumb since then.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They sat in silence for a bit, Debarre racing through various questions, rejecting each as too personal, too mean, too off-topic. Finally, he asked, “So, why are you so upset?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That is where the specifics I cannot mention lay. Beyond that, though, I am just…torn. I am torn. I want to kick her out. I want to invite Jonas over and have him bring his pet assassin. I want her to disappear into ignominy.” She took a deep breath, continued, “But I also want her to get out of this mess. I may not want her around, but I want her to find something — anything — else to do with her life and to not have to deal with that living, breathing sack of shit anymore. No one should have to deal with that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“E.W. said he needed to be better than her. Sort of like that?”</p>
|
||||
<p>She shrugged. “I do not know. It does not feel accurate for me to say that, but I cannot explain why.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well,” he said, waving the point away. “I’m with you on the feeling torn bit, at least. Was just thinking about that when you showed up. Like, would I celebrate if she died? Or would I feel like there was just that much less of you around?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You think about it from the outside, my love,” End waking said. “You think about who we were. You have the capacity to do so. May Then My Name and I have diverged so far from True Name that she has become a new entity, and I do not think that we can so easily see Sasha in her.”</p>
|
||||
<p>May Then My Name was nodding. “And that is the source of at least some of my resentment towards her. I cannot see Sasha in her, and yet I was created from her. I see that of Sasha in myself, the caring side of her who got lost looking for her lost friends, and while I can <em>remember</em> those few years that I was True Name, I am not that person. I do not feel like I ever was that person. Becoming me was waking up from a dream.”</p>
|
||||
<p>May Then My Name was nodding. “And that is the source of at least some of my resentment towards her. I cannot see Sasha in her, and yet I was created from her. I see that of Sasha in myself, the caring side of her who got lost looking for lost friends, and while I can <em>remember</em> those few years that I was True Name, I am not that person. I do not feel like I ever was that person. Becoming me was waking up from a dream.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“A nightmare, perhaps,” the other skunk murmured.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You and I have different resentments. I would say an unnerving dream that makes me all the happier to be what I am now.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You are a better person than I.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -77,7 +77,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Are you opposed to an early dinner, Debarre?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“‘Course not. If you cook, May Then My Name and I can get the cot in the tent.</p>
|
||||
<p>They broke from there. May Then My Name forking several times over to help him in repopulating the inside of the tent with the necessities while End Waking made venison cutlets and savory corn griddle cakes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There’s still a lot we need to do in here, so we can’t drag everything in yet,” the weasel explained as they returned to where End Waking’s goods were stored under a canvas tarp. “But getting a few essentials in here will help in meantime. Hopefully just a few more days and we’ll be all set again. I think E.W. may kick me out at that point.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There’s still a lot we need to do in here, so we can’t drag everything in yet,” the weasel explained as they returned to where End Waking’s goods were stored under a canvas tarp. “But getting a few essentials in here will help in the meantime. Hopefully just a few more days and we’ll be all set again. I think E.W. may kick me out at that point.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“So soon?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He called me back in the middle of a solitary spell, remember?”</p>
|
||||
<p>She nodded. “Well, yes, but I had hoped that…well, I am sorry, Debarre. I imagine it must be difficult.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -114,7 +114,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Confirmation at last,” End Waking said dreamily.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2022-07-20</p>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2022-07-29</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</main>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue