update from sparkleup
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<p>Some dark look must have crossed eir face at which the director had shaken her head and hugged em. “Do not worry about that, Ioan. There is no death in her, I am sure of that. I am sorry that there are no easy ways to explain it, but I promise that what I expect she is feeling is separate from what our cocladists felt.”</p>
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<p>When presented with this along with eir anxious expression, the skunk had laughed and tousled eir hair. “She is right, my dear. It feels uncomfortable at best, bad at worst, but only ever bad. I am simply a bit crashy after a little too much all at once.”</p>
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<p>So for the last few days, they’d strategized in the mornings and then done what they could in the evenings. Scenes in plays were reworked for understudies, dinner menus shifted towards comfort foods, temperatures and weather adjusted, old comfort-hobbies dredged up from the past — the skunk had been littering the house with origami figures. Ey’d even tried reading aloud to her, her with her head parked on eir chest and em with a book held above them. This had gone over well, and ey had that on the menu for later in the evening after dinner.</p>
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<p>Still, today held the first meeting with Sarah Genet, however, so ey focused on making a good breakfast, and spending a bit of time relaxing on the porch swing with May, giving her pets and quiet company.</p>
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<p>Today still held the first meeting with Sarah Genet, however, so ey focused on making a good breakfast, and spending a bit of time relaxing on the porch swing with May, giving her pets and quiet company.</p>
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<p>“How are you feeling about this?” ey asked, voice muffled. May had requested a brushing of her tail, which meant a face full of fluff.</p>
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<p>“I do not know. I am anxious. I am trying to keep up that sense of hopefulness that I had when we began planning this, but the anxiety is getting in the way.”</p>
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<p>Ey tamped down the urge to ask what the anxiety was over, knowing that the answer would likely be <em>I do not know</em> or <em>nothing</em> — rightly so, for eir own anxiety often seemed to have no basis in reality. Instead, ey asked, “Do you want me to be there with you?”</p>
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<p>“Just Sarah is fine.” Smiling kindly to em, she nodded and stepped inside. She seemed to be taking the sight of their home in with some deeper understanding than ey could grasp. Ey wondered just how much she could tell by how clean or messy a place might be, and thanked past-Ioan for cleaning up quite well after breakfast. </p>
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<p>The skunk had finished her crane and levered herself out of her beanbag by the time they made it to the den. She was standing by the kitchen table, paws folded before her and ears perked up, looking polite and attentive, though Ioan could still read the exhaustion in her face.</p>
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<p>“May Then My Name Die With Me,” Sarah said, bowing once more. “A pleasure to meet you at last. Thank you for helping to organize this project.”</p>
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<p>May returned the bow, cleared her throat. “Thank you for going along with it. It will be a large one, and I– <em>we</em> appreciate all the help we can get.”</p>
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<p>“Please, just May Then My Name.” She returned the bow, cleared her throat. “Thank you for going along with it. It will be a large one, and I– <em>we</em> appreciate all the help we can get.”</p>
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<p>They sat down around three sides of the dining table. The skunk surprised em by ensuring that ey, rather than her, sat across from the woman.</p>
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<p>“So, there’s no real agenda today other than to just get to know each other. No hard topics or anything, just chatting. Stuff like that helps me get used to how you communicate.” Sarah nodded toward May. “Though I would like to know how you’re feeling.”</p>
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<p>“Tired.” The skunk looked down at the table where her claw-tips traced wood-grain. “Quite tired. I am not feeling my self currently, forgive me.”</p>
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<p>At the word ‘sound’, a stricken look washed over the skunk’s face. She sat, rigid, in her chair for a moment before shaking her head, the movement jerky and uneven. “I…I will leave…I will leave Ioan to answer that.”</p>
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<p>Alarmed at the sudden change in her demeanor, Ioan looked between May and Sarah, the latter’s face set in an expression of concern.</p>
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<p>“May?” ey asked quietly</p>
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<p>She swallowed several times in a row, as she always seemed to do when holding back tears. “You must…you must forgive me. I have to…lay down. Or something.”</p>
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<p>“You must…you must forgive me. I have to…lay down. Or something.” She swallowed several times in a row, as she always seemed to do when holding back tears.</p>
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<p>The skunk stood and swayed, clutching at the edge of the table hard enough for claws to dent the wood.</p>
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<p>“Of course, May Then My Name. Would you like to meet another–“</p>
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<p>“Please discuss with Ioan,” she whispered, eyes clenched shut.</p>
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<p>Ey rubbed at eir eyes. They were burning, though whether from exhaustion or eir own emotions, ey couldn’t tell. “I have no clue what was the trigger there, though.”</p>
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<p>Sarah waved her hand. “She and I will talk that through, it’s alright. How are you doing, though?”</p>
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<p>“Me?” Ey frowned. Talking with a therapist had never been on the table for em through this whole endeavor, but ey was so wrapped up in it now… “I’m stressed. I’m tired and stressed and feeling like I’m just fumbling in the dark to find something that will keep May safe.”</p>
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<p>“I’d be surprised if you weren’t stressed, honestly,” she said. A blink, and she set up a cone of silence around them. “Aliens visit one of the LVs and both your clades get wrapped up in it almost immediately, and then her cocladists quit in the midst of all those overwhelming emotions. There’s a lot on the table here. Do you worry she won’t be safe?”</p>
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<p>“I’d be surprised if you weren’t stressed, honestly,” she said. A blink, a cone of silence fell around them. “Aliens visit one of the LVs and both your clades get wrapped up in it almost immediately, and then her cocladists quit in the midst of all those overwhelming emotions. There’s a lot on the table here. Do you worry she won’t be safe?”</p>
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<p>Ioan shrugged helplessly. “I trust her when she says she’s not in any danger of anything like that and that she’s doing her best to stay grounded, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying.”</p>
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<p>“That’s part of being in a relationship, I think.”</p>
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<p>“That’s part of being in love, I think.”</p>
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<p>A pang of that love tugged at em. Sarah must have seen it on eir face, as she smiled sympathetically to em.</p>
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<p>“I don’t do well with loss. That’s why I’m here, really. On the System, I mean,” ey said, then recounted eir and May’s previous conversations about the death of eir parents and how that factored into eir anxieties.</p>
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<p>The conversation wound around from there. Ey could tell that Sarah was guiding it gently, giving careful nudges toward positive topics when the heavier ones began to loom too near, but always keeping it productive, substantive. It was, ey realized, the sort of mirror image of what ey’d seen from much of May’s clade. Subtle influencing borne out of years of reading and responding to the actions, words, and expressions of another. Rather than aiming to control, however, Sarah seemed to be doing all she could to keep the control in eir hands, acting almost as a tool for em to use to examine emself, though far more human that that made it sound.</p>
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<p>It was refreshing, ey realized. Too many Odists over the last twenty years, perhaps.</p>
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<p>It was refreshing. Too many Odists over the last twenty years, perhaps.</p>
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<p>“Well,” Sarah said when they’d reached a lull in the conversation. “I should probably get going so that I can give you guys some space. I’ll be in touch though, okay? I’ll make sure to catch up with May Then My Name when she’s feeling a bit better.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded gratefully. “Thank you. This has been good for me, as well, so hopefully we can have the chance to talk again, too.”</p>
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<p>“Of course. Some of my appointments with her will involve you as well, but I’m also happy working with just you, too. Scheduling is certainly less of a constraint here on the System.” She hesitated before adding, “Though for that, I may keep a separate fork for privacy’s sake.”</p>
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<p>“Shush, you’re fine. I think she, of all people, understands a reaction like that.” Ey picked up another square of paper from the stack and began trying to fold again. “But that’s enough talk of that for now. If you want dinner, you have to help me get at least one of these made.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-03-16</p>
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<p>It had also contained a more detailed account of Answers Will Not Help’s breakdown and quitting, as well as the extended interactions with True Name that Codrin#Artemis had been having.</p>
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<p>“I hate to do this to you,” ey had written, individual-eyes only. “But I simply cannot overstate just how dramatic and anxiety-inducing the whole event was, and I mean this in the most literal way possible. There are things that I cannot tell you. I cannot put them into words, and I certainly cannot set them to paper. It is overwhelming. The import is crushing. I feel like I’m going to burst and there’s nothing I can do or say about it, and the only reason I’m describing it like this is that I <em>can’t</em> be the only one who knows this, even if only at one layer of remove. You will remember soon enough, I think, but until then, I just need to offload some of the pressure.”</p>
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<p>Ey had no idea what to do with this information, other than to accept a share in that load.</p>
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<p>With questions running thin and the table plagued by awkward silences, it was almost a relief when Turun Ka requested that it and True Name discuss sentiment shaping surrounding the arrival of Artemis, leaving the others to have a conversation of their own or not as they wished. There was no audible communication suggesting such, but it seemed implied whenever this happened that Codrin and Turun Ko would be left ‘in charge’ of their respective delegations, if there was such a thing.</p>
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<p>With questions running thin and the table plagued by awkward silences, it was almost a relief when Turun Ka requested that it and True Name discuss sentiment shaping surrounding the arrival of Artemis, leaving the others to have a conversation of their own or not as they wished. There was no explicit communication suggesting such, but it seemed implied whenever this happened that Codrin and Turun Ko would be left ‘in charge’ of their respective delegations, if there was such a thing.</p>
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<p>The skunk and firstracer stood and walked to the far side of the fountain where True Name could sit on the rim and Turun Ka could settle onto its haunches before her. They set up a cone of silence, and once more begin discussing what seemed to go beyond simply the fallout of deception.</p>
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<p>After a few more minutes of silence. Why Ask Questions stood, said that she was going to take the opportunity to get another cup of coffee, and wandered off without another word.</p>
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<p>That seemed to be signal enough, despite the deputization of the recorders, for everyone to take a break. Tycho and Stolon paired off immediately, already chatting about albedo or some other topic ey could not guess. Iska excused themself and returned to their rest area.</p>
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<p>There was a brief flicker of some emotion ey couldn’t decode on Artante’s face. It was almost a smile, almost pride, almost contentment, but it was quickly replaced by the polite expression she seemed to wear at all other times. “It is not the time to have that conversation. We will soon, I suspect.”</p>
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<p>“It seems pretty easy to read between the lines on that answer,” Sarah said gently. “Though I don’t suppose it can be helped.”</p>
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<p>Artante spread her hands over the table, palms up. “As I said before, it would be impossible for the formal discussion to be the only context in which we communicate.”</p>
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<p>An idea dropped, fully-formed, onto Codrin. Ey could feel the weight of it land on eir shoulders, the import of it digging into eir back like claws. Ey sat up straighter. “With the understanding that there are correct times for conversations, may I give you information for you to access at those times?”</p>
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<p>“Text and metatext,” Codrin mumbled, and with that, an idea dropped, fully-formed, onto em. Ey could feel the weight of it land on eir shoulders, the import of it digging into eir back like claws. Ey sat up straighter. “With the understanding that there are correct times for conversations, may I give you information for you to access at those times?”</p>
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<p>The fourthracer looked to Turun Ko, who raised its chin in assent. “You may, recorder Codrin Bălan.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded, hoping against hope that ey even had the ACLs to do as ey’d planned. Ey knew that ey could create as much paper as ey wanted, though ey wasn’t sure whether ey’d be able to create paper with text already on it. Ey knew that ey could create notepads, but had yet to try creating a notebook, as ey hadn’t finished the current one yet.</p>
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<p>Nothing for it but to try.</p>
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<p>“It…doesn’t exactly paint the prettiest picture of some aspects of the System,” Sarah said, audibly hunting for a diplomatic way to phrase it. “It led to a reevaluation of the…political nature of our lives.”</p>
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<p>Ey tensed, realising the import of what Sarah was getting at. While there were countless reminders as to the books impact on the Ode clade, it had always seemed an unintentional side-effect of what was otherwise a text that strove to be above all else an accurate historical document. It was bound up in those who had lived those lives, those who had been influenced by the Odists.</p>
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<p>Ey’d meant to provide it strictly in that historical sense, but realized that, in the context of her deception, the discussion of True Name and her friends guiding the trajectory of society within them might color the talks moving forward.</p>
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<p><em>No,</em> ey thought. <em>This goes beyond the Odists and all their schemes.</em></p>
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<p>“It’s important,” ey said decisively. Sitting up straighter, ey drew on all the gumption ey could. “It shows more than just the political lives we’ve led, including the behind-the-scenes guidance that True Name has engaged in from the origins of the System two hundred thirty years ago. This is as important as anything else when it comes to understanding us as a species.”</p>
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<p>Sarah’s frown deepened. “Which is why I question the wisdom of providing it at this point.”</p>
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<p>“We’re at an impasse, I think,” ey countered. “We haven’t had a single meaningful conversation as part of the talks since news of what happened on Artemis arrived. It feels like we’re waiting on some cue.”</p>
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<p>“We’re at an impasse, I think,” ey countered. “We haven’t had a single meaningful conversation as part of the talks since news of what happened on Artemis arrived. It feels like we’re waiting on some cue, like we’re expected to do something.”</p>
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<p>Artante was nodding, though whether in confirmation or agreement, ey couldn’t tell.</p>
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<p>“This feels like a dangerous way to force the conversation to move forward.”</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged, holding onto that courage and sense of right action. “They deserve to know more than just the synopses and sugar-coated aspects of our society. The thing with Answers Will Not Help is something she and True Name dreamt up, but not representative of us as a whole. We’re more complex as a species than just her, or than even the five of us.”</p>
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<p>Flipping through the pages at the rate of about one per second, Turun Ko said, “A conversation will happen-occur when leaders Turun Ka and True Name return shortly-momentarily. Please wait. Their conversation-discussion is artificial-superficial, intended to give-provide delegates other than leadership options to change-shape outcomes.”</p>
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<p>Ey stared at the firstracer. “You mean–“</p>
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<p>“A step in the process of convergence is assessing the willingness of non-leaders to act other than their leaders might, or even the stated structure of the discussions, in order to forward what they believe the good common to all races,” Artante said. “It allows us to assess the strength of individuality and self-sacrifice for the betterment of all.”</p>
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<p>“A step in the process of convergence is assessing the willingness of non-leaders to act other than their leaders might, or even against the stated structure of the discussions, in order to forward what they believe the good common to all races,” Artante said. “It allows us to assess the strength of individuality and self-sacrifice for the betterment of all.”</p>
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<p>“Opportunities were provided,” Turun Ko said simply.</p>
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<p>That feeling of being in way over eir head that ey had felt so often during the writing of the <em>History</em> hit em full force once more and, stunned to silence, ey leaned back in eir chair, looking between the Artemisians and Sarah.</p>
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<p>“So,” the psychologist began. “Is this a good step?”</p>
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<p>Ey watched as the skunk’s eyes widened, gaze darting between em, Turun Ka, and the book in Turun Ko’s hands, now about half-finished. She sat down heavily on the chair and sagged against the back. “Well, fuck me.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-14</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-03-16</p>
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