update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p><em>Then again,</em> ey thought. <em>It still has plenty of company to pester up there.</em></p>
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<p>“Woolgathering?”</p>
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<p>Ey snapped back to attention and smiled sheepishly at May Then My Name where she had parked herself on the other side of the room. “Yeah. I’m prone to that, I guess. I get in the zone and then an idea gets away from me and I forget to keep working.”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “Well, come here, then. Lets plan instead of read or write or whatever it is you are doing over there.”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “Well, come here, then. Let uss plan instead of read or write or whatever it is you are doing over there.”</p>
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<p>“Woolgathering, apparently,” ey mumbled, but gathered up a notebook and a pen to go plop down next to the skunk all the same.</p>
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<p>When May Then My Name had moved in with Ioan, she had quickly requested several changes to the house. A desk for her to work at, of course, as well as a private room — a cube with all grey walls — in which to do whatever it that she did when composing. She had also requested a few items that would work with her physiology. A stool for the desk that would let her tail drape down and curl around her feet, that sort of thing</p>
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<p>When May had moved in with Ioan, she had quickly requested several changes to the house. A desk for her to work at, of course, as well as a private room — a cube with all grey walls — in which to do whatever it that she did when composing. She had also requested a few items that would work with her physiology. A stool for the desk that would let her tail drape down and curl around her feet, that sort of thing</p>
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<p>She had not requested another room or bed, which had initially startled em.</p>
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<p>“Are you going back home to sleep?” ey had asked. “I thought you were moving in here.”</p>
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<p>She had laughed and poked em in the stomach with a finger. “You have a bed, Ioan. It fits two, yes? If not, just make it fit two.”</p>
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<p>Ey had few attachments, and certainly none which required sleeping in the same bed as someone. Eir confusion must have shown on eir face, as May had rolled her eyes and shook her head.</p>
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<p>Ey had formed few attachments, and certainly none which required sleeping in the same bed as someone. Eir confusion must have shown on eir face, as May had rolled her eyes and shook her head.</p>
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<p>“I do not mean anything untoward by it,” she said.</p>
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<p>Ey struggled to speak with a mouth suddenly dry. “If you say so. I just haven’t slept in the same bed with someone…uh, ever, I guess.”</p>
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<p>Her eyes had widened and she tilted her head. “Really? Never?”</p>
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<p>Ey had shook his head.</p>
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<p>Ey had shook eir head.</p>
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<p>“Well, I would still prefer to share your bed with you, but if you feel uncomfortable, I will be fine with a bed like yours.”</p>
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<p>So now he slept beside a skunk.</p>
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<p>She had also requested a few beanbags that she could curl on, more comfortable than a couch. Each of these was larger than Ioan had felt necessary, and it had required that ey expand the bounds of the rooms to fit them, but ey had quickly gotten used to them, as ey could stretch out on them just as well as May Then My Name. They were a little too amorphous to sleep on, but still plenty comfortable.</p>
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<p>Ey sunk into a slouch on one now, feeling the way it molded around em. Ey knew well enough now to lift up the arm on the side where the skunk was curled, and she predictably scootched up by his side to rest her head against his chest at the shoulder, arm around his middle. He let his arm drop again, curling it around her shoulders.</p>
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<p>“Alright,” ey said, reaching his free right arm down beside the beanbag for the lap desk which had proved so useful for times such as these. “Planning. What should we plan?”</p>
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<p>So now ey slept beside a skunk.</p>
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<p>She had also requested a few beanbags that she could curl on, more comfortable than a couch. Each of these was larger than Ioan had felt necessary, and it had required that ey expand the bounds of the rooms to fit them, but ey had quickly gotten used to them, as ey could stretch out on them just as well as May. They were a little too amorphous to sleep on, but still plenty comfortable.</p>
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<p>Ey sunk into a slouch on one now, feeling the way it molded around em. Ey knew well enough now to lift up the arm on the side where the skunk was curled, and she predictably scootched up by eir side to rest her head against eir chest at the shoulder, arm around eir middle. Ey let eir arm drop again, curling it around her shoulders.</p>
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<p>“Alright,” ey said, reaching eir free right arm down beside the beanbag for the lap desk which had proved so useful for times such as these. “Planning. What should we plan?”</p>
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<p>“How about your forks?”</p>
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<p>“Right, yes. Do you think I should have one for both Green and Blue? And probably one for history, judging by what you’ve told me already.”</p>
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<p>She nodded, the fur of an ear-tip tickling at his neck. “Start with one each. You can always cut down from there if it is unnecessary. If that first message from Codrin on Green is anything to go by, better safe than sorry. Monsters and cults! It is all very like Dear. I bet it put Codrin up to it, what with me doing the myth bits.”</p>
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<p>She nodded, the fur of an ear-tip tickling at eir neck. “Start with one each. You can always cut down from there if it is unnecessary. If that first message from Codrin on Green is anything to go by, better safe than sorry. Monsters and cults! It is all very like Dear. I bet it put Codrin up to it, what with me doing the myth bits.”</p>
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<p>“Ey’s been infected by Dear’s weirdness.”</p>
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<p>“It is an Odist thing. You will catch it, too, from me.” She laughed.</p>
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<p>Ey started a diagram on the page. “So that’s three. Would it be four total, then, with me to collate the information?”</p>
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<p>“Probabay for the best, yes. This down-tree instance to collate, two for the LVs, one for early System history–“</p>
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<p>“I’ll bet. I’m thinking the triad on Blue fell asleep instead. They’re already diverging.” Ey started a diagram on the page. “So that’s three. Would it be four total, then, with me to collate the information?”</p>
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<p>“Probably for the best, yes. This down-tree instance to collate, two for the LVs, one for early System history–“</p>
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<p>“I will fork for that as well.”</p>
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<p>“More Mays?” Ioan laughed.</p>
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<p>She poked the tip of her tongue out of her muzzle. “Are you complaining?”</p>
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@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
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<p>Tilting her muzzle up, she dotted her nose against the underside of eir chin. “For which I am grateful! I struggle to be around people without being close to them. Thank you for indulging me.”</p>
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<p>“Of course,” ey mumbled, feeling the skunk’s snout lingering beneath eir chin. “It’s new to me. Unexpected.”</p>
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<p>“Why?”</p>
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<p>Ioan frowned and set the lap desk and notes aside, opting instead to brush his fingers along her arm. This conversation had slid off course, and ey knew that it was hopeless to get it back. Once May Then My Name began to talk about feelings, all was lost.</p>
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<p>Ioan frowned and set the lap desk and notes aside, opting instead to brush eir fingers along her arm. This conversation had slid off course, and ey knew that it was hopeless to get it back. Once May began to talk about feelings, all was lost. It was evening, anyhow, and a good time to set work aside.</p>
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<p>“I suppose it just never occurred to me,” ey said. “Forming attachments that would lead to something like that was never really been a need or want, so it just never happened.”</p>
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<p>The skunk nodded against eir chest, and ey could sense a frown on her muzzle. “That is so counter to the way I function that I cannot even picture it. I am a being of attachments. I think we all are, to greater or lesser extent.”</p>
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<p>“I suppose so. I’m not a total recluse. I like interacting with others.”</p>
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@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
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<p>Ey hesitated, then said, “It’d probably be more accurate to say that it just never happened. It didn’t even really cross my mind until recently.”</p>
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<p>“When you had someone addicted to close attachments move in with you?”</p>
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<p>“A bit before, perhaps, probably with that Qoheleth business, though I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time. That’s where Codrin came from, after all.”</p>
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<p>May Then My Name slipped her arm from beneath eir hand so that she could lace her fingers with eirs. “That makes sense. Do you understand it better now?”</p>
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<p>May slipped her arm from beneath eir hand so that she could lace her fingers with eirs. “That makes sense. Do you understand it better now?”</p>
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<p>“A bit, though I suspect I have a long ways to go yet,” ey said, squeezing her fingers between eir own. “Why are we talking about this, by the way?”</p>
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<p>She laughed. “We are part of this story, too.”</p>
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<p>“Does that mean we’re going to figure in your mythology, too?”</p>
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<p>Ioan tensed. Ey could feel eir cheeks burning. “Uh…another conversation I’ve never had to have before.”</p>
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<p>“We will have it another time,” the skunk murmured. “Your heart is racing and making my pillow uncomfortable.”</p>
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<p>Ey forced a laugh. “What is it with you Odists? Are you all this good at turning everything on its head? Dear and Codrin, and now–“</p>
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<p>“You and me?” May Then My Name giggled.</p>
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<p>“You and me?” May giggled.</p>
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<p>“I was going to say, “And now you’re pushing me in weird directions.” I wasn’t expecting Codrin to find emself in a triad, if I’m honest.”</p>
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<p>“You, my dear, lack a certain self-awareness, for someone who spends all eir time up in eir head.”</p>
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<p>Ioan shifted to the side enough to look down at the skunk. “How do you mean?”</p>
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<p>She laughed. “Of course. And eir pet mythologist.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, now it’s ‘pet’?”</p>
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<p>“I am still trying on labels. I am the one who has to write that sort of stuff, after all.”</p>
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<p>Ey lay back against the beanbag and May Then My Name made herself comfortable against em once more.</p>
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<p>Ey lay back against the beanbag and May made herself comfortable against em once more.</p>
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<p>More woolgathering. That’s what the evening called for, more than work. More woolgathering for the both of them.</p>
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<p>Ey let a tape run forward in eir mind. Ey watched the friendship ey had formed with May progress into some form of romantic relationship. How would it start? Would it start with em making a formal decision to let that happen? Or would it happen by accident? Would ey some day wake up and realize, <em>Holy shit, I think we’re dating. Are we dating? I think we are.</em></p>
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<p>And ey set a different tape to playing. A tape wherein ey set firmer boundaries, prohibited the friendship from progressing further than it already had. Or, worse — strange to already be placing value judgements! — a world in which ey pushed the skunk away, backed off from the physical affection, from the talk that bordered on flirty, from even the affectionate name ‘May’. If ey let that tape play beyond that point, ey knew ey would find all of the ways in which that would hurt May and how, knowing her, seeing her express that would hurt em in turn.</p>
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<p><em>How do they do this?</em> ey thought. <em>How do the Odists just worm their way into your life and make themselves comfortable, letting you think it was your idea? That’s what she’d said, and now I’m in exactly the same position as Codrin twenty years ago.</em></p>
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<p>“It is not intentional, Ioan, promise.”</p>
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<p>Ey jolted, blinking rapidly as her words registered. “Wait, what? What isn’t?”</p>
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<p>“Getting close. Wearing down your inhibitions. What we were talking about before.”</p>
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<p>“You reading my mind?”</p>
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<p>She laughed and shook her head. “You mumble when you think really hard.”</p>
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<p>“Shit, right. Sorry. I trust you on that. I’m not mad or anything, I like where we’ve wound up, and don’t have any plans from rolling that back. You mentioned a pattern, though, and got me thinking about it.”</p>
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<p>“This is what I like about you, Ioan. What the whole clade likes about you, if history is anything to go by. You spend enough time up in your head that you start thinking about what you are thinking about and what you are feeling. You get surprised, and then you think about your surprise and break it down to make meaning of it. What you lack in self-awareness you make up in easy self-analysis.”</p>
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<p>“Feels like overanalysis, sometimes.” </p>
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<p>“Mm, probably is, and sometimes I wish you would come down out of your head to be present. But it is the same as we are prone to overdoing whatever it is that we are specialists in. Dear goes hard on instance stuff, I go hard on feeling.”</p>
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<p>“What are you feeling about…” Ey forced himself to push away encroaching work-thoughts. Ey had been about to say <em>about this whole venture</em>, but instead went with, “About this?”</p>
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<p>“Now?” She squeezed eir fingers in her own before disentangling them to tap at eir nose. “I am feeling close to you, and I am feeling happy about that. I am feeling like asking you to cook something because I am starving or asking you if you’d like to go to bed because I am tired or asking you to get back to work so that I can do the same.”</p>
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<p>“That’s a lot of feelings at once,” ey said, grinning.</p>
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<p>“Like I said, we overdo it.”</p>
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<p>“Well,” ey said, focusing enough to fork off two more Ioans, which ey tagged #Green and #Blue.</p>
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<p>“I’ll finish up work,” #Green said.</p>
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<p>“And I’ll cook dinner,” #Blue said.</p>
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<p>“And we can head to bed after we eat.”</p>
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<p>May’s laugh was bright as she clapped her paws. “Well played.” She slid off the beanbag and stood. She forked another May to go help #Blue cook before stretching and offering a paw to Ioan to help em stand.</p>
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<p>“What?” Ey took the paw and let her help lever em out of the beanbag. She kept the grip on eir hand after. “Bed now? Instead of eating?”</p>
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<p>“Excuse me. We are adults in this house, Mx. Ioan Balan, and adults eat at the fucking table and not on a pouf.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-08-23</p>
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