update from sparkleup
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<p>The next few days passed in relative peace. There were no fights between the two skunks, and while, at least once a day, they set up a cone of silence to talk about whatever it was that True Name had discussed that first time, there were no more instances of May falling apart or True Name wearing herself out quite so badly. The discussions sounded serious, and never quite friendly, but ey was at least somewhat happy to see the two cocladists talking without quite so much ire between them.</p>
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<p>May wasn’t the only one, either. At one point, Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself and one of her up-tree instances, Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress visited to talk with True Name. Both were far more earnest in their affection to her, which she seemed to welcome with a sense of cautious relief. Ey supposed it made sense, given A Finger Pointing’s habit of making friends with everyone she could.</p>
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<p>Ey’d only met Slow Hours once prior and, while she was just as friendly as her down-tree instance, she also seemed somewhat removed from the world as a whole, as though seeing just a little more than everyone around her. “Clairvoyance,” A Finger Pointing had whispered to em after that first introduction. “She has the outline of the world.”</p>
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<p>They talked for nearly three hours that afternoon, breaking only to get more water part way through. When they were finished, True Name looked wrung out, though not unhappy. A Finger Pointing mostly looked confused and concerned while Slow Hours kept her faraway, nearly delphic smile.</p>
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<p>They talked for nearly three hours that afternoon, breaking only to get more water part way through. When they were finished, True Name looked wrung out, though not unhappy. A Finger Pointing mostly looked confused and concerned while Slow Hours kept her faraway, nearly delphic smile. Both were patterned after the human Michelle rather than the skunk Sasha, lending an additional layer of uncanniness in their similarities to May and True Name, even across species.</p>
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<p>Curiouser and curiouser. Ey’d always pictured A Finger Pointing’s stanza as one of the more liberal ones, and had early on noticed that the liberal Odists had largely distanced themselves from the more conservative ones. To have two of them specifically drop by to visit True Name was quite surprising.</p>
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<p>The most curious thing, though, had to be May.</p>
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<p>It wasn’t just that all the work she’d put into her feelings about her cocladist had seemingly paid off — other than a few tense moments, mostly silent, she was at worst distant and at best willing to hold conversations with True Name about a limited set of topics — but that even in those tensest moments, she seemed to at least want to do something. Whether it was out of an earnest desire to improve True Name’s life or to simply get this situation over with seemed to vary depending on her mood.</p>
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<p>May nodded.</p>
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<p>They stayed quiet until they worked their way under the covers again, cozying up for sleep, when May murmured, “I have to believe that she is a good person, or at least capable of being one. For my sake, I have to at least try to believe that.”</p>
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<p>Ey kissed the back of her ears and shushed her to sleep.</p>
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<p>What kept coming back again and again was the feeling of just how small this project — if ey’d been assigned to it as amanuensis, might as well call it what it was — felt. There were so few people involved. True Name and Jonas, then em, May, and End Waking on the periphery. Five people, three clades. It was intimate, in that sense. True Name and Jonas were larger-than-life most of the time, but having been forced into sharing space with her, ey was far more able to see the True Name of today as just someone in over her head and Jonas as a power-hungry asshole.</p>
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<p>What kept coming back again and again was the feeling of just how small this project felt — if ey’d been assigned to it as amanuensis, might as well call it what it was. There were so few people involved. True Name and Jonas, then em, May, and End Waking on the periphery. Five people, three clades. It was intimate, in that sense. True Name and Jonas were larger-than-life most of the time, but having been forced into sharing space with her, ey was far more able to see the True Name of today as just someone in over her head and Jonas as a power-hungry asshole.</p>
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<p>And then there was emself, caught in the middle as Codrin#Castor had felt almost four years back.</p>
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<p>The next morning saw both of the skunks more relaxed than ey’d seen them yet. They talked pleasantly over breakfast, and True Name even stuck around, sitting on the couch and watching the snow melt off the balcony while May and Ioan worked, her on her monologue and em reading back through the volume of <em>An Expanded History of Our World</em> that focused on the Council of Eight — and the Odist and Jonas clades — in the centuries after its dissolution.</p>
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<p>After lunch, True Name returned to the couch with a glass of water and, after a moment’s hesitation, May had joined her.</p>
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<p>“True Name,” May said, interrupting the other skunk’s tirade. “Wait.”</p>
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<p>Wrong footed, True Name frowned. “What? Why? I do not–“</p>
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<p>May held up her paw, a brief glance at the ceiling hinting at a sensorium message elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Ioan frowned as well. Intuition told him the discussion they’d had earlier was quickly moving beyond hypothetical. “May, are you sure–“</p>
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<p>Ioan frowned as well. Intuition told em the discussion they’d had earlier was quickly moving beyond hypothetical. “May, are you sure–“</p>
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<p>True Name jolted upright in her seat on the couch. “What the fuck is–“</p>
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<p>“Accept it,” May said, and ey could see the full force of all her centuries of earnestness focused her cocladist; earnestness, kindness, the right tone, the perfect cant of ears and bristle of whiskers, all of it fine tuned to show her just what she needed to see. “It will only help, True Name.”</p>
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<p>“Accept it,” May said, and ey could see the full force of all her centuries of earnestness focused on her cocladist; earnestness, kindness, the right tone, the perfect cant of ears and bristle of whiskers, all of it fine tuned to show her just what she needed to see. “It will only help, True Name.”</p>
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<p>Her face contorting with the strain of holding what must be a very large high priority merge at bay without either remembering or forgetting it, True Name gasped. “May… May Then… Why…”</p>
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<p>May’s expression softened further, picking up a hopeful smile. “Please, my dear. I think you need this. I think we <em>all</em> need this, if we are to move forward, if you are to be able to move past what Jonas wants of you. Please accept. Please.”</p>
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<p>True Name nodded shakily, attempted a dry swallow, and then let End Waking’s centuries of memories crash into her.</p>
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<p>“Can you explain what happened, at least?”</p>
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<p>She nodded, swallowing down that wave of tears as best she could. “We are good at forking and merging. Very, <em>very</em> good at it. I am pretty sure you know that, though.”</p>
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<p>“Did something go wrong, then?”</p>
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<p>“End Waking has not merged down in more than a century and a half, even when Michelle quit, all she had to do was let the memories fall onto her and then quit herself. He has diverged quite far in that time, as is to be expected, which means the potential for conflicts.”</p>
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<p>“End Waking has not merged down in more than a century and a half; even when Michelle quit, all she had to do was let the memories fall onto her and then quit herself. He has diverged quite far in that time, as is to be expected, which means the potential for conflicts.”</p>
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<p>Eir frown deepened. Ey thought ey could tell where this was going. “Aren’t those usually just when memories don’t line up, though?”</p>
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<p>May gave the barest hint of a shrug against em. “You have met her, and you have met him. Their viewpoints are almost diametrically opposed, yes?”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded.</p>
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<p>Ioan backed slowly out of the room, sliding the door shut quietly behind em. May sounded on the verge of tears once more, but, of all the things ey was not supposed to fix, perhaps least able to fix, this certainly felt like the top of the list.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-08-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-09-06</p>
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</footer>
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2350">Ioan Bălan — 2350</h1>
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<p>It took about six hours for True Name to recover from the merge to where she could stand up and walk well enough to get a glass of water. Her expression remained glazed and she was unable to speak. It wasn’t until the next morning that she was able to hold a conversation, though she remained quiet and largely confined to her room, refusing the offer of coffee.</p>
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<p>May spent much of that time by her side. Ey wasn’t sure what it was that the two did while in her room, if it was just May sitting by the skunk’s side, if she was just being present, if the two were having their own quiet conversations, or sharing what affection she was comfortable sharing with a down-tree instance she had resented enough to shock.</p>
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<p>All three, ey suspected. Ey checked in on them a few times, knocking and listening for permission to enter. Each time, True Name remained curled in bed with May sat nearby, whether on a chair beside it or sitting up on the bed itself. Ey’d ask if they needed anything, they’d both decline, and then ey’d go back to pacing holes in the rug or the yard or around Arrowhead Lake.</p>
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<p>The rest of the time, May was out with em, almost always as close as she could be, whether that was tucked in against eir side on the beanbag, hugging around eir middle from behind while ey cooked, or, at one point, requesting that ey to sit on the floor outside the bathroom while she showered, just so that she could talk and, in her words, feel eir presence.</p>
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<p>All three, ey suspected. Ey checked in on them a few times, knocking and listening for permission to enter. Each time, True Name remained curled in bed with May seated nearby, whether on a chair beside it or sitting up on the bed itself. Ey’d ask if they needed anything, they’d both decline, and then ey’d go back to pacing holes in the rug or the yard or around Arrowhead Lake.</p>
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<p>The rest of the time, May was out with em, almost always as close as she could be, whether that was tucked in against eir side on the beanbag, hugging around eir middle from behind while ey cooked, or, at one point, requesting that ey sit on the floor outside the bathroom while she showered, just so that she could talk and, in her words, feel eir presence.</p>
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<p>The mood throughout remained somewhere between anxious and remorseful.</p>
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<p>That evening, True Name requested that they eat dinner out at the lake rather than at home, saying, “I am feeling too cooped up by walls and yet more walls.”</p>
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<p>Ey supposed it made sense, now that she had the competing memories of End Waking and however many personality traits that came with. He had only visited Ioan and May a scant handful of times, and then always out in the yard, always refusing to go indoors.</p>
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<p>“Thank you for thinking of me.”</p>
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<p>May only nodded, swallowing back tears. </p>
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<p>“I remember a few days ago, too. I remember when you came to the forest, remember watching, awkwardly, while you cried on Debarre’s shoulder after I told you about…well, after we spoke. I remember hearing about all of your hatred over the years, about the resentment that you still have for me. I remember how it was you talked me into this, how helpless I was before it. I remember all of it.”</p>
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<p>There was no more holding back the tears, at that, though she did her best to cry silently.</p>
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<p>True Name smiled more kindly than she had yet that night. “But you still thought of me. “I do not want her to die,” you said. You said that you do not know why you still care about me, and you said that to your cocladist perhaps not yet knowing that I would have that memory as well. You two are both meddlesome brats, but thank you for thinking of me.”</p>
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<p>There was no more holding back the tears at that, though she did her best to cry silently.</p>
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<p>True Name smiled more kindly than she had yet that night. “But you still thought of me. ‘I do not want her to die’, you said. You said that you do not know why you still care about me, and you said that to your cocladist perhaps not yet knowing that I would have that memory as well. You two are both meddlesome brats, but thank you for thinking of me.”</p>
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<p>May tucked closer against Ioan’s side and buried her face in eir shirt to cry, making a rude gesture at her down-tree instance before hugging her arms around eir waist.</p>
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<p>“I think that means ‘no problem’,” ey said. “But I don’t speak skunk all that– ow! She bit me!”</p>
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<p>True Name laughed. “It is no less than you deserve, I am sure. But come, once you are able to, let us walk to the rock at the end of the lake. I want to see the stars before we head back.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-08-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-09-06</p>
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