Ioan Balan — 2326
+Ioan Bălan — 2326
Ioan was still sitting at the table, ruminating, when May returned from her errand. Something that she saw in eir face made her frown, and when she walked, she almost slunk, as though to keep from waking em up, or as though she was bearing some unknowable guilt. When she sat on the stool that True Name had been using, she looked small, closed in on herself. Not just smaller than True Name, though she was also that, but smaller than usual.
She did not speak.
Finally, Ioan capped eir pen, set it atop eir notes, and pushed them off to the side of the table. Ey folded eir arms on the tabletop and rested eir forehead on them. “I’m tired, May.”
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@“May?” ey asked, struck by a sudden memory.
“Mm?”
“Are we together? I mean, are we a couple?”
-The skunk sat up straighter, giving em a funny look, then bust into a fit of giggles. “Mx Ioan Balan, that is the dumbest fucking question you have asked of this project.”
+The skunk sat up straighter, giving em a funny look, then bust into a fit of giggles. “Mx Ioan Bălan, that is the dumbest fucking question you have asked of this project.”
Ey blinked, nonplussed.
“What do you think?” She smiled pityingly at em. “Are we?”
“That’s a weirdly complicated question after the conversation we just had,” ey said.
@@ -101,17 +101,17 @@May elbowed em in the side. “You are kidding, right?”
“No, seriously,” ey said, rubbing at eir side. “Codrin forked to work on the Qoheleth project, then got in a relationship with Dear.”
A spark of recognition lit up May’s eyes and she grinned wide. “But you didn’t.”
-“No.” Ey shrugged. “I was the Balan who didn’t wind up in a relationship with Dear, because that was my up-tree instance. I can’t go back and fork before we met or started working together or dating.”
-She laughed and shook her head, draping herself across eir lap. “There is no going and there is no back. You are stuck with me, Mx Balan. Pet my tail, please.”
+“No.” Ey shrugged. “I was the Bălan who didn’t wind up in a relationship with Dear, because that was my up-tree instance. I can’t go back and fork before we met or started working together or dating.”
+She laughed and shook her head, draping herself across eir lap. “There is no going and there is no back. You are stuck with me, Mx Bălan. Pet my tail, please.”
Ey did as ordered, brushing fingers through thick fur as ey thought on the phrase. The fox had been right, ey supposed. There was at least some beauty in the irreversible.
One more one-way act floated to the surface in eir mind. “Does Michelle’s sim still exist, by the way?”
May frowned. “Yes. Why?”
“Well, we’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Launch, right? Maybe we can do a picnic there, think about where this all started, and get blitzed on champagne. Bit of a memorial, you know?”
-She laughed. “Why the fuck not. We can make muffins and compare the smells.”
+She laughed. “Why the fuck not. It has been years since I’ve visited. We can make muffins and compare the smells.”
Ey grinned, nodded, and made a mental note to ensure that Douglas remembered the suggestion ey’d given those months back, that he’d be ready to upload in time.