Ioan half lay, half slouched against the headboard with May draped bonelessly up along eir front. She’d gotten up to make them both coffee to drink in bed, then proceed to doze off again, using eir chest as a pillow and the rest of em as mattress.
Ey, meanwhile, had made it through most of eir coffee, resting the cup between the skunk’s shoulder blades between sips. It was technically Christmas, though neither of them cared much for the holiday, but that did mean it was the day for the tocană and mămăligă that had become tradition for them. Ey hadn’t learned to cook much prior to uploading — just a few simple dishes for a poor student — and it wasn’t until ey had wound up on the System in eir current sim that ey’d gone back to teach emself all the things ey’d loved growing up.
-It promised to be a lazy sort of day otherwise, which felt necessary. May’s spike of anxiety when ey’d gone out for coffee a few days prior had quickly tapered off, but it had not simply gone away. The days that followed had included a lot of asking em if ey was okay and taking breaks to sit and look out the picture windows, lost in thought.
+It promised to be a lazy sort of day otherwise, which felt necessary. May’s spike of anxiety when ey’d gone out for eir meeting with True Name a few days prior had quickly tapered off, but it had not simply gone away. The days that followed had included a lot of asking em if ey was okay and taking breaks to sit and look out the picture windows, lost in thought.
Still, last night had been delightful, with the skunk far more relaxed while they cooked — or tried to cook — shitty fast food for each other. After dinner, they moved to the couch with Ioan resting eir head in May’s lap so that she could tease her fingers through eir thick hair while they hummed silly little songs to each other.
Today promised to be equally comfortable.
Ey frowned when ey lifted eir mug, only to find it empty. Equally comfortable but for that, ey supposed.
“I’m going to drink your coffee, May.”
“If you do, I will pin you down and pluck your eyebrows bald,” she mumbled, slowly lifting her head and reaching out toward her mug on the nightstand.
“That’s a new one. Sounds painful.”
-“Add it to the list,” she said after she was able to get at least a few laps of coffee.
+“Add it to the list,” she said after she was able to get at least a few sips in.
“One day, they’re going to find my dead body, clearly smothered to death, my eyebrows fully plucked, sand in my shoes, cracker crumbs in my bed, all of my pens un-capped, all of my book pages dog-eared, with skunk fur in all the food,” ey said, laughing. “I’m pretty sure they’ll know it was you.”
She lifted her chin to park it on eir shoulder. “Mm, well, it is a risk I am willing to take.”
Ey tilted eir head to give the top of her own a kiss. An awkward affair, but worth it. “You stay up too late again?”
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@“I wouldn’t call you stupid, May. Bumbling, though…”
She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, I think? But yes, even bumbling is a calculated gesture to be inoffensive.”
“End Waking said similar.” Ey dug through eir exocortices until ey came up with the memory of the conversation, “He said it was a matter of intent.”
-“It is, yes. I am sure that some of the wider clade who remain skunks are so without a second thought, but that is not how True Name worked, and so it is not how we work.”
+“It is, yes. I am sure that some of the wider clade who remain skunks do so without a second thought, but that is not how True Name worked, and so it is not how we work.”
“And she did that for the same reasons? To be inoffensive?”
She nodded. “In a way. At first, she could not be anything but, as that is how she was forked, but she kept it because of the way the Council worked. She was a skunk, Debarre was a weasel, Ezekiel spent half the time looking like a shambling pile of dirty rags and the other half like an unhoused man, and user11824 looked like the least remarkable person possible, as though your eyes simply slid right off of him. The ethos of the Council was to be just ordinary people who were weird before uploading and remained weird after.”
“Jonas wasn’t that weird when I met him.”
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@The dinner itself wasn’t exactly onerous. A stew of pork — ey’d been raised on a version with lamb, which May hadn’t liked — tomatoes, and mushrooms in a garlicky, paprika-filled gravy served with polenta. Still, it benefited from a longer cooking time, so ey began that after eir shower and set it to simmering.
After that, they set some music to playing — the overlap of what they both enjoyed wasn’t large, given the more than a century’s age difference, but piano jazz seemed to work for both of them — and set to work on whatever it was that was occupying their minds.
Or tried to, at least.
-Eir conversation this morning as well as eir meeting with True Name a few days prior left Ioan in mind of skunks and the Ode clade, and even though those both featured quite heavily in the stage adaptation of On the Perils of Memory, nothing ey tried seemed quite in the right vein.
+Their conversation this morning as well as eir meeting with True Name a few days prior left Ioan in mind of skunks and the Ode clade, and even though those both featured quite heavily in the stage adaptation of On the Perils of Memory, nothing ey tried seemed quite in the right vein.
Ey flipped to a blank sheet of paper and began a letter, instead.
True Name,
@@ -129,10 +129,10 @@The skunk let out a melodramatic groan and slid off her stool to the floor, landing on her hands and knees before flopping onto her side, laughing. “What a fucking brat.”
Ey stared at her, nonplussed.
“Oh God, Ioan, you do not know pain until you work with choir kids.”
-Ey laughed and shook eir head, leaning forward to ruffle over her ears. “You’re right, I don’t. I’ll just have to trust you on that. Skunks are so weird.”
+Ey laughed and shook eir head, leaning forward to ruffle over her ears. It was a much more pleasant response to a note from True Name than ey’d expected. “You’re right, I don’t. I’ll just have to trust you on that. Skunks are so weird.”