update from sparkleup
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<p>“I will get water,” End Waking murmured, leaving the physical comfort to someone better able to provide such.</p>
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<p>Her cry must have been nearing its end before she arrived, as she’d settled down to sniffles by the time her cocladist arrived with an enamel mug of water and a damp rag.</p>
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<p>“Can you drink, May Then My Name?” he said gently.</p>
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<p>She nodded and accepted the mug with both paws to hold it steady, taking a few unsteady laps of the water before simply clutching it to her chest. “Thank you,” she croaked, freeing up a paw to accept the damp rag to wipe her face. “I am sorry for so dramatic an entrance.”</p>
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<p>She nodded and accepted the mug with both paws to hold it steady, taking a few unsteady laps of the water before simply clutching it to her chest. “Thank you,” she croaked, freeing up a paw to use the damp rag to wipe her face. “I am sorry for so dramatic an entrance.”</p>
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<p>“Hush. You are fine,” End Waking said. “Everything sounded quite dramatic indeed. Please take your time, and we can discuss it later.”</p>
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<p>She nodded, slouched a little further against Debarre, and sighed shakily.</p>
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<p>He shot a quizzical look over to End Waking, who sent a brief sensorium ping in return. She must have explained a good bit more before arriving, then.</p>
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<p>Debarre nodded, waiting for her to say more, to which she eventually shook her head. “I am sorry. I need at least a few days to be able to process it. I cannot even think about it without wanting to…I do not know. I want to quit and force a merge on her. I want <em>you</em> to force a merge on her,” she said, nodding to End Waking. “I want her to know something other than herself.”</p>
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<p>The skunk sat up straighter. “So you have hinted, yes. Why, though? Why would you want her to feel that resentment? Why do you think she would be able to internalize my penance? Why the fuck do you–“</p>
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<p>“E.W.,” Debarre murmured. “Cool it.”</p>
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<p>He tugged his hood down lower over his head and stayed silent for several minutes. “I am sorry, May Then My Name. I did not mean to yell. It is just that I worked hard at getting where I am now, and if she is to feel any — <em>any</em> — remorse about what she has done with her life, I would like for her to come by it honestly, and if she does not, then I would like her to face the consequences of her actions.”</p>
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<p>He tugged his hood down lower over his head and stayed silent for several seconds. “I am sorry, May Then My Name. I did not mean to yell. It is just that I worked hard at getting where I am now, and if she is to feel any — <em>any</em> — remorse about what she has done with her life, I would like for her to come by it honestly, and if she does not, then I would like her to face the consequences of her actions.”</p>
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<p>“I do at least understand that,” May Then My Name said cautiously. She had shied away from her cocladist at the force of his words, but the apology and explanation drew her back. “You do not need to answer now, or ever for that matter, but is it something you would at least consider?”</p>
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<p>“Perhaps. I do not feel the need to engage with her as you seem to, but there is little enough engagement in merging down. If I had not made my rejection of what she is a part of my identity, if I could let that go, then I would rescind my membership from the clade just to sever what ties of association remain.”</p>
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<p>“Would you just be End Waking of no clade, then?”</p>
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<p>“You’re one to talk, smartass. You and Ioan could make my teeth rot.”</p>
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<p>“I have em well trained, do I not? Perhaps I will make em an honorary member of the clade in your stead.”</p>
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<p>End Waking smirked. “Would ey take my name, then?”</p>
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<p>“No, we would have to give em a similarly Odist name. Some shitty line of poetry, a few nonsense words smashed together. Gentle Confusion or something.”</p>
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<p>“No, we would have to give em a similarly Odist name. Some silly line of poetry, a few nonsense words smashed together. Gentle Confusion or something.”</p>
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<p>They laughed.</p>
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<p>“Where I Am Overcome By Gentle Confusion of the Ode-Bălan clade,” Debarre said. “And I’d be something like Even Real Shitheads Know Their Dreams.”</p>
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<p>May Then My Name flicked a crumb of griddle cake at him. “Good job on the first name, not so much on the second. I do not think it fits the tone very well, even if you are a bit of a shithead.”</p>
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<p>“Confirmation at last,” End Waking said dreamily.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-07</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-23</p>
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@ -29,9 +29,9 @@
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<p>After a pause to will it so, ey nodded. “Sure, should be good now.”</p>
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<p>“Thank you.”</p>
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<p>Ey felt strange staring out into the yard — the opposite direction of the kitchen — while True Name cooked, so ey grabbed a notebook and moved to the dining table where, should ey be able to pull eir thoughts together, ey could write, and if ey couldn’t, ey could at least talk with the skunk without twisting around in eir seat.</p>
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<p>Ey could not, it turned out. Ey flopped the notebook shut again and rubbed at eir face. “What’re you cooking?”</p>
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<p>Ey could not, it turned out. Ey flopped the notebook shut again and leaned back in eir chair. “What’re you cooking?”</p>
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<p>“Chicken…rice…stuff. It is college food.”</p>
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<p>Ey laughed. “Right, I’m familiar. Sounds good. Certainly cold enough out there for it.”</p>
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<p>Ey laughed. “Right, I’m familiar. Sounds good. Certainly cold enough out there.”</p>
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<p>“Of course, yes. May Then My Name would have the same recipe, would she not?” The skunk clattered about for a few more minutes, and then, apparently satisfied, leaned back on the counter behind the stove. “I do not understand your affection for the weather, but I am happy to make warm things while it is about.”</p>
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<p>“Hopeless romanticism, I guess,” ey said. “But whatever. Are you feeling better?”</p>
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<p>True Name shrugged, eyes locked in a glassy stare out the windows. “I do not know if better is the correct word. I feel lighter, perhaps, having said what I did to May Then My Name. Conflicted, as well, that I feel lighter and yet she feel the burden of knowledge heavy enough to need to step away. For that, I apologize.”</p>
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<p>She shook her head beneath eir hand and tightened her grip around em. “I do not want to discuss them now. I am tired and cried out and you are comfortable and good to me.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-09-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-23</p>
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<p>Ey thought for a moment, still combing fingers through the longer fur on top of the skunk’s head. “I suppose. I’m not sure why, though. She’s complicated, and I disagree with her reasoning for a lot of what she’s done, but I don’t think that makes her a bad person.”</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>Ey kissed the backs 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 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 caught up in a storm and Jonas as the force behind that storm.</p>
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<p>And then there was emself, as powerless 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 Ode and Jonas clades — in the centuries after its dissolution.</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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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-07</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-23</p>
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