Ioan could at least understand the worries about heading into the unknown. The same feeling had been dogging em since after eir meeting with Jonas, since ey’d seen that cool look on his face when ey’d apparently preempted so much of the upcoming meeting’s discussion. One minute, that would feel like a good thing — perhaps they would make it through essentially unscathed — and the next ey’d worry that ey’d made a complete mistake, that ey’d somehow tipped their hand by letting Jonas know just how predictable he was.
Neither True Name nor May could say one way or another when ey’d voiced eir concerns with them.
The whole day had been scattered for them. May spent much of it glued to eir side as ey did eir best to organize eir notes in eir head for the upcoming meeting. She couldn’t seem to pin herself down to one set of feelings, first laughing and joking about beating Zacharias up, then burying her face against eir shoulder and refusing to speak, ears laid flat.
-For her part, True Name couldn’t seem to stay pinned to any one of her three selves.
+For her part, True Name couldn’t seem to stay pinned to any one of her three identities.
Ey was at least getting more adept at spotting them in her features. There was a bright focus when that of True Name — the old True Name, that was — came to the fore. Her expression would become attentive, defaulting to a slight smile and eyebrows (such as they were on a skunk’s features) just slightly raised. When that of End Waking showed itself in her, she’d keep her eyes half-lidded, and her gaze was far more attuned to any movement. The rest of her own movements would still, as well. She would walk quieter, more gracefully. She would speak less.
And when that of May came to the fore, that was when ey was at eir most confused.
Ey had had no idea how to feel about her back when she was just True Name. Had ey really been so hesitant to call her a friend? Memories tattled on em, there: ey’d shied away from the term or qualified it every time it arose. That had only loosened up when her life was at risk, when she’d been forced to move in with them, and ey’d been forced in turn to acknowledge that her words, I suppose it is just nice to have a friend, had stuck with em more than ey’d cared to admit. The rest of that conversation had been full of equivocations, clarifications, delineations, and all those habits of guardedness from two decades of wariness over anything that carried a whiff of manipulation had tried to assert themselves over em once more.
But no, there was something about the Ode clade that just happened to click with the Bălan clade, no matter what form or name they took, that just fell directly into friendship. It was the way they spoke, perhaps. Those complete sentences that left em uncoiling parts of emself ey hadn’t known were coiled in the first place.
Ey didn’t know what it was that they saw in em in turn. There was the unspoken matter of the pronouns of the owner of the Name, and, as May had once whispered to em late one night, eir tendency to lean on rumination, on quietness and exactitude, that reminded her of someone she refused to name. Were they so alike, em and whoever had touched Michelle Hadje so long ago? Had ey and Michelle been contemporaries phys-side, would they have wound up in a relationship? Ey had no clue how to ask such a thing of them.
-All ey knew is that, as Codrin had put it in a letter, “The Odists loved hard and they loved deep and they loved fast, and it was hard not to become intoxicated beneath all that love.”
+All ey knew is that, as Codrin had put it in a letter, “The Odists love hard and they love deep and they love fast, and it’s hard not to become intoxicated beneath all that love.”
So, what was ey to do when that of eir partner, of the one ey loved most in the world, shone through in someone else? When that of May rose to prominence in True Name’s expression, she was not May. She wasn’t May at all. She was of three minds, and none of them were wholly absent whenever one asserted primacy.
And yet there it was, all that drew em towards May, even if it wasn’t her, right in front of em. What was ey to do with that?
That ey didn’t know, that ey hadn’t the language, kept em from speaking of it with True Name just yet. It wasn’t out of any need to hide, not out of any embarrassment — though ey’d freely admit to eir shyness — that ey kept it from her. Ey just didn’t know how to say that, when she seemed most like May, ey was at eir most confused without turning it into a series of questions and I-don’t-knows.
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@So they did what they could to prepare or relax for the rest of that last day. True Name walked her prairie several times over, then came in and sat close by, then busied herself up in her head. May clung to em. Ey sorted notes.
There was no discussion whether or not she would be staying with them that night. The three of them simply wound up in eir and May’s bed, sitting or kneeling on the soft mattress while they did their best to talk about little nothings. Ioan tried to explain Romanian curses to them. May and True Name spoke earnestly about a movie ey’d never heard of. And under it all, an ever-rising current of stress lay, slowly taking over their words until they couldn’t speak any longer, could only curl beneath the covers, sharing some more fundamental comfort.
Surprising all three of them, they did manage to get at least some sleep that night. It wasn’t good sleep, as, at one point or another, each of them woke with a start, but they managed a few hours of dozing.
-Once the sky began to lighten, though, they pulled themselves blearily out of bed, Ioan making four mugs of coffee — two black, two sweet and milky — so that they could troop back out onto the plain and wake End Waking up, or, as it turned out, greet him at the small fire he’d started, and offer him a cup of coffee.
+Once the sky began to lighten, though, they pulled themselves blearily out of bed, Ioan making four mugs of coffee — two black, two sweet and milky — so that they could troop back out onto the plain and wake End Waking up — or, as it turned out, greet him at the small fire he’d started — and offer him a cup of coffee.
“There is no more rehearsing to be done,” he said, once they’d shed some of their grogginess. “We risk practice making permanent, at this point. All we can do is hope to remain as centered as possible throughout.”
Both of the other skunks nodded, and Ioan had to quell eir instinct to disagree. They were too tired, too keyed up, too quick to overanalyse to get anything out of forking across the prairie to wargame however many countless scenarios. Better for the four of them to sit around the low fire, sip their coffee, and watch the sun rise, May slouched against eir side and True Name and End Waking sitting apart, silent.
Eventually, however, coffee long gone, they forked. End Waking and True Name’s down-tree instances each went to their tents to sit and meditate as best they could, while May and Ioan’s down-tree instances returned home to try baking a cake — something demanding enough while still remaining relatively mindless.
@@ -58,10 +58,10 @@With that in mind, ey could at least do eir best to focus on the subtler forms of language around the room.
True Name had talked em through the stanza and their roles beforehand, at least. She herself had been focused on the politics, of course, but also acted as consensus builder among the members of her stanza.
Ey knew well that May had been focused on swaying individual hearts and minds toward a cause that initially had been True Name’s, and then later simply shaped by her as best as could be managed.
-End Waking had been instrumental in tracking, understanding, and to whatever level possible, influencing financial markets phys-side, though he’d admitted to Ioan, one night out on the plain, that the chances that he’d actually had any effect on the markets was astoundingly low and that the financial trajectory had likely been set by forces larger than they could manage — at least, that was the hope that had kept him going.
+End Waking had been instrumental in tracking, understanding, and to whatever level possible, influencing financial markets phys-side, though he’d admitted to Ioan, one night out on the plain, that the chances that he’d actually had a dramatic effect on the markets was astoundingly low and that the financial trajectory had likely been set by forces larger than they could manage — at least, that was the hope that had kept him going.
Ey knew the two ‘Why’s from the history: Why Ask Questions, Here At The End Of All Things was the frightfully friendly crowd-rouser who had worked with groups of individuals sys-side, while Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help had focused on similar tactics phys-side. However, given that her task was limited to text, she seemed notably out of her element in in-person interactions, coming off as petty and cruel as often as funny and sarcastic.
The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer had acted as a manager, scheduler, and clerk for the enterprise. Wickedly intelligent, she had done more than block in times for meetings; she had organized meetings between precisely the right individuals at precisely the right times.
-To Know One’s True Name Is To Know God had settled firmly into data analysis, collecting both the raw data that she could from the perisystem feeds and the net phys-side as well as the information collected by her cocladists and the Jonases. She was a being of reports.
+To Know One’s True Name Is To Know God had settled comfortably into data analysis, collecting both the raw data that she could from the perisystem feeds and the net phys-side as well as the information collected by her cocladists and the Jonases. She was a being of reports.
To Know God Is To Answer Unasked Questions had done her best to specialize in the fields of information and game theory, but this had more often come down to simple information security and hygiene. She decided where and how far information traveled.
Do I Know God When I Do Not Remember Myself and Do I Know God When I Do Not Dream worked as a mismatched pair. When I Do Not Remember worked as a propagandist while When I Dream worked almost entirely on the perisystem, translating back and forth for her cocladists and finding the best way to worm her way through the intersystem text channels.
Were ey pressed to name each of them without knowing this information, ey didn’t think ey’d be able to. Ey knew the three skunks of the stanza and could readily tell them apart, but the rest simply looked like a gaggle of the very same woman: short, soft, round face and curly black hair. However, there were indeed differences there to be seen. Why Ask Questions was just a centimeter or two taller and more open of expression. When I Do Not Remember and When I Dream both had a hunch to their shoulders that ey could not quite explain; perhaps a posture that stuck after too much writing.
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@“Oh, fuck you,” Zacharias laughed. “You do not get to dismiss me so easily. You and I rule together, quite literally, in another life. There is no reason that I should simply be waved away.”
“Nah, it’s bullshit,” Jonas said, just as calm as True Name. “If you were worth anything to this conversation, you would’ve been part of the preparations.”
“What–“
-“You say that you are part of the stanza, do you not?” The Only Time I Dream said.
+“You say that you are part of the stanza, do you not?” The Only Time I Dream, the manager of the enterprise, said.
“I am, but–“
“I see no evidence of such.”
“But May Then My Name–“
@@ -87,12 +87,12 @@“That is–“
Jonas laughed, “Just shut up, Zacharias.”
“No,” the fox growled, his whiskers all abristle and claws digging at the tabletop. “I played my role, but that does not mean that I am some disposable Judas here. A role is as much the actor as it is– stop!“
-There was a loud thump beneath the table, though this time, Zacharias appeared to have pulled his foot away in time to keep his toes from being stomped on, as he instead pushed himself away from the table and to his feet. A brief flicker of something akin to rage flashed across Jonas’s face, but was quickly replaced by that bright, friendly grin.
+There was a loud thump beneath the table, though this time, Zacharias appeared to have pulled his foot away in time to keep his toes from being stomped on, as he instead pushed himself away from the table and to his feet. A brief flicker of ungrounded rage flashed across Jonas’s face, but was quickly replaced by that bright, friendly grin.
“Fine, fuck you too, then.”
There was no signal — or if there was, Ioan missed it — for Guōweī to step into the sim, hand already raised as if for a slap, a short blade held between his fingers. Unassuming, easy to carry, symbolic, and certainly crowded with whatever it was that induced a crash in one’s instance.
What happened next happened almost too quickly for em to comprehend. Zacharias shouted, but the cry was cut off in a muffled oomf as an instance of May appeared near him, almost totally overlapping the space that he’d occupied. The collision algos knocked him backwards with enough force to slam him against the door, leaving him to crumple to the floor.
-Guōweī’s palm came down flat against May’s shoulder, but there was no time to see whether or not the virus would affect an instance so far diverged, as that instance of her quit and was immediately replaced with another one, this overlapping the assassin’s space, knocking him back nearly a meter, only for the skunk to fork again to repeat the maneuver. With the momentum already in play, this practically sent the man flying, his head cracking against the wall hard enough to leave a sizeable dent in the drywall.
-And then it was over. Zacharias’s yell faltered, and he stared up, wide eyed, with his gaze darting between Jonas and the remaining instance of May. The latter had lurched away, looking more disgusted than startled.
+Guōweī’s palm came down flat against May’s shoulder, but there was no time to see whether or not the virus would affect an instance so far diverged, as that instance of her quit and was immediately replaced with another one, this overlapping the assassin’s space, knocking him back nearly a meter, only for the skunk to fork again to repeat the maneuver. With the momentum already in play, this sent the man flying, his head cracking against the wall hard enough to leave a sizeable dent in the drywall.
+And then it was over. Zacharias’s yell faltered, and he stared up, wide eyed, with his gaze darting between Jonas and the remaining instance of May. Jonas had lurched away, looking more disgusted than startled.
“Get the fuck out of here,” the instance of May growled. “And if I ever, ever see you again, you had better believe that I will take you out myself.”
And then the instance quit, followed less than a second later by the fox rolling to the side to slip out of the sim. Ey imagined that if Jonas, True Name, and May would all do their best to destroy the fox on sight, the chances of seeing him again were low indeed.
Ey’d never seen a look like that on May’s face, though, even at the height of her hatred for True Name. That had been hatred, yes, but this was rage.
@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@Ioan watched Jonas’s smile fall back into that uncaring cruelty, increasingly ungrounded.
He waved his hand imperiously. “And I’m getting bored now. I’m surprised you’re still hung up on this, True Name. You’re the theatre geek–“
“Jonas,” When I Do Not Remember murmured, her voice a low warning. He only grinned.
-She sighed. “Right. So now you…what, want me to look different? Sound different? I am ready to commit to staying out of the business. You want me to act the part or something? Your terms.”
+True Name sighed. “Right. So now you…what, want me to look different? Sound different? I am ready to commit to staying out of the business. You want me to act the part or something? Your terms.”
“You need to go away, True Name. I don’t fucking care how. You make it happen or I will.”
There was a moment’s thoughtful silence from the skunk, her paws gripping the edge of the table, before she stood, pushed her chair back in, and turned away. Then in the most stunning display of forking ey’d ever seen, True Name began to change.
Ioan had seen eir share of Dear’s exhibitions, not to mention those of other instance artists the fox had introduced em to along the way, and the forking involved in all of them had been perfect. They were well rehearsed dances of duplication that told a story.
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@“As do I,” End Waking said, getting a smile from Sasha.
“That name is unacceptable!” When I Dream hollered. “No. You will pick something else.”
“No, I will not.”
-“Shut the fuck up, When I Dream,” Jonas shouted. “All of you, shut the fuck up.” He turned to Sasha and grinned icily. “You always were a little snot. You want to be Sasha? You want to dive back into mediocrity and wear your weakness like a badge? Please, by all means, be my guest. Beg for pity again. Hunt down all your little friends who kept you feeling just bad enough that they could baby you without letting you think you were their plaything.”
+“Shut the fuck up, When I Dream,” Jonas shouted. “All of you, shut the fuck up.” He turned to Sasha and grinned icily, eyes overbright. “You always were a little snot. You want to be Sasha? You want to dive back into mediocrity and wear your weakness like a badge? Please, by all means, be my guest. Beg for pity again. Hunt down all your little friends who kept you feeling just bad enough that they could baby you without letting you think you were their plaything.”
At this, most of the stanza bridled, and there were a few louder murmurings.
Jonas waved it away. “Crawl back to Debarre and…fuck, what was his name? user11824? Crawl into their arms and let them prop you up long after you should’ve died.”
Murmurings grew to mutterings.
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@“I do not think I could have gotten away with staying the same skunk, even if I look similar enough while clothed. But yes, I am back to the me of…shit, when did I make Sasha like this? 2110?”
Ioan shook eir head, dizzy. “This is what you looked like before uploading?”
“What my — our — av looked like, yes, all except the change to a spotted skunk. They always felt too flashy, back then, and I just wanted to look like myself offline except a furry. Completely unremarkable and a species no one likes.”
-“The outfit was my suggestion,” End Waking said. “It always was our favorite, but for some reason, we never brought it with us to the System, and I knew the rest of the stanza would pick up on that.”
+“The outfit was my suggestion,” End Waking said. “It always was our favorite, but for some reason, we never brought it with us to the System, and I knew the rest of the stanza would pick up on that quite easily.”
Sasha nodded.
“I am proud of you, Sasha,” he continued. “I do not yet know why I feel compelled to say that, but I am proud of you. You have much to make up for, your own penance yet to serve, but that you have done this at all is a good step forward.”
Ioan sighed and sat down heavily in the grass. “You’re all completely nuts.”
@@ -201,11 +201,11 @@Ioan blinked, hesitated, then continued. “May and…E.W. merged down and you…I guess feel more like you used to? Back phys-side, I mean. Enough to head back to who you were before the clade began, I mean. Is that even possible?”
“It is not a statement of reality, dear. I cannot reintegrate those aspects of myself that are not up-tree from me, and even if I could, there are those who no longer exist or who have left Lagrange,” she said, that slight smile growing. “It is a statement of hope, perhaps, or a desire for completion. It is an understanding of the ways in which I fall short expressed in my very name. Will this sense of a truer life last? Perhaps. It will certainly not always feel good, and will at some point cease feeling new, but I plan on owning it for as long as I am able.”
“And how is it that this pisses off Jonas?” Ey snorted. “He certainly sounded pissed.”
-Sasha knelt across from Ioan, followed shortly by E.W. and May to either side of em, May summoning up plates and cutting thick slices of cake. It was strange to see so many smiles, still strange to see May so happy around her down-tree instance and stranger still to see E.W. even near her.
+Sasha knelt across from Ioan, followed shortly by E.W. and May to either side of em, May summoning up plates and cutting thick slices of cake. It was strange to see so many smiles, still strange to see May so happy around her down-tree instance and stranger still to see E.W. even in the same sim.
“What Jonas was expecting was for me to remain True Name in everything except form and name,” she said. “He was expecting someone deeply cowed by his political genius. And do not underestimate him, he is still a genius. He felt that he had won his spot as rightful leader of Lagrange, if such a thing can even be said to exist. He thought that he had beaten me down and left me either unable to continue or unwilling to try.”
May added, “I suspect that he is starting to crack.”
Ioan nodded.
-“Perhaps,” Sasha said. “He has not seemed grounded in many years, but again, do not underestimate him.”
+“Perhaps,” Sasha said. “He has not seemed fully grounded in many years, but again, do not underestimate him.”
Ioan jumped at a brief sensorium ping, a request to enter, followed shortly by Debarre popping into existence behind May, who had apparently admitted him. “What was so urgent that you pulled me away from lunch and…” he trailed off, squinting at this new skunk. “Who…but you’re…what?”
Sasha stiffened where she knelt. “Debarre,” she said, bowing her head. “A pleasure to see you.”
The weasel said nothing, looking stunned.
@@ -227,7 +227,7 @@At the affectionate my dear, the weasel jolted back.
“My apologies,” Sasha said quickly. “I was not thinking. If you would like me not to use that phrase, I will do my best not to. I just have enough…well, I am different enough now that it comes automatically.”
“You have enough of E.W. in you, you mean.”
-She nodded. “And May.”
+She nodded.
“I…well, yeah. Not from you.” He hesitated, eyes averted, and added, “Please.”
“Of course.
“So tell me how this gets you anything.”
@@ -245,18 +245,18 @@Ey shook eir head. Ey was feeling very far behind but needed to understand if ey was to write this book. More, ey needed to understand for emself. “So why not become Michelle?”
“Because look at me,” Sasha said, laughing and spreading her arms. “I am a furry. A skunk furry, no less. There is benefit to being something that is just a little silly, just as there always has been. Even after all these years, it is difficult to take someone pretending to be a small furry animal seriously, so that disarms me in the eyes of the observers.”
“So he will just leave you alone?”
-“He answers to his desire for power, I answer only to my desire for stability and continuity. In that I remain earnest in my conviction,” she said by way of answer. “Even that of me which is E.W. and May. E.W. cannot love his forest if politics overwhelm his existence. May cannot hold onto her devotion. These things I know.”
+“He will have to if he wishes to remain in his position. He answers to his desire for power, I answer only to my desire for stability and continuity. In that I remain earnest in my conviction,” she said by way of answer. “Even that of me which is E.W. and May. E.W. cannot love his forest if politics overwhelm his existence. May cannot hold onto her devotion. These things I know.”
May nodded slowly. “You are not wrong. I would not have used such words, but you are not wrong.”
“That of me which remains True Name has settled down,” she continued. “And she still holds to the idea that politics is a means to an end. She is good at it. She enjoys it. She is willing and able to utilize it.”
“So,” Debarre said slowly. “When did you realize this might even work?”
-“It was a chance I took. One that might have failed, yes, but a good chance. It was that comment about me and you not being fit to lead. Jonas had a view of me that was as inaccurate as it was easy to use against him. I have my political acumen and you have your own small group.”
+“It was a chance I took. One that might have failed, yes, but a good chance. It was that comment about you and Michelle not being fit to lead. Jonas had a view of me that was as inaccurate as it was easy to use against him. I have my political acumen and you have your own small group.”
Ioan watched Debarre stiffen, making note of his response. It didn’t feel like the type of thing to include in the story, but it did make rather a lot of the weasel’s words and actions make more sense.
“You’re nuts,” Debarre said, rubbing his paws over his face to cover that response. “You’re all fucking nuts.”
Ioan gestured wildly toward the weasel. “Confirmation! Fucking nuts!”
The three skunks laughed while ey and Debarre leaned across the circle to shake hands.