“You know,” he said. “I was thinking about Cicero a few days back, and how, after he hung himself, I thought thought that the grief would never end. Like, I thought that I had been completely redefined from ‘Debarre the weasel’ to ‘Debarre who grieves’, and that’s just who I was from then on out.”
She hid a sudden surge of emotion behind a sip of her flat beer, nodding. “It was hard. Both of those losses were hard.”
Debarre nodded. After the reference to both losses, he seemed on guard, or ready to jump out of the booth at a moment’s notice.
-“I am sorry that I snapped at you a while back,” she said, reaching out to pat at the paw that had been poking absently at the grime on the tabletop. “That is a name that I would like to keep close to my heart and prefer not to say out loud. Also, given that ey was not strictly supposed to defect to the S-R Bloc, it still feels risky. The spooks definitely should not hear it.”
+“I am sorry that I snapped at you a while back,” she said, reaching out to pat at the paw that had been poking absently at the grime on the tabletop. “That is a name that I would like to keep close to my heart and prefer not to say out loud. Also, given that ey was not strictly supposed to defect to the S-R Bloc, it still feels risky. The spooks definitely should not hear it.”
“I get that,” the weasel said. He had relaxed, but not all the way.
“And I think that I understand what you are getting at,” she continued, turning her default smile into something wistful, something sad. “I am as at risk of letting grief define me as anyone, but I am still doing my best to memorialize rather than languish.”
“That’s good, at least,” he said, finally smiling back to her. “I’ve been a bit worried about that, if I’m honest, but I trust you. The shit you’ve been pulling off lately with the council is honestly impressive, True Name. You and all your clade. I’m doing my best to understand you, sure, but I promise that’s out of awe rather than fear.”
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@Life Breeds Life laughed. “Of course not. If we are to think long term, we must think in terms of decades to work in centuries. If we are lucky, we must think in terms of centuries to work in millennia. We have plenty of time.”