update from sparkleup
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<h1>Zk | 028</h1>
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<p>After True Name returned to her room — or, more likely, out to her field to camp — May said, “If I may say, that was really fucking weird, and I do not want to talk about it at all.”</p>
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<p>Ey laughed. “You certainly may. Weird as hell and I need a break from the topic.”</p>
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<p>Ey laughed. “You certainly may. Weird as hell and I need a break.”</p>
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<p>That last part wasn’t strictly true, ey knew. Ey’d be ruminating over it until they went to sleep, and likely well into tomorrow. Still, ey agreed that it wasn’t a topic for talking about at the moment. The chances they’d just windup talking in circles, rehashing the same topics over and over again, was too high, and ey could do that mentally just as well.</p>
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<p>So, instead, they relaxed together on the couch, May with her head in eir lap while ey read and she worked on this or that, or whatever it was that she did when her eyes lost focused and she hummed quietly to herself. She’d once called it ‘going into screen-saver mode’, which didn’t sound totally accurate to what ey knew of her when ey’d looked up the reference, but ey still teased her about it every now and then.</p>
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<p>Quiet nights were good, though, and ey was pleased to just spend the rest of this one in comfort.</p>
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@ -24,9 +25,9 @@
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<p>“Morning. Sleep well?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged noncommittally. “I slept, I am well-rested enough.”</p>
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<p>They watched the morning head toward full brightness in silence after that, em still standing before the windows and her sitting on the couch, more focused on her coffee than anything.</p>
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<p>“You have once again failed to bring me my coffee,” May grumbled from the bedroom door. “I am going to file a petition with the leadership of the System.”</p>
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<p>“You have once again failed to bring me my coffee,” May grumbled from the bedroom door. “I am going to file a petition to have you censured with the leadership of the System.”</p>
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<p>“Ey did not bring me my coffee, either, my dear,” True Name said mildly. “And until recently, I was in such a position.”</p>
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<p>May mumbled an apology and padded to the kitchen to grab her own mug before taking Ioan by the hand and dragging em over to the beanbag so that she could lay down with em.</p>
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<p>May stopped mid-shuffle, frowned, then mumbled an apology and padded to the kitchen to grab her own mug before taking Ioan by the hand and dragging em over to the beanbag so that she could lay down with em.</p>
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<p>“Are you two up to talking about meeting with Jonas?” True Name asked. “I will pay in another pot of coffee and breakfast.”</p>
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<p>Ioan shrugged. “Sure.”</p>
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<p>“After that second coffee, yes,” May said.</p>
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@ -38,14 +39,14 @@
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<p>“Thus the assassination attempt,” Ioan said.</p>
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<p>“Yes. He wanted me to disappear and build up a little bit of mystery because then he would be able to be publicly seen mourning, <em>et cetera, et cetera ad nauseam</em>,” she continued, rolling her eyes. “The usual nonsense, I mean. I do not think his plans B through M will be any different. They will all involve me no longer being a part of this and in such a way as to make him come out feeling the victor.”</p>
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<p>“And I’m assuming you’d like to avoid that if possible.”</p>
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<p>“Him feeling like the victor? Yes. I really do mean that I would need to disappear in his definition of victory. I would be effectively dead, not actually. I would be restricted in who I would be able to speak to, I would have to remain out of public sims, and so on. He would not ask me to retire. Disappear.” She hesitated, swirled the last of her coffee in the bottom of her mug, and added, “At least, that is what I would do. It would mean less attack surface for the reactive elements we have been tracking.”</p>
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<p>“Him feeling like the victor? Yes. I really do mean that I would need to disappear in his definition of victory. I would be effectively dead, if not actually. I would be restricted in who I would be able to speak to, I would have to remain out of public sims, and so on. He would not ask me to retire. Disappear.” She hesitated, swirled the last of her coffee in the bottom of her mug, and added, “At least, that is what I would do. It would mean less attack surface for the reactive elements we have been tracking.”</p>
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<p>“And your plan would, what, subvert that?” May asked. “I have a suspicion I know what it is, but I would like to be sure.”</p>
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<p>“I suspect you do, yes. I will offer him the option of me changing from what I was to such an extent that I will not be the True Name that either he or the System expects.”</p>
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<p>“I suspect you do, yes. I will offer him the option of me changing from what I was to such an extent that I will no longer be the True Name that either he or the System expects.”</p>
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<p>“Is this about me merging down, then?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged. “I do not think that that is a requirement, though that question was on my docket for the day. I suspect that I have already changed enough with End Waking’s merger. I would just need to prove it to him somehow. That is where my plan ends, however.”</p>
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<p>She shrugged. “I do not think that that is a requirement, here, though that question was on my docket for the day. I suspect that I have already changed enough with End Waking’s merger. I would just need to prove it to him somehow. That is where my plan ends, however.”</p>
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<p>Ioan sat back in eir chair, arms crossed as ey mulled it over. If she was right — and ey suspected that she was — then there would likely need to be a change in form and a change in name to go along with the change in attitude. After all, that’s how Zacharias had gotten as far as he had, right?</p>
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<p>Ey couldn’t picture her as anything other than a skunk or perhaps whatever version of Michelle she remembered, though, and certainly couldn’t picture her as anything other than True Name. Would she also have to change her speech patterns? They weren’t totally identifiable, but now that ey thought about it, even Zacharias had shared many of them. She was an Odist through and through, and all of the forking and reinforcing that May had done to grow her sense of empathy didn’t seem like something that she’d willingly undergo, either.</p>
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<p>But perhaps that’s what she’d meant by a sliver of a plan. They still had plenty of time to sort that out, at least, and perhaps she’d come up with a way that would actually work without changing herself so much that she’d cease being herself.</p>
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<p>Ey couldn’t picture her as anything other than a skunk or perhaps whatever version of Michelle she remembered, though, and certainly couldn’t picture her named anything other than True Name. Would she also have to change her speech patterns? They weren’t totally identifiable, but now that ey thought about it, even Zacharias had shared many of them. She was an Odist through and through, and all of the forking and reinforcing that May had done to grow her sense of empathy didn’t seem like something that she’d willingly undergo, either.</p>
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<p>But perhaps that’s what she’d meant by a sliver of a plan. They still had plenty of time to sort that out, at least, and perhaps she’d come up with a way that would actually work without changing herself so much that she’d cease being who she was.</p>
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<p>All the same, ey wasn’t sure that her simply incorporating End Waking was quite the type of change that Jonas would appreciate. She acted different, spoke different, and ey was sure she felt different about her work than she had, but eir suspicion was Jonas didn’t want anything left of her that could possibly be of any threat to his power. Her incorporating End Waking’s extreme distaste for the politics of the System might be enough, it might not be, but that was a big risk to take.</p>
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<p>Ey’d apparently been silent long enough that the two skunks had drifted off into their own conversation. At least ey’d not been mumbling.</p>
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<p>“Welcome back, my dear,” May said when ey leaned forward again to grab eir coffee.</p>
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@ -69,13 +70,13 @@
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<p>“Yes, well. I had attributed it at the time to simply being torn up over no longer being in a relationship. My fork was happy, I was heartbroken. In the end, though, I think that my goals were starting to drift from hers. I was diverging in more fundamental ways than either of us had expected.”</p>
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<p>“And the next time she asked, you just said ‘no’?”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “She asked me to consider it, and then the topic simply never came up again. I think that she was already expecting to write me off after the merge in 2155.”</p>
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<p>“Did she wind up picking up more of your empathy from that merge?”</p>
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<p>“Did she wind up expressing her own emotions differently from that merge?”</p>
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<p>She opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again, frowning. “I was going to snap at you,” she admitted. “But you bring up a good point. She did not. What emotions she expressed, real or not, came more earnestly to her. She was more able to express empathy, even if it was in a very True Name fashion. She did not accept my merges — or any of those from others in her stanza — as blithely as she did End Waking’s.”</p>
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<p>“I imagine the circumstances were a bit different,” ey said, grinning. “Why were you going to snap at me?”</p>
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<p>“I thought you were going to ask me to merge down.”</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged. “I hadn’t gotten that far in the thought process. Is it something you’re still uncomfortable with?”</p>
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<p>“I do not know, my dear. If you had asked me just then, I would have said no. If you had asked me five minutes before then, I would have said yes.” She patted eir knee, smiling. “But I will endeavor not to snap at you either way. How about you, though?”</p>
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<p>“Much the same, I think. Your answer has me wondering, though, if she was more intentional about a merge like that, it could work. She could have some of your memories of being a loving and emotional person while still respecting your privacy.”</p>
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<p>“Much the same, I think. Your answer has me wondering, though, if she was more intentional about a merge like that, it could work. She could have some of your memories of emotions that come less easily to her while still respecting your privacy.”</p>
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<p>“And that is why I did not snap at you. It is a good point, my dear. She would not have my memories wholesale, and with what memories and personality traits and whatever else goes along with a merge, she would wind up with a synthesis, rather than a replacement. She would still have all 226 years of being True Name, and all those years of being End Waking, just that she would also have some of me in there.”</p>
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<p>“Is that something you could talk her through?”</p>
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<p>She looked thoughtfully out into the yard, at the faint greening of the lilac branches. “Perhaps, yes. We would have to be very deliberate about it, but it should be possible.”</p>
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<p>May glanced to Ioan, then shrugged. “I worked in very small steps. I forked dozens of times to change very small things. Being deliberate about it made it essentially as fine-grained as I needed.”</p>
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<p>“Alright. That helps quite a lot, actually. I was considering how much I might be able to change without losing who and what I am. If I can change some of my own habits, maybe the end result will still be something that I am happy with, but with enough difference to get Jonas off my back. I am not yet sure what those habits might be, but it is an option, at least. I have been trying to catalogue what it is about myself that can go, as it were.” She smiled wryly, “But yes, doing so deliberately is probably for the best.”</p>
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<p>“That’s actually what we had been talking about,” Ioan said, looking to May for confirmation that it was alright to continue.</p>
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<p>“A deliberate merge,” she said, picking up from where ey’d left off. “One that will keep us comfortable in our privacy while also giving you the opportunity to build up from where you are.”</p>
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<p>“A deliberate merge,” she said, picking up from where ey’d left off. “One that will keep us comfortable in our privacy while also giving you the opportunity to build upon what you are.”</p>
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<p>“Really? That is not what I was expecting to hear.”</p>
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<p>They both nodded.</p>
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<p>There was a long silence, then. Both May and Ioan watched True Name as she traced the wood-grain on the table with a claw-tip.</p>
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<p>“Well,” True Name said, shrugging. “Fuck it.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-21</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-05-17</p>
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