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<p>Ioan awoke, arms empty, asleep on eir front. Ey was not a front-sleeper, so this came with a stiff neck that ey knew would dog em throughout the rest of the day.</p>
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<p>At some point during the night, May had slid as carefully as she could from eir arms, bundled herself up in a second set of covers, and curled up at the far edge of the mattress.</p>
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<p>At some point during the night, May had apparently slid as carefully as she could from eir arms, bundled herself up in a second set of covers, and curled up at the far edge of the mattress.</p>
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<p>“You okay, May?” ey asked, sitting up beside her.</p>
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<p>She shook her head.</p>
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<p>“Alright. Can I hug?”</p>
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<p>A pause, and then another shake of the head.</p>
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<p>“That’s okay,” ey said, doing eir best to keep disappointment out of eir voice. “I’ll go get some stuff pulled together while I’m out. Want a cup of coffee?”</p>
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<p>“That’s okay,” ey said, doing eir best to keep disappointment out of eir voice. “I’ll go get some stuff pulled together for while I’m out. Want a cup of coffee?”</p>
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<p>She nodded her head before pulling the covers up and over it.</p>
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<p>That was probably a good enough sign for em to get up. If the skunk was already to the point of being nonverbal, it wouldn’t do either of them any good to try and keep talking, regardless of how much ey wanted to address her every need.</p>
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<p>Coffee was a good first priority, though, and easily sorted. It was something ey could start and finish with little thought and which had a tangible outcome, a little bit of success rather than some ill-defined end-state.</p>
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<p>“She’s…well, she’ll get by. I just hope it doesn’t last too long. Thanks for letting me stay.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-14</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-15</p>
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<h1 id="debarre-2350">Debarre — 2350</h1>
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<p>((Things to maybe add: Ioan actually work on emself instead of others; EW basing his identity around not being her))</p>
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<p>Neither Debarre nor End Waking had visited Michelle’s field in decades, and certainly not since it became Douglas’s. End Waking had last seen it on the day that she had quit in 2306, and had had little reason to return since.</p>
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<p>It had been much longer for Debarre, going clear back into the 2200s, back when Michelle and Sasha were still alive and coherent enough to speak to without getting overwhelmed into silence every few minutes. The memories of her were painful enough as it was, that last visit in End Waking’s forest with the Bălans and a few Odists besides especially, that he’d never had the courage to come back.</p>
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<p>Given how much the clade she’d left behind was struggling, though, it felt fitting to accept when Douglas invited him and End Waking over to talk with Ioan.</p>
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<p>He shook his head and waved the comment away. “Yeah, yeah.”</p>
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<p>More than one of them had confessed such to him over the centuries, and it wasn’t until he’d actually conceded that something about End Waking landed in that sweet spot of attraction and personality match enough to at least try dating that they’d stopped. He was thankful that they seemed happy enough to live vicariously through him. He had liked Sasha and Michelle, loved in that sympatico that true friends can share, but any more felt pretty far out of his league as a gay man.</p>
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<p>Instead, he nudged Ioan with his elbow again. “So if you don’t need to worry about it from True Name’s side, and you know you’re worrying about it from your own side, how do you feel about it from May’s point of view?”</p>
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<p>“How do you mean?”</p>
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<p>“Well, do you have any worries? Do you think she does? Has she talked about it at all?”</p>
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<p>“Not much. She said she’d been considering it, but that seeing how the current merge was making her struggle had her in doubt. I told her I want to make sure it’d be consensual on everyone’s behalf, this time. I guess–“</p>
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<p>“Whoa, wait,” Douglas interrupted, frowning. “She didn’t even talk with True Name?”</p>
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<p>“They talked a few times in a cone of silence, so maybe then, but otherwise not that I saw. She just stopped True Name in the middle of ranting and sent End Waking a message to merge, far as I could tell.”</p>
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<p>“That’s kind of shitty.”</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged. “I suppose, but no need to pile on her or anything, I think she’s beating herself up over it worse than any of us could do.”</p>
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<p>Douglas nodded. “Well, that bit I believe. Think that contributed to her overflowing?”</p>
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<p>“Almost certainly, yeah. Correct me if I’m wrong, End Waking, but I don’t think it’s solely tied to life events, but they can have an effect on it.”</p>
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<p>The skunk nodded. He’d started panting in the heat of the sun, so it took him a moment to reply. “It just comes over us like a wave. Some of us more quickly than others. It is slower for me than for either of them, I believe.”</p>
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<p>Debarre chimed in. “I usually have a few days warning. I’ve gotten mine already and was planning on heading out today, but we both wanted to come, anyway.”</p>
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<p>“Is it hard for you?”</p>
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<p>End Waking held up a paw. “I want to respect Debarre’s decision to share or not, but I would prefer not to be here for this conversation.”</p>
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<p>“Sorry, End Waking. You don’t need to answer, Debarre.”</p>
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<p>The weasel shrugged. “No, it’s fine. E.W. and I have talked about it, and I get where he’s coming from. It can wait.”</p>
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<p>“Yes. You are not disallowed. We simply have our own, separate conversations about that, and it is important to me that Debarre feel comfortable talking about me with his friends, too. I cannot be the only one in his life.”</p>
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<p>“Alright, makes sense. May’s said similar, for that matter.” Ey toyed with the flower ey’d plucked before, saying, “We actually talked about other relationships shortly before this all went down, about how she’d act if she started to fall for someone else and how she’d feel if I did. One thing we didn’t talk about was someone else having feelings for either of us, whether or not they’d come about them on their own or through a merger.”</p>
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<p>“I’m sure there’s shitloads of people in love with May Then My Name,” Debarre said, laughing. “But she’s good at having that conversation, and you’re both good at talking, so.”</p>
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<p>“Too good, perhaps.” End Waking stood. “I am overheating and feeling restless, so I am going to return to the forest. Ioan, I do wish you the best, and I would like you to keep in touch as you are able. I am concerned about your partner and for True Name, in my own way. Please keep yourself safe so that you can keep the both of them safe in turn.”</p>
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<p>Ioan nodded and stood as well to bow to the skunk. “Thanks. It really does mean a lot. I’ll keep you in the loop, if nothing else.”</p>
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<p>After returning the bow, End Waking held out a paw to Debarre. “Can you return with me? Just for a few minutes.”</p>
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<p>He nodded and accepted that paw. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, so even just the touch as they stepped away from the sim was worth it.</p>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-14</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-15</p>
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<title>Zk | 023</title>
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<h1>Zk | 023</h1>
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<p>Sure enough, once they made it back to the forest, End Waking leaned over to nose at Debarre’s cheek, pulled his paw away, and looked off into the woods. Whenever it was time for him to ask Debarre to leave, he’d go through a little swell of anxiety.</p>
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<p>“I am sorry, my love. I know that it is not the easiest on you that I always do this.”</p>
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<p>“Hey, I said I was leaving today,” he said as reassuringly as he could. “It’s not coming out of the blue.”</p>
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<p>End Waking nodded. “You are always allowed to keep in touch.”</p>
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<p>“Mmhm.”</p>
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<p>“And you can drop by as long as you give me some notice, preferably a day.”</p>
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<p>“I will.”</p>
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<p>“And if you hear from May Then My Name or Ioan, please let me know.”</p>
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<p>“E.W., shut up,” Debarre said fondly. “See you soon, okay?”</p>
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<p>The skunk wilted, a look somewhere between relieved and resigned coming over his face. “Yes. Soon. Thank you, my dear.”</p>
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<p>“Of course. Love you, E.W.”</p>
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<p>“Love you too.”</p>
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<p>There was nothing else for it, then. He forked and let the original instance quit so that Debarre#Tracker would have the merge just in case, then, with one last wave to the skunk (already heading off into the woods, of course), stepped back to the Hadjes’ field.</p>
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<p>Ioan and Douglas were still standing where he’d left them, so he waved again. “Sorry, back for a little bit.”</p>
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<p>“On your own again?” Ioan asked.</p>
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<p>He nodded. “Yeah. It’s been building up for a long time. We agreed I’d head off when the tent was done, and we just got the nets all hung yesterday. Hey, can we go inside, though? He was right, it’s pretty fucking hot out here with fur.”</p>
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<p>Douglas laughed. “I’ll never get you guys, him all in black fur and you wearing black clothes over yours. Yeah, come on. There’s more lemonade.”</p>
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<p>Ioan held back enough to let Douglas take the lead, falling in step with Debarre, instead. “Does it bother you?”</p>
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<p>“Hmm? E.W. asking me to leave?”</p>
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<p>“Yeah.”</p>
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<p>He thought for a bit, then shrugged. “Bothers, yes, but that’s really about it. Helps that I usually just quit and merge down with #Tracker, so it’s not like I’ve got <em>just</em> the relationship to worry about. I’ve got my own stuff going on through him, and other relationships that merge in every now and then.”</p>
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<p>“That sounds handy, at least.”</p>
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<p>“His overflowing is also way less dramatic than May’s, which sounds pretty painful to watch.”</p>
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<p>Ioan nodded.</p>
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<p>“Sorry, Ioan. Don’t mean to keep it all on the surface for you.”</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged. “I asked, it’s alright.”</p>
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<p>Once they were all inside and Debarre had cooled off, Douglas asked, “So what do you think of all this?”</p>
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<p>“‘All this’?” He laughed. “Way too fucking much to say one way or another. Narrow it down.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, I meant the stuff with End Waking merging down. I’m still stuck on May asking him to do that without talking it through with True Name, first.”</p>
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<p>“Well, like I said, she was conflicted about it when she brought it up. Said she wanted her to disappear into ignor…ignoble…”</p>
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<p>“Ignominy?” Ioan offered.</p>
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<p>“Right, yeah. But she also said that she wanted her to get out of this mess and away from Jonas, ‘that living, breathing sack of shit’, in her words.”</p>
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<p>They laughed.</p>
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<p>“But I’d been thinking much the same, I guess. If she does, I’d probably feel at least a little bit of vindication for the way she jerked us all around without us realising it and all that shit she did with the Council. I’d also feel like there was a fraction less of my friend around, though, too. I love E.W., I’m happy he’s in my life, we get along well for the most part, but there’s also this layer of, like…well, he was part of Sasha and Michelle, and they and I went through a lot together.”</p>
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<p>“You talk about those two facets like different people,” Ioan said. “Sorry, not to derail. Just that I noticed that. None of the Odists do.”</p>
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<p>“Most, maybe. I picked it up from Hammered Silver, who spent probably more time with them than anyone. All her instances feel singular, I imagine, but they were two instances in one. Sasha was this really emotional, really caring person. It wasn’t that Michelle wasn’t, just that when she was at the fore, she was much more…I don’t know. Logical? Rational?”</p>
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<p>“And when it was both? When she was in flux, or whatever?”</p>
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<p>“Then she was just tired,” he said, grinning at memories. “But right, before I totally lose track, you asked how I feel. Uh, I guess I feel scared.”</p>
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<p>Ioan sat up straighter. “Really?</p>
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<p>“Yeah. That she collapsed made me confront the fact that, no, I don’t really want her dead or anything, that I really would hate to lose her. Even if she’s not the part of my friend I like the most, not a part that I even remember seeing before, she’s still <em>a</em> part of them.” He hesitated, then added, “And it changed E.W. Not the forking and merging itself, but that he did that. It sounds like May Then My Name used the fact that True Name was all worked up to force her to accept the whole merge all at once. She kind of did the same with E.W. I don’t know what her message, was, but it looked like it scared the shit out of him, so he kind of did it without really thinking. He’s been a bit different since.”</p>
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<p>“Different how?” Douglas asked.</p>
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<p>“Like…still all worried, and still a little in shock, but also like a little bit of a load was taken off. I can’t explain it, and we never really talked it through. It’s not bad, but I can still tell.”</p>
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<p>Ioan nodded and rubbed eir palms against the legs of eir slacks as ey always seemed to do during stressful conversations. “He did seem a bit freer of speech today,” ey mused. “But that makes sense. He finally got to tell her how he feels, and they didn’t even have to talk to each other.”</p>
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<p>“Has May Then My Name changed, too?”</p>
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<p>“I can’t tell. She’s been so wrapped up in trying to live around someone she doesn’t really like, and then with all of the fallout from the merge. Maybe she has? She’s at least been able to talk with True Name without blowing up at her, and they’ve even had some conversations that seemed enjoyable at times, so, maybe?”</p>
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<p>He raised his eyebrows. “Really? The way she talked about True Name for a while there…whew.”</p>
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<p>“That bad?”</p>
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<p>“Did she not talk about her to you?”</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged. “Every now and then, and sometimes she’d get pretty pissed, but it was only once a year or so.”</p>
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<p>“Mm, about the same amount, but maybe she kept it a bit…I don’t know, gentler for you, since she has to live with you. She’d come over once a year or so and just go off for a while. It kind of became routine. She’d vent, then we’d have a good day.”</p>
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<p>Ioan switched to rubbing eir hands over her face. “I don’t even know what to do about her.”</p>
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<p>“Nothing,” Douglas said. “Nothing but love her and keep talking, I mean. She’s a grown woman, she can work out her feelings well enough. Hell, she’s already seeing a therapist.”</p>
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<p>Ey slumped back dramatically against the couch cushions. “Why does <em>everyone</em> tell me to stop fixing others’ problems for them? Even the intellectual side of me is in on the game.”</p>
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<p>They laughed.</p>
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<p>“It’s so hard to actually internalize. I’ll catch myself trying to mend May and True Name’s relationship or make May feel better or whatever, and I’ll have to force myself to relax.”</p>
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<p>“It’s not a bad thing,” Debarre said. “I mean, you still shouldn’t do that, but it’s at least a sign that you’re just a good person who wants to do right by eir friends.”</p>
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<p>Ey smiled gratefully. “I’m at least trying. One more question, then I think I need to table the topic for a bit.”</p>
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<p>“Sure.”</p>
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<p>“Do you think it was the right thing to do?”</p>
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<p>“Yeah,” he said, surprising himself with how readily the answer came to him. “I don’t think it would have worked if E.W. had just merged down without all the other dramatic shit. I think she would’ve just rejected it, or if she did accept the merge, just cherry-picked parts of it. As it is, though, with Jonas after her neck and May using all her whiles to convince both her and E.W., I think so. I don’t honestly see her coming out of this still in power or whatever, but if she <em>does</em> make it out, I think it’ll help her move on.”</p>
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<p>Ioan stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully, occasionally mumbling to emself.</p>
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<p>After a minute or so, he shrugged to Douglas and asked, “Well, I skipped breakfast and am not ready to merge back down yet. Want some food? That’ll at least be more pleasant.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-15</p>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="021.html">May Choose Fear</a> — May overflows (just a few days), claims the home</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> CHAPTER Debarre 2350<ul>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="022.html">Ioan chooses fear</a> — Ioan’s really struggling with the idea of May merging, but also really wants to help, but now May’s gone, goes to stay with Douglas, who calls Debarre over for historical context</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Something innocent</a> — Debarre talks about his relationship with EW, plus EW’s merging down from his point of view</li>
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<li class="done2"> CHAPTER Debarre 2350<ul>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="022.html">Ioan chooses fear</a> — Ioan’s really struggling with the idea of May merging, but also really wants to help, but now May’s gone, goes to stay with Douglas, who calls Debarre over for historical context</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="023.html">Something innocent</a> — Debarre talks about his relationship with EW, plus EW’s merging down from his point of view</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> CHAPTER Ioan 2350<ul>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Ioan’s wallow 2</a> — Now <em>Ioan’s</em> struggling, crushed at both May overflowing and TN requesting her own time alone, while ey’s the only one with both sides. Has at least one sensorium conversation with each.</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">May recovers</a> — Visits, says hi etc, brings Ioan back home</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">May recovers</a> — Visits, says hi etc, brings Ioan back home.</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">May’s Wallow 2</a> — May’s feeling bad because she can’t help, also starting to agree with Ioan: not fair to them as a couple for TN to have those memories</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">TN’s wallow 2</a> — TN’s really struggling when they go visit her. (We learn more about Zacharias)</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">TN’s wallow 2</a> — TN’s really struggling when they go visit her. Zacharias is there on behalf of Jonas when they get there, we learn that Jonas used him and his ‘secret’ to manipulate her. </li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Choose love: TN’s offer</a> — TN comes back, few days of attempted normalcy, topic of May merging comes up, May and Ioan mention apprehensions, but TN is actually kind of for it. She needs the change, needs good as well as bad, but she’ll also have memories of their apprehensions and can work with that</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Choose love: Ioan and May</a> — Ioan expands on this, and they talk about how TN won’t just have May’s memories wholesale, she’ll have a synthesis. May agrees, thinks knowing love is only ever going to be a good thing, TN also deserves that (plus memories of resentment will open things up). May’s little lie about ‘merging down every few years’ comes up, she hasn’t in nearly two centuries</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Choose love: Ioan and May</a> — Ioan expands on this when they’re alone, and they talk about how TN won’t just have May’s memories wholesale, she’ll have a synthesis. May agrees, thinks knowing love is only ever going to be a good thing, TN also deserves that (plus memories of resentment will open things up). May’s little lie about ‘merging down every few years’ comes up, she hasn’t in nearly two centuries</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Choose love: decision</a> — TN realizes that changing is probably the only real way out of all of this, and really? That’s not so bad. Besides, maybe she has a plan, though not complete enough to share yet, they decide to go through with it</li>
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</ul>
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<li class="done0"> CHAPTER Debarre 2350<ul>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Result for EW</a> — EW and Debarre talk about how they both feel about TN’s merger</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Result for Jonas</a> — They talk about how this is working for Jonas, and how this could go either way for EW: he could feel better about TN (though still penitent), or he could go from penitent to angry and leave the clade</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Result for EW</a> — EW and Debarre talk about how they both feel about TN’s merger and how this could go either way for EW: he could feel better about TN (though still penitent), or he could go from penitent to angry and leave the clade</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Result for Jonas</a> — They talk about how this is working for Jonas, how it’s dangerous because it gives Jonas & Co an opening through May’s known weaknesses (less his because they haven’t studied him nearly so much)</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done1"> CHAPTER Ioan 2350<ul>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">TN’s path forward</a> — TN decides that they need to work things out at least to an extent with Jonas so that they’re not just left hanging</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Ioan sets the meeting up</a> — Ey’s acting as amanuensis and Jonas is all asmirk at this</li>
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<li class="done1"> (SNIPPET) <a href="0x2.html">True Name changes</a> — True Name changes</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Ioan sets the meeting up</a> — Ey’s acting as amanuensis and Jonas is all asmirk at this. They head out, and are greeted by Zacharias, and we learn he’s a fork of May before she grew her empathy.</li>
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<li class="rejected"> (SNIPPET) <a href="0x2.html">True Name changes + aftermath</a> — True Name changes</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">They meet, they talk, TN changes</a> — Jonas talks about how the upcoming changes require a different kind of stability for continuity and TN just isn’t gonna cut it, gives ultimata for her continued existence. TN becomes Sasha, and now she’s all asmirk.</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Something innocent</a> — The aftermath</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href=".html">Epilogue</a> Sasha works on finding a new purpose, realizes it’s going to be a long process. Ioan and Sasha are drifting closer together as hinted at in 002, but this should a) look like it’s going to end happily and b) be an active and open conversation because I am completely unwilling to lose any of them.</li>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-14</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-15</p>
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<h1 id="sorina-balan-2349">Sorina Bălan — 2349</h1>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Artemis–Lagrange transmission delay: 8 days, 22 hours, 24 minutes</p>
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<p><strong><em>IOAN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</em></strong></p>
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<p>Ioan,</p>
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<p>I’m breaking my communications embargo to message you directly in the strictest confidence. I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure this will pass through Castor without pinging Codrin or my exes (or anyone, for that matter). The last thing I want is yet another tearful letter from any of them just because my name flashed across their feeds.</p>
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<p>Well. I say ‘yet another tearful letter’, but there’s only been three — one for each of them — so I’m hardly being bombarded, but I just…I can’t, Ioan.</p>
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<p>I need to talk to someone about this. I need to talk to someone who truly understands. I talk to Sarah quite a bit, of course, both in a therapeutic and a professional context, but there needs to be that sense of connection to the matter on a more personal level than just therapist to client. She’s a delight to work with and an amazing teacher (as are Artante and Anin Li).</p>
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<p>In our sessions, we came up with a very specific way to deal with this decision that I’ve made. In order to ensure that I can learn to cherish who I was and who was in my life, I need to reinforce the positive memories of what I had. I need to make sure that those are stronger than the negative ones. I don’t want that final, terrible morning to weigh on me more strongly than all of the good times that we had together.</p>
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<p>You know, it’s weird, though. I say ‘final, terrible morning’, but at the time, I don’t remember it being such. I remember being very tired. I remember waking up and slipping away from Dear and making coffee in a cone of silence. I remember walking out onto the prairie. I remember suddenly seeing Codrin beside me, walking, head down in thought, as I focused on becoming me as quickly as possible. I remember walking past that brand new failing in the land with Codrin and not even having the mental capacity to think about it. All I remember doing was forking with each step, becoming who I am by the second and trying to move as far away from the life I had without losing my sense of self.</p>
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<p>It wasn’t terrible. It was busy. It was purpose-driven. It was constructive. I walked from that cairn to the next with Codrin beside me and then we talked for, what, five minutes? Ten? And then I kissed em on the cheek, grabbed a stone from the cairn, and left.</p>
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<p>It’s not a terrible memory. The worst part was Codrin asking if I wanted to go back and say goodbye, but that was over in a flash as I made my decision not to.</p>
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<p>The rest of the morning wasn’t even that bad. I stepped to Convergence and waited for True Name to show up and then walked into Customs and then I was off to Artemis.</p>
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<p>Codrin was the first to contact me, about a month after I left. Eir message was…well, I said tearful, and I’m struggling to put it any other way. It was just text on a page, but if it had been an actual letter, mailed across the millions of kilometers between Castor and Artemis, delivered to my stoop, surely the ink would have run from a tear drop or two. I could hear eir emotion through the page, and I could feel the very same tugging in my heart that I knew ey was feeling, for are we not alike?</p>
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<p>Bu we aren’t, Ioan. We rushed that differentiation, that individuation, didn’t we? We pushed as hard as we could for me to be a different person from em, and all we had in common was a last name and a history.</p>
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<p>I haven’t heard since in the years since I arrived, but I worry that ey’s still heartbroken. There must be some word for that little piece of yourself that lives on in your up-tree instances, even if it’s only the memory that they were borne from you. There has to be a word for that feeling of shared identity that is incomplete enough that one is not the same.</p>
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<p>The next two letters, the ones from my exes, came at the same time about a month ago. I wouldn’t call those nearly so heartbroken as Codrin’s, but I could tell that eir pain was affecting them as well.</p>
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<p>I don’t <em>want</em> them to hurt, though! I don’t want them to hurt. I want us all to move on. I want to continue being, as I have been, happy here. I want to continue in the process of healing from trauma. I want <em>them</em> to continue in the process of healing from trauma. I want them to remain whole and I want to be whole myself.</p>
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<p>Clearly, I’m not.</p>
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<p>Here I am, crying over a letter to my root instance, worrying about letters that haven’t arrived, probably haven’t even been written, because there is still a part of me that misses what life once was. I miss my exes. I miss who I used to be.</p>
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<p>I am happy being Sorina, and I miss being Codrin. That’s my dialectic. I can be both of those things. I’ve grown to accept that, and I’ve gotten used to the feeling of being me. I’ve gotten used to being a woman. I’ve gotten used to life among four other races. I’ve gotten used to the myriad new ways of expressing emotion here.</p>
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<p>But with those two letters, the wound that had started to heal over was once again tugged open and I felt that old stirring of longing within me.</p>
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<p>When we first embarked on this adventure, I think we all thought that that feeling would be the one that wore on me the most. We all worried (myself included, I suppose) that I’d miss everyone so much that I’d want to quit, so we all agreed that this would be the how it would work: I’d head off to experience life on Artemis, and if I started to miss everyone too much, I had explicit permission to quit, no need to live with that pain.</p>
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<p>That’s not what happened, though. I got right to work with Sarah and Artante, and later Anin Li, learning all of these really amazing therapeutic techniques (such as reframing my old partners as exes, even if there was no real break-up event) that help me just as much as they help everyone else.</p>
|
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<p>They still have each other back on Castor, though! They still love each other, living out on that prairie in that ridiculous house, and all their letters serve to do is to drag me back into that mindset.</p>
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<p>The real crux — really, the real reason this is all making me panic so much — is that I’m forgetting.</p>
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<p>Forgetting! How novel, right?</p>
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<p>I remember what Dear smelled like, the feeling of its fur on my face. I remember the way its ears would bob when it shook its head.</p>
|
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<p>And the food! God, I remember the food. If there’s one thing I miss, it’s all the wonderful food. A bunch of fifthracers here are starting to set up restaurants, and some of fourthrace’s food is pretty good, but it’s not food from home, you know?</p>
|
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<p>But I can’t remember the sound of their voices. I can’t remember our everyday mundane conversations. I can’t remember what the quiet house was like, when we were all working on our own projects in our own spaces, each of us heads down over some creative problem, poking and prodding for weaknesses in whatever blocked us until we could have a breakthrough and go show the others.</p>
|
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<p>More, I couldn’t remember to be upset about missing them.</p>
|
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<p>I was happy, or at least on my way to being happy, and then bam! Suddenly, I remember what it’s like to miss those I love again.</p>
|
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<p>Because I do still love them, but as I said, I just can’t. I love them, and I miss them, and I miss Castor and I miss Lagrange and I miss all of the Odists getting up to their horrible bullshit and all of the perfect imperfections of our systems. Text only communication! Almost two and a half centuries and they still haven’t solved that, have they?</p>
|
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<p>I miss all that I love, and hell, I miss you.</p>
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<p>I love you, Ioan. I love you in that weird, roundabout way that a distant up-tree fork does. I love you for your completeness. I love you for being me, and yet not me. I love you for being Ioan and not Codrin. I love you for the solidity that I remember of you through Codrin’s eyes. I love who you used to be. I love who you’ve become. I love who you will be.</p>
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<p>I want nothing more than to say pass on my love, but please, Ioan, please don’t, not yet.</p>
|
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<p>I’ll just say “all my love” and be done with it. I promise to write again when I’m calmer.</p>
|
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<p>Sorina Bălan<br />
|
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13 er-ularaeäl, 4778 Artemis Reckoning</p>
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<p><strong><em>END IOAN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</em></strong></p>
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