update from sparkleup
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<p>Ey nodded and teased a few fingers through her fur. “I can see that, I guess. Even if it’s not something that she acts on, or if she even does anything with the memories, whatever you feel about us becomes something she can feel too.”</p>
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<p>“Yes. As I mentioned, I am perhaps jealous of that. I would like what we have to be our own.”</p>
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<p>“I think we agree on that. How do you mean ‘unfair’, though?”</p>
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<p>She twisted around until she could poke her nose at em. “Because it would be an act that I would take. Even if we all were to agree, it is me that is changing our relationships. I would be the one taking away that uniqueness and turning it into a burden.”</p>
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<p>She twisted around until she could poke her nose on em. “Because it would be an act that I would take. Even if we all were to agree, it is me that is changing our relationships. I would be the one taking away that uniqueness and turning it into a burden.”</p>
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<p>Ioan tugged the skunk up a little further until ey could get eir arms around her. Something about her words didn’t sit right with em, and ey needed at least a little bit of time to think it out.</p>
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<p>Perhaps she was still overflowing, in a way. At the tail end of it, sure, but every time in the past, she had waited until she was mostly feeling better before fetching em back from Douglas’s, whereas this morning, she seemed to have forced herself out of that state, rightfully or otherwise, to at least not be alone.</p>
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<p>There was some slight distortion, here, though, a way of thinking that didn’t quite mesh with her personality. Ey agreed, yes, but it was her framing that was bothering em most.</p>
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@ -63,7 +63,7 @@
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<p>True Name was still kneeling before the pile of wood in what had clearly become her firepit. “I am trying to imagine a world in which I should trust you enough to be alone with you,” she growled. “And failing.”</p>
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<p>“Spicy, tonight, are we not?” He grinned, turning to bow extravagantly to Ioan and May. “Mx. and Mrs. Bălan, I presume?”</p>
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<p>“We are not married,” May said, growling nearly as well as True Name. “What the fuck are you doing here?”</p>
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<p>“Oh, just popping in to say hi, is all,” he said cheerily. “Zacharias, by the way. Nice to meet you, Ioan. My dear May Then My Name, it has been nearly two centuries!”</p>
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<p>“Oh, just popping in to say hi, is all,” he said cheerily. “Zacharias, by the way. Nice to meet you, Ioan. My dear May Then My Name, it has been nearly two hundred years!”</p>
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<p>“Well, hi,” she said. “Now get out.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, I just got here, though!” He pouted, looking between the three of them. Then the smirk returned, along with a wicked glint to his eye. “Besides, what are you going to do about it, my dear? Bounce me?”</p>
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<p>May frowned, but remained silent, arms crossed over her chest. None of them had the ACLs for such</p>
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@ -79,7 +79,7 @@
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<p>“Oh goodness, not me! You can place the blame for that squarely on Jonas.”</p>
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<p>May laughed humorlessly. “Right, and poor Zack just had to sit by and–“</p>
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<p>The fox was up in a flash and, with a back-handed swipe, slapped the skunk across the muzzle, getting a yelp out of her and a shout out of Ioan. “You do not have permission to use that name,” he growled.</p>
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<p>It took Ioan a few seconds to process what had just happened, but then fury welled up within em faster than any other emotion ey’d felt before. Had ey ever even felt fury before? A small part of em marveled at the unfamiliar emotion.</p>
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<p>It took Ioan a few seconds to process what had just happened, but then fury welled up within em faster than any other emotion ey’d felt before. Had ey ever even felt fury before? A small part of em marveled at the unfamiliar feeling.</p>
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<p>The rest was already swinging.</p>
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<p>The blow never landed. Ioan found emself stumbling backwards several paces. Zacharias stumbled back in the opposite direction. Both of them shouted and worked to regain their footing.</p>
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<p>The two new instances of May that had appeared, partially overlapping with where they had once stood, winked out of existence. “Yes, yes,” she drawled, taking Ioan’s hand in one paw to hold em back while the other rubbed at her muzzle. “We all know you are good at what you do. Get to the point.”</p>
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<p>“Righto!” He turned and winked to May, adding, “So wonderful to see you again. Cannot say I share your taste in partners, but times change, I suppose. Mx. Bălan, I look forward to speaking soon.”</p>
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<p>And with that, he stepped out of the sim.</p>
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<p>May’s shoulders slumped. She let go of eir hand, moved over to kneel beside True Name, and hugged around her shoulders. “I am sorry, my dear.”</p>
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<p>True Name did not return the gesture. No surprise, perhaps; neither she nor End Waking were all that big on touch. Instead she said, “I am sorry, you two. I do not know how they got the coordinates.”</p>
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<p>True Name did not return the gesture. No surprise, perhaps; neither she nor End Waking were all that big on touch. Instead she said, “I am sorry, you two. I do not know how they got the address to the sim.”</p>
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<p>Ioan cursed. “Guess that does mean it’s compromised.”</p>
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<p>She nodded.</p>
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<p>May leaned away from the hug, but took one of True Name’s paws in her own. “Come home,” she said, voice and expression earnestly worried. “Please. I know it is uncomfortable, but I do not want you out here alone.”</p>
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<p>The skunk stared into the fire for almost a full minute, the looked off to the lake and nodded. “Yes, I suppose you are right.” She smiled faintly and added, “I could also use a shower and a night’s sleep on a real mattress. Perhaps we can discuss expanding an outdoor portion of your sim tomorrow, Ioan? I do not want to impose too much, but, well…” She waved her paw at where Zacharias had stood.</p>
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<p>“Of course,” ey said, still doing eir best to tamp down eir anger. “I can find something simple on the market for the time being.”</p>
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<p>True Name knelt by the fire for another minute before dousing the flames with a collapsible pail of water.</p>
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<p>Once they made it back to the house and True Name had showered, they sat around the dining table, each with a glass of wine from a bottle ey’d received years back. They’d wordlessly agreed that a drink was necessary.</p>
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<p>Once they made it back to the house and True Name had showered, they sat around the dining table, each with a glass of wine from a bottle ey’d received years back. They’d wordlessly agreed that a drink was in order.</p>
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<p>Ioan couldn’t guess why the two skunks had felt it was necessary, but ey needed something to blunt the edges of that anger that still spun within em. Ey wasn’t sure ey’d ever truly felt fury before, but it turned out that watching eir partner get struck across the face was a really, really good way to bring out the emotion.</p>
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<p>Ey didn’t like it at all.</p>
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<p>Once ey’d reached the bottom of eir glass, ey sighed and said, “Alright. What the fuck was that about?”</p>
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<p>The silence that followed was even more tense than the one before, both skunks looking down at the table, both tracing the grain of the wood with a claw-tip.</p>
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<p>“What?”</p>
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<p>May sniffled, shrugged, then smiled tiredly to em. “I am pretty sure he thinks he is me, Ioan.”</p>
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<p>Ey blinked, then slouched back in eir seat. It felt like the breath had been knocked out of em. “Wait, really?”</p>
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<p>Ey blinked as the pieces clicked into place, then slouched back in eir seat, feeling like the breath had been knocked out of em. “Well, huh.”</p>
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<p>“You see now why I was so upset?”</p>
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<p>The thoughts wouldn’t quite fit together in eir mind. Two puzzle pieces with no matching edges. “I’m sorry, I’m, uh…” Ey cleared eir throat, suddenly parched. “He’s one of your old relationship forks? With True Name?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged again, sniffled again, looked back down to the table.</p>
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<p>“So, a few decades later, Secession is done, the council is heading towards dissolution, and I am starting to relax. More friends from phys-side uploaded, more furries figured out how to exist within the System as they would like, and I started to meet more people outside work. One of them just happened to be this fantastically well-dressed fox who was just as witty as I felt. We became friends, then we became a bit more.” She shrugged. “That instance of Jonas had…well…”</p>
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<p>“Twisted. He twisted my fork into something that neither the me of today nor the me back then would have agreed to.” May sniffled and wiped at her face. “He turned that version of me into a way of influencing True Name.”</p>
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<p>“Yes. It was a long game. He drifted in and out of my life, over the centuries, and then, shortly before Launch, he showed up again and we began to get close. A few years after Launch, they took me out to dinner and dropped the whole thing on me all at once. I am told they did the same on each of the LVs as well, just with different framing.”</p>
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<p>Eir head was swimming at the flood of information, and when rubbing eir face didn’t work to clear it, ey waved a glass of ice water into being and sipped. “Which I don’t get. Why are you so overwhelmed here and not on the LVs?”</p>
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<p>Eir head was swimming at the flood of information, and when rubbing eir face didn’t work to clear it, ey willed the drunkenness away and waved a glass of ice water into being. “Which I don’t get. Why are you so overwhelmed here and not on the LVs?”</p>
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<p>The skunk twisted her wine glass between her fingers for a few quiet moments. “I was focused on continuity and stability. I think that Jonas was as well, enough to go along with the launch project, but once it was done and that continuity was assured, he let them go their own ways — the Guiding Council on Pollux and the previous status quo on Castor — while he focused on cementing his power here on Lagrange. They were safely away with minimal influence here.”</p>
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<p>“Is that what this is all about?”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “We were in a steady state for many years after they explained everything. I was not happy, but I still liked the work that I had chosen and I did not know how to do anything else. It was the new tech from the Artemisians that pushed things over the edge. AEC — Audiovisual Extrasystem Communication — rather changes things and even though we agreed on what was to be done about it in a general sense, I think he does not want to risk his own specific vision not coming to fruition.”</p>
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<p>They sat in silence, then, while Ioan tried to digest this. Ey was still furious at Zacharias, but now that fury had gained a layer of what almost felt like despair, that someone such as that might have their roots in eir May.</p>
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<p>At least it had all gone a long way towards explaining the dynamic on the three Systems. Who knew why the other True Names had decided to treat this one like they had, withholding valuable information, all but cutting her out of their plans. Perhaps those few years between launch and Jonas and Zacharias’s announcement had included additional shaping, or perhaps that other framing True Name had mentioned.</p>
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<p>At least it had all gone a long way towards explaining the dynamic on the three Systems. Who knew why the other True Names had decided to treat this one like they had, withholding valuable information, all but cutting her out of their plans. Perhaps those few years between launch and Jonas and Zacharias’s announcement had included additional shaping, that other framing True Name had mentioned.</p>
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<p>“Fuck.”</p>
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<p>May kicked eir shin lightly beneath the table. “Language, Mx. Bălan.”</p>
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<p>True Name looked between them, then grinned. “No, May Then My Name, Ioan is correct. Fuck.”</p>
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<p>Still grinning, True Name nodded. “That is quite enough of the topic, yes. I am going to go outside for a bit and then I am going to go to bed.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-04-20</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-05-17</p>
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</footer>
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