Ey’d shrugged. “Sure. We’d get dumped on once or twice a year.”
“And was that pleasant?”
“Well, no, but–“
-She’d laughed at em, then, shaking her head. “I like our porch swing. I like our lilacs and dandelions. Sometimes, I just want to lay in the grass and overheat. I have been betrayed by our weather.”
+She’d laughed at em, then, shaking her head. “I miss our porch swing. I miss our lilacs and dandelions. Sometimes, I just want to lay in the grass and overheat. I have been betrayed by our weather.”
So it was a good escape when it got cold. They could duck off, alone or together, to the lake and head for a walk.
May had chosen the name Arrowhead Lake over Ioan’s protests that it looked nothing like an arrowhead, being more kidney shaped. The sim itself was tagged Peak Lake#587a9383. Maybe it was just Peak lake? This seemed to have only emboldened her when ey brought it up, and ey was firmly overruled.
-Whenever ey walked out there without her, as ey did today, ey’d ruminate on this. Maybe it had little to do with the lake itself. Maybe it had to do with the silhouettes of the pines? Or something to do with way the snow lingered on pointed peaks?
+Whenever ey walked out there without her, as ey did today, ey’d think on this. Maybe it had little to do with the lake itself. Maybe it had to do with the silhouettes of the pines? Or something to do with way the snow lingered on pointed peaks?
“Or maybe she’s just a brat,” ey mumbled, smiling to emself as ey walked slowly along the deer trail. “No reasoning with an Odist.”
-Ey’d never been able to pick apart whether or not they were just normal people. Perhaps Michelle had been — ey’d not spent enough time around her to know, and what time ey had managed had been mostly silence. Toward the end, her conversations were more interruptions than not, although the impression ey’d gotten was that she’d been kind, gentle, while still being the type to care passionately about things — or, more often, people. The impression just hadn’t been a strong one. Not enough time to for it to solidify.
-Ey’d long ago come to the conclusion, confirmed through discussions with several of the clade, that each of them was more a distillation of a singular aspect of Michelle than the whole of her. That wasn’t to say that they weren’t complete in their own right. What was it Codrin and Dear had said? Even True Name was a fully realized person.
+Ey’d never been able to pick apart whether or not they were just normal people. Perhaps Michelle had been — ey’d not spent enough time around her to know, and what time ey had managed had been mostly silence. Toward the end, her conversations were more interruptions than not, although the impression ey’d gotten was that she’d been kind and gentle, while still being the type to care passionately about things — or, more often, people. The impression just hadn’t been a strong one. Not enough time to for it to solidify.
+Ey’d long ago come to the conclusion, confirmed through discussions with several of the clade, that each of them had begun as a distillation of a singular aspect of Michelle than the whole of her. That wasn’t to say that they weren’t complete in their own right. What was it Codrin and Dear had said? Even True Name was a fully realized person.
Normal, though? Could one be both a singular facet and normal?
-And maybe it goes beyond them. Maybe it’s a dispersionista thing. E could see such a habit building even without Michelle’s experiences.
+And maybe it goes beyond them. Maybe it’s a dispersionista thing. Ey could see such a habit building even without Michelle’s experiences.
When the trail dipped down out of the trees toward the shore, ey stooped to pick up a handful of pebbles, enough to toss into the water once ey reached the boulder at the lake’s outlet. Codrin had eir cairns, ey supposed, and ey had a heap of pebbles at the bottom of the lake, tossed in one by one over the decades.
I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, ey thought, rattling the rocks around in eir hand as ey continued walking. I don’t know if I’m supposed to help either of them, bring them together again, or what.
It was still a week out from eir next meeting with True Name and while May’s anxiety hadn’t ticked back up, eir own had lingered. There was an unsettled feeling within em that made itself known whenever ey thought about heading to the coffee shop.
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@The lake didn’t answer, not in anything other than water lapping at the shore and the chatter of the creek.
“This is stupid.”
Ey sat for another hour, just watching the lake, the clouds, the trees, trying not to think about how complicated it was for one person to be so split among instances.
-The walk back was spent unwinding the thought process that led em here in the first place. Unwinding and re-coiling into a careful skein, now with fewer knots than it had had in it before, though still remained tangled.
+The walk back was spent unwinding the thought process that led em here in the first place. Unwinding and re-coiling into a careful skein, now with fewer knots than it had had in it before, though it still remained tangled.
“Good walk, my dear?” May said when ey returned and plopped down onto the couch.
“Very. It’s nice out there.”
“It always is,” the skunk said, walking over from where she’d been poking around in the kitchen to dot her nose atop eir head. “It could be here too, you know.”
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@She bounced on the balls of her feet and nodded. “Yes! You, my dear, know just how to treat a girl.”
“Skunk girl.”
“Well, yes, but still.” Still bouncing, she twirled around behind the couch, tail trailing along behind her. “I will get ready. I am hungry now, so too bad if you are not.”
-One of the things that Ioan appreciated most about J2 over all of the other sushi places May had dragged em to is that it was the most amenable to em eating with eir hands. May was quite nimble with chopsticks — no mean feat with paws, that — but ey’d never quite picked it up, so being able to eat those little bullets of rice and fish with eir hands suited em quite well.
+One of the things that Ioan appreciated most about J2 over all of the other sushi places May had dragged em to is that it was the most amenable to em eating with eir hands. May was quite nimble with chopsticks — no mean feat with paws — but ey’d never quite picked it up, so being able to eat those little bullets of rice and fish with eir hands suited em quite well.
It also had a channel of water floating along between the booths, small dishes drifting by lazily for the diners to pluck from the water. It obviated the need for any staff, real or constructed, as each dish would be replaced from behind a bend in the river. With no need to pay beyond a token amount of reputation, it simply became a pleasant evening out, plates stacking up at the edge of their table, a tacit contest with other diners.
“Did you get what you needed out of your walk earlier, my dear?” May asked before popping a bit of yellowtail into her muzzle.
Ey shrugged, finished chewing, and said, “I guess. Was doing some thinking into that feeling that I have to fix every problem when it comes to relationships.”
@@ -83,12 +83,12 @@Ears splayed and eyes wide with alarm, the skunk reached out to take one of eir hands in her own. “I am sorry, my dear. If I overstepped, I apologize.”
Letting the skunk lace her fingers with eirs, ey shook eir head as though to dislodge the slight dizziness that had come with the realization. “Maybe?” Ey forced a smile. “I mean, maybe uploading was my fix for that situation? I don’t know.”
She nodded, gave eir hand a gentle squeeze.
-“I think you’re the only person I’ve really loved other than him,” ey said, nudging the conversation back on track to avoid settling into that particular rumination. “That’s what I meant. I want to make things good for you, whether it’s you overflowing, stuff with True Name, or any other number of things that aren’t my responsibility or even under my control.”
+“I think you’re the only person I’ve really loved other than Dragoş,” ey said, nudging the conversation back on track to avoid settling into that particular rumination. “That’s what I meant. I want to make things good for you, whether it’s you overflowing, stuff with True Name, or any other number of things that aren’t my responsibility or even under my control.”
May smiled, the expression veering perilously close to a smirk. “You have said that you want to fix things for True Name at times, too, my dear. Are you sure you are not in love?”
“I’ve also talked about how often I’ll wind up getting caught off guard by how much you two still look and sound alike,” ey said, smirking right back. “She’s nice and I do want to help her, but I think I’m a ways off from that.”
She laughed. “I know, I know. You just leave yourself so open, sometimes, a girl cannot help herself. You are also allowed to want to help friends and acquaintances as well as me.”
-“Skunks, I swear…” He laughed when she pinched at eir fingers, tugging eir hand back so ey could grab another plate of yellowtail. “That’s kind of what I was thinking about on the walk, though. I feel weirdly obligated to fix things. It’s not my place to, I don’t think either of you would be comfortable with that, and that’s not even counting whether or not it’s something either of you want.”
-“I do not know,” she said, shrugging. “I spoke about that with End Waking and Debarre recently, and am no closer to an answer. We did all agree, however, that you doing what you are is a good thing, in that it at least sets up an avenue for change, even if True Name or I do not decide to take that step.”
+“Skunks, I swear…” Ey laughed when she pinched at eir fingers, tugging eir hand back so ey could grab another plate of yellowtail. “That’s kind of what I was thinking about on the walk, though. I feel weirdly obligated to fix things. It’s not my place to, I don’t think either of you would be comfortable with that, and that’s not even counting whether or not it’s something either of you want.”
+“I do not know,” she said, shrugging. “I spoke about that with End Waking and Debarre recently, and am no closer to an answer. We did all agree, however, that you doing what you are is a good thing, in that it at least sets up an avenue for change, even if neither True Name nor I do not decide to take that step.”
Ey nodded. “I just want things to remain smooth between everyone, is all. Maybe it’s a little…I don’t know, overly conciliatory of me?”
“Perhaps, but that does not mean it does not have its own utility.”
They ate in silence for a moment, then, Ioan eventually giving up after finishing eir plate. It was no less easy to eat too much, even in an embedded world.
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@It wasn’t until they’d made it back to bed and curled up together that ey was finally able to truly let go of the topic, though. Even throughout eir writing, a small portion of eir mind had been dedicated to the question of what eir role was between the two skunks and why it both rankled and felt necessary.