Codrin Bălan — 2346

The decision to send a fork along to Artemis had gone over better than ey had expected. Eir partners had initially bridled at the idea of em — or at least an instance of em — moving on without em, but when ey explained that that fork would miss them dreadfully and also be allowed to quit at any time in case ey began to miss eir family too much.

“While I do not wish to see you test whether or not you will be able to get over missing us,” Dear had said. “I recognize the impulse to explore and advance ones own knowledge.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” eir other partner had responded. “I wish that Codrin the best of luck. Perhaps it will become a case of em picking another name and growing a new identity.”

At that, Dear had perked right up. “Yes! Yes, I can see that. Were that to be the case, my love, what name would you choose?”

Ey had laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know yet, but I think you may be right that this is an inflection point similar to the one from forty years back.”

And so here ey was, up early one morning before both of eir partners — though Dear had grumbled at em for leaving bed early — standing beside a cairn with a mug of coffee, thinking about names and a future alone.

There were still several weeks ahead within Ansible range, but something about the morning felt like now was the time for big decisions, for big changes. A dream, perhaps? Ey didn’t remember eir dreams, but perhaps it was one of those ones that lingered beneath the subconscious, making itself known only through the acts one took throughout the day.

Ey nodded decisively and dumped out the dregs of eir coffee, waving the mug away so that ey could walk without littering the prairie with dishes.

One step away from the cairn, ey forked, and each step after that, each footfall that hit the earth, eir instance began to change forking nearly in place to bring each to reality, the two of em walking on to the next cairn out into the prairie.

Eir hair grew straighter, only some waviness remaining.

Ey lost a few inches in height.

Ey gained a curve to the hips.

Ey traded in her pronoun, and continued on in her contemplative walk with her down-tree instance.

Her skin grew smoother, softer; her cheeks grew fuller.

She chose a name.

And all throughout, Codrin walked and thought. Ey thought about what lay in the future. Ey thought about the agency ey still held. Ey thought about the words ey’d heard about being anchoring, about being grounding. Ey thought about that crossing point ey’d visited with Sarah about the plaza that lay beyond.

By the time they made it to the next cairn and stopped once more, Codrin had made eir own decision, eir own changes, though none showed on eir form quite as much as eir up-tree instance. Both of them stood, watching as the sun slowly crept up from dawn and into morning.

“Have you decided on a name?” ey asked.

“Şorina.”

Ey smiled, waving a hand toward the sun. “Fitting.”

“Well, not just the dawn,” she said. “But I’ll be leaving our sun behind in more ways than one. I’ll be leaving this sun behind.”

Codrin tilted eir head thoughtfully, then nodded to Şorina. “That you will.”

They shared in the silence, though they had to look away from the sun before long, instead scanning the far-running prairie. Codrin did eir best to drop thoughts of leaving Castor behind. Better, ey thought to focus on the fact that ey was staying, to rush individuation as much as ey could so that the weight of eir decision wouldn’t rest on the both of them nearly so heavily. That had been the point of all of the changes, hadn’t it? That had been the reason why ey hadn’t chosen the name first, anem?

“Will you miss home?”

“Yeah,” she said, and sighed. “I don’t know how their ACL patterns around sim construction. I won’t port the whole sim, but I may bring along a snatch of prairie. Enough to build a few cairns.”

“And do you have an idea how long you might stick around over there?”

She shook her head, and ey could tell that she was on the verge of tears. They both were. Ey gave her hand a comforting squeeze, though for her comfort or eirs, ey didn’t know.

There was an inquisitive ping against eir sensorium and ey looked back at the house. “Dear’s awake.”

Sorina kept looking out into the prairie, out away from the house.

“Do you want to come back and say goodbye?”

“I don’t know, Codrin,” she said, voice thick. “I really don’t know if I can.”

Ey nodded. “I think they’ll understand.”

“Yeah, I do, too.” She finally turned to face em, smiling. “Do you think you’ll even tell them?”

Codrin laughed, shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know that I have that much sneakiness within me.”

“I bet you could manage. You already have one secret to keep.”

Ey sighed, nodded. “I suppose I do. Why don’t you head out. I’ll decide on the way back whether I’ll tell them or not.”

“Rushing me away?”

Shaking eir head firmly, ey wiped eir eyes against eir sleeve. “If you stick around, I’m going to keep thinking about it and getting sadder. Individuation will happen as it will, but I’d prefer sooner than later for your sake, if nothing else.”

Sorina surprised em by hugging em tightly. Ey got eir own arms around her and marveled at the fact that it was already a surprised. Perhaps she’d changed more than ey’d thought already.

They stood in the prairie, holding each other as they cried their goodbyes.

She eventually leaned away, pressed an awkward kiss to eir cheek and said, “Pass that on for me.”

Ey laughed and let go of her. “Will do.”

“Pull Dear’s tail, too.”

“Naturally.”

She bent down, plucked a stone from atop the cairn and said, “For luck.” Then stepped out of the sim.

There was another, slightly more anxious ping against eir sensorium, to which ey responded with one of acknowledgement and began to trudge back to the house.

“Goodness, my dear, are you alright?” Dear said, frowning at the sight of eir tear-slick face.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, fox.” Ey pulled it in for a hug, passing the kiss to the cheek on as promised.

“Who was that you were talking with out there?”

Ey laughed and shook eir head. “And here I thought I was being sneaky. That was the fork heading to Artemis.”

“Ey did not want to come in?” the fox asked, sounding small.

“She,” ey said. “She didn’t think she could and still leave.”

“I understand.”

Ey gave Dear a kiss of eir own and leaned back from the hug, waving another mug into existence so that ey could get a cup of coffee. “If I talk about this any more, I’m going to cry again. I’ll tell you more about her later.”

It sniffled, nodded, and smiled shakily to em. “Alright, my love. Can you tell me her name before we move on, though?”

“Sorina. Has to do with the sun. She said she was leaving ours beyond,” ey said, gesturing out at the morning.

Dear laid its ears flat and growled. “Mx. Codrin Bălan, you are the worst. If you will excuse me, I am going to take a shower and cry my fucking eyes out for that.”

Ey rolled eir eyes, leaning over to tug at the fox’s tail before heading to the kitchen. “Welcome to the club. Go get your shower, though, and cry if you need.”

It nodded and stumbled off to the bathroom, setting up a cone of silence as it went.

“What was that about?” eir partner said from the bedroom door, looking somewhere between groggy and worried.

“Sent a fork to Artemis. I’ll tell you all about it later. Coffee?”

After breakfast, with both Codrin and Dear looking more collected, ey ushered eir partners to the couch, moving to stand before them.

“Are you going to give us a presentation?” Dear asked, laughing.

“Yeah, basically.”

“Carry on, then, professor Bălan.”

Ey took a deep breath, collected emself, and said what ey’d been practicing since ey’d started back to the house. “I have a proposition, and I suspect it’ll be easy for you two to decide on, but I’ve been thinking about how this all started and my complaints about feeling dragged along on adventures rather than taking part actively.”

Both eir partners sat up straighter, suddenly more excited than before.

Ey grinned to them. “Lets move Convergence.”

Dear blinked, then laughed and jumped up from the couch to hug em. “Codrin, you are such a fucking nerd.”

“You mean the whole sim, right?”

“Of course. All that work on those cairns? Of course it’s coming with.” Ey shrugged as best ey could in the midst of a hug. “I want to show them the prairie, anyway. I want to show them what our home looks like. I want to see Stolon sun themself out in the grass. I want you both to meat Turun Ko before it heads back to Artemis.”

Eir partner laughed. “Well, hey, I’m game.”

“Will we move as forks, or invest entirely?”

“Don’t care.”

The fox leaned back and smirked up at em. “Really? You do not care?”

“Nope, don’t care. I don’t care if we fork and diverge. I don’t care if the rest of Castor never sees us ever again. That’s my decision, and I invite either of you to talk me out of it, but it’ll be tough.”

“No, no,” Dear said, leaning up to lick at eir cheek. “We are both game. Let us pack up and move house. Or not. Let us abandon this place to rot and create a new house, a new prairie, new cairns. Littering! Can you imagine?”

Ey laughed and poked at the fox’s side, hunting once more for ticklish spots. “Who’s the nerd now?”

“Any other surprises for us, Codrin? First Sorina, now this.”

“One more, actually.”

“Be still my heart!” Dear said, dancing away from the hug to twirl around em.

“I asked Sarah to help me right up the events, into another book, but while we do that, she’s going to teach me more about therapy and what goes into helping others out one-on-one.”

“Really? You are not going to be a librarian with all this new knowledge?”

“Nah, leave that to the other Codrin. Leave it to the university.” Ey laughed as the fox kept cavorting. “I’ll take some classes, talk with Sarah, and see where it goes. Everyone kept talking about how grounding I was, and I like just being with people and listening to them as it is.”

“You are grounding, Codrin,” eir partner said. “It’s a good move for you.”

Ey grinned, caught Dear in the middle of a spin, and hauled the fox onto the couch with em.

“Do you have any other surprises up your sleeves? If you do, I shall simply have to leap and shout like a mad fox.”

“No, I promise that’s it for now.”

“Lame.”

“Shush, Dear. What our our next steps, Codrin?”

Ey shrugged. “Ask about and see what goes into moving an entire sim into Convergence. Talk with Sarah. Start compiling notes. Ensure Sorina’s settling in okay.”

They nodded.

“And probably through a party. Smaller than for Launch, just friends, but there simply must be champagne.”