Interlude: Ioan Bălan — 2346

“I never wanted this. I never wanted any of this!” the skunk shouted, stamping her foot and jabbing her finger toward em. “You talk about how much I mean to you, how much this place means, and then what? Nothing ever comes of it.”

“What the hell is supposed to come of it?” Ey stood quickly enough to knock the chair back onto the ground, all but lunging toward her. She stood half a head shorter than em, but, having decided that this wasn’t menacing enough, ey forked two times in quick succession, three of em stomping toward her.

Rather than quail under the onslaught or simply run away, she stood up straighter, arms crossed. “Really? Are you really sure that you need this to make your point?”

Ey — all three of em — faltered in eir advance as the skunk continued.

“I never, ever should have stayed around here,” she said, voice suddenly frigid. “And I certainly never should have stayed with an asshole like you.”

With the slam of the door still ringing in the air, eir two forks quit as ey stumbled back to the chair, slowly righted it, sat down heavily, and buried eir face in eir hands.

Ioan made sure to stay still even as the lights came down and the applause began, holding eir position all the way until the noise of the audience was muffled by the curtain. Ey finally sat back in the chair, stretching eir arms up and taking a few long breaths.

A pair of soft, fur-covered arms draping over eir shoulders and an equally soft-furred cheek pressing against eir own brought em out of eir reverie, if reverie it was. Ey tilted eir head against her cheek and held her arms to eir front.

“Hey asshole,” the skunk said, echoing the epithet from a minute before.

“Hi May.” Ey grinned, tilting eir head enough to get at least a sidelong glance at her. “Well done on that ‘ever’. Thought you were going to punch me in the stomach or something.”

She nipped at eir shoulder, letting em feel sharp teeth even through the thick fabric of the costume, before standing up. “That would be out of character, dear. Both for my character and I. Might be kinda fun sometime, though.”

After Ioan stood, they made their way backstage, letting the hands — several of whom were also them — deal with the scene change. Backstage, then back behind even that to their dressing room, where they were each able to get straightened up in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

As ey always did when coming face to face with emself in costume, the feeling of being someone else all but disappeared, and ey marveled at the fact that ey’d even let May talk em into this however many years ago. If there was one thing that ey was, it was a historian, right? It was a writer. An investigative journalist. Ey was in no way a stage actor, right?

But the Ioan that stared back at em, one skinny almost to the point of gaunt, one with sallow skin and sunken eyes, was proof of the opposite. It had taken em at least a year to really, truly master the art of forking over and over to carefully modify one’s appearance. It felt counter to so many instincts, and even still, ey left a Ioan back home, unchanged from the view of emself that felt most at home, just to ensure that there remained some tie to that. May had chided em for this, but ey couldn’t let go entirely.

“I do not know why you decided to write a scene where I have to yell at you,” May said, bumping her shoulder against eirs. “Love the story, hate the scene.”

“Hey, we’ve had our arguments.”

“Well, yes, but I do not like those, either, so that is not a point in its favor.” She grinned, poked em in the side with a dull claw. “And never during any of them have I yelled at you or called you an asshole.”

Ey laughed and reached up to tug at one of her ears. “Well now’s your–“

The longer ey held still like that, the deeper May’s frown grew, the more her tail twitched this way and that in agitation. Still, she let the silence be and didn’t touch em, unwilling to interrupt what must be a rather long sensorium message.

Finally, ey sagged, rubbing eir hands against eir face. “Uh, sorry. Can you send a fork back home? I’m going to have to try and push that out of mind for the time being, and I don’t want both of us to be in that state.”

The skunk nodded and forked off a new May, who quickly stepped from the sim. The remaining instance sighed and slipped her arms around eir middle. “You cannot leave me totally in the dark, my dear, or I will be distracted for worrying about something I do not know. Can you at least tell me something so that I don’t lose my fucking mind?”

Ioan grinned and returned the hug, resting eir chin atop her head. “Dreamer Module,” ey mumbled. “That enough for you?”

Back at the house, the root instance of Ioan was walking circles around the dining room table, ‘pacing holes in the rug’ as May would say.

Did say, it turned out, when she first entered.

“Sorry, May.” Ey pulled out a chair at the table and sat, but did so very carefully, deliberately trying to avoid simply wanting to get up and pace all the more. “News from Castor.”

At that, her ears perked and she pulled out the chair beside em. “Alright, spill it.”

“Someone picked up the signal from the Dreamer Module. They say they understand the bit about how to use the Ansible and an astronomer — Tycho Brahe, who Codrin said ey interviewed — gave them permission to without thinking.”

The skunk frowned, sitting up straighter in her chair. “So they are going to upload to Castor?”

“It sounded like they were forty days out from their closest approach. Codrin didn’t know when exactly the upload window was.” Ey frowned as ey picked apart the remaining bits of message. “Apparently they’ve named the remote ship Artemis and the aliens Artemisians. That’s about all I know about it, other than Tycho said ‘yes’ and Codrin will be working with him on it.”

“I am assuming more will be coming soon, knowing you and Codrin.” She doodled on the surface of the table with a blunt claw. “I am also assuming that other Odists are not far behind in meddling. How long ago did this happen?”

Ioan squinted, then shrugged and just brushed eir hand along the table, a sheet of paper unrolling from nothing with the message itself written on it. Ey handed this to May, who read carefully.

“So, sevenish days ago. Nothing we can do but wait for further messages. Anything we send back will be two weeks too late.” She hesitated, set the paper down, and looked at em searchingly. “What do you make of the second half, though?”

“I’m still trying to process that.”

“Do you not feel the same?” She reached out a paw to take one of eir hands in her own. “You got into theatre after all, did you not? You are not doing much in the way of history, these days, other than the occasional paper. Did you really feel as though you had been sucked into all those projects with no input?”

Ey let her lace her fingers with ears as ey thought. Words were a long time coming. “A little, I suppose, but this bit about feeling a lack of agency is new to me. I don’t know that I ever felt that strongly about being dragged along or anything.”

“Perhaps it is Dear.”

“How do you mean?”

She squeezed eir fingers between her own. “I think Codrin and Dear settled into a life of their own, but you know Dear. It is intensely focused on these big dramatic gestures. And before you say it, I am focused on drama, but rarely are my actions in life dramatic. I am happy with the life we have built. I am happy living with you and loving you and pushing you into writing increasingly weird plays.”

Ey laughed, lifting her paw to kiss at her knuckles. “Well, sure. You got me to settle down, I guess. I don’t think Dear is capable of settling down.”

“I hope you do not resent me for that,” she said, tapping at eir chin with a finger. “I do not get the impression that you are unhappy, my dear, but I occasionally worry that your life now is not entirely the one that you wished to build.”

“I have no idea. I don’t think I had any real plans for building a life.” Ey sighed. “Which I guess is kind of where ey’s coming from. Without direction, any influence feels like getting yanked around. I felt yanked around by True Name shoving you into my life, though I love you dearly now that you’re here.”

May beamed at this, and ey was reminded of eir promise to emself to say that more often.

“Do you think ey is able to take greater control of eir life?” she asked. “You still occasionally get stuck, but I was surprised when you were the one who asked me how to write a script.”

“Well, only because you wouldn’t shut up about how bad the one you had was.” Ey rolled eir eyes. “Skunks are so annoying. Ow!”

“If you call me annoying again, I will pinch you again. A third time will earn you a bite.” She grinned toothily. “All the same. I am glad that you are happy. I do wish we were closer to Castor, though, so that you and Codrin could have an actual conversation about this. You may not be able to respond much about the Artemisians, but perhaps you could explain some of your thoughts on agency.”

Ey nodded. “I’ll do that, yeah. Any suggestions?”

“Perhaps ey could do a grand gesture and surprise Dear. I have loved it every time that you have surprised me. I do not think that Codrin has learned how to do that yet.”

“I’m not sure I know how to teach someone how to do grand gestures.”

She tugged at eir fingers. “You have become a script writer and performer, my dear, do not sell yourself short. Besides, to hear Dear tell it, ey is not incapable. The name thing, the surprise dinner, the forking stuff. Ey is just shy, perhaps.”

“It’s a Bălan thing,” ey said.

“And it is our job as Odists to fuck with you until you break out of it. I have faith in em, just as I had faith in you.” She slid the paper back across the table to em. “You just need to pass that on.”