Codrin Bălan#Castor — 2346

While it wouldn’t have been totally true to call the celebration at Codrin’s return ‘wild’, it was certainly rambunctious in its own delightfully Dear way, with dozens of foxes scattering around the patio in a flurry of forking. Plenty of hugging and chatting and laughing and smiling.

Ey’d been startled, in that half-doubled, roundabout way that an up-tree instance might feel, when ey merged down to find that True Name and Jonas had requested that Codrin#Assist stay at their compound rather than returning home except for a few hours around dinner. The fox’s excitement made more sense, knowing that.

At least ey’d had the chance to pull the fox’s tail.

Once it calmed down enough to do so, Dear dragged Codrin into the dining room, gesturing eagerly for Sarah to follow with. Their partner had a spread already laid out for them.

They spent the next hour recounting, carefully, the events of the talks. Codrin had requested that Sarah not discuss the Odists’ reaction to skew until ey’d had the chance to do so one-on-one with Dear. They spoke instead in general terms, discussing the topics that had come up during the talks, and the final announcement that they’d be welcomed aboard as fifthrace.

“What is the practical result of this decision?”

“Well, the technical details are a bit beyond me,” Sarah said. “But the Artemisians and our own engineers are talking about how to let the DMZ grow in size to no more than a third of our total capacity. As many of them as want to join us within those limitations will be able to join us here. They will allow as many of us who wish to join them to do so, as well.”

“We’ll also be exchanging our shared libraries of information,” Codrin added. “I think that transmission effort has already begun, actually. We’re getting an enormous dump of information from four societies, and then we’ll upload all of ours to them. It’s going to be a field day for librarians, I bet.”

“Think you’ll join?” eir partner asked.

Ey shrugged. “I’m not sure, actually. It sounds fun, but I’m not sure I’m the same Bălan who wanted to be a librarian all those years ago.”

“Codrin#Pollux has headed in that direction, though,” Dear said.

“I know. I just don’t know if the same is something I’d like to do. I’ve got some thoughts on directions I might head instead, though. I’ve been talking with Sarah about it, and will tackle it deliberately.”

The fox nodded. “Of course, my love. I would be surprised if you were anything but deliberate.”

Ey laughed and bumped eir shoulder against its own. “Of course.”

“This is all so delightfully exciting, is it not? I was worried at first that the drama would be too much. Aliens! Political summits in space! Imagine.” The fox giggled. “And it was dramatic, I suppose, but it has settled down into exciting. Aliens, yes, but boundless new knowledge. Political summits in space, yes, but also a mingling of societies that we could not possibly imagine.”

Sarah laughed and raised her coffee mug. “To the proper amount of excitement.”

Dear hoisted its own mug as thought it was some ale-filled tankard. “Precisely, my dear!”

Codrin smiled, sipping eir coffee as ey watched. Proper amount of excitement, indeed.

After Sarah left, the triad sat around the table, saying nothing, simply processing this new future that lay before them. It felt almost too large for Codrin to comprehend. Something new. Something enormous. Something that felt somehow larger than the launches. Those, at least, had the advantage of being something that ey could predict, a frame of reference. Society continued much as it had before, after all, hadn’t it? They had decamped from Legrange for the LVs and everything looked exactly the same, minus only the few friends who had not done so.

This, though, held so many unknowns.

It was exciting, and that it was exciting to em bore excitement of its own. Something new, yes, but something different. Ey felt before em a vast landscape ey’d never explored. While the prairie always contained unknown spaces, it could not hold a candle to the future that lay before them.

Only one anxiety remained, then.

“Dear, can you come for a walk with me?”

The fennec sat up straighter. “Of course, my dear. Now?”

Eir other partner lifted their gaze from where they’d been staring at the table. “Just you two?”

Ey nodded. “Please. There’s some news about the Odists. About True Name, in a way.”

Their expression grew sour and they waved them away. “Don’t upset it too much, then. I’ve got plans for breakfast for dinner, and I won’t have any moping over waffles.”

Dear rolled its eyes. “I will endeavor to be my normal, terrible self by then, yes.”

Codrin laughed. “We’ll end on a good note.”

They stood and walked out into the prairie, Codrin brushing eir fingertips across the tops of eir cairns as they walked. They made it past three before ey was able to open up.

“You were right to warn me about True Name and Answers Will Not Help.”

Dear tilted its head. “I thought Why Ask Questions was the emissary.”

Ey shook eir head. “They pulled some nonsense, I guess. Why Ask Questions was the delegate here on Castor, but they swapped in Answers Will Not Help for those who went to Artemis.”

“Because of course they did.”

“I’d call it cheeky, but it was more distressing than anything.” Ey sighed. “They really didn’t do well with the time skew at all. When we first got there, Answers Will Not Help collapsed, and True Name was only just barely holding it together. Even when we were in a unison room — places where time skew was locked into…uh, consensus, I guess — they kept…well, they looked like Michelle. Alternating forms, exhausted, distracted.”

The fox splayed its ears, nodding. “I did not know how they would act, but I am not surprised that those memories would come home to roost. I am sorry for them. I am sorry that you had to experience that so directly. Did it negatively impact the discussion?”

Ey thought back over the memories ey had been left with from Codrin#Emissary, frowning. “Not necessarily, though we didn’t learn as much as we had hoped, I think. Things just went poorly on their end. Very poorly.”

Dear waited em out.

“Answers Will Not Help lost it. She quit.”

“‘Lost it’?”

“She slowly got less coherent over time, but towards the end, she snapped and started hollering about prophets and quoting poetry. Bits of the Ode, bits of, I think, Emily Dickinson.”

It frowned. “And then she quit?”

“Yes.”

Eir answer must have been hesitant enough that Dear had picked up on the complications that lay behind that single word. It pulled Codrin to a stop. “My love, there is something you are not telling me.”

Codrin didn’t look at the fox, choosing instead to stare out into the vast emptiness of the prairie. “There is, yeah. I don’t know how to tell you without…I don’t know. Without causing you grief.”

The fox squeezed eir hand in its paw. “If it causes me grief, then so be it, Codrin. These things happen. It sounds as though it will not be your fault, anyway. Do not worry about me.”

Ey nodded.

“Codrin?”

“In the middle of yelling about prophets, she said that she ‘could not feel em’. She said the Name several times.”

The grip on eir hand went slack, and when ey turned to face the fennec, its eyes had gone glassy, whiskers and ears both drooping.

“True Name tackled her to the ground, trying to shut her up. They struggled. Fought until Answers Will Not Help quit.” Ey took a shaky breath. “So, now three others outside the clade know the Name. I don’t think Sarah or Tycho know that they do, but I do.”

Silence. Stillness from Dear.

“I’m sorry, Dear.”

The silence continued.

“Do you want me to do as you did? Try and forget it?”

The fox let out a breath in a coarse gust, and ey realized that it had been holding it the whole time.

“Dear?”

“It is the end of an era, then, is it not?” it said, words enunciated carefully.

“I don’t know.” Ey squeezed its paw in eir hand, though no returning squeeze answered. “I don’t know what to do. I can try to forget–“

“There is a pain — so utter — It swallows substance up — Then covers the Abyss with Trance — So Memory can step around — across — upon it…Did she quote that one?”

Ey shook eir head.

“There is no forgetting, my dear. You bear it within you.”

“All the same, I could–“

The fox’s laugh surprised him. It was breathy, hyperventilating, but sounded almost relieved. “No, Codrin. You do not need to. The poem continues: — As One within a Swoon — Goes safely — where an open eye ---- Would drop Him — Bone by Bone —“

Ey was too anxious to puzzle out the opacity of the language. “I’m going to need some help disentangling that, Dear.”

“There are very few times that memory can hope to be selective. When one is drunk, perhaps. Drunk on wine, drunk on love, drunk on pain. Perhaps when one is drunk on a life lived too long, as I am. It is the end of an era, and perhaps we are all becoming inebriated by too long a life. Do not forget it, Codrin. Do not do as I have done. It is stupid, is it not? Look at me. I am in all ways drunk on time.”

Codrin smiled cautiously.

“Do not tell me, of course. I do not know what that would do to me, after all that I have done to myself. And certainly do not tell any other Odist. I do not want assassins visiting us in the night to shut you up,” it said, laughing in earnest now. “But also do not worry about your new knowledge. It is high time that we unclench our collective anus and let that shit go.”

Ey laughed as well. “Right, right. True Name suggested not telling any other Odists, too.”

“Did she tell you to keep it from Ioan?”

Ey nodded.

“Ignore that. Do not tell em the name directly, but do send a clade-eyes-only message to em saying that you know. Tell em to pass it on to Codrin#Pollux, as well.”

“Why?”

“So that you need not be the only Bălan carrying this burden. After all, we are in love, are we not?” It grinned, finally squeezing eir hand in return. “We are in love and Ioan and May Then My Name are in love. We are bound together.”

“Aren’t you worried we’d hold that over your head if we got mad or something?”

It shook its head. “If you did, then we would not be in love, would we? I will write May Then My Name and the other Dear, as well, and tell them my thoughts.”

“Well, so long as you’re sure that neither of them will snap and start hunting Bălans.”

“The same applies to us, my dear,” it said. “If they snap, then they were not truly in love.”

“It sounds like you want to test all of our relationships.”

“It is not a test. It is a game.” It giggled. “Come, my dear, this will be fun! The other two Odists will think so, as well, I promise.”

“A game, huh?” Ey let go of the fox’s paw to poke it in the side a few times, hunting for ticklish spots. “You’re so weird.”

“A game! A game!” It laughed helplessly, then darted away from em, cavorting through the grass. “A game! And you are it! Catch me if you can, you fucking nerd!”

Codrin laughed and chased Dear around the prairie for a bit, the fox occasionally forking off to dart in some new direction, only to be followed by a new fork of the writer, until the prairie was littered with forks of them both. Each time one of em would tap one of it, both would quit until only two remained. They raced each other back to the house, nearly bowling over their partner at the door.

“Holy shit, you two,” they said, laughing. “What the hell did you talk about out there?”

“When Memory is full,” it shouted, dancing in circles around them. “Put on the perfect Lid!”

They rolled their eyes. “Uh huh, sure.”

“Can we have eggs as well? And bacon? Bacon and waffles with syrup is a true delight.”

“Sure, why not. Want some hash browns, too? Might as well go all out.”

Codrin leaned in to kiss them on the cheek, still working on catching eir breath. “Yes. Definitely hash browns.”