Codrin Bălan#Emissary — 2346

During the short break, Codrin helped True Name compose her letter and, after he sent it, simply sat with her in quiet. The skunk remained still throughout, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring down at her knees. She looked small, and some part of em wanted to sit beside her and try to comfort her, but for the emotional and social distance between them, as well as her still jittery form.

And so ey simply sat at her desk and watched her manage her breathing, keep her composure, meditate, or whatever it was that an Odist unbound did.

Finally, ey reached out to offer a hand to the skunk to help her stand. “It’s time we start back, True Name.”

She sighed, nodded, and waved eir hand away, standing on her own volition. “Thank you, Mx. Bălan. I appreciate your help.”

Ey nodded, hesitated as ey composed eir question, and then asked, “I don’t wish to overstep my bounds, here, and will accept no as an answer, but can you tell me what exactly it was that Why Ask Questions meant by “I cannot feel em”?”

After a moment swaying, the skunk straightened up and brushed her paws down over her blouse, straightening some imagined crease. “You ask because of the pronoun?”

Ey nodded.

“I cannot tell you,” she said. Looking steadily at em, she fixed a kind and competent expression in place. “And that I cannot should explain enough.”

Codrin blinked, clutched eir notebook closer to eir chest, and bowed to her. “Of course, True Name. Shall we fetch Why Ask Questions?”

The other Odist was not to be found in her room. She had apparently remained where she had been sitting before, arms crossed on the edge of the table with her head resting on them. Every time a shift in her form brought a jolt or an uncomfortable squirm, and yet she did not lift her head, even when True Name knelt down beside her to speak in hushed tones.

The rest of the delegates arrived shortly after, Tycho and Stolon both looking quite happy. There was a moment’s shuffling as Tycho, Sarah, and Codrin were shifted down by one so that True Name could remain sitting by her cocladist.

Even so, the meeting was slow to get started. There were a few questions asked by both sides about history, but they all felt very careful, well constructed, and circumspect. It was plagued by silences and subtle glances to where Answers Will Not Help rested her head on the table.

“From the sounds of it,” Iska said. “Of the four organic species present, all began their projects of building embedding systems after a traumatic event. It seems to be a common feature of biological systems.”

“We ran-existed in simulation space. There was no difference-change from post-biological life-existence and living in embedded form,” Turun Ko added. “We are unable to add-explain to the topic of trauma. Apologies.”

True Name nodded. “We understand, recorder Turun Ko.”

“If I may ask,” Codrin began. “Was there a period of adjustment for firstrace after–“

“Prophets!”

Silence around the table. Answers Will Not Help pushed herself to her feet. Waves of skunk and human crashed violently across her form. She was laughing. She was crying. Her back arched taut and she laughed up toward the ceiling, a choked, gasping sound.

True Name, struggling to hold her own form together, reached out to tug at Answers Will Not Help’s sleeve. “Please, my dear,” she murmured. “Why Ask Questions, please sit down. I know it is–“

“I am not her! I am not her. I am Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help. Don’t…I…”

True Name froze. Everyone froze.

“You told us you were–” Sarah began, before Answers Will Not Help cut her off.

“Oh, where is Ezekiel when we need him? A meeting of prophets! Navi to nevi’im! The voice of God from the sky in a pillar of flame! Or Qoheleth, a prophet of our own blood, bearing warning of memory entrancing!” Her words came out in an unceasing torrent. “But instead we are Israel to nevi’im, a people to prophets, a people to prophets, and the only time I know my true name is when I dream, and to know one’s true name is to know God. Time feels so vast that were it not for an Eternity— Fuck, I…time makes prey of remembering, I…I fear me this Circumference engross my Finity— Oh AwDae, oh AwDae. Could you ever have guessed at the depths of the death of memory?”

True Name stood quickly and, with a decisive wash of skunk down her form, growled, “How fucking dare–“

“To his exclusion who prepare by process of Size…of…” She was phasing in and out of local time now, her words jittering now fast, now slow. “I miss em, I miss em. I miss…was that eir prophecy? Was that why ey wrote me? Is this AwDae’s words come true?”

“Stop!” True Name shouted, tackling the blurring, crumbling form of Answers Will Not Help to the ground. “Fucking stop! You cannot–“

After a moment’s tussle, Answers Will Not Help collapsed to the ground, limp and laughing. “For the Stupendous Vision of eir diameters—” she said, and then quit, leaving True Name to fall to the ground, weeping.

There was a shocked silence around the table, and when no one moved, Codrin slid out of eir chair to kneel by True Name’s side. Her form had begun to waver once more, and, remembering the aversion to touch that came with that, ey simply sat beside her, waiting until she calmed down.

It was Sarah who broke the silence. “What just happened?”

“True Name and, uh…Why Ask Questions — that is, Michelle Hadje — was one of the lost, and I guess time skew is similar enough to—“

“No,” the Odist said between heaving breaths. “She was right. That was Answers Will Not Help.”

Tycho frowned, nodded. “We had guessed.”

“She should not have been able to do that,” Iska said, nearly growling. “She should not have been able to do any of that. No skew, no exit. What was she?”

“Leader True Name,” Turun Ko said. “Please explain ‘lost’ in this context.”

She did not move from her spot on the floor. “

(TN comes clean, talks about getting lost, Turun Ka says Artante’s race ran into similar, but stops her from talking about AWNH further for now. Codrin helps TN to her room, skews it to fast time to give her as much time as she needs)

“You heard nothing today, Mx. Bălan,” True Name mumbled, quiet enough that ey had to lean closer to hear. “I know what you thought you heard, but you heard nothing. Do not tell anyone. Do not tell Ioan, and certainly do not tell any others within the Ode clade.”

Ey took a half step back from the skunk. So hoarse and clouded was her voice that ey couldn’t piece together her mood. “I feel like there’s some deeper implication there.”

She smiled weakly and shook her head before laying on the bed, facing em. “There is not. It is a request from me to you, from my clade to yours, across our two entangled clades.” The smile faded as she added, “Not a request, a plea.”

Ey nodded, struck silent by the sincerity in her voice. Real, actual sincerity. It made em feel almost bashful. Ey bowed and started to turn back toward the door.

“Codrin?”

“Yes?”

Her voice was small. It bore fear and anxiety alongside the omnipresent exhaustion. “Can you please stay for a few minutes?”

“I, uh…” Ey swallowed dryly. “Do you need anything?”

“Just for someone to be present,” she said. “I may need your help writing a note back to Castor in a little bit, but right now, I just need someone to anchor me. You are very good at that.”

After a moment’s hesitation, ey nodded, pulling up a chair from the small table in the center of the room. Ey sat beside the skunk as she lay still on the bed, eyes closed, her breathing growing more steady, and then slowing as she apparently drifted into sleep.

Ey watched her doze fitfully.

What the hell just happened? ey thought. And how the hell am I going to keep this buried within me?