Ioan Bălan — 2325

There was a rhythm to research, Ioan had found. The ideas and information did not always flow smoothly; sometimes, ey would go days without breaking through the current blockage, or perhaps ey would rush forward in leaps and bounds, the periods of sleep and waking growing longer and longer until ey was out of sync with the world around em.

But despite these peaks and troughs, there was a rhythm. Ey would find a pace at which the project would bloom, fits and starts or a smooth progression, and would slowly be able to predict the ways in which it would move.

There had been work before the launch, but the way in which it shifted after Dear’s Death Day had knocked Ioan into enough of a different mindset that this felt like a new project. Ey supposed that, in part, it had to do with the sudden cessation of sensorium messages from Dear. That the fox was now restricted to text only must’ve been a shock to its system, and when eir thoughts would drift away from the task at hand of collating histories, ey would picture it sitting at a desk scribbling away, frustration on its features and agitation in its tail.

Then again, ey thought. It still has plenty of company to pester up there.

“Woolgathering?”

Ey snapped back to attention and smiled sheepishly at May Then My Name where she had parked herself on the other side of the room. “Yeah, I guess. I get in the zone and then an idea gets away from me and I forget to keep working.”

She nodded. “Well, come here, then. Let us plan instead of read or write or whatever it is you are doing over there.”

“Woolgathering, apparently,” ey mumbled, but gathered up a notebook and a pen to go plop down next to the skunk all the same.

When May had moved in with Ioan the year before the launch, she had quickly requested several changes to the house. A desk for her to work at as well as a private room — a cube with all grey walls — in which to do whatever it was that she did when composing her mythos. She had also requested a few items that would work with her physiology. A stool for the desk that would let her tail drape down and curl around her feet, that sort of thing

She had declined, however, another room or bed, which had initially staggered em.

“Are you going back home to sleep?” ey had asked. “I thought you were moving in here.”

She had laughed and poked em in the stomach with a finger. “You have a bed, Ioan, yes? It fits two, yes? If not, just make it fit two.”

Ey had formed few attachments over the years, and certainly none which included sleeping in the same bed as someone. Eir confusion must have shown on eir face, as May had rolled her eyes and laughed.

“I do not mean anything untoward by it,” she had said.

Ey had struggled to speak with a mouth suddenly dry. “If you say so. I just haven’t slept in the same bed with someone…uh, ever, I guess.”

Her eyes had widened and she tilted her head. “Really? Never?”

Ey had shook eir head.

“Well, I would still prefer to share your bed with you, it is just the way I work. I do not sleep well alone. But if you feel uncomfortable, I will be fine with another bed like yours.”

So now ey slept beside a skunk.

She had also requested a few beanbags that she could curl on, more comfortable than a couch for one with an outsized tail. Each of these was larger than Ioan had felt was strictly necessary, and it had required that ey expand the bounds of the rooms to fit them, but ey had quickly gotten used to them, as ey could stretch out on them just as well as May. They were a little too amorphous to sleep on, but still plenty comfortable.

Ey sunk into a slouch on one next to the skunk, feeling the way it molded around em. Ey knew well enough by now to lift up the arm on the side where she was curled, and she predictably scootched up by eir side to rest her head against eir chest at the shoulder, arm around eir middle. Ey let eir arm drop again, curling it around her shoulders.

“Alright, planning,” ey said, reaching eir free right arm down beside the beanbag for the lap desk which had proved so useful for times such as these. “What should we plan?”

“How about your forks?”

“Right, yes. Do you think I should have one for both Castor and Pollux? And I’ll probably need one for history, judging by what you’ve told me already.”

She nodded, the fur of an ear-tip tickling at eir neck. “Start with one each. You can always cut down from there if it is unnecessary, or use them only as needed. If that first message from Codrin on Castor is anything to go by, better safe than sorry. Monsters and cults! It is all very like Dear. I bet it put Codrin up to it, what with me doing the myth bits.”

“Ey’s been infected by Dear’s weirdness.”

“It is an Odist thing. You will catch it, too, from me.” She laughed.

“I don’t doubt I will. I’m thinking the triad on Pollux fell asleep instead. They’re already diverging.” Ey started a diagram on the page. “So that’s three. Would it be four Ioans Bălan total, then, with me to collate the information?”

“Probably for the best, yes.”

“This down-tree instance to collate, two for the LVs, one for early System history–”

“I will fork for that as well.”

“More Mays?” Ioan laughed.

She poked the tip of her tongue out of her muzzle. “Are you complaining?”

“No, no, I’m sure it’ll be fine. That’s three forks. A fourth as needed for interviews for those who stayed behind.” Ey tapped eir pen against eir lower lip. “How often should we merge?”

“I would suggest once a day to start with, perhaps an hour before you — your #Tracker instance — plan on stopping work for the day. You can use that hour to do your collating. You are less used to frivolous forking than the Odists, and much as I might enjoy multiple Ioans to canoodle with, I would prefer that you not get overwhelmed.”

Ey laughed and shook eir head, jotting down notes on the paper as ey talked. “You’re probably right. Besides, I’d have to make the house even bigger to have enough bedrooms.”

She tightened her arm around eir middle and shrugged. “Or the bed, but there will be only one of you. I may keep a fork or two around working on other tasks, but they can shift schedules if you would prefer not to have multiple mes crowding in on you at night.”

Ioan brushed the fingers on eir left hand through the soft fur on the skunk’s arm. “I’d prefer that, if that’s okay. I’m only just getting used to sleeping next to one you.”

Tilting her muzzle up, she dotted her nose against the underside of eir chin. “For which I am grateful! I struggle to be around people without being close to them. Thank you for indulging me.”

“Of course,” ey mumbled, feeling the skunk’s snout lingering beneath eir chin. “It’s just new to me. Unexpected.”

“Why?”

Ioan frowned and set the lap desk and notes aside, opting instead to brush eir fingers along her arm. This conversation had slid off course, and ey knew that it was hopeless to get it back. Once May began to talk about feelings, all was lost. It was evening, anyhow, and a good time to set work aside.

“I suppose it just never occurred to me,” ey said. “Forming attachments that would lead to something like…whatever this is has never really been a need of mine, so it just never happened.”

The skunk nodded against eir chest, and ey could sense a frown on her muzzle. “That is so counter to the way I function that I cannot even picture it. I am a being of attachments. I think we all are, just to greater or lesser extent.”

“I guess. I’m not a total recluse. I like interacting with others.”

“Just not beyond a certain point.”

Ey hesitated, then said, “It’d probably be more accurate to say that it’s never happened before. I enjoy it now, it just didn’t even really cross my mind until recently.”

“When you had someone addicted to close attachments move in with you?”

“A bit before, perhaps, probably when working on On the Perils of Memory, what with all that went into that Qoheleth business, though I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time. That’s where Codrin came from, after all.”

May slipped her arm from beneath eir hand so that she could lace her fingers with eirs. “That makes sense. Do you understand it better now?”

“A bit, though I suspect I have a long ways to go yet,” ey said, squeezing her fingers between eir own. “Why are we talking about this, by the way?”

She laughed. “We are part of this story, too.”

“Does that mean we’re going to figure in your mythology, too?”

“Oh, of course! The archivist of tales and eir lover, the painter of myths!”

Ioan laughed. “Lover? Really?”

“It makes for good reading,” she said, poking her nose up at eir chin again. “Though I would not turn it down.”

Ioan tensed. Ey could feel eir cheeks burning. “Uh…there’s another conversation I’ve never had to have before.”

“We will have it another time,” the skunk murmured. “Your heart is racing and making my pillow uncomfortable.”

Ey forced a laugh. “What is it with you Odists? Are you all this good at turning everything on its head? Dear and Codrin, and now–”

“You and me?” May giggled.

“I was going to say, “And now you’re pushing me in weird directions.” I wasn’t expecting Codrin to find emself in a triad, if I’m honest.”

“You, my dear, lack a certain self-awareness for someone who spends all eir time up in eir head. It is quite endearing.”

“Thanks, I think.” Ioan shifted to the side enough to look down at the skunk. “How do you mean, though?”

She laughed and licked em on eir chin. It was an odd sensation. “It is not surprising at all, knowing Dear. For as inventive and high-minded it is, it has a pattern of conforming itself to a situation such that those around it want to get close to it, and it does so in such a way that they think they want to be close of their own volition. It tailors its charisma to fit.”

“Are you saying it’s manipulative?”

“Oh, no. Not really, at least. I do not think it knows that it is doing that. It also lacks that self-awareness. It is more like…” She trailed off, searching for the words. “It is like it knows what feels good but not why, so it has developed mechanisms to ensure that those good things happen more frequently.”

“More like a self-reinforcing behavior, I guess?”

She nodded.

“I suppose that makes sense, then.” A silence fell during which Ioan thought about what self-reinforcing social behaviors ey had. “I like to work. It’s a really fulfilling feeling. So I work. I try hard to do a good job, and when I do, it leads to more work. I developed a way to keep myself interested.”

“A coping mechanism for the terminally immortal.”

Ioan laughed. “‘Terminally immortal’? How does that even work?”

“I do not know. You are the word nerd, here.”

“The archivist of tales, you mean.”

She laughed. “Of course. And eir pet mythologist.”

“Oh, now it’s ‘pet’?”

“I am still trying on labels. I am the one who has to write that sort of stuff, after all.”

Ey lay back against the beanbag and May made herself comfortable against em once more.

More woolgathering. That’s what the evening called for, more than work. More woolgathering for the both of them.

Lovers? Ey let a tape run forward in eir mind. Ey watched the friendship ey had formed with May progress into some form of romantic relationship. How would it start? Would it start with em making a formal decision to let that happen? Or would it happen by accident? Would ey some day wake up and realize, Holy shit, I think we’re dating. Are we dating? I think we are.

And ey set a different tape to playing. A tape wherein ey set firmer boundaries, prohibited the friendship from progressing further than it already had. Or, worse — strange to already be placing value judgements! — a world in which ey pushed the skunk away, backed off from the physical affection, from the talk that bordered on flirty, from even the hypocorism ‘May’. If ey let that tape play beyond that point, ey knew ey would find all of the ways in which that would hurt her and how, knowing her, seeing her express that pain would hurt em in turn.

How do they do this? ey thought. How do the Odists just worm their way into your life and make themselves comfortable, letting you think it was your idea? That’s what she’d said, and now I’m in exactly the same position as Codrin twenty years ago.

“It is not intentional, Ioan, I promise. Not wholly.”

Ey jolted, blinking rapidly as her words registered. “Wait, what? What isn’t?”

“Getting close. Wearing down your inhibitions. What we were talking about before.”

“You reading my mind?”

She shook her head and ey could hear the smile in her voice. “You mumble when you think really hard.”

“Shit, right. Sorry. I trust you on that. I’m not upset or anything, I like, uh…this, and don’t have any plans from rolling that back. You mentioned a pattern, though, and got me thinking about it.”

“This is what I like about you, Ioan. What the whole clade likes about you, if history is anything to go by. You spend enough time up in your head that you start thinking about what you are thinking about and putting words to what you are feeling. You get surprised, and then you think about your surprise and break it down to make meaning of it. What you lack in self-awareness you make up in easy self-analysis.”

“Feels like overanalysis, sometimes.”

“Mm, probably is, and sometimes I wish you would come back down out of your head to be present. But it is the same as we are prone to overdoing whatever it is that we are specialists in. Dear goes hard on instance art, I go hard on feeling.”

“What are you feeling about…” Ey forced himself to push away encroaching work-thoughts. Ey had been about to say about this whole venture, but instead went with, “About this?”

“Now?” She squeezed eir fingers in her own before disentangling them to tap at eir nose. “I am feeling comfortable with you, and I am feeling happy about that. I am feeling like asking you to cook something because I am starving or asking you if you’d like to go to bed because I am tired or asking you to get back to work so that I can do the same.”

“That’s a lot of feelings at once,” ey said, grinning.

“Like I said, we overdo it.”

“Well,” ey said, focusing enough to fork off two more Ioans, which ey tagged #Castor and #Pollux.

“I’ll finish up work,” #Castor said.

“And I’ll cook dinner,” #Pollux said.

“And we can head to bed after we eat.”

May’s laugh was bright as she clapped her paws. “Well played.” She slid off the beanbag and stood. She forked another May to go help #Pollux cook before stretching and offering a paw to Ioan to help em stand.

“What?” Ey took the paw and let her help lever em out of the beanbag. She kept the grip on eir hand after. “Bed now? Instead of eating?”

“Excuse me. We are adults in this house, Mx. Ioan Bălan, and adults eat at the fucking table and not on a pouf.”