Codrin Bălan — 2346

Convergence T-plus 10 days, 15 hours, 42 minutes

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 them, but when ey explained that that fork would miss them dreadfully and could also quit at any time in case ey began to miss eir family too much, they relaxed.

“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 one’s 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 clapped its paws. “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 — Dear had grumbled sleepily at em when ey slipped away — standing beside a cairn with a mug of coffee, thinking about changes and a future alone.

I can quit when I want, if I need, ey thought. If it gets to be too much, I need answer to no one and can quit when I want. That will be proof enough of my love.

There were several weeks still within Ansible range, but something about this morning felt like now was the time for big decisions, for big changes. A dream, perhaps? Ey didn’t remember eir dreams, but maybe it was one of those ones that lingered beneath the subconscious, making itself known only through the acts one takes 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 a new Codrin fell into lockstep beside em. Each step after that, each footfall that hit the earth, eir new instance began to change, forking nearly in place to bring each change to reality as the two of em made their way to the next cairn out into the prairie.

Eir hair grew straighter, only some slight waviness remaining.

Ey lost a few centimeters in height.

Ey gained a curve to the hips.

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

A dozen steps before they reached the next cairn, they were joined on one side by a failing in the land, a meandering stream-bed — dry now, more of a wash, perhaps — that had not been there before the arrival of the Artemisians, nor even, ey suspected, before ey’d made this decision. Neither stopped to stare, overshadowed as it was by pending goodbyes, but Codrin thought back to that letter from Ioan so many years back, of dandelions in eir yard, of May telling em about the subtlety of the System, of Dear saying that perhaps this sim that Serene had designed might react to the dreaming of its inhabitants.

How long until a ravine forms? A canyon? ey thought. How long until the rains carve away the land? How long until willows take root and huddle around the wash until the water no longer dries up, but becomes a creek? A river?

There were so many changes bound up inside em — inside them both — and now, whatever subtlety the system bore had caught on and began to reflect some part of em. Something new. Something big.

Her skin grew smoother, softer, fairer as they walked; her cheeks grew fuller.

She adopted the Romanian skirt, fotele, and blouse ey’d worn to the talks as her own.

And with that last footfall, she chose a name.

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. Ey thought about foxes and love and home and eir own anchors.

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. Both of them stood, watching as the sun slowly crept up from below the horizon.

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

“Sorina.”

Ey smiled, nodding toward the sliver of sun peeking above the horizon. “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 sighed. “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 this place?”

“Yeah,” she said, voice quiet and small. “I don’t know how their ACL patterns around sim construction work. I won’t port the whole sim — not the house, that’d hurt too much — 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 took her hand in eirs and gave it a comforting squeeze, though for her comfort or eirs, ey didn’t know.

There was a sleepy ping against eir sensorium and ey looked back at the house, to where they’d come from. “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 hoarse. “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 through her tears. “Do you think you’ll even tell them you did this?”

“I don’t know.” Ey laughed and squeezed her hand, tighter this time. “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 tunic sleeve. “If you stick around, I’m going to keep thinking about it and not let you go. 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 in turn, marveling at the fact that it was already a surprise. Perhaps she’d already changed more than ey’d thought. Or perhaps ey had. She felt like a new person, completely unlike emself, or even Ioan from whom they’d both derived.

Go, ey thought to emself. Go and be someone new. Go and be whole. Don’t let your grief define you, at least not forever.

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, one of the ones that marked directions explored and said, “For luck.”

Then she stepped out of the sim. Stepped away from Codrin and home. Eir home, but no longer hers.

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, trying to tamp down that sense of loss. Ey let eir eyes follow that new wash, tried to replace more complex feelings with wonder.

“Goodness, my love, 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 on the kiss to the cheek as ey’d 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, taken aback.

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

There was a moment of quiet as Dear digested this. It finally nodded. “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 all over again. I’ll tell you more about her later, alright?”

It sniffled, nodded. “Alright, my love. I would like that. Can you at least tell me her name before we move on, though?”

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

Dear laid its ears flat and stepped back a half pace, growling. “Mx. Codrin Bălan, you are the worst.”

“What?”

“You cannot say things like that to a hopeless romantic! You will destroy them! They will collapse into a swoon. They will drown in their own tears. It is frankly irresponsible. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to take a shower and cry my fucking eyes out for a bit.”

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. Cry all you need, but no drowning, please.”

It grumbled 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, made Dear cry. The usual. 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.

“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 enough 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. I want to do something. Actually do something.”

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

Ey grinned to them. “Let’s move to Convergence.”

Dear blinked and laughed. “Codrin, you are such a fucking nerd.”

“You mean the whole sim?”

“Of course. All that work on those cairns? Of course it’s coming with. I want to show them the prairie.” Dear leapt up to wrap its skinny arms around eir middle and ey shrugged as best ey could in the midst of a hug, continuing, “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 meet Turun Ko.”

Their 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. I don’t even care if it’s all a dream or the LV failing or whatever.” Ey straightened up and nodded decisively. “That’s my decision. I invite either of you to talk me out of it, but I warn you, 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, forking to do so several times over.

“I asked Sarah to help me write up the events into another book, but while we do that, she’s going to teach me more about therapy and what goes into listening more deliberately one-on-one. Not a huge career change, but a good one, I hope.”

“Really? A therapist? 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 liked that. I like just being with people and listening to them.”

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

Ey grinned, caught the original 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 growl and froth like a rabid beast.”

“No, I promise that’s it for now.”

“Lame.”

“Shush, Dear. What are 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 throw a party. Smaller than for Launch, just friends, but there simply must be champagne.”