Mmmm...

Jacob is back.

Jacob is home.

Restless

Keeping busy. Getting over the cold I picked up at Paiho that left me not wanting to face pod goo for a while. Finally managed to sell some of the stock out of the office, but it's really not a good place for a shopfront.

Did dinner at Cia's place with Else. Pleasant. Speculated on what would happen if Aeron tested positive for the pod: I imagine that would not be a happy day for Rhiannon. Aware that we still need to arrange a suitable time for the talk Else would like to have.

Set things up for some simulator training with Ulf, CJ, Benito and Ivan. I like the simulator. Ivan designed me a fit that gets in very close, and I'd hate to have tried it the first time for real. On the sim, however, it was good. He was surprisingly gentle in the ways that mattered. Makes me want to become better. Makes me hesitant about going back if I'm not becoming better.

Went back to The Last Gate, despite the awkwardness since we redded Veto. Caught up with Shae: Caellach's been even more scarce than Jacob this last month. Met a Veto pilot called Raxip Elamp who, at a guess, might have issues about enforced unhappy freedom. Also met Sard Caid. Very strange to do that while I still have kill rights on him, although I was in holo so we've still not breathed the same air. Does that somehow make it okay?

"So Mata, can I call you that?"

"Mmm. Why not? I suppose we're past conventional formalities. Do you prefer 'Sard'?"

And then there was Ethan himself and... nostalgia. A great sodden wave of it. Talking to Ethan brought it all back: dunesurfing, icecream, dancing to his piano playing, and... Jonny.

Maia doesn't know who Jonny is. I've come to wonder if that's for the best.

With Jacob away so long I'm thinking with my head again. Not a bad thing, I suppose, but it's clinical, lacking the surge and impulse of the gene-wisdom and the archetypes.

Instinct

I'm acting like I want another child.

It's not a good time for that. All sorts of reasons. But the ancestors and the erendati don't care about reasons: they care about what's worked over generations. I've lost people lately. There are gaps to fill.

And the ancestors and erendati still haven't caught up with the fact that in these clones I use most of the time, it doesn't matter what they get me to do.

Except jump home to my real body.

I want my marks again.

Changes

So much has happened that each time I've thought of writing I've been daunted by the backlog.

Kerem came to stay for a week; her first time off-world. She slept lots for the first couple of days without the kids and then we went exploring the station together, shopping, cooking, checking out the gardens, hanging out... I've missed her. Our lives are so different now.

We left Re-Awakened and formed our own corp: the Lutinari Syndicate. Electus Matari accepted us. I find myself at the head of a sleek and supple group of combat pilots.

Possibly because of that, I've flown again, sometimes successfully and sometimes resoundingly not. The clone with the beautiful body art spent some time in emergency coldstorage and is now being assessed for reuse in one way or another. I'd like the marks back, if they're not too freezerburnt. It might be possible to recondition the biomass.

Maia continues to grow. She's ten and a half months, now. Mobile, although not yet free-standing. Intrigued by the world, but more upset when she's left alone.

Ulf is now the executor of EM. He's given Uncle Ashlar the job of looking after some of the holding corp admin for him, which is kind, but also a recognition that Ashlar's barely able to shape stone any longer. I hope he can still do some last work, since I'd always hoped to have the supports for my own hearthstone carved by him.

Things with Jacob are still intense and primal and tender all at once. We take small steps toward togetherness. The new place is even "ours".

Falcons have been selling below index build price. Raptors have been selling below reprocess value.

I visited The Last Gate again, and fell into conversation with Punx Evangeline. She's converted to Sani Sabik to marry her lover. She tells me its philosophies aren't so different from those of the Fraction: that you can be free if you can defend yourself; that it's about helping friends. I think she enjoys blood-play with her lover, and doesn't know or care much about the rest.

I hear Bacch scammed Viper. He seems very pleased. I wonder if I should approve or disapprove or just accept it as they way things are with them.

I seem to spend a lot of time not saying things. There seem to be so few people I can actually... argue with these days.

Trust

Earned or gifted.

Wished. Mended. Clung to.

Gone.

Focus

Many small things. Some larger ones. Not much that fits well into words. Seeing Sansha taking people from worlds. Coming back and wanting to nest.

I want to be around as Maia grows.

As much as possible, I want to bring my work together.

And... I'm spending all my spare time at Jacob's place, which we're talking about making ours.

Bought kei flowers at Rens bazaar. We don't have vases for them so I re-cut them in a bucket, remembering Auntie Yana's instructions for that. Remembering Auntie Yana. The smell of them is sweet and clear and makes me smile, as though it's summer festival time and the houses will be blessed.

It's good with Jacob. It's very good.

I've been gathering things together. Moving my bases. Sorting things out so they're where I need them.

Finally tidying away the remnants of other times. Cleared out Pied en l'Air and gave up the contract on the place. Closed the Dreambridge.

I'll go to Paiho again, and swim in the lake there.

I'll freeze.

Must make sure the steamhouse is stoked.

Jacob

I need to tell a story.

It's about friendship, closeness, amazingly intense sex and growing intimacy. It's about dreaming dreams together and working together on corp accounts. It's about clans, and plays, and the whole freedom-duty-individual-group thing. It's about exploring our shared darkness, as well as the light, and finding that we call to each other on so many levels.

I do not want to tell this story.

I fear that telling it will make it fade, like dreams in daylight. Or telling it will give it a reality that's more than what we make each time we're together, and I will come to resent that for casting me in a role I no longer want to play.

I've said I am not good with words of love. I'd rather show what I feel through my actions. And... I'm a little broken by dreams that have faded.

But... maybe...

I anticipate future pain. It is sometimes the price of present joy.

And I embrace them both.