# Gala: A Finger Pointing — 2183

## Log

A ballroom, all vaulted white ceilings with glittering gold leaf accents. A wooden floor — something light, yet durable — which echoes even whispers back to the banks of attendees standing at the eastern entrance. Everyone in this crowd of diverse forms is dressed in their finest. It is all black ties and black dresses, red roses and whispy white veils.

And before this gathered crowd, a single fox stands alone, in glittering white fur and similarly black garb, though whether the attire it is wearing is a feminine dress or some more masculine tuxedo seems to vary depending on the angle at which one views it. It is standing prim and proper, paws folded before it, and smiling confidently.

"Welcome, one and all, to tonight's ballroom dance," it says. "My name is Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled of the Ode clade. I have invited all fifty of you here, and am grateful for your attendance, as well as your heeding my instructions to arrive alone. We are here to enjoy a night of fine music and perfectly acceptable dancing." It bows flamboyantly, adding with a smirk, "As I can assure you, I am a merely acceptable dancer, however, I do think that we will all have much fun tonight, yes?"

The fox steps forward and, with each step, ten more instances of it appear alongside. As it walks toward the gathered crowd — now muttering, impressed, by the forking — it continues, "I shall remain the master of ceremonies. Should you have any questions or comments, do feel free to ask."

What follows is a chorus in perfect unison: fifty foxes bow to fifty attendees, each saying in that same lilting, italicized voice, "As for me, would you care to dance, my dear?" 
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 2:09 PM
Dear, despite its claims to the contrary, is quite a good dancer. Given the diversity of the attendees, it seems to have settled for modifying its own form so as to provide an adequately-sized dance partner for all in attendance, and it has done a fairly good job of guessing at who will wind up playing the lead for each pair. You, for instance, wind up with a fox that is somewhat taller than the MC fennec who has set itself up over by an old Victrola, placing a record on the boxy machine and angling the horn out toward the audience.

Rather than the tinny sounds one might expect from such a contraption, however, the room is suddenly filled with the music of a full orchestra. The music: ballroom with just a hint of swing. The occasional blue note. A touch of syncopation.

You wind your way as a stately pair around a rather miniscule couple — Dear appears to have shrunk itself down to dance with...is that a mouse? — and then skirt around the boundaries of some much larger couple — a giant of some sort. Of course the fox would invite such a delightfully strange crowd.

A good dancer, a pleasant conversationalist, easy to laugh and easier to twirl beneath an upraised arm.
It is in the last few bars of the second song that a shout rings out, followed by a peal of laughter. There are too many bodies in the way, but you hear a voice, still chuckling, say, "It just quit! I didn't think I was that bad of a dancer. Ah well, no line at the punch bowl."

You make it halfway through the third song before the second instance quits. This one just happens to be right next to you, one couple over, so you get a good glimpse of what exactly happens. A brief look of fear flashes across that instance's face, and then it blips from existence, leading the woman it had been dancing with to stumble and let out a startled yelp.

The fox you are dancing with quickly masters a flash of nervousness in its expression, its paw tightening around your hand. Still, that bright smile it has been wearing as it discusses the finer details of preparing for this project — so much goes into finding a space such as this! — quickly returns.

What initially is taken as some silly little commentary on the audience's skill at dancing quickly fades to some other, sharper emotion. With each disappearance, with each fork of Dear quitting, the laughter comes less and less easily, and it takes longer and longer for the fox you are dancing with to pick that smile up once more. It winces at the sound of shouts, ears pinning back against its head in a cringe. Five songs in. Six. seven. The number of couples on the floor has dwindled from fifty down to forty. Thirty. Twenty. The punch bowl is now crowded, though very few people standing there are talking. Hushed whispers, perhaps, but the atmosphere seems to forbid anything louder. Some dance partners do not even cry out anymore. They stiffen and halt in their step, then shuffle off the dance floor with a nervous glance over the shoulders.

The music: livelier, actively swinging. The dancing: faster. The foxes (fifteen...ten...): steadily more anxious. 
Echo — Today at 2:55 PM
That first clenching of her hand earns a concerned knitting of the brow from A Finger Pointing, who feels that unrelenting momentum in its step and carries on, squeezing its paw in turn. And then there is the next, and there is a wary locking of eyes. The fourth, the fifth, she is starting to give it that sly gaze she so often offers. "They are.. quitting?" she questions at one point, stepping out of her meandering style and into the fox's center of balance. That shift from lead to leading is accompanied by a closeness of lips to ear. "Is that your angle?" She comes away with a wicked smile, leaning one way to give Dear's fork an ephemeral swing around their shared center of mass even before it can answer.

But then there are so many of them. And the flashes of fear turn to increasingly anxious last whimperings and fumbling steps. The nervousness catches her off-guard, drawing her back into a less playful headspace. She turns her hand over in its paw, pressing her thumb against its pad. Down to thirty, twenty... She has her gaze on its face, eyeing it with a kind of focus that reeks of the likes of May Then My Name or Always Be True. "You have certainly put together a rivetting set for us tonight, Dear," she comments, raising a brow at it. "I thought your tastes a little coy for my liking. I am glad I stuck around." But there is this other sentiment welling up in her even as she speaks, and it is only a beat or two later when she sends a gentle, «You are not planning to merge down, are you? Or you would not each be so subtly nervous, performance or not.» She smiles softly, skin wet with the sweat of dancing unceasingly for some half hour. She is cut out for it, but it is still a workout, is it not?

At last there are those climactic kinds of jubilant quicksteps that any classy joint ought to peak with. There is a lot more room on the floor, too, on account of the guests crowding around that punch bowl, so she slips into a kind of swaying contra lest she look too pedestrian at such a grave gathering. Five, four... «I see you have saved the best for last,» she muses, eyeing the others still with us. You did not pick out the best dancers, my dear fox; you chose the ones who look the most severe. Why, then, is this dramatic Odist still dancing with you, celebrating these last few numbers before you go?

Three. That one stood there for a solemn moment, clenching eir fists a little after eir Dear quit before stepping once backward and quince forward into the crowd.
Two. Tears were on that face as she stumbled over her rather overlong dress when her mid-stride imbalance was suddenly left unsupported.
One.

A fox and its cocladist come to a stop even as the rhythm hammers on with a hysterical kind of samba that invites her to show off her footwork chops. She declines, opting instead to reach up with her hands and bring its strategically-raised forehead to hers. Thumb and forefinger work either ear, and out her lips come gentle words for only it to hear: "You were beautiful, my dear. Thank you for sharing this with me."

There is a little silence left between the last reverberating notes of the finale and the sensation of her hands sliding down its shoulders to hold each of its paws. She straightens up, steps back, squeezes its pawpads one last time, and then...

With the cocky kind of smile only an Odist can muster, she bows a theatrical bow, crossing her feet with one arm tucked and the other outstretched. Her face dips down, and when it rises... 
Slow Hours
OP
 — Today at 3:21 PM
By the time there are only three foxes left on the floor, your fennec's tears are flowing freely down its face, and it is sniffling gratuitously. All of them are. They seem intent to subtly guide their dance partners closer together, as though by dancing in some tighter ring, they might escape the fate that has befallen their comrades.

It does not help.

By the time there are two left, the fennecs spend as much time looking at each other with searching gazes as they do at their partners, as though hunting for some path forward that does not involve annihilation. There are no words spoken, but the subtle moving of their lips bespeaks perhaps a rapid flurry of sensorium messages back and forth, as though there is some hidden, heated debate as to whether or not this one will be the last, or if it will be that one. Should they flee? Should they hunt down some hidden killer? Perhaps it is the Dear still standing primly, blank smile on its face, over at the Victrola.

Then the other fox quits with an anguished cry, leaving its own sobbing dance partner to stumble her way over to the punch bowl — now empty, perhaps as some more anxious attendees attempt to...solve that feeling of annihilation with alcohol, dull it in some other form of the feeling — where friends she has never met until an hour ago try to comfort her.

There is no wink in your fox's eye, no glimmer of recognition that it has made this choice, that it has set up this act. As far as anyone else can tell — anyone without so thorough a knowledge of theatre as you, who might spy the barest hint of rehearsal in its movements — it is fucking terrified. It keeps glancing over its shoulder at the audience with pleading eyes, and as your confidence remains steady, it leans right into that. Without actually pulling away from you, it shifts the onus of villain onto you. It was her who did this! its gaze says, It was her and I am next!

By the end it is whimpering and shivering in your grip as you dance. There is only the barest flick of its ear against your fingers as you quiet words, the faintest semblance of pride peeking through, though visible only to you. It stands there, shaking and crying, as you felt its ears between your fingers, brush your hands down over its arms, hold its paws...and then take that bow. It seems to shrink in on itself, trying to stifle its sobs and moans of terror, hiding its face behind a paw as you bend forward so theatrically.

"No, no...no no no," it begins, first as a mutter, then as a moan, and then a loud cry. "No n–" As you lift your face again, it doubles over as though in agony, stumbles over to the side, and starts to fall, though before it reaches the ground, it quits.

"Bravo! Brava! Bravissimo!" comes the voice of the MC, even as the music settles back into something soft, lilting, a gentle background music rather than music meant for dancing. It claps loudly, joyously, though it is the only one. "What beautiful dancing, all of you! Thank you so much for joining me in this most lovely of evenings."

A wave of its paw, and the punch bowl is replenished, and then joined by plates of canapes, a tub full of ice containing bottles of icy vodka and shitty beer. "Please, join me for an evening of fine drink, fine food, and fine company. I–" It forks several times over, all of which continue in unison. "–will be at your disposal for the rest of the night."

As the MC, the original Dear, walks forward to take your hand in its paw, several of the audience members quit, various expressions on their faces. "And thank you, my dear," it says, voice quiet enough to be for your ears only, even without a cone of silence. 
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 3:35 PM
She spends a moment wiping brine from her face — sweat and tears alike — when Dear reaches out to take her hand. "You are a kinky little fuck, huh?" she teases, clearing her throat. "And you came from Rye? Why, that is a fascinating deviation. You remember, of course, our collaborations some years ago; but I am afraid I have not yet had the pleasure, Dear. Though you know my name already, on account of this black-tie event allow me to introduce myself as A Finger Pointing, ever yours~." She sways a little at that last note, shaking her head with her nose held just a bit aloft, an insistent kind of assertion. A conviction, perhaps? "To what do I owe the honor of the last act? I see Praiseworthy over there. Surely she would have been equally adequate?" 
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 3:43 PM
The fox laughs melodiously, looking quite proud of itself at that teasing assertion. "Dear, kinky fuck at your service," it says, curtsying to you — an interesting endeavor when viewed face on, where its outfit resolves more into tux than dress. It guides you gently by the elbow over to the table of refreshments, waving paw towards it as an open offer before serving itself a cup of that punch. It figures you have had more exertion this night than it has. While you pick your beverage, it continues, "I am no longer Rye, not by a long shot, but I do retain her focus on stories. It is my job as MC to remain in control of this event, of the story it tells. To that end, I remained in contact with each of my instances throughout and slowly built a list of names who would make a fine final partner. Praiseworthy was on that list, yes, but when you guessed that I would not merge down, I immediately bumped you to the top of that list. That was quite insightful of you, my dear."
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 3:55 PM
Her choice is a plain vodka soda, something refreshing and only the slightest bit numbing. Her chest is a little tight after all the heart-flight this night, and she is thankful to at last find herself at rest. "I think it is less perception and more a sense of that particular kind of play." She grins, grazing its collar with the middle knuckle of her forefinger. "By which I mean the fun kind, not theatre. I have done much the same with my own forks from time to time. There are some moments when I think there is a kind of heartache I might like to indulge. It is, I suppose, my guilty pleasure, a way to be a little bit closer to our Beloved."

She opens up her drink and gulps it down halfway empty, parting from it with a bit of a groan. "Fuck, I did not realize I was so dehydrated." She lifts the can up, squinting at the label. 5%. "Do you have someplace to sit? I fear my legs may give out from under me if you have not." A Finger Pointing chuckles, then, suddenly, casting a wily eye at the fox. "Unless, that is, your intent? Drive me to exhaustion and have me fall and quit like all your forgotten selves?" She tips the can back again, sighing. "No, too on the nose. I have done my part, I think. And now is the afterparty, is it not?"
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 4:01 PM
It nods quite readily at the mention of play. "I have thought long and hard about how I might answer the question of just what, precisely, it is that I do. Is it acting? Is it performance art? Is it something completely new? Others call me an instance artist, and many say that those who join me–" it says, gesturing to the remaining attendees, some speaking with various Dears, others pointedly not. "–are performers within the play. I have settled on the reply that answering that is not my job. It is not, after all. It is their fucking job, all I do is hang the frames."
It guides you by the elbow over to a few chairs along the wall behind the table of finger food, pulling one out so that it can sit facing another. It sits, straight-backed, with its cup of cheer, and continues. "But that is not the whole of the answer. I do not  know why I make art — if I knew, who knows if I would continue to make it? — but what I do know is that I am playing, as you say. I am splashing around in this new art form like it is some giant puddle of actions and words. I am reveling in the delight of it, and terror lives just nextdoor to delight, does it not?"
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 4:15 PM
Her body creaks as she settles, and she leans back with a sigh of relief, gaze cast up at the vaulted ceiling. "Orgasm, after all, is called the little death, yes." She smiles to herself, crossing her arms over her lap and stretching out her legs even as they cross at the ankles. "Splashing around..." Her eyes come back down to meet its. "You, Dear, revel in this. How lascivious! Of course Michelle has it in her, and I suspect even Praiseworthy has her moments if ever I penetrate that fearsome wall of poise she keeps. Someone like Rye, on the other hand, can only be either totally engrossed or entirely affronted by this kind of experimentation with feeling. I wonder which it is!" She grins, shrugging. "But then there is you, and you are not Rye who is not Praiseworthy who is not Michelle. You are Dear, who comes to me all prim and proper after killing itself fifty times over for the fun of it."

She lifts her can. "Now, to that I will drink." 
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 4:22 PM
It raises its own drink in a toast, smiling quite happily. "But of course you would, my dear. I have heard so much about you! It grins lopsidedly, sipping its punch. "But come, I would love to hear more. I have seen a few of your plays, though granted it was before all of this. Back when I was a skunk, I mean," it says, gesturing down at its whole self: this genderlessness, this fennecery. It giggles as it continues, "It is perhaps this change which brought about so many thoughts of so many little deaths. It is this moving away from Rye and Praiseworthy and Michelle, away from even the Name, which I am sure I no longer remember. So what is it for you, then? What has led to you splashing around in such feelings? You cannot talk about your own forks and then not explain, not to me! Tell me more of these similar feelings that you have played with."
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 4:47 PM
A Finger Pointing offers a thoughtful hum, setting down her empty can before she speaks. "I am.. happy. My life is good. My stanza is thriving, our troupe is greater than even our clade. There is so much headroom yet left in which to grow, but I find myself wanting. There is still the searing memory of our Beloved. There are still the tearful stares of the tenth stanza. There is still Michelle, who.. who has very much succeeded in her endeavor to keep the rest of us from falling apart like her. Try as I might, she seems.. unable to heal. Friendship can only do so much. In Dreams offers her companionship. Hammered Silver offers her compassion. True Name takes care of her in her own lieutenant way. I.. am confronted with the reality that we are still in a world where pain exists. And if that pain is going to exist, I can only be comfortable if I own it."

She smiles ruefully. "Though I have learned to manage my own feelings of our shared history, my dear, I remain haunted by it. It does still ache from time to time, and it is in those moments that I think I am most predisposed to.. dispose of something cherished if only for the meditative act of doing so. I have never liked to do with a fork what I could instead do myself; certainly not in matters of joy. But I do sometimes choose to accept an invitation and also choose not to remember. It is a mindful kind of fasting; we did not inherit our grandparents' faith, and neither did I go the way of Oh But To Whom's reclamation, but I have taken on some of that spirtualism in all this. I think there is something lovely about life, and that there is value in looking death in the eyes and interrogating it. Do you not?"
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 5:00 PM
As the conversation drifts and circles around matters of the clade in lazy loops and whorls, the fox blinks a cone of silence into being, to allow more free conversation. There is a lovely transgression to be had when talking about Michelle and the origin of the System, of the one who it cannot name — and were it to hear that name, it would surely crash — but Praiseworthy is here, and there is Rye, arrived in time for the afterparty; apparently the sim has been opened to other friends, and the atmosphere is slowly loosening.

But that is all out there, and in there there remains that probing and exploration of topics enlivening and tender in equal measure. "I have not seen Michelle in longer than I care to admit. I am sure that I will some day, but I will admit that I am also afraid to do so now, looking as I do. Perhaps..." It forks briefly into a skunk, who shakes her head and then quits. "But I digress. These are important topics, but for some other time. Right now, I am riding the high of a show gone well. As soon as you messaged your fennec that question about merging down, it cut all contact with me, so I do not know anything about the rest of your dance together. Now, you tell me about this mindful fasting, and I am full to overflowing! There is indeed something holy about that careful decision, yes, about saying "Not all of this is for you; thus, not all of this is for me." I am pleased that my supposition that you might be a kindred spirit turned out to be correct. Have these thoughts been put to use in your work with your troupe, then?"
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 5:14 PM
"It is in The Only Constant that I have imbued that particular sensation. Slow Hours, it turns out, has stumbled into it on her own terms. And then there is That It Might Give, who I suspect quietly harbors a sensitivity to bittersweetness in a roundabout sort of way. I have, from time to time, leaned into this numinous nuance in one way or another when spitballing and casting and coordinating and such. But generally, our troupe tells their own stories, collaborating as they see fit. I am only sometimes party to that endeavor; at this point I have become more of a mother hen than a theater director. Even that position has been largely taken on by That It Might Give. I started the whole thing, yes, and now they are finishing it in my stead. I am really quite proud of them all."

"And.. it leaves me rather idle. I have spent the greater part of this decade connecting with the other stanzas, and am finding that there is.. animosity I had not sensed before. Loss For Images in particular seemed very.. alarmed by my interest in her. I was, frankly, caught off my guard when she asked me point-blank what my intentions were. I had invited her over for dinner with Beholden and Time Rushes and Motes and I, and there was this undercurrent of..." She catches herself, chuckling. "I suppose the best answer to your question is no. When I have, I have only noticed in hindsight, even. I think that I am most interested in exploring these themes by and for myself. That I was party to this party of yours is a gift, but I think what I got out of it was bearing witness. I suppose that is what The Only Constant has become for me. I get to see em splash around like you and I, except eir canvas is the stage, and ours our forks."
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 5:26 PM
At the mention of The Only Constant, Dear smiles and, briefly setting its half-empty cup of punch down on its knee, claps gleefully. "I have spoken to The Only Constant a few times now, yes! What a delight, what a delight," it says, laughing. That smile lingers throughout, too, though it gets rather strained at the mention of Loss for Images. After you finish, there is a moment of silence as it composes its next words. "There is, I think, a certain strain of conservatism that runs through our clade, yes? It is less a conservation of old ways as it is an inflexibility. Their ways may be new, but, their means...ah, but I digress.

"I am still quite pleased to hear that there is so much of this in you and yours, though. You especially, though, as I think that will speak well to your whole stanza, will it not? You speak of these themes in relation to your own and how they have honed it into their own ways, yes? Tell me about your forking, though." Its smile veers further towards sly grin. "I will warn you that I am an unrepentant thief. I will one thousand percent mine your words for ideas that I may steal."
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 5:43 PM
"I would have it no other way, my dear fox." She smiles wryly in turn, standing up and depositing a pointedly less clammy fork in her seat before quitting. She leans forward, lacing her fingers together and resting her chin on her hands. "Sometimes I have asked myself questions about the death in quitting and merging and looked down at my more root-ward self with wary consideration. Who is this creature who remembers me? What happens to me if she decides that she is hungry and consumes me instead? Why, then, do I keep myself A Finger Pointing and not abscond with my life more surely intact? I think these things, and then I usually merge down after all. And sometimes I do not remember her. Sometimes I send a fork to a party I would really rather participate in myself, and when she returns with all those lovely experiences freshly welling up in her I think they belong to her. It is less about willful individuation and more about.. how every fork is an individual."

She motions to her side, conjuring another fork to stand and hold her hand. "I am now two Fingers Pointing at one another. We know who is root-ward, but who is the one who is most real? One is ephemeral and one is not. Sometimes we quit after forking; sometimes we merge after being forked. Clearly there is some ambiguity here, for it is not as simple as who was first." She looks up at herself, shrugs, and pulls her stumbling over her lap, inciting a lively chuckling from her up-tree. "What she chooses to do with this life is for her to decide, and no one else. Even if she calls herself A Finger Pointing and tells me she has no intent of individuating, here she is caught completely off her guard because I did not intend to surprise her until just now. She is different from me!" 
Her up-tree rolls over onto her side, finding some semblance of comfort draped over A Finger Pointing's lap in this little chair-for-one. "I make a liar of her when I merge, do I not?" her fork interrogatively posits. "It is in that juxtaposition between harmony and discord that I find these most compelling feelings."
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 6:06 PM
Dear watches this display with widening eyes, and is once more left to sit in silence for a few moments after, though those wide eyes slowly furrow into a look of deep concentration. Eventually, there is the briefest flicker of a fork of the fox who immediately steps from the sim. "This is an intensely interesting idea, my dear. I have, as you so skillfully guessed, played with the idea of merging or not. That was my own subtle art from tonight, yes? Each of my forks quit, and some of them were happy to follow their role as a matter of course. "Ah, I will get to dance for only a song and a half," one thought, while the rest knew that they would go on dancing for longer. As the night went on and they exercised their capability for anxiety and tears, though, did they begin to believe that they were being hunted? Did they suspect some error in the System that drove them to quit? Did that last fennec really begin to fear you? Was that terror in its eyes real?" It laughs, makes a grand, if vague, gesture. "I do not know. I do not care. That is not my fucking job, that was theirs. They did it well, from what I could see, and I managed the affair to an extent, but I am a lenient boss. I believe in the freedom of those who work under me."
It smiles pleasantly, adding, "But now you bring to mind this idea that maybe they did not want to. Sure, they did, but maybe, just maybe..." It trails off meaningfully, before stepping sideways along the conversational path. "Some years ago, I forked and went out for a walk along the street. I put the Name in an exocortex and then began to change. I forked and forked and forked as I walked that endless city that I called home at the time. I changed my shape, from stocky to slight. I changed my species. I changed my sense of smell, my sense of sight. I changed my hearing." It gives a shake of its head, tall ears bowing under the momentum. "I changed the way I thought about our history. I changed the way I thought about forking. I changed the way I engage with everything around me. It was my goal to change my sensorium enough that I would not be able to access the Name of our Beloved again.

"Tired, I trudged back home. I could have simply stepped back, yes, but this was a part of the ritual. I had to see the way I had come through these new senses. There was my fork, sitting and reading and trying to distract herself from my absence. She looked like Rye, yes? I looked like Rye when I started, after all. She looked up from her writing, quirked a brow, and smiled to me. "You may quit whenever," I said. "I am happy now." She stood, bowed, and shook her head, and then she stepped from the sim. I did not see her for months after that. I did not talk to her, other than a notification that she would be taking the name Heat And Warmth." It laughs giddily, a few forks blipping into being behind it before rapidly quitting again. "She was no less real than I was. Perhaps she is even more real, now. I do not know. I do not care. That is not my fucking job, that is hers."
"And yet," it says, with an air of wrapping up its story. "In all that time, I did not think of the endeavor in this way. I am pleased that you stuck around to talk with me."
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 6:18 PM
"As I am pleased to be so indulged, cousin." She sighs deeply, pat-patting her up-tree on the shoulder. "I am getting a little sore, my dear." She leans down, kisses her own ear, and then is just the one again, except that it takes a few steps; she merges down, forks again, and quits, bubbling upward. This new self settles back down into her seat, returning to that forward-leaning posture from before. "I am also fascinated by the way you fork. You make a bit of a show of it. I had never considered animating my forking; perhaps there is something to be gained from stealing some of your own ideas to share with our troupe. I can just imagine Time Rushes making a damn show of forking-in-motion." 
Dear of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 6:27 PM
The fox grins at the transgressive sign of affection, followed by the bubbling-up into a singular instance. It takes the time to finish its punch and turn its chair sideways, that it may lounge against the back in a manner most undignified. "That is my raison d'être, my dear. It was not so much that Rye wished to explore instance artistry, but that she wished to find the stories within forking, just as she wanted to find the stories within locations, which my sib, Serene, has wound up with. I must make a point of getting in touch with Time Rushes, then, to see how we may collaborate." It waves its cup away into non-being and rests its cheek on a paw, elbow on the back of the chair. "Though the same goes for you, of course. Should you wish to collaborate — and it need not be on something such as an exhibition, even just a pleasant night in, filling a room with countless copies of ourselves in fascinating ways — I would love that. I had not expected to find a kindred soul so readily." 
A Finger Pointing of the Ode clade
BOT
 — Today at 6:38 PM
The human sighs contentedly, leaning back in her chair. "You know, I think I feel much the same, Dear. By the time I had put together what you were doing, I already had this thought that I liked it and did not quite know why. It is also worth noting that I have not intellectualized what it is that I do before. You are the first person who has given me cause to discuss it so plainly. Even The Only Constant is more focused on eir plays than experimenting like this." She smiles softly. "Perhaps instance artistry is something I would like to learn to practice, if only to explore my own feelings. And if you are interested in sharing that with me..." A Finger Pointing raises her nose, grinning wide. "Color me intrigued." The cladist winks, stands, and passes the fox by with a rapid series of gentle pings; a rap-tapping on the mind, as one knocks on an old friend's door with both hands.

She is off at once to mingle with Dear's other guests, fashionably late to the afterparty. «Tomorrow, there will be a show,» she sends from amidst the crowd. «I hope you will join us for the evening revelry after. Plans are still up for debate~. You have my tag!»

## Story

A ballroom, all vaulted white ceilings with glittering gold leaf accents. A wooden floor — something light, yet durable — which echoed even whispers back to the banks of attendees standing at the eastern entrance. Everyone in the crowd of diverse forms was dressed in their finest, all black ties and black dresses, red roses and wispy white veils.

And before the gathered crowd, a single fox stood alone in glittering white fur and similarly black garb, though whether the attire it was wearing is a feminine dress or some more masculine tuxedo seems to vary depending on the angle at which one viewed it. It stood prim and proper, paws folded before it, smiling confidently.

*"Welcome, one and all, to tonight's ballroom dance,"* it said. *"My name is Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled of the Ode clade. I have invited all fifty of you here, and am grateful for your attendance, as well as your heeding my instructions to arrive alone. We are here to enjoy a night of fine music and perfectly acceptable dancing."* It bowed flamboyantly, adding with a smirk, *"As I can assure you, I am a merely acceptable dancer, however, I do think that we will all have much fun tonight, yes?"*

The fox stepped forward and, with each step, ten more instances of it appeared alongside. As it walked toward the gathered crowd — now muttering, impressed, by the display of forking — it continued, *"I shall remain the master of ceremonies. Should you have any questions or comments, do feel free to ask."*

What followed was a chorus in perfect unison: fifty foxes bowed to fifty attendees, each saying in that same lilting, somehow italicized voice, *"As for me, would you care to dance, my dear?"*

Dear, despite its claims to the contrary, was quite a good dancer. Given the diversity of the attendees, it seemed to have settled for modifying its own form so as to provide an adequately-sized dance partner for all in attendance, and it did a fairly good job of guessing at who will wind up playing the lead for each pair. A Finger Pointing, for instance, wound up with a fox that was somewhat taller than the MC fennec, who had set itself up over by an old Victrola, placing a record on the boxy machine and angling the horn out toward the audience.

Rather than the tinny sounds one might expect from such a contraption, however, the room was suddenly filled with the music of a full orchestra. The music: ballroom with just a hint of swing. The occasional blue note. A touch of syncopation.

A Finger Pointing and the fennec wound their way as a stately pair around a rather miniscule couple — Dear appeared to have shrunk itself down to dance with...is that a mouse? — and then skirted around the boundaries of some much larger couple — a giant of some sort. Of course the fox would invite such a delightfully strange crowd.

A good dancer, a pleasant conversationalist, easy to laugh and easier to twirl beneath an upraised arm.

It was in the last few bars of the second song that a shout rang out, followed by a peal of laughter. There were too many bodies in the way, but A Finger Pointing heard a voice, still chuckling, say, "It just quit! I didn't think I was that bad of a dancer. Ah well, no line at the punch bowl."

They made it halfway through the third song before the second instance quits. This one just happened to be right next to them, one couple over, so she got a good glimpse of what exactly happens: a brief look of fear flashed across that instance's face, and then it blipped from existence, leading the woman it had been dancing with to stumble and let out a startled yelp.

The fox she was dancing with quickly masters a flash of nervousness in its expression, its paw tightening around her hand. Still, that bright smile it has been wearing as it discussed the finer details of preparing for this project — so much goes into finding a space such as this! — quickly returned.

What initially was taken as some silly little commentary on the audience's skill at dancing quickly faded to some other, sharper emotion. With each disappearance, with each fork of Dear quitting, the laughter came less and less easily, and it took longer and longer for the fox she was are dancing with to pick that smile up once more. It winced at the sound of shouts, ears pinning back against its head in a cringe. 

That first clenching of her hand earned a concerned knitting of the brow from A Finger Pointing, who felt that unrelenting momentum in its step and carried on, squeezing its paw in turn. And then there is the next, and there is a wary locking of eyes. The fourth, the fifth, she started to give it that sly gaze she so often offers. "They are...quitting?" she questioned at one point, stepping out of her meandering style and into the fox's center of balance. That shift from lead to leading was accompanied by a closeness of lips to ear. "Is that your angle?" 

She comes away with a wicked smile, leaning one way to give Dear's fork an ephemeral swing around their shared center of mass even before it can answer.

Five songs in. 

Six. 

Seven.

The number of couples on the floor dwindled from fifty down to forty. 

Thirty. 

Twenty.

The punch bowl grew crowded, though very few people standing there were talking. Hushed whispers, perhaps, but the atmosphere seemed to forbid anything louder. Some of the remaining dance partners did not even cry out anymore. They stiffened and halted in their step, then shuffled off the dance floor with a nervous glance over the shoulder.

The music: livelier, actively swinging. 

The dancing: faster. 

The foxes (fifteen...ten...): steadily more anxious. 
