She stopped playing because she had been out with some friends, some of the others who had decided to give up on grown-up life now that they were here, now that they were decades or centuries old, now that they were functionally immortal. She stopped playing because, as she sprinted full-tilt after a handful of friends, dodging around benches and trees, seesaws and swings, a bolt of panic struck down her spine with an electric intensity and made her tumble into the gravel, made her skid through the pebbles until she crunched up against a jungle gym, left her nose, paws, and elbows bloodied. She stopped playing because for a long minute, she could not breathe, though whether from the adrenaline pulling her nerves taut or the pain in her snout or from the air being knocked out of her, she could not tell.
She stopped playing because, as she slowly pushed herself upright to a sitting position, tears already springing from her eyes, an envelope slid nonsensically from the air and fluttered to the ground before her. She stopped playing because her name — her full name, And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights of the Ode clade — was printed on the front of the envelope in a handwriting that was painfully familiar because it was her own. It was her own and it was A Finger Pointing's and it was Beholden's, it was Slow Hours's and Warmth's and Dry Grass's, and it was the handwriting that flowed from the hand of every Odist even after hundreds of years.
She stopped playing because she had a guess as to who this was from, and that only led to a second spike in anxiety, for while the first had been from a top-priority sensorium ping, this came from fear, from terror. She stopped playing as Alex hollered, "Motes!" and started to run back to her. She stopped playing as she rolled to the side out of the sim and into her studio.
When Motes overflowed, she cut herself off from play. She froze where she was. She went nonverbal, became all but catatonic. It would last days. She would disappear from the world and she would stop playing, and if she stopped playing, she would no longer be herself.
So, when Motes stopped playing, she promised herself that she would not do that. She promised herself that, as best she could, she would do anything but that. She promised herself that she would keep going because she did not want to be seen like this. She did not want to be caught like this, with a letter in her hand, with shame on her face, with guilt all matted in her fur.
Instead, she stood up, committed the contents of the letter to an exocortex, a hidden and compartmentalized part of her memory that rendered it inaccessible until she went looking, and then destroyed the original. There was a part of her that wanted to rip it up, to rip it into confetti and stomp on the shredded paper, to burn those shreds in a small pyre, to put the fire out with her crying, to grind ash and tears together until she had a paint with which to spell out her anger and despair.
But no, she should not do that, either. She should not do anything so childish. She should not do childish things. When she was a child, yes, she spoke like a child and thought like a child and reasoned like a child. She acted like a child when she was a child. *Was.* She was not, was she? She was an adult, and when she had become an adult, it had come time to put an end to childish ways. She was no longer a child, she should not aim to remain or become a child, she was no longer a child, she was an adult, she should put away childish things, she was an adult, she no longer thought or reasoned like a child, she was an adult...
Her mind became a mire, a marsh, a crowded bog full of unpleasant smells and tangled reeds and matted rushes and wilting lilies and sickeningly green watercress and spiky sedge and...
Her muscles clenched and bunched and tensed and pulled her down into a ball so that her feet were flat on the ground and her butt hovered some inches above and her face was buried in her arms where they crossed over her knees and in her ears was the rushing of so much blood and her vision was black and red and full of phosphenes and all she felt was the pain of her skinned paws and bloodied nose echoed in repeating waves radiating throughout her body.
"Oh, Dot," she heard above the din, Beholden's anxious and aching voice barely audible. "How long have you been here, my dear? You never came to dinner and– oh shit, are you okay, Motes?"
She felt, muffled by those waves of stinging and soreness, the pair of paws that had helped to gently unfold her now touching gingerly around her snout, blood all dried. She saw Beholden's face as though it was one she herself might bear in some thirty years, and that anxiety ratcheted up several notches. *I am an adult, I should put away childish things, I am an adult...*
"Whoa, whoa! Hey, come here," Beholden murmured, and Motes realized from some few feet above herself that she had started to thrash and wail. She looked down with distant concern. She should stop that. She watched her body slowly relax, watched her face screw up and the tears once more start to flow.
*Interesting,* she thought. *Yet I acted like a child when I was a child. I am an adult...*
Her sense of self lagged behind — an idea of a mote of a Motes tethered like a helium balloon — as Beholden carefully lifted her unsouled-yet-still-living body and hoisted her up to carry her from her studio — the lights, she left the lights on — to her bedroom. A place of soft things. A soft mattress, a too-thick duvet, stuffed animals and yet more stuffed animals. *I should put away childish things, I am...*
Beholden set her on her feet and carefully lifted her muzzle to face her. "Motes, I know that you are overflowing, but can you fork for me, kiddo? Your nose is swollen and your paws look awful."
*I should fork away the childish things,* the her that lingered above thought. *I am an adult and the time has come to put away the childish things.*
"Do you think you can do that, Dot? You can fork into your PJs even, and we can get you into bed."
She saw a new instance come into being beside the first. Still a skunk. Still a kid. Still not putting away those childish things! Look! The cartoon dogs floating in space, glass helmets over their heads! Space puppies! She was an adult, it was time to put away...
The other, still-bloodied instance quit and Beholden smiled, carefully guiding the pajama-ed Motes up into bed. "Do you need anything, my dear?" she asked, signing the question in tandem.
*Hug,* Motes's body signed. *Hug. Alone. Dark.*
*And the toys?* this other her thought. *Tell her to get rid of the toys!*
But no, Beholden only hugged her, kissed her on top of the head, and tucked her in before turning out the light.
