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writing/post-self/forest-of-ghosts.md
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%title Forest of Ghosts
"You go first."
Motes stared at Warmth In Fire with a wary look on her face. Too many dares start out this way, too many ill-fated adventures.
@ -100,8 +102,62 @@ Motes's eyes widened as she understood. "So we can see people and stuff moving a
"Le Cauchemar!"
Motes laughed giddily. "The nightmare! God, you are a nerd!"
Motes laughed breathlessly. "The nightmare? God, you are a nerd."
"Am not!" Warmth cried, bouncing around behind Motes with a few different forks, each chatting parts of the sentence that followed. "Or, well, am! But *you* are the nerds who named your neighborhood 'the dream'."
As they dashed around between the trunks of the trees, calling their halloos and crashing heedless through the underbrush, Motes began to fork out of sheer excitement, sheer joy at this thing that her cocladists built together, each new instance of her finding their own tree to climb. She could not help but overflow with giddiness, just as each new fork could not help the same.
It was some time later before they were both calm enough to settle down at the base of a tree near the edge of the forest of ghosts, slouched half against its coarse bark, half against each other.
"So if Serene made the sim and you made the slide, and you had systechs work on on both La Rêve and Le Cauchemar," Motes said, "why did Ma yell at you?"
"Oh!" Warmth lolled its head over to give her a silly smile. "She did not, I just thought that made it all sound more exciting."
She laughed and elbowed her friend in the side. "Rude."
They sat and chatted for a while longer. At one point, Beholden went out on one of her many walks, leading the two little skunks to watch her ghostly form stomp down along the trail out toward one of the ravines. She looked too frustrated to want to bother, so they simply marveled at the way her half-distinct, wispy form moved along the trail, Warmth telling her about how Bee would not be able to see the trees, and, except at the heart of the forest, would not be able to see them, but she would be able to hear if they called out.
"Alright," Motes said, pushing herself to her feet and dusting off the seat of her overalls. "How do we get back out?"
Warmth hopped up to join her, head tilted curiously. "Just step back to La Rêve, duh."
"It cannot be *that* easy," she countered.
"It can!"
"Well, sure, but it should not be. It was a little adventure to get here, should it not be an adventure to get back?"
The other skunk frowned thoughtfully, plucking a twig out of Motes's tail. "Well, okay, that is a good point. I was so excited I got the slide to work that I kind of showed you before it was fully done."
As they started moseying back toward the neighborhood, toward the playground at the center, Motes said, "Wait, so I was not supposed to see this yet?"
"It was supposed to be for Halloween," it said. "That is why it is extra spooky now."
"But it is not even September. You really showed it to me two months early?"
"Well, yeah," ey said, giving her a funny look. "I wanted to keep it a surprise, but I got all excited."
Motes laughed and hugged around their shoulders. "Well, thank you. Maybe we can work together on some bits of it! That would be fun, right?"
"Yeah, I would like that."
"Good. That way it can be a surprise for anyone who comes out here trick-or-treating."
They discussed options for the return journey along their walk — perhaps they could have an exit point from the bushes beside this house, or a little cave leading out from the base of that hill, or maybe one had to climb back up the slide, but what if there were a lot of them? — and, when they reached the dull, rather ramshackle looking playground again, they stepped back to the equivalent spot in La Rêve, back into the sunlight before the shiny and sturdy real thing.
The time for play had come and gone, and Motes could already feel hunger coming on, so they instead sat atop the playground structure, legs dangling off a platform with some lime popsicles that Warmth dreamed up.
"This seems like a really neat project," Motes said, once she had finished her popsicle. "What got you thinking about it? You have been doing a lot with food, not so much with slides."
The other skunk shrugged. "I do not know. I just wanted to do some more stuff with the clade."
"You already do plenty with us, and you have My, right? And Rye and Serene."
"Yeah..."
Motes waited it out.
"Fine," Warmth said, smirking at her. "Yes, I do have My and Rye and Serene, and I have you and Pointillist and everyone here, but also, it has been almost a year since Launch. I have you all, but I do not have Dear and Codrin and █████."