update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/motes/008.md

@@ -62,10 +62,91 @@ She went always alone on her walks, pacing out along the deer trails or walking
 
 Or tried to go alone, as always there was someone willing to go with her, asking gently if she needed company, even if that company was silent, or if she needed instead to talk. Slow Hours volunteered. Unbidden volunteered. A Finger Pointing, having spent so many years, so many decades with her, did not volunteer, but did look after her with a mix of worry and understanding in her face.
 
-The only time she accepted the company was when Dry Grass did not so much volunteer as, wiping freshly-shed tears from her face, ask Beholden if they could go for a walk together so that she could talk. That Beholden had already slipped on her hoodie, had already drank a glass of water, was already heading towards the door suggested that this was a form of volunteering, but Dry Grass certainly deserved as much as anyone the chance to talk through the position she had found herself in.
+The only time she accepted the company was when Dry Grass, fresh out of her meeting with Sasha, did not so much volunteer as, wiping freshly-shed tears from her face, ask Beholden if they could go for a walk together so that she could talk. That Beholden had already slipped on her hoodie, had already drank a glass of water, was already heading towards the door suggested that this was a form of volunteering, but Dry Grass certainly deserved as much as anyone the chance to talk through the position she had found herself in, so she reluctantly said yes.
 
-(( A walk with Dry Grass to calm down the next morning after their meeting ))
+The two walked in silence, both looking down more at the sidewalk as it passed beneath their feet than around them, both processing in their own way.
 
+"Hey, uh," Beholden said at last once they'd made it halfway through the neighborhood, halfway around the usual loop. "Are you okay? I mean, things are awful, but are you feeling okay?"
+
+Dry Grass started at the sudden intrusion of words, smiling sheepishly over to the skunk. "I mean, no. Yes, in a way, but also no."
+
+Beholden smiled wryly. "Do you think you could unpack that for me?"
+
+She laughed. "Right, sorry. I am a bit all over the place at the moment." She took a deep breath before continuing. "No, I am not okay. I do not even like Hammered Silver, nor do I– *did* I speak with many of the others in my stanza with any frequency, but Hammered Silver stabbed me all the same. It hurts to have someone hate me so much, never mind someone who is also in many ways me."
+
+"And the 'yes' part?"
+
+The answer was a long time coming. "I feel vindicated," Dry Grass said at last. "I feel validated that my estimate of Hammered Silver was correct. She is worse than I thought, maybe, but at least I was not wrong, yes?"
+
+Beholden sorted. "Wrong in the correct direction."
+
+She smiled, nodding as her gaze drifted out into the neighborhood, over at the playground in the central area. "And yes because I am finding out in a very real way that there are still people on my side, that I still have friends. I still get to spend time with you and A Finger Pointing, and I still get to spend time with Motes. I just feel bad that she wound up at the center of this."
+
+"I do too," the skunk mumbled. "I love that kid. I say it as often as I can, but I always worry that I am not as good at showing it as I could be."
+
+Dry Grass gently nudged her across the street, aiming for the playground and saying as she did so, "I think that is something that every parent worries about."
+
+"I do not know that I am–"
+
+"No, no, I get it," she said, taking a seat on one of the swings. "I know that it is complicated. It is easier for some of us, but even my stanza, even the ones who leaned hard into feelings of motherhood still struggle with what it means to call someone like Motes *their* child. Not just a child, but theirs. You do feel some of that sense of parenthood, though, do you not?"
+
+"Oh, definitely," Beholden answered without hesitation, claiming a swing beside Dry Grass's. "She is my Dot, I am her Bee. It took me a long time to get to this point, though, and even still, it feels weird at times."
+
+"I am curious how, if you are open to sharing."
+
+She shrugged, "Sure, though I also want to know why you are curious about this in particular."
+
+Dry Grass smiled, shrugged. "Something to talk about that is not my down-tree being a terrible fucking person."
+
+Beholden smirked. "Okay, yeah, that is fair." She scuffed a paw against the gravel, thinking. "It was mostly just hard for me to wrap my head around, I guess. I have some of those same desires in me as your whole stanza does, but they were always minimized and pushed to the side. Even boss has way more than I do, right? Like, it is her job to take care of things. She is not really the boss of Au Lieu Du Rêve, she is its mom."
+
+Holding onto the chains of the swing and nudging herself back a meter or so with her feet, Dry Grass nodded. "I can see that, yes. It is like how I headed into systech stuff because I cared for the System." She smiled faintly. "I was Lagrange's mom."
+
+The skunk nodded. "Yeah, like that. I just have way less of that in me than either you or A Finger Pointing. You are both way better at this than I am. Dot means a lot to me. A whole lot, actually. That we have to have a systech on staff to kick her into forking whenever she dies on stage just kills me. It breaks my heart whenever I see that."
+
+Dry Grass winced. "Me too. I will not show up to a performance if I know that will happen."
+
+"Really? Shit. I am sorry. At least I am not alone in that," Beholden mumbled, nudging herself to start swinging as well. "It is moments like those when I feel most like she is my kid, though. I feel that family dynamic most when she is at risk, you know? When Slow Hours and I argue about that sort of thing, that is when I feel most protective of her, like my sister is doing something bad to her."
+
+"Was it always like that?"
+
+She hesitated, simply letting the swing carry her for a few moments. "I do not know. I was really caught off guard when she started calling A Finger Pointing 'Ma'. I mean, so was A Finger Pointing, but that had a lot of implications for me, too, did it not? I was suddenly her mom's wife, right? Or at least partner."
+
+Dry Grass nodded.
+
+"So it took me a lot of getting used to. Even boss was a little caught off guard by that. I shied away from her for a bit when she started started, I am sorry to say. 'Bee' is a compromise that felt on the edge of comfort at the time, though now it feels really good when she calls me that. She calls you 'Ma 2.0', did you know that?"
+
+Dry Grass blinked, then burst out in laughter, laughing until once more the tears flowed down her cheeks, holding herself still on her swing with feet planted firmly on the ground.
+
+Beholden waited in silence. She knew well the mechanics of a hysterical laugh-cry, and while her and Dry Grass's relationship did not include a whole lot of hugging, she still nudged herself to the side far enough to rub at her cocladist's shoulder until the tears once more slowed and she was once more able to breathe but for a few few aftershocks of chuckling.
+
+"Sorry, Beholden," Dry Grass said, once she was able. "I am a little fucked up still, I think."
+
+She laughed. "I mean, this is a pretty fucked situation, my dear. I would be surprised if you were not."
+
+They both settled into swinging in silence once more, just a gentle rocking back and forth to calm down and enjoy time away from so much stress before it would doubtless ramp up once more when Waking World was set to visit after lunch.
+
+"Hey, Beholden?"
+
+"Mm?"
+
+"Can you tell me something good?" Dry Grass sighed, gaze drifting out over nothing in particular. "Just a good memory about Motes or the fifth stanza or whatever. Something to make this all feel a bit more worthwhile."
+
+Beholden let her swinging come to a stop as she thought back across the years, hunting for something that might fit. Finally, she said, "One year, boss got Motes this harness that was kind of stretchy. It was sort of a strong elastic that wrapped all the way around her torso. It let us carry her around like a briefcase."
+
+Dry Grass laughed. "Oh god, I cannot imagine."
+
+Grinning, the skunk continued, "That was fun enough, but what we would use it for was, on summer days, we would lift her up, give her a good heave-ho and toss her into the pool. She would laugh so hard that she would have a hard time swimming and kept swallowing too much pool water. When it was winter, we would have it snow a bunch in one spot–" She pointed over toward a spot by the slide. "–and toss her into it, or let her go down the slide directly into the snow bank."
+
+"I am absolutely going to do that if you all are comfortable."
+
+Beholden laughed. "To her? Or as yourself?"
+
+"Oh, to her!" she said, smirking. "Though who knows, maybe I would give the slide version a go, myself."
+
+The conversation of good things continued — Motes designing the playground, Warmth In Fire designing the chalk lines that followed the two of them as they ran around, A Finger Pointing and Beholden sitting on the stoop of their home to watch the sun set while skunks played in the grass — until they grew weary of the swings digging into their backsides and hunger started tugging them back toward home and what joys they had built began to fade in the face of the immediate past.
+
+Lunch was, despite being a sauce served over rice, all the same dry and ashen in Beholden's mouth as she struggled with so many swirling feelings, so many spiraling thoughts around what had happened. asdfl;kjasd;
 (( Confusion and coming to terms with Motes in the family ))
 
 (( Caring for A Finger Pointing ))