update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/motes/004.md

@@ -78,19 +78,43 @@ And then she finally was able to relax.
 
 None of them spoke, once she was settled. Both A Finger Pointing and Beholden quickly drifted back to sleep, and although there were the occasional flashes of skunk/human face, exhausted and sneering, behind her closed eyelids, Motes soon followed.
 
-It wasn't until morning came, when Beholden had slipped away for a few minutes and returned with three mugs of coffee, when all three of them sat up in bed, leaning against the headrest, that she told them of the dream.
+It wasn't until morning came, when Beholden had slipped away for a few minutes and returned with three mugs of coffee on a tray, when all three of them sat up in bed, leaning against the headrest, tray set before them, that she told them of the dream.
 
 "I do not remember it all that well, now," she said holding the oversized mug carefully in comparatively small paws. "But Michelle was there, and she was really upset with me. She kept saying that I was gross and a fetishist and stuff, and that she could not believe that she had this in her, and then she made me kill myself."
 
 "Jesus, Dot," Beholden said, frowning over the rim of her mug. She reached her free arm around the skunk's shoulders and tugged her close against her side in a hug. "I am sorry to hear that. That sounds awful."
 
-A Finger Pointing leaned over to kiss at the tips of her ears. "It really does, my dear, and I think that it is demonstrably not true that she did not not have this in her. You exist, Motes; you are absolutely my up-tree, and I know where you got it from." She smiled. "And I am absolutely her up-tree, am I not?"
+A Finger Pointing leaned over to kiss at the tips of her ears. "It really does, my dear, and I think that it is demonstrably untrue that she did not not have this in her. You exist, Motes; you are absolutely my up-tree, and I know where you got it from." She smiled. "And I am absolutely her up-tree, am I not?"
 
 Doing her best to hold still despite the ticklishness of the kisses, Motes nodded. "I know. It was just a dream, and dreams are not real."
 
 "Not unless you are Slow Hours," A Finger Pointing said, nodding. "And even then, there is no guarantee. But come, the details of the dream aside, how are you feeling now?"
 
-...
+"I guess I am feeling okay. It feels like any old nightmare." She furrowed her brow, picking words carefully. "It feels like it is something sticky that has gotten stuck in my fur and I have to carefully remove it. It sucks, and it is a lot of work, but it is just a silly thing that happens sometimes, right? Every time I remember driving the knife home, I just remind myself it was fake."
+
+"Good," Beholden said, letting the smaller skunk slouch against her. "That is a good way to think of it."
+
+A Finger Pointing leaned against Motes in turn — over her, in fact, to the point of resting her head on Beholden's shoulder. "I know that you will not be able to forget about it, not completely, but processing it for what it is — a dream — may well help it be less of a burden," she said. "I have gained comfort in that at times for my own dreams, waking and sleeping."
+
+Motes huddled comfortably between the two. "But what does processing even mean? I feel like even my brain is yelling at me about all of this now." she asked, doing her best to keep a whine out of her voice. "I do not even know why it is all coming up so much lately."
+
+Beholden laughed. "It is all your fault, my dear. The dream probably showed up *because* you have been thinking about it. Others have been talking with you about it *because* you keep bringing it up. Probably best to ask yourself what got you thinking about it in the first place, right?"
+
+"I guess," she grumbled. "I will try and remember. It felt like it just kind of floated up into my mind a few weeks ago from out of nowhere."
+
+"Remember, yes," A Finger Pointing said, yawning dramatically and leaning harder until she was able to push both of the skunks over onto their sides. She held up a hand as though inviting them to picture a tableau. "I remember the maps of the Holy Land," she bemoaned, quoting from some old production, some old classic. "Colored they were. Very pretty! The Dead Sea was pale blue. The very look of it made me thirsty."
+
+Both of the skunks fell into laughter, sprawled awkwardly beneath their down-tree instance on the bed. "That is where we will go, you used to say!" Beholden said, keeping up the act. "That is where we will go for our honeymoon."
+
+"We will swim!  We will be happy!" Motes chimed in.
+
+Sighing dreamily, A Finger Pointing nodded. "We should have been poets."
+
+Motes could tell what they were doing: she was as adept as they were. The job of an actor is to trick the audience — just for a moment! — that the story playing out before them is more real than the rest of the world, that it is the rest of their lives that is merely a play. A Finger Pointing and Beholden, ma and Bee, were nudging her to set aside for now this dream-rotted headspace, this mopery.
+
+She saw their manipulation and loved them all the harder for it.
+
+The rest of the morning passed in comfort and lazy chatter, but throughout, some portion of Motes was dedicated to thinking back, to remembering. Comfort and lazy chatter and remembering, then, before the three decided to split off to their own tasks — Beholden into two instances, one to work on music, one to the theatre; A Finger Pointing to some planned brunch; Motes to 
 
 The fifth stanza had begun its life in an apartment building. As many studios and penthouses as were required for one mind split ten ways. Life on Lagrange had progressed as ever, though, and soon the sense and sensation of being a part of the fifth had changed. It began to encompass relationships fleeting and lasting. It housed devotion, invited in friendship. It grew beyond the bounds of just this tenth of a clade to include all of Au Lieu Du Rêve, and some few decades on, the whole of the project decamped from their city-block sized apartment building.