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<p>Yes, there were steps that she needed to take. There were ways that she needed to keep herself safe. There were ways that those who above all else she loved might come to harm and she need to keep them safe as well. She needed to ensure their safety even above her own.</p>
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<p>Dry Grass was the first she kept safe. A home was provided to her within the fifth stanza’s neighborhood, a little cottage some doors down from her own home. She may have been safe as she was, they both agreed, but safety from her down-tree’s anger was not the only safety that was needed. There was also safety from being alone, from being left in without support.</p>
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<p>Dry Grass did not weep. She did not sob. The tears she shed that night, sitting on the playground swings beside A Finger Pointing were tears of fury. They were tears of betrayal.</p>
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<p>The next day, they
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<p>Dry Grass did not weep. She did not sob. The tears she shed that night, sitting around the kitchen table with A Finger Pointing and Beholden, were tears of fury. They were tears of betrayal.</p>
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<p>The next day, they worked together.</p>
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<p>They reconvened around that same kitchen table, though this time, instead of Beholden, Sasha joined them, the cinnamon skunk holding a mug of coffee, one of those mochas she so loved, in her paws, staring down into the remnants of the whipped cream that remained atop.</p>
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<p>“I am sorry to hear that, Dry Grass. I am sorry to both of you,” she said.</p>
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<p>Both nodded.</p>
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<p>“Is there anything to do about it?” Dry Grass asked. “I do not need to go back. I do not need her back in my life. What I do need, though, is to know if we need to respond in any particular way.”</p>
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<p>“It has been more than a few years since I have spoken to Hammered Silver,” Sasha admitted. “I last spoke with her around the time that the Artemisians arrived, yes? Before I became that which I am, yes?” A faint smirk painted her muzzle as she added, “The one who has named herself Sasha, yes?”</p>
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<p>A Finger Pointing grit her teeth together, counting silently to ten. “That she weaponized all of our names against us only makes me all the angrier. I do not know what to expect of her, though. I do not know what her true intent is.”</p>
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<p>“As in what is her goal for sending this letter?”</p>
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<p>“Yes. Ostensibly, it is to simply tell me that Dry Grass has been ostracized, but I do not imagine that that is the <em>only</em> reason.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass snorted. “She is an Odist; of course it is not. I am only sorry that I tuned her out for so many years, or I might have a better idea of precisely what, though.”</p>
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<p>“She is an Odist, yes,” Sasha said. “She is not a bad person, but neither is she good, and now we are seeing the bad side in particular. Similarly, though, I do not have an answer for you. She has been inaccessible to me for sixteen years now, and before that, I was too distracted to spend much time engaging with her.”</p>
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<p>A Finger Pointing sighed, slouching back against the chair. “That is okay, my dear. You have had no easier a time of it than the rest of us. Decidedly worse, actually.”</p>
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<p>Sasha laughed.</p>
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<p>“Still, can you at least tell us if you believe there is anything that we need to worry about?”</p>
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<p>“Worry?” The skunk took a moment to think as she lapped at a bit more of the whipped cream. “Are you asking in particular after danger? Are you asking if she might make your name anathema or find someone to hunt you down with a vial of CPV?”</p>
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<p>Her two cocladists tensed. Neither wished to contend with the thought that Hammered Silver might have it in her to kill anyone in the only way the System knew how, some object loaded up with a contraproprioceptive virus to pierce their very being and crash them entire. Though neither wished to, the both had to, however, and so they both nodded.</p>
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<p>Sasha smiled reassuringly. “I do not believe you need worry about <em>that.</em> She is mad, yes, and perhaps feeling betrayed, but she is not feeling murderous. She does not have that within her, I do not think. Would you like me to check all the same?”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass nodded.</p>
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<p>“Will it put you at risk?” A Finger Pointing asked earnestly. “It is not worth that.”</p>
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<p>“Not at all, no. I have limited contact with the eighth stanza still. They are careful, of course, but I can ask When I Dream a yes or no question and expect one ping for no, two for yes.”</p>
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<p>“Please do, then.”</p>
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<p>The skunk bowed briefly and then let her gaze drift briefly around the kitchen, unseeing, while she sent her question via sensorium message. It took all of thirty seconds before she returned her focus to A Finger Pointing and Dry Grass, smiling. “More than just a no, When I Dream let me hear eir laughter at the very idea. You are <em>quite</em> safe from that.”</p>
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<p>The others both sighed, then laughed at the shared relief.</p>
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<p>“Thank you, my dear,” Dry Grass said, reaching out to rest a hand on the skunk’s forearm. “That is incredibly helpful. We may still wish to ask Waking World — if he will still speak with us, that is — but that does mean a lot.”</p>
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<p>Sasha smiled and patted the back of that hand. “Of course. If I am able to soothe your worries any further, I will do so. This is, I must say, fucking bullshit.”
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((Sasha and Dry Grass))</p>
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<p>To fall in love with a cocladist is to engage in a radical form of self-love. To fall in love with a cocladist is to find a way that perhaps you <em>are</em> your type. To fall in love with a cocladist is to accept that you are large; you contain multitudes. To fall in love with your cocladist is to recognize that your hyperfixations define, in part, your sense of self, and that if you expand beyond one, then perhaps you are more than just one self.</p>
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