update from sparkleup
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<p>“Am not!”</p>
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<p>“No, no. Beholden is right. You are absolutely a fusspot,” A Finger Pointing said. “Why is Warmth In Fire feeling fussy?”</p>
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<p>“I do not know. Usually that happens when ey gets a letter from one of the Dear-cules.”</p>
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<p>“Mm, usually Pollux, yes.” She sighed, passing the drink back to Beholden and resting her head against the back of the couch. “It has been a while since you bothered Dry Grass, then. You flopped on Slow Hours earlier today and pestered your aunts earlier this week. You tracked soil all over.”</p>
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<p>“Mm, usually Pollux, yes.” She sighed, passing the drink back to Beholden and resting her head against the back of the couch. “It has been a while since you bothered Dry Grass, then. You flopped on Slow Hours earlier today and pestered your aunts earlier this week. You tracked soil all over the floor.”</p>
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<p>“Alright, I will ping her soon, then.”</p>
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<p>“Good girl.”</p>
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<p>“Going to make her cook you something ridiculous?” Beholden asked. “Nuggets and fries and mac and cheese?”</p>
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<p>“Of course,” Motes said, nose poking haughtily up into the air. “Not a single green thing on the plate.”</p>
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<p>“Right.” The other skunk laughed. “You know, I am always surprised by how much our tastes have diverged since we were forked. Here I am, the bitter housewife to boss’s sourness–”</p>
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<p>“Not your boss,” A Finger Pointing said lazily.</p>
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<p>“–fine, to Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself of the Ode clade’s sourness.”</p>
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<p>“Fine, to Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself of the Ode clade’s sourness.”</p>
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<p>This netted her a tug on the ear, which earned a laugh in turn.</p>
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<p>“Here you are, fat little skunk–” She poked Motes in the belly.</p>
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<p>She poked Motes in the belly. “Here you are, fat little skunk–” </p>
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<p>Motes snorted. “You are also a fat skunk, though.”</p>
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<p>“Complaining? I thought not. You have fallen asleep on my belly more than once. Here you are talking about a plate of salt and carbs while I am looking forward to a salad the size of my head and a burger that is also mostly salad.”</p>
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<p>“I <em>also</em> like those things, though,” Motes countered. “Like, I would eat the heck out of a salad right about now.”</p>
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<p>“I would trust no one else to get me all greased up,” the skunk said, leering.</p>
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<p>“You think you are so slick, Beholden, but you <em>had</em> to have gotten that from somewhere.”</p>
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<p>The playful banter continued, and while she would occasionally poke her snout in to make a quip of her own, Motes largely just savored her drink, bitter and sour and sweet, and the comfort of being nestled in between her two cocladists, thinking.</p>
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<p>She thought about the more than two centuries that had passed since A Finger Pointing had forked into the other nine instances of her stanza, that point when Motes had become Motes. She thought about the time that had followed when she remained essentially a version of A Finger Pointing who had taken up responsibility for sets and props, about those slow years of individuation and differentiation. She thought about the way she had started to toy with her appearance, her actions, her approach to life, and how she had steered herself into this focus on play to reclaim a childhood that had, yes, been pleasant enough, and yet which could have been so much more.</p>
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<p>She thought about the more than two centuries that had passed since A Finger Pointing had forked into the other nine instances of her stanza, that point when Motes had become Motes. She thought about the time that had followed when she remained essentially a version of A Finger Pointing who had taken up responsibility for sets and props, about those slow years of individuation and differentiation. She thought about the way she had started to toy with her appearance, her actions, her approach to life, and how she had steered herself into this focus on play to reclaim a childhood that had, yes, been pleasant enough, and yet which could have been so much more, now that she had all the time in the world..</p>
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<p>It had not always been smooth, to be sure. The compromises she made early on far outnumbered the ways in which she was earnest to herself.</p>
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<p>She did not blame A Finger Pointing, never once. She, of all those in her life, was trustworthy. Motes had once been her, after all, yes? They had had their spats, more than a few, as would be the case between any parent and child — as would be the case between any two individuals: she had had spats with more than just ma. She and Beholden had fought, and at times bitterly, and it was at those times that Bee’s protectiveness had felt most precarious. It had never disappeared, but it had verged well into the realm of sister — the realm of Slow Hours — or bestest friend — the realm of Warmth In Fire — and away from guardian, away from that parental love.</p>
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<p>She did not blame A Finger Pointing, never once. She, of all those in her life, was trustworthy. Motes had once been her, after all, yes? They had had their spats, more than a few, as would be the case between any parent and child — as would be the case between any two individuals. She had had spats with more than just ma. She and Beholden had fought, and at times bitterly, and it was at those times that Bee’s guardianship had felt most precarious. It had never disappeared, but it had verged well into the realm of sister — the realm of Slow Hours — or bestest friend — the realm of Warmth In Fire — and away from guardian, away from that parental love.</p>
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<p>She did not remember what the spats were about. She could, yes, her memory was as perfect as anyone else’s on the three Systems. But she would not, because that was not the point. The point was that she was Motes. She was their Dot, their <em>Dóttir.</em> She was the kid, and they were the grown-ups who loved her.</p>
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<p>And so their protectiveness made sense, yes? They wanted to keep her safe, yes? They just could not help but keep <em>themselves</em> safe as well, yes?</p>
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<p>And that is where the friction came from. It came from others in the clade fussing about Motes-as-kid.</p>
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<p>And that is where the friction came from. It came from others fussing about Motes-as-kid.</p>
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<p>She was not always. Often, she was in her early twenties. Certainly a far cry from the 41 she had been when she had been forked, or the 32 she had been when Michelle Hadje had first uploaded, but still, far more acceptable in the eyes of the System, far more acceptable in the eyes of the rest of the Ode clade.</p>
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<p>It was them, through A Finger Pointing and, on a few occasions, through Slow Hours and Time Rushes, who suggested that she should not do this thing. It was too close to unwelcome paraphilias, here on the System where one had to be at least eighteen to upload. It was too close to coming off as someone seeking unwanted attention, affection, sexuality. “I understand that you wish to reclaim childhood,” they said through her ma or siblings. “But you must understand the optics.” Never mind that she had long since set aside sexuality, that she harbored her own fears of those offering unwanted attention, affection, sex. The optics were what needed minding.</p>
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<p>It was them, through A Finger Pointing and, on a few occasions, through Slow Hours and Time Rushes, who suggested that she should not do this thing. It was too close, they said, to unwelcome paraphilias, here on the System where one had to be at least eighteen to upload. It was too close, they said, to coming off as someone seeking unwanted attention, affection, sexuality. “I understand that you wish to reclaim childhood,” they told her through her ma or siblings. “But you must understand the optics.” Never mind that she had long since set aside sexuality in this form, in all but the most carefully curated moments, that she harbored her own fears of those offering unwanted attention, affection, sex. No, it was the optics that needed minding.</p>
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<p>And so she kept it under wraps for years and decades.</p>
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<p>First it was the feelings she kept to herself. She alone knew them, and then her stanza alone knew them, but no one else.</p>
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<p>Then, it was the appearance that she kept to herself. While, shortly after happening on these feelings, she had built herself into an image of youth parked squarely in her early twenties, a human who dressed in flower-embroidered jeans and blouses, who so often wore a flower crown in her hair, who embodied flower-child, she now spent weeks and months tuning various aspects of her shape, of her sensorium. A skunk, rather than a human. Shorter, yes, but that is not all that makes a child. Shorter, proportionately different, clumsier, less developed in all ways aside from mental acuity.</p>
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<p>She alone knew this shape, alone in her room, alone in her studio with the doors securely shut and the premises swept. She alone knew what she looked like, and then her stanza knew, but precious few others.</p>
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<p>Then, it was the appearance that she kept to herself. While, shortly after happening on these feelings, she had built herself into an image of youth parked squarely in her early twenties, a human who dressed in flower-embroidered jeans and blouses, who so often wore a flower crown in her hair, who embodied flower-child, she now spent weeks and months tuning various aspects of her shape, of her sensorium. A skunk like so many of her cocladists, rather than a human. Shorter, yes, but that is not all that makes a child. Shorter, proportionately different, clumsier, less developed in all ways aside from mental acuity.</p>
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<p>She alone knew this shape, alone in her room, alone in her apartment, alone in her studio with the doors securely shut and the premises swept. She alone knew what she looked like, and then her stanza knew, but precious few others.</p>
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<p>When first she began to explore outside the sphere of her stanza, when she first began to be perceived by the world around her, she lasted perhaps a week before the first gentle suggestions began to arrive. Perhaps this was just an ‘us’ thing, yes? A thing for playing with just Au Lieu Du Rêve, our little theatre troupe? We can play with these feelings somewhere safe.</p>
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<p>The discussion of optics did not show up for another few years as she tested the limits of this admonition. More people had uploaded, after all. More furries, yes, and more people with similar interests. There were more friends to be made.</p>
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<p>And yet she was of the Ode, was she not? There was an image to maintain that extended beyond the individual.</p>
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<p>The feelings, the appearance, rinse and repeat with this and that, with the familial language of ‘ma’ and ‘sis’, with sharing a bed when she had a nightmare, as any Odist might. Again and again pushing gently at limitations to search for a slow form of change.</p>
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<p>It was her use of ‘ma’ that caused perhaps the most trouble. It was trouble that came not as a gentle suggestion from ‘on high’, such as it were, but this suggestion in particular had over time led to frustration and anger in her down-tree instance. She kept it to herself, masked it well enough, but Motes knew the signs.</p>
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<p>Still, she did as she was told and kept this particular sense of family to herself and those she loved. She was a good girl, of course, always tried to be, but she was also as much an Odist as those who spoke so often of optics. She saw the trends, the prickly taboo against intraclade relationships, how the subversiveness of found family might rub up against that. She had her guesses, but–</p>
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<p>The feelings, the appearance, rinse and repeat with this and that, with moving in together, with the familial language of ‘ma’ and ‘sis’, with sharing a bed when she had a nightmare, as any Odist might. Again and again pushing gently at limitations to search for a slow form of change.</p>
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<p>It was her use of ‘ma’ that caused perhaps the most trouble. It was trouble that came not as a gentle suggestion from ‘on high’, such as it were, but this suggestion in particular had over time led to frustration and anger in her down-tree instance, A Finger Pointing. She kept it to herself, masked it well enough, but Motes knew the signs.</p>
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<p>Still, she did as she was told and kept this particular sense of family to herself and those she loved. She was a good girl, of course, always tried to be, but she was also as much an Odist as those who spoke so often of optics. She saw the trends, the prickly taboo against intraclade relationships like that of A Finger Pointing and Beholden, how the subversiveness of found family might rub up against that. She had her guesses, but–</p>
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<p>“Motes? Did you hear what I said?” Beholden asked, ruffling her mane all up.</p>
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<p>“Nope!” Motes said, smiling primly. “I have been ignoring you both.”</p>
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<p>Beholden smiled fondly. “Brat. Lost in thought?”</p>
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<p>Beholden rolled her eyes. “Brat. Lost in thought?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged, sipping her drink yet more. “I guess. Was thinking of fusspots and all the trouble calling ma ‘ma’ caused. Glad it is not a thing anymore.”</p>
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<p>“<em>Less</em> of a thing,” A Finger Pointing corrected. “It is not <em>not</em> a thing. What Beholden was saying, though, is that we were going to head off. The offer stands for you to join us, Dot.”</p>
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<p>Motes let the thought go as the topic was deftly changed. “Nah, it is okay, I will stay here and see if Dry Grass wants to flop.”</p>
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<p>“What is on your mind, kiddo?” Dry Grass asked. “Usually you do not want to just flop unless you are already worn out or something got you all thinky.”</p>
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<p>“I dunno,” she said. The use of a contraction itched, brushing against the linguistic idiosyncrasies that plagued all of the Odists, even these many years later, but she had practiced for certain occasions. She shrugged, careful not to mess up the current shape. “I spent the day with Slow Hours and Sasha, and they got to talking about the past because Sasha had a question. Just thinking about being me.”</p>
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<p>“‘Being you’?”</p>
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<p>“Uh huh, like the whole kidcore thing. I was thinking about how upset it made people for a long time. Even me! I would hear a thing and get all huffy for a while and go Big Motes for a week or two.” She giggled, shrugged. “It all seems really silly now, but it stuck with me.”</p>
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<p>“Uh huh, like the whole kidcore thing. I was thinking about how upset it made people for a long time. Even me! I would hear a thing and get all huffy for a while and go Big Motes for a month or two.” She giggled, shrugged. “It all seems really silly now, but it stuck with me.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I am glad that it has gotten to the point of being silly. Are you thinking about the clade stuff?”</p>
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<p>“A little, yeah,” she hazarded, finishing up the last of Dry Grass’s nails. “I was thinking about the whole optics thing, which I thought was all the eighth stanza at first, but I guess it came from all over.”</p>
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<p>“It did, yes. Much of it came from my stanza, actually.”</p>
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<p>“It did, yes. Most of it came from my stanza, actually.”</p>
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<p>Motes tilted her head, squinting at her.</p>
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<p>Holding up her hands disarmingly, Dry Grass added quickly, “Not from me, my dear. Never from me. Most all of it came from Hammered Silver. A lot of her up-trees did not particularly care, and you know I actively like it.”</p>
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<p>The skunk’s smile returned. “I know. You are nice to me! I had figured if not the eighth, then In Dreams would have been the one.”</p>
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<p>“Yeah, she pulled me aside once and started talking about there being a time and a place and blah blah blah.”</p>
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<p>“There is something to be said for curating one’s experiences, but anyone who says the words ‘there is a time and a place for everything’ is just being a bitch. Pardon my language.”</p>
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<p>“What was Hammered Silver’s problem, then?”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass frowned, looking down at her spread out fingers, watching the polish dry. “It is hard to put succinctly into words that make sense because then it just comes off as a series of tautologies. She thinks that there are children and there are adults. She thinks this because that is what makes a mother a mother to someone. The child is the child and the adult is the adult in contrast. It is all very prescriptive.”</p>
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<p>Motes frowned and pulled apart the logic, doodling pink spirals onto her fingerpads. “So she thinks kids have to be actually kids? Not grown ups pretending to be kids?”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass frowned, looking down at her spread out fingers, watching the polish dry. “It is hard to put succinctly into words that make sense because then it just comes off as a series of tautologies. She thinks that there are children and there are adults. She thinks this because that is what makes a mother a mother to someone. The child is the child and the adult is the adult in contrast. They are complements. It is all very prescriptive.”</p>
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<p>Motes frowned and pulled apart the logic, doodling pink spirals onto her fingerpads. “So she thinks kids have to be actually kids? <em>Actual</em> children, even if there are non here?”</p>
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<p>“I think so, yes, though it does not help that you are a cocladist of hers.”</p>
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<p>“Is this that stupid optics thing again?”</p>
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<p>“I do not know. I think in part, though it is also in part because, if you are her, then you could not be her child. You could not be a different age.” She hesitated, then added, “It would mean that she had the capability to become you, yes? That any of us would have that, yes?”</p>
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<p>“I do not know. Certainly in part, though it is also in part because, if you are her, then you could not be her child. You could not be a different age.” She hesitated, then added, “It would mean that she had the capability to become you, yes? That any of us would have that, yes?”</p>
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<p>“Oh god,” Motes said, laughing. “I cannot imagine Hammered Silver as a kid. She would be one of those prissy, stuck up girls who was the daughter of the PTA president or something.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass laughed as well. “She is already essentially the HOA president. I respect her as a person, but I do not like her, and I <em>certainly</em> do not respect her authority.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass laughed as well. “She is already essentially the prissy HOA president. I respect her as a person, but I do not like her, and I <em>certainly</em> do not respect her authority.”</p>
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<p>“Right, because she wants you to not talk to <em>any</em> of us!”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “She cut off the first, eighth, part of the ninth, and now the entire fifth stanza since you took on Sasha.”</p>
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<p>Motes groaned and rolled onto her back, holding her paws up in the air to inspect her claws. “Which is stupid, because Sasha is nice!”</p>
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<p>“She really is, though I have not had as much a chance to speak with her as I might like. She was the last straw in a whole series of events. She does not like Sasha, does not like you, she <em>really</em> does not like the family dynamic you have set up.”</p>
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<p>Bristling, Motes glared over at Dry Grass. “It is all well and good that she not like me, but to not like my family is bullcrap.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass nodded, expression serious. “It absolutely is. She has gotten quite upset at me a few times, but I just smile and nod and tune her out when she goes into her self-righteous spirals. I am not the type to cut anyone out of my life, for better or worse, but I will absolutely ignore people.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass nodded, expression serious. “It absolutely is. She has gotten quite upset about it a few times, but I just smile and nod and tune her out when she goes into her self-righteous spirals. I am not the type to cut anyone out of my life, for better or worse, but I will absolutely ignore people.”</p>
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<p>Motes huffed, nodded. “Good. If you stop talking to me, I <em>will</em> cry.”</p>
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<p>“Perish the thought!” The Odist laughed and leaned over to hug her cocladist, careful of her nails. “I will not. Do not worry, my dear, you are stuck with me for a good while yet. I would rather tell Hammered Silver to go fuck herself.”</p>
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</article>
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<article class="content">
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<h1 id="motes-2362">Motes — 2362</h1>
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<p>Motes played.</p>
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<p>Tonight, she played hard. It was a Big Motes night. It was a human night. It was a night for hovering somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. It was a night for standing as tall as Beholden, as tall as so many of the other Odists, yet far more lithe. Tonight, she dressed up in her finest crepe-cotton blouse and gauzy skirt, and she braided for herself a fresh crown of flowers — marigolds, this time — grown by A Finger Curled and Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres.</p>
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<p>Tonight, she played hard. It was a Big Motes night. It was a human night. It was a night for hovering somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. It was a night for standing as tall as Beholden, as tall as so many of the other Odists, yet far more lithe. Tonight, she dressed up in her finest crepe-cotton blouse and gauzy skirt, and she braided for herself a fresh crown of flowers — marigolds, this time — grown by A Finger Curled and Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres, A Finger Pointing and Beholden’s long-lived up-tree instances.</p>
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<p>Tonight, Motes played in hedonism. A night at a restaurant out on the town, where she stuffed herself with two Chicago-style hot dogs. “Drag them through the garden!” She laughed — and she was always laughing. “Everything but the ketchup!” A night when she ate all of her fries, and even mopped up the last of the fry sauce with a fingertip.</p>
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<p>Tonight, she played drunk: a beer with the dogs, drinks made fizzy with champagne and sweet with floral liqueurs at a pop-up bar, then fruity drinks served in tall glasses with taller straws at the venue before the headliner started, the thump of the bass from the opener echoing up through her feet, pressing at her chest, leaving a warmth in her belly that verged on sensual. Tonight, between sets or whenever she felt like she needed a break, she would waft back to the bar and order a vodka soda or some other ridiculous drink meant more to hydrate than taste good.</p>
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<p>Tonight, Motes played as hard as ever, letting that warmth that was building low in her belly be her guide as she latched onto a dancing partner, a solidly built mustelid of some sort — an otter? A fisher? — who wound his way through the crowd in a fluid motion that was dancelike even when the music had stopped. It was a night for letting him dance closer and closer as the sets progressed, a night for letting him press a pill to her lips and beneath her tongue. It was a night for letting him push his whiskery muzzle up beneath her chin, letting him show her just how sharp his teeth were against her throat, for pressing close enough to feel just how thoroughly he shared in her excitement.</p>
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<p>Tonight, she let him take her home. Tonight she let him pin her to the bed, paw on her shoulder and teeth on her throat. Tonight, she let him draw blood.</p>
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<p>And then it was a night for sitting on his balcony and talking while the waves of whatever drug he’d given her continued to roll through her in languid pulses. “It is like someone is brushing the underside of my skin with satin in the best possible way,” she said, and he laughed.</p>
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<p>They sat and talked, legs dangling through the bars of the balcony’s railing over an impossibly high drop, her ears filled with the chatter of an impossible myriad of monkeys some balconies earlier, startled from their slumber by their arrival, her eyes filled with the black and gold of an impossible city built into a cylinder. He pointed to a building in the distance down the length of the cylinder, told her how that one was filled all with gardens, all flowers like those in her hair, now crushed lopsidedly from her forgetting to remove the crown when they’d fucked. He pointed up to the gentle golden glow in the sky, told her that the sun here was in a long, thin line, that it turned on from one end to the other so that one could see dawn coming from down the tube, could hear birdsong come on like a wave, and then turned off in the same direction in a linear sunset. He pointed from one end of the cylinder to another, the bounding walls marked by arcane symbols in neon, and explained that nearly half a billion people called this home, then laughed as she asked, “How many do you think are fucking right now?”</p>
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<p>They added one to that number before they slept.</p>
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<p>They added one more to that number before they slept.</p>
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<p>And in the morning, she woke pressed against him, limbs all wrapped together and the satiny subdermal waves of sensation still lingering. She dismissed it easily and slowly disentangled herself from the still sleeping otter-or-fisher-or-mink and started to pull stuff from the exchange for breakfast. Cold, cured meats and fish. Cold cheeses. Cold vegetables, fresh and pickled. Dense, nutty bread. Small pastries.</p>
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<p>They sat on the balcony once more, out in the bright sun, and ate their breakfast together, talking of only the small things.</p>
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<p>“Is this the type of thing where I get to know your name?” he asked at one point.</p>
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<p>Empty ticket booths.</p>
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<p>Empty auditorium.</p>
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<p>Empty stage, but for one skunk, kneeling in the center with a clipboard and script laid out before her in a neat arc, a bank of three different colored highlighters resting in her lap.</p>
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<p>Where so many of the clade had the stark contrast of black and white fur, hers was the warm brown of cinnamon with the pale cream of white chocolate. Where so many of the other skunks had black noses, black fur fading all but seamlessly before them, hers was far more pink, more easily seen twitching this way or that at some scent or another. Where so many of her family had long, poetic names, hers remained simple, a remnant of some more complicated past.</p>
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<p>Where so many of the skunks of the clade had the stark contrast of black and white fur, hers was the warm brown of cinnamon with the pale cream of white chocolate. Where so many of the other skunks had black noses, black fur fading all but seamlessly before them, hers was far more pink, more easily seen twitching this way or that at some scent or another. Where so many of her family had long, poetic names, hers remained simple, a remnant of some more complicated past.</p>
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<p>Motes traipsed down the long, shallow steps of the auditorium aisles, all but skipping in that long-running afterglow. “Sasha!”</p>
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<p>Sasha lifted her head and squinted out into the relative darkness of the rows of seats, grinned, then sat up straighter, brow furrowing. “Motes, Jesus. What the hell happened to you?”</p>
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<p>Hiking herself up onto the stage, undignified, she plopped down into a cross-legged sit before Sasha. “A fun night out is what. There was an otter.”</p>
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<p>“Perhaps,” she replied, thoughtful expression on her face. “There were some times in the past.”</p>
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<p>“True Name, then?” Motes said, sounding skeptical.</p>
|
||||
<p>An eloquent shrug was the reply.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, <em>huh!</em>” she said, grinning still. She could feel the limerence for the form starting to fade, could feel the humanity begin to itch, so she waved her hand. “But we can talk about that later! I need to re-skunk. I want to keep this shirt, though.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, <em>huh!</em>” she said, grinning still. She could feel the limerence for her form starting to fade, could feel the humanity begin to itch, so she waved her hand. “But we can talk about that later! I need to re-skunk. I want to keep this shirt, though.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Alright, dear. I shall look away.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Motes shimmied out of the blouse and folded it neatly, setting it on the stage before forking into her usual, smaller, soft-furred self once more. Younger, as well, back to that comfortable, comforting expression of youth. “Okay!” she said once she was done once more, rolling around to lay on her belly and poke her snout at one of the piles of paper. “What are you working on, anyway?”</p>
|
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<p>Sasha smiled, tipped her clipboard forward to let the skunk see the stage diagram. “Blocking. Planning. Memorization.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Scheming!”</p>
|
||||
<p>She laughed. “Well, perhaps that as well. Scheming about dinner. Scheming about coming home to Aurel. Scheming and dreaming.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Motes nodded, carefully turning around one of the piles to read a few lines from the script before setting it back in place. She kicked her legs lazily in the air above her, feeling her tail brush against them. It was all part of the ritual of settling back into being a skunk — this engagement with fur, these childlike acts — in leaning intentionally back into her presented age — somewhere around twelve, today.</p>
|
||||
<p>Motes nodded, carefully turning one of the piles around to read a few lines from the script before setting it back in place. She kicked her legs lazily in the air above her, feeling her tail brush against them. It was all part of the ritual of settling back into being a skunk — this engagement with fur, these childlike acts — in leaning intentionally back into her presented age — somewhere around twelve, today.</p>
|
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<p>She was startled back to awareness by Sasha’s voice. “What are you thinking about, little skunk?”</p>
|
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<p>“Mm?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You seemed deep in thought.” She smiled faintly. “Or perhaps blissfully without.”</p>
|
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|
|
@ -73,36 +73,36 @@
|
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<p>“Gross.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very gross. I am glad to be quit of him, even if there are times that I miss the work. All of that to say that Hammered Silver bought into that hook, line, and sinker. She truly believed that it is some horrible taboo to get in a relationship — romantic or familial — within one’s own clade.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But <em>she</em> is!” Motes protested. “She is in a relationship with Waking World!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sasha snorted. “Do not let her hear you say that. She would say that she is not, that it is a partnership, it is two actors playing their parts: she, the mother; him, the father. Dad jokes and all. They are roles in a long-running production.” She winked conspiratorially, adding, “Though I am not sure that Waking World would agree with her. I think he very much thinks of himself as her husband, of the both of them as very much in love with each other.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sasha snorted. “Do not let her hear you say that. She would say that she is not, that it is a partnership, it is two actors playing their parts: she, the mother; him, the father — dad jokes and all. They are roles in a long-running production.” She winked conspiratorially, adding, “Though I am not sure that Waking World would agree with her. I think he very much thinks of himself as her husband, of the both of them as very much in love with each other.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Motes furrowed her brow in concentration. “She does not make any sense,” she said. “She hates ma and Bee for dating and hates me for being their daughter and all the others my siblings or whatever, and then she marries Waking World?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Perhaps her performance so convincing that she is fooling us all. Perhaps she is simply fooling herself.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She scoffed. “Probably the second!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Almost certainly,” Sasha said, ruffling Motes’s mane affectionately. “But it is fine. I have not spoken with her in more than a decade.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have not in more than a century,” Motes said proudly. “So I win.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sasha laughed and turned the ruffling into a noogie. “This is not a competition, Motes,” she chided. “But if it were, then yes, you would win. She has cut off even A Finger Pointing.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Laughing and pulling herself away from the knuckles grinding against her scalp, the skunk sat up. “I thought they were on better terms, though. Ma met with her once a month, even.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Giggling helplessly and pulling herself away from the knuckles grinding against her scalp, the skunk sat up. “I thought they were on better terms, though. Ma met with her once a month, even.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“When she found out that I had joined Au Lieu Du Rêve, Hammered silver cut all contact with the fifth, yes?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mmhm. Did that include Pointillist?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not at first, but certainly not long after. I think Hammered Silver is more mad with her than any of the rest of the stanza.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“God,” Motes muttered. “She really does sound like a total b-word.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She is a lovely person, in her own way,” Sasha said gently, then added, “Which is a bitch, yes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The smaller skunk giggled helplessly, slouching down until she was able to use Sasha’s thigh as a pillow. “Okay, but why does she hate ma, though? She is, like…the nicest person in the whole world.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She really is, at least to us, but she is also uncompromising to her very core. She stood up for herself and Beholden, she stood up for you as you are, she stood up for your dynamic as a family–” Sasha took a deep breath through gritted teeth. “And she stood up for me, for which I am endlessly appreciative, and endlessly frustrated that she should have cause to.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She really is, at least to us, but she is also uncompromising to her very core. She stood up for herself and Beholden as a couple, she stood up for you as you are, she stood up for your dynamic as a family–” Sasha took a deep breath through gritted teeth. “And she stood up for me, for which I am endlessly appreciative, and endlessly frustrated that she should have cause to.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“So Hammered Silver is upset that ma has principles,” Motes said flatly. “Okay. Got it. Good good, good good good good. Wonderful.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She laughed. “Yes, apparently. A Finger Pointing had some tense meetings with Hammered Silver early on when it became clear — at least within the clade — that she and Beholden were in a relationship, but that tenseness became the norm when you started to poke your little snout–” She tapped at Motes’s nose-tip, getting a giggle. “–out into the world, which led to a tacit agreement that they were essentially just meeting up to collect data on their respective stanzas, and then only when A Finger Pointing agreed not to talk about you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Motes fell silent for a long minute, then two, and eventually rolled onto the other side so that she could bury her face against Sasha’s side. “Well, that makes me feel like garbage,” she mumbled.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hush, little skunk,” Sasha said gently. “That is between A Finger Pointing and Hammered Silver. A Finger Pointing had to make a tactical decision: maintain contact with the clade, be the glue that binds so many of us together, keep tabs on Hammered Silver and her ilk; or tell Hammered Silver to kick rocks, she was going to talk about her Dot as much as she damn well pleased. Tactically, she chose to agree to not pass on information about you. Strategically, this gained her a better sense of the sixth — and, to a lesser extent, the seventh — stanza.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She nodded, pressing her face all the firmer against the stage manager.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A Finger Pointing loves you, Motes, deeply and truly. Do not ever forget that. Hammered Silver can absolutely go kick rocks and go suck an egg and go eat coke and any number of other antiquated idioms. Your ma believed that even then, and when Hammered Silver requested that she not speak of you, in that moment, they ceased being friends and became instead polite adversaries.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, I believe that,” Motes said, voice muffled against Sasha’s own blouse. “I do not blame her. Hammered Silver put her in a stupid position, so she did what she had to because she has principles.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, I believe that,” Motes said, voice muffled against Sasha’s blouse. “I do not blame her. Hammered Silver put her in a stupid position, so she did what she had to because she has principles.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Right, and those principles go beyond just the three of you. She was thinking of Dry Grass, too, yes? And of Waking World and of Fogs The View and of Time Makes Prey, and of all of the other, nicer folks she has spoken to in the sixth stanza on the sly. Many have continued to shun me, which is fine, so be it, they value their relationship with Hammered Silver more than Dry Grass does, but at least they are still talking with A Finger Pointing.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yeah, that is true. And at least Dry Grass is still here.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That she is.” Sasha smiled, nudging Motes on the shoulder. “Now, come. Let us get you home, yes? Get you some food and let you crow about your exploits to anyone who will listen, yes? Show off your blouse, yes?”</p>
|
||||
<p>She sighed dramatically and pushed herself up to her feet. “Okaaay. I had breakfast a bit ago, but I want pizza or a burger or something greasy. They just feel so good to eat!”</p>
|
||||
<p>She sighed dramatically and pushed herself up to her feet. “Okaaay. I had breakfast a bit ago, but I want pizza or a burger or something greasy.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sasha laughed, forking another instance to take Motes by the paw, letting her down-tree continue working. “I am sorry that this topic has been nipping at your heels these last few days, little skunk. I have probably shared more than A Finger Pointing may have wished, but she and I will talk, and you will get your pizza or burger or pizza-burger and talk about things at your own pace, dear.”</p>
|
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-01-15</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-01-18</p>
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