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<h1 id="a-finger-pointing-2362">A Finger Pointing — 2362</h1>
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<p>A Finger Pointing was not playing.</p>
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<p>She was not fucking around. She was not putting up with this. She would never put up with this, never should have put up with this. Seven years of silence, five decades of barely concealed spying, a century of awkward attempts to maintain a friendship, a cohesion, a sense of community with someone who clearly loathed some integral part of her life.</p>
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<p>She was not going to play around, here. She was not going to play soft. She was not going to play hard. She was not going to play at all, not with Hammered Silver, not anymore.</p>
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<p>She was not going to play around, here. She was not going to play soft. She was not even going to play hard: she was not going to play at all. Not with Hammered Silver. Not anymore.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p><strong>To:</strong> Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself of the Ode clade <strong>(EYES-ONLY)</strong> <br />
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<strong>From:</strong> Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver of the Ode clade<br />
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@ -38,11 +38,11 @@
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<p>“So, what next?” the man asked.</p>
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<p>“What is next is that I get assignments from the Council and then take a fucking vacation,” she replied. “I plan on sleeping for at least three days straight.”</p>
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<p>He laughed. “I wholeheartedly endorse this course of action. One of you want to take on an assignment today?”</p>
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<p>They — this gaggle of skunks and women who were still in some way skunks — put their heads together to discuss, and even then, even so few minutes after they had come into being, taken for their names the first lines of the ten stanzas of a poem each held close to their heart, it became clear that they differed in some fundamental way that went beyond simple individuation.</p>
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<p>They — this gaggle of skunks and women who were still in some way skunks — put their heads together to discuss, and even then, even so few minutes after they had come into being and taken for their names the first lines of the ten stanzas of a poem each held close to their heart, it became clear that they differed in some fundamental way that went beyond simple individuation.</p>
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<p>Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself, the woman who bore the first line of the fifth stanza for a name, had lived through this four times, enough times to know just what had been done, for had she not been Michelle/Sasha for the first four first lines coming into being?</p>
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<p>Sasha/Michelle had sat on the rim of the fountain and looked out on the world with tired eyes and wondered at the simple beauty of Old Town Square, the brick pavers and the gas lamps and the twee shops, and forked her first long-lived instance, I Am At A Loss For Images In This End Of Days of the Ode clade.</p>
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<p>Michelle/Sasha had remembered a day two decades back when she had sat on the rim of a fountain not so different from this one, sat beside an erstwhile partner who made such a better friend than lover that they remained in love in friendship in their own gentle way until ey had given emself to the act of creation, and forked into her second long-lived instance, Life Breeds Life But Death Must Now Be Chosen.</p>
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<p>Sasha/Michelle had thought of their conversation together, those two better-friends-than-lovers, about some musical her grandparents had taken her to for her birthday, how she had sung out of key, <em>“Oh, my Rivkah, where have you gone?”</em> and then hid her face behind her coffee cup, and forked off her third long-lived instance, Oh, But To Whom Do I Speak These Words.</p>
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<p>Sasha/Michelle had thought of their conversation together, those two better-friends-than-lovers, about some musical her grandparents had taken her to for her birthday, how she had sung out of key, <em>“Oh, my Rivkah, where have you gone?”</em> then hid her face behind her coffee cup, and forked off her third long-lived instance, Oh, But To Whom Do I Speak These Words.</p>
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<p>Michelle/Sasha had smiled at the memories of how she had, despite her poor attempt at expressing the joy of that song, gushed about nearly every aspect of the production, the use of projectors to add a visual dreaminess to the stage, the subtle use of props as percussion instruments, and forked again into her fourth long-lived instance, Among Those Who Create Are Those Who Forge.</p>
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<p>And at last, Sasha/Michelle remembered how, even after she fell silent, she and her friend had sat in the glow of the sun, thinking about just how wonderful a time she had had — her directly, her friend in compersion — seeing so complete an experience of a well-produced musical, and forked into her, into Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself.</p>
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<p>She was forked smiling.</p>
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<p>From that point on, A Finger Pointing made herself the glue of this growing clade. She would share weekly or monthly lunches and dinners with each, keeping up with them via letters and, once they were implemented, sensorium messages. Even as her smile remained or veered towards a smirk or wily grin, even as her opinions on each of her cocladists grew more complicated, watching burgeoning loves and animosities, she kept in touch.</p>
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<hr />
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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 needed 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 where A Finger Pointing, Beholden, and Motes lived. 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 without support.</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 where A Finger Pointing, Beholden, and Motes lived. She may have been safe where 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 without support.</p>
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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>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, 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>A Finger Pointing gritted her teeth, 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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@ -102,7 +102,7 @@
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<p>And so they fell in love, each in their own way. They fell in love and, for the most part, reveled. Yes, they had their spats. Yes, they had their flings besides, and the occasional relationship, all negotiated and cherished and bound up in compersion. But yes, they had each other.</p>
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<p>There was, of course, the social implications to consider, the taboo around intraclade relationships, the implications of narcissism and other, far more crass terms. Suggestions were made from on high, such as it were, from across the clade.</p>
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<p>True Name suggested. She suggested that, as pleased as she was for them, their relationship remain something for behind closed doors. Something where they kept their I-love-yous and kisses for a shared bed rather than out on the town or at however many gatherings they might wish to go to. Politics was, as ever, politics, and here are the political reasons laid bare.</p>
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<p>Hers were the kind suggestions. The comprehensible suggestions. The ones based in logic and explained clearly: maintaining a sense of taboo in what was quickly becoming a queer-normative society added to the desire for change. Comprehensible, yes; the logic was sound, internally consistent. Wrong, of course, but if such was to be the way of things, then so be it.</p>
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<p>Hers were the kind suggestions. The comprehensible suggestions. The ones based in logic and explained clearly: maintaining a sense of taboo in what was quickly becoming a queer-normative society added to the desire for change by providing something to reach for. Comprehensible, yes; the logic was sound, internally consistent. Wrong, of course, but if such was to be the way of things, then so be it.</p>
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<p>Other suggestions: not so kind.</p>
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<p>For there was Hammered Silver, strangely quiet during one of A Finger Pointing’s many lunch dates with her. Quiet and distant, all conversation polite and full of nothing comments about the sim, the salad, the coffee, all gazes cast upon everything but her.</p>
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<p>When pressed, she had simply shrugged and offered some plainly false words about being distracted. </p>
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<p>It was the first letter of several. It was the first time of many that she stood stock still, seethed, and counted to ten before opening her door to greet Beholden — her partner regardless of Hammered Silver’s haughty implications — with her usual jaunty smile once more firmly in place.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>A Weapon Against The Waking World, it turned out, was perfectly happy to meet with them.</p>
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<p>Waking World had long ago taken up the mantle of ‘dad’. Not father, not pa, but specifically dad. Where Hammered Silver reveled in feelings of motherhood, of caring and cherishing and clinging tight, such as they might be sys-side, he had reveled in all the glorious humor of fatherhood, of protecting and uplifting and letting go. He was a being of idle quips and truly terrible dad jokes. He was a man who might call you ‘sport’ or ‘champ’ as easily as ‘friend’. He was, in all ways except physical, <em>your</em> dad, whoever you might be.</p>
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<p>Waking World had long ago taken up the mantle of ‘dad’. Not father, not guardian, but specifically dad. Where Hammered Silver reveled in feelings of motherhood, of caring and cherishing and clinging tight, such as they might be sys-side, he had reveled in all the glorious humor of fatherhood, of protecting and uplifting and letting go. He was a being of idle quips and truly terrible dad jokes. He was a man who might call you ‘sport’ or ‘champ’ as easily as ‘friend’. He was, in all ways except physical, <em>your</em> dad, whoever you might be.</p>
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<p>He had long ago taken the form of a stocky man, hairline receding, tall enough, looking just enough like an Odist that one could see that he might belong to the clade — his name aside, of course — and yet the resemblance was slight enough that seeing him beside Hammered Silver would not inspire comments of “siblings…?”</p>
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<p>He was not beside her now.</p>
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<p>The first thing that he did upon arriving at the Au Lieu Du Rêve library — a location carefully chosen for the ease with which it might be secured — was to open his arms to Dry Grass and, when she dashed to him, wrap her up in a hug.</p>
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<p>Beholden subsided, lips still curled in a snarl. After a moment’s silence, her shoulders slumped and she looked away. “Yes, of course. I am sorry, Waking World. I was the one who found Motes overflowing and she was covered in blood from getting hit in the nose or something, and was all scraped up. It was…hard on me, is all.”</p>
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<p>Waking World blanched. “Wait, shit, really? Uh…” He folded his hands in his lap and frowned down to them. “Shit. I am sorry, Beholden. I did not know.”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “None of us know why, but we are asking around to see if anyone knows what happened. It could be she just fell or something. I imagine the letter she got must have been a hell of a shock.” She smiled faintly, shakily. “I apologize, though, earnestly. That should not have spilled over onto you.”</p>
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<p>He nodded, giving a hint of a bow from where he sat. “Well,” he started once more. “All of that to say that she is mad as hell, but in a very her way. She is feeling mad at Dry Grass for visiting and mad at herself for the decision she made — I do not think even she agrees with it — so she is just getting mad at every little thing. That is probably why she sent off that flurry of letters.”</p>
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<p>He nodded, giving a hint of a bow from where he sat. “Well,” he started once more. “All of that to say that she is mad as hell, but in a very <em>her</em> way. She is feeling mad at Dry Grass for visiting and mad at herself for the decision she made — I do not think even she agrees with it — so she is just getting mad at every little thing. That is probably why she sent off that flurry of letters.”</p>
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<p>“Flurry?” A Finger Pointing asked, frowning.</p>
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<p>“I got one too,” Dry Grass said. “Probably five or six pages of yelling at me, yelling about all of you, and just plain yelling.”</p>
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<p>Waking World shrugged. “She even sent me one. I got it while in the next room over from her.”</p>
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<p>“Jesus Christ,” A Finger Pointing said, laughing. “She really <em>is</em> mad.”</p>
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<p>“Right. Sasha is right, though, you do not need to worry about any existential threat from her. She is not going to come hunting any of you down. She is not going to do anything but seethe.”</p>
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<p>“Is that something we need to be concerned about, though?” she asked. “Beholden is not the only one worried about her getting violent.”</p>
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<p>“Really, no, I do not think you have anything like that to worry about from her”. Rubbing his palms together, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I might, but that is my role in this.”</p>
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<p>“Well, is there anything we can do about it, then? I do not like your role in this, either, but again, that will be a conversation for later. I find myself all but blind with fury, though, and the thought that I might just let this slide back into silence is unconscionable. Were she to allow us to be in the same room…” She trailed off, letting the aposiopesis speak for her.</p>
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<p>“Really, no, I do not think you have anything like that to worry about from her”. Rubbing his palms together, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I might, but that is my role in this: I rein her in by being a target.”</p>
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<p>“Well, is there anything we can do about it, then? I do not like your role in this either, but again, that will be a conversation for later. I find myself all but blind with fury, though, and the thought that I might just let this slide back into silence is unconscionable. Were she to allow us to be in the same room…” She trailed off, letting the aposiopesis speak for her.</p>
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<p>“I am half tempted to find a way back just to give her a punch to the gut,” Dry Grass growled. “But I have been locked out of the entire sim.”</p>
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<p>Waking World laughed weakly. “Please do not do that, my dear. That is not what anyone needs right now, least of all her.”</p>
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<p>“What <em>does</em> she need, then?”</p>
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<p>They would meet up and they would talk, and A Finger Pointing would swallow enough of her frustration with the letters to maintain this friendship without compromising her morals.</p>
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<p>But at some point, even the closest of friendships find a point of irreconcilable difference. There is a point at which there is no way to agree upon a topic, and one must choose: do we agree to disagree? Do we argue forever and hate it? Do we argue forever and turn it into a cherished pastime? Do we simply part ways? Even the closest of friendships must confront this decision.</p>
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<p>Theirs was not the closest of friendships.</p>
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<p>One day, sometime late in the 2100s or early 2200s, sometime systime 100, there was a point where the tenor of these meetings once more changed. Once more, there was a distance, a stiffness, and when pressed, once more nothing came from it.</p>
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<p>One day, sometime late in the 2100s or early 2200s, sometime around systime 100, there was a point where the tenor of these meetings once more changed. Once more, there was a distance, a stiffness, and when pressed, once more nothing came from it.</p>
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<p>No letter came.</p>
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<p>The next meeting was much the same.</p>
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<p>No letter came.</p>
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<p>“At all,” Hammered Silver confirmed. “For now.”</p>
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<p>A Finger Pointing nodded stiffly, agreed, and scheduled the next lunch date.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>The walk home was slow, any faster, and she feared that she might stumble.</p>
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<p>The walk home was slow; any faster, and she feared that she might stumble.</p>
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<p>Beholden walked with her paws stuffed into the pockets of her hoodie, mostly looking down to her feet as they trudged along the sidewalk, while A Finger Pointing walked with her arm looped through her partner’s, trusting the skunk to get them both home.</p>
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<p>She needed it; the world had indeed stopped making sense, as though seen in watercolors, too much ink on canvas. The sound of their footsteps on gravel and concrete and grass was a fine grit within her ears. The sound of the door opening, the feeling of the couch beneath her.</p>
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<p>She needed it. The world had indeed stopped making sense, as though seen in watercolors, too much pigment on canvas. The sound of their footsteps on gravel and concrete and grass was a fine grit within her ears. The sound of the door opening, the feeling of the couch beneath her, the colors of Motes’s paintings on the wall, each was too much.</p>
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<p>There was panic, there, yes — there was dissociation, derealization, depersonalization — panic about the events, panic about Dry Grass and Motes and herself and Beholden, but there was also exhaustion. There was also the knock-on effects of a fit of play some years back, all welling up within her.</p>
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<p>In that fit of play, that bout of instance artistry decades prior, one of her up-tree instances — two degrees up, a fork of a fork — started to crash. Before they did so completely, however, they managed to quit, to merge back down. Her immediate up-tree, another instance of ever-curious her, accepted the merge blithely. After all, when else would she ever know what a crash felt like without crashing herself?</p>
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<p>Nothing happened. It was strange, yes. It was weird and confusing and uncomfortable, but it did not hurt, it did not leave that instance of her affected in any apparent way. Just a pile of jumbled memories slowly seeping in between the ones she had made, herself.</p>
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<p>And so, A Finger Pointing accepted her up-tree’s merge just as blithely.</p>
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<p>The effects were both subtle and dramatic. </p>
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<p>They were subtle because there was was no sudden incapacitation, no torturous existence that left her craving non-existence. They were subtle because they left her with a life so much like the one she had, but for the fact that her sensorium and sense of self had been severed, separated.</p>
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<p>They were subtle because there was was no sudden incapacitation, no torturous existence that left her craving non-existence. They were subtle because they left her with a life so much like the one she had, but for the fact that her sensorium and sense of self had been severed, separated. <em>That</em> was the drama.</p>
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<p>This was the dissociation. This was the derealization. This was the world around her ceasing to make sense, as though in a dream. As though in a dream because she <em>did</em> live in a dream, did she not? She lived in the consensual dream that was the System, yes? It was hyper-dreaming, then, it was understanding a dream within a dream. </p>
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<p>It was like the System before the dream had been made consensual. It was like what image or audio or video transfers had been attempted before the introduction of AVEC, all blurry, all smudged, all almost-but-not-quite what they were, what they were meant to be.</p>
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<p>It was having a conversation with a dear one when tired, when one’s attention drifted, and then trying to repeat the words that you had almost but not quite heard. It was looking at a scene and remembering that you were standing on a beach a moment ago, and yet being unable to tell water from shore, from sand. It was looking at your partner and not recognizing their face, not recognizing what a face <em>was.</em></p>
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<p>It was pain, but she could not tell where or what kind or even if it was pain at all. It was vertigo. It was no up or down.</p>
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<p>It was pain, but she could not tell where or what kind or even if it was pain at all. It was vertigo. It was no up, no down.</p>
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<p>It was curling in the corner in a fetal position because to do aught else was to risk falling over and breaking a limb.</p>
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<p>She wished dearly that she could do so now.</p>
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<p>“I am tired, Beholden.”</p>
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<p>“‘What it will mean’? Not what it will accomplish?”</p>
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<p>“Yes. I do not think that you will like it, but I think it will accomplish much of what Waking World said. It will get her to just leave us alone. To leave Motes and Dry Grass be.”</p>
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<p>Beholden nodded slowly. “That is good, then.”</p>
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<p>“It will just mean a bit of a compromise on my morals.” She paused, organizing her thoughts. “It will mean letting some of this hurt through. It will mean letting Hammered Silver get to me — just a little bit — so that she can feel a little bit of a victory. It is a compromise.”</p>
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<p>“It will just mean a bit of a compromise on my morals.” She paused, organizing her thoughts. “It will mean letting some of this hurt through. It will mean letting Hammered Silver get to me — just a little bit — so that she can feel a little bit of a victory and hold onto that instead of us. It is a compromise.”</p>
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<p>The skunk bridled. “You are right. I do not like it at <em>all.</em> That is a shitty fucking compromise.”</p>
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<p>She chuckled drily, took another sip of water. “To be fair, my muse, neither do I, but if it gets her to fuck off for good, then so be it.”</p>
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<hr />
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<p>An end to a friendship with a person is not the end of knowing that person. An end to a friendship can be sudden or gradual. It can be the type of thing that happens in one fell swoop: an argument, perhaps, or a disappearance. It can be the type of thing that takes months and years and decades: a drifting apart, perhaps, or a series of slow decisions. It can be both: an inflection point is reached and neither realizes it until down the line and, oh, perhaps it had ended long ago.</p>
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<p>A Finger Pointing was not sure when it was that her friendship with Hammered Silver <em>actually</em> ended, because there were so many points at which it <em>could have</em> ended that it was hard to pick just one. There were so many letters, now all stored in a single exo so that they would not simply live within her actual memory at all times, and each of those could have been the end of a friendship as easily as any other.</p>
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<p>A Finger Pointing was not sure when it was that her friendship with Hammered Silver <em>actually</em> died, because there were so many points at which it <em>could have</em> died that it was hard to pick just one. There were so many letters, now all stored in a single exo so that they would not simply live within her actual memory at all times, and each of those could have been the end of a friendship as easily as any other.</p>
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<p>There was still that point of realization, though. There was that point when she realized that she had long ago ceased to be Hammered Silver’s friend, had long ago become merely her cocladist, some obligation to be followed up upon out of a tired sense of formality or information gathering over friendship-colored lunches.</p>
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<p>They were friendship colored because that was the tinted glass that A Finger Pointing held before her eyes. She viewed the world with friendship, with the joy of joy itself. She looked at all times through a gel — one of those transparent, colored sheets used to tint a stage-light — colored with friendship, colored by joy.</p>
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<p>It was not a pair of rose-colored glasses. She was not burying her head in the sand to avoid some unpleasant facts. She was as realistic as ever she had been, as Sasha/Michelle had been before her and Michelle Hadje before that.</p>
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<p>Cutting contact is one hell of a way to end a friendship, yes?</p>
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<p>But no, the end of their friendship came far earlier. Decades earlier.</p>
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<p>At some point back in the early 2100s, Motes had begun exploring this role of the babiest Odist of the fifth stanza — in her twenties, sure, but a being built entirely out of play. A note arrived.</p>
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<p>At some point back in the late 2100s, Motes had begun exploring this form of childhood — no one’s child in particular, sure, but a being built entirely out of play. A note arrived.</p>
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<p>At some point back in the late 2100s, Motes had begun exploring this form of childhood — no one’s child in particular, sure, and everyone’s, but a being built entirely out of play. A note arrived.</p>
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<p>And at some point back in the mid 2200s, Motes had begun exploring the concept of family. She had since moved in with A Finger Pointing and Beholden, and the longer she stayed, the more she fell in love with them as her guardians and the more they fell in love with her as their charge.</p>
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<p>For this was true of all of her up-trees, and for much of Au Lieu Du Rêve besides. Going years back, back even to the late 2100s, this reveling in play that Motes brought to the fifth stanza had built in A Finger Pointing a sense of her place in the order: her role was a maternal one. A reveling in care, in the type of friendship that flowered in a particular dynamic.</p>
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<p>She was their matron, in a way. She was their protector. She shielded them as best she could from the politics that so much of their cocladists were engaging in throughout the rest of the System. “But that is my job,” she reasoned aloud when she became more open about this protection. “That is why we have an administrator for Au Lieu Du Rêve, yes? Someone has to deal with the politics of running a theatre, yes?”</p>
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<p>The first time Motes called A Finger Pointing ‘ma’, there had been a conversation, full of various confusions and inquiries and boundaries. Both came to an agreement that this was not comfortable. Not now, not yet.</p>
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<p>The first time Motes called A Finger Pointing ‘Ma’, there had been a conversation, full of various confusions and inquiries and boundaries. Both came to an agreement that this was not comfortable. Not now. Not yet.</p>
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<p>A year later — for what is a year to a cladist? — Motes did it again, and this time she asked first, and permission was granted to see how it felt. It was still uncomfortable, but perhaps there was joy to be found. Perhaps there was expectations and standards and trust that could be built up.</p>
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<p>And so, as it had been with each of Motes’s tentative explorations and gentle testing of mutable boundaries, this became a thing that was okay at home, okay in limited doses, okay for a trial period. It was worthy of exploration, for if there was the potential for joy and everyone deserved such, then perhaps there was some way Motes could be granted such a thing.</p>
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<p>This private setting, this iterative context, this ongoing play allowed for growth and change.</p>
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@ -249,18 +249,18 @@ This was bullshit, patented and trademarked, registered as a copyright and servi
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<p>This built up a false equivalence within all three of them. It allowed them to consider this taboo as applying to all intraclade relationships beyond simple community, simple friendship. Big-R Relationships like those of A Finger Pointing and her Beholden and like those of Motes with the two of them. This desire for family to be constrained to a private setting must apply to all kinds of family dynamics, yes?</p>
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<p>“Beholden and I are still smarting because we must sequester our affection for one another in private. That is why I have been hesitant to take on the caregiver role that you have sought from me,” A Finger Pointing had said during a quiet night’s conversation, skunklet curled beside her on the couch, getting pets. “But I do care for you, do I not? I do feel like a sort of matron amidst the fifth stanza, do I not? Perhaps it is time I reconsidered my aversion to familial language. Perhaps it is time I considered reclamation. After all, everything I have done has been so that you can live in peace. Are you living in peace, Motes? Are you at peace when you must restrain your feelings for me for reasons neither of us particularly care for?”</p>
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<p>And so it remained largely at home, at home with the three of them and at home in the neighborhood that was slowly building up around them. It remained a secret, but, like A Finger Pointing and Beholden’s relationship, it remained an open one. The quiet of the secret allowed them live to their fullest, and the openness allowed them to share joy where they felt safe doing so.</p>
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<p>But then, some time back around systime 182, back around the time the clocks ticked over to 2306, back around the time Michelle/Sasha had summoned them all to her field to merge centuries of memory and then quit, perished, Hammered Silver sent one of her longest letters yet. It was in some ways a screed. It was beyond simply admonition, note, or missive. It was an epistle, some general letter intended to be a point of instruction not just to her but to the world as a whole.</p>
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<p>The screed, well worth embodying as a physical letter if only to be torn up, ripped to shreds, burnt to ash, soaked with tears to douse the fire, ground into a paint, and used to spell out anger and despair, spelled out in nigh-unintelligible detail all of the ways in which she and hers had fallen short.</p>
|
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<p>But then, some time back around systime 182, back around the time the clocks ticked over to 2306, back around the time Michelle/Sasha had summoned them all to her field to merge centuries of memory and then quit — perished — Hammered Silver sent one of her longest letters yet. It was in some ways a screed. It was beyond simply admonition, note, or missive. It was an epistle, some general letter intended to be a point of instruction not just to her but to the world as a whole.</p>
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<p>The screed — well worth embodying as a physical letter if only to be torn up, ripped to shreds, burnt to ash, soaked with tears to douse the fire, ground into a paint, and used to spell out anger and despair — laid out in nigh-unintelligible detail all of the ways in which she and hers had fallen short.</p>
|
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<p>Motes had existed. She had tested the limits and found them flexible. She had found the boundaries negotiable. She had poked her nose out into the world and found it largely amenable to her existence. She had lived her life in play. She had played as a child and played as an adult. She had gone down slides and been bitten during sex and died on-stage and off, all countless times.</p>
|
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<p>All of these were unacceptable. All of these had led to letters and notes of their own. All were rehashed through paragraph after paragraph of spiny invective.</p>
|
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<p>But a full half of the letter was devoted to a particular combination of particular topics that had apparently struck Hammered Silver as worthy of ire: Motes had started calling A Finger Pointing ‘ma’ and A Finger Pointing had started calling Motes ‘Dot’. Two syllables worthy of an essay-length diatribe.</p>
|
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<p>But a full half of the letter was devoted to a particular combination of particular topics that had apparently struck Hammered Silver as particularly worthy of ire: Motes had started calling A Finger Pointing ‘Ma’ and A Finger Pointing had started calling Motes ‘Dot’. Two syllables worthy of an essay-length diatribe.</p>
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<p>How dare she, Hammered Silver cried — and with such a loss as that of Sasha/Michelle, she truly sobbed. How dare she test the clade’s position in this most precarious life time and again by doing this awful, awful thing. On and on and on.</p>
|
||||
<p>And so, at that point, their friendship ended. They went a year without meeting, and when next they scheduled a coffee date, they spoke hardly at all. They made their goodbyes wordless. The next meeting was similarly silent.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was no more love between them. The trust had been broken. They met to keep tabs on each other. They met to ensure that the other was not living outside the bounds of society in some abhorrent way. They met to spy on each other.</p>
|
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<p>That was the time their friendship died, the moment A Finger Pointing received that letter, the one that she tore up and burned to ash, cried over and then, determined, use the paint of which to spell out renewed love for those who remained in her life.</p>
|
||||
<hr />
|
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<p>Once she had had her water, and then a simple drink mixed by Beholden, and spent an hour resting, A Finger Pointing stood and walked to the back patio, out where the concrete ended in a sharp seam and the wild grass of the field threatened to tickle at her ankles, were it not for socks and slacks.</p>
|
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<p>She forked, and her new instance moved to stand facing her. When she nodded, the instance opened a simplex sensorium message to Hammered Silver. It was essentially a recording of whatever the instance saw and heard that would be sent to Hammered Silver when she was finished.</p>
|
||||
<p>She forked, and her new instance moved to stand facing her. When she nodded, the instance opened a simplex sensorium message to Hammered Silver. It was essentially a recording of whatever the instance saw and heard that would be sent when she was finished.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver,” she began, bowing toward her recording instance. “I will not apologize for breaking our silence, but I will allow it to fall over us once more after I am finished with this message. This is simply too important for me to leave unsaid.</p>
|
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<p>“The letters that you have sent to me, Dry Grass, and Motes have left in their wake a pain that I cannot adequately describe. Motes was pushed almost immediately into overflowing, leaving her all but catatonic and unable to interact with the world.” She laughed, letting the exhaustion she felt show through along with the very real pain. “Hell, I wish that I could do the same right now, myself.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She sighed, took a moment to reclaim her calm, and continued from there. “I understand that we have irreconcilable differences of opinion on this. I will not attempt to sway you, just as I know that you will not attempt to sway me. That is the point of this no-contact order that you have levied, broken, and then reinforced.”</p>
|
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@ -281,7 +281,8 @@ This was bullshit, patented and trademarked, registered as a copyright and servi
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</blockquote>
|
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<p>She read the letter through twice and then committed it to an exocortex and destroyed the original.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What a fucking bitch,” she muttered to herself as she turned to return inside.</p>
|
||||
<p>A simple dinner. A few glasses of wine. A quiet evening saying nothing while she lounged with her head on Beholden’s lap while the skunk worked.</p>
|
||||
<p>At least it had fucking worked.</p>
|
||||
<p>A simple dinner. A few glasses of wine. A quiet evening saying nothing as she lounged with her head on Beholden’s lap while the skunk worked.</p>
|
||||
<p>As darkness fell, as they planned on bed, she checked up on Motes for herself.</p>
|
||||
<p>The skunk lay tightly curled beneath her covers, a pillow held tightly in her arms, eyes clenched tightly shut. She was tempted to stand there for a few minutes, simply watching her charge, her Dot, sleep.</p>
|
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<p>Or…not sleep, but withdraw from the waking world.</p>
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@ -291,7 +292,7 @@ This was bullshit, patented and trademarked, registered as a copyright and servi
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<p>She lay there until she felt Motes slowly relax beneath her arm, heard her breathing slow, and then for a while after.</p>
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</article>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-01-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-01-23</p>
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