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<p>She groaned and buried her face against her cocladist’s shoulder. “I knooow. Anyway, this person and I got started talking about what we like in lasting friendships that we do not really care about in one-night stands and…and they just seem like a really good person.”</p>
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<p>“And you think you might like to follow up on that?”</p>
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<p>“They are just into all sorts of things I am. They paint — people, mostly, and some animals — and like a lot of the same music, and also…also are into the whole little thing. They suggested we forget the sex part and maybe do a regular sort of get-together thing.” She hesitated before adding, far more bashfully, “You know. As kids.”</p>
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<p>“Have you told A Finger Pointing about them?”</p>
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<p>She shook her head. “That was part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”</p>
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<p>Slow Hours asked her several questions. She asked about the person. She asked about the day before. She asked about the morning after. She asked about Beholden and Unbidden and the crowd around her. She asked about how drunk she had been, how high. She asked like there was some thread being tugged, whether by her fingers or by Motes’s or Apollo himself. No one ever asked, not even Slow Hours, and she never said, lest the whole thing come tumbling down.</p>
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<p>“Speck,” she said, interrupting Motes at one point. “Here are two truths and a lie.”</p>
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<p>Motes frowned.</p>
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<p>“One: they are a fucking creep.”</p>
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<p>There was a moment’s silence before she giggled nervously. The flow of prophecy had a rhythm, though, and so she remained silent to let Slow Hours continue.</p>
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<p>“Two: you are lonely. You have us, yes. You have your stanza and the rest of the troupe. You have your family and your work, but what you do not have are the types of friends you describe. You are friendly with everyone here, everyone is your friend, but you do not <em>have</em> friends in this way.”</p>
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<p>Still wrong-footed, Motes leaned away from her cocladist. “And the third?”</p>
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<p>“Three: much of this is our fault.”</p>
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<p>“‘Yours’ as in the clade’s?”</p>
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<p>After a moment, Slow Hours spoke again, the edge of prophecy letting off of her throat. “There are as many reasons to keep someone for yourself as there are ways to do so. The whole of the fifth stanza — and, to a lesser extent, the whole of Au Lieu de Rêve — has closed around you. Not tight, of course, we are not keeping you trapped and hidden away, but we are all intensely, intensely protective of you. We have all endeavored to make your life here the best that it can be, as you have invited us to do. This was part of our conversations going all the way back, was it not? That you enjoyed leaning into being cared for, and we enjoyed having someone to collectively care for? We do not like creeps around our Motes, and so we see creeps everywhere.”</p>
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<p>Once Motes saw what she was saying, saw through the everblue tint of prophecy and her own little game of two truths and a lie, the skunk’s shoulders relaxed and she slumped against her, sniffling.</p>
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<p>“We all love you, Speck. That is all.”</p>
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<p>Motes understood after some days of consideration that it was not her prophecy. It was theirs. It was Slow Hours’s and A Finger Pointing’s and Beholden’s and Unbidden’s and the whole rest of Au Lieu Du Rêve’s.</p>
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<p>She was still good friends with that person years later. That person and so many more.</p>
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<hr />
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-01-07</p>
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