Dry Grass was the first to break the silence, mumbling. “In The Wind.”
“What was that, love?” Tule asked, brushing fingers through her hair.
“That was my up-tree instance. In The Wind.” She laughed, choked and hoarse. “I remember the rattle of dry grass in the wind. I picked that up from Louie. Eir clade did much the same. I thought I was so clever.“
-Tule, more flexible than I, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. Cress gave her own kiss after. Both of them glanced briefly at me, looking a little sheepish.
-…
-The night with Cress, Tule, and Dry Grass was…comfortable. Whenever I tried to think of another word for it, nothing seemed to fit.
+Tule, more flexible than I, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. Cress gave her own kiss after. Both of them glanced briefly at me, looking a little sheepish. I couldn’t quite piece together the reason for their looks until I pieced together their confusion — our confusion, since I shared in it — of how I must feel about her.
+The compulsion to echo that gesture was certainly there, too. I knew from countless memories the softness of her skin against my lips, I knew what even the briefest touch would mean to her as she worked to process her own loss.
+I also knew her only as a friend, only as Dry Grass of the Ode clade, only Cress and Tule’s partner, with whom I had shared only a few dinners.
+Thinking rapidly, I opted for a middle ground of squeezing gently on her shoulder. This gained me a rather relaxed-sounding sigh from Dry Grass, and a pleased smile from both Cress and Tule. Dry Grass shrugged my hand off of her shoulder to instead take it in her own, holding gently.
+“Can you tell us about her?” I asked.
+After a long moment’s pause, she nodded. “She was the part of me who remained a systech. After I burnt out