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<p>Dry Grass laughed. <em>“You had me at maccy-chee. Shall I come over now?”</em></p>
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<p><em>“Yes, please!”</em></p>
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<p>No sooner had the message completed did Dry Grass blink into being on the default arrival point over by the front door.</p>
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<!-- only ever doing this in private at first, friction from another stanza passed on through A Finger Pointing, the issues with leaning into a family dynamic -->
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<p>Motes finished shoving the tray of salad ingredients up onto the counter and zipped over to her cross-tree cocladist, all but launching herself into her arms. Dry Grass caught her, letting her momentum swing the two of them around in a circle. “Hey kiddo! Way to go almost knocking me over.”</p>
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<p>“I am not sorry!” Motes said and just as quickly dashed away and back to the kitchen. “Help me cut up everything. I am going to nick a claw, I know it.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass followed after more sedately. “Of course. Would not want you losing a finger.”</p>
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<p>“I have <em>never</em> done that one,” Motes said, dragging a chair over to the counter to stand on. I mostly just need help with the tomatoes. They always go flying. Oh! And can you turn on the oven?”</p>
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<p>By their powers combined, the two Odists managed to pull together a meal, exactly as Motes had described it. The salad turned out to be the breakaway winner of the bunch. Fries and nuggets are known quantities, but where the macaroni and cheese bake was good, something about the refreshing salad, the tang of the dressing, the satisfying pop of the tomatoes (many of which they wound up leaving whole) managed to hit the spot in a way none of the other dishes did.</p>
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<p>Once the dishes had been waved a way and drinks had been made — sweeter cocktails that once more got her a good-natured ribbing — Motes summoned up some simple tatami mats for them to lay on on the floor, side cozied up against side, while Motes painted her claws and Dry Grass’s nails with a fine-tipped brush, little spirals and curlicues in pink and yellow.</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>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>Motes tilted her head, squinting at her.</p>
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<p>Holding up her hands in a disarming gesture, Dry Grass added quickly. “Not from me, my dear. Never from me. Most all of it came from Hammered Silver, actually. 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>“Oh, she was definitely another one of the big culprits. Do not get me wrong, I like the seventh stanza alright, but In Dreams can be a stickler over…well, most anything, really.”</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. 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>“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 at least 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>“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 has 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>Motes huffed, nodded. “Good. If you stop talking to me, I <em>will</em> cry.”</p>
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<p>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.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2023-12-19</p>
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