From c832f6511cdc77edd98a60ca82895b97d1e92c71 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Scott-Clary Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2024 19:16:19 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- writing/post-self/marsh/columbines.html | 142 +++++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 100 insertions(+), 42 deletions(-) diff --git a/writing/post-self/marsh/columbines.html b/writing/post-self/marsh/columbines.html index 8793df74e..1c8f45d16 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/marsh/columbines.html +++ b/writing/post-self/marsh/columbines.html @@ -25,56 +25,114 @@ So I will love you as she loved her; I will remember for all of us.

Other memories from Wolfery

-

The cladist sighs, then pinches on one of Beholden’s ears. “A Finger Curled delved much deeper than I did. It was actually one of her sims that I always walked you through back sys-side. You remember that sprawling little labyrinth of gardenboxes and such, yes? Sometimes one of her instances would be working just a path over or so. She sent me a letter once musing that it had become a bit of a game for her to stalk us as closely as she could without being caught!” -* 8/21/2023, 10:59:37 AM: Talonstrike Broadwing shuffles in, and arrives in the middle of… such a discussion. “Wait, there’s a ‘A Finger Curled’? That was a joke I was going to make one time. -* 8/21/2023, 11:01:23 AM: Beholden of the Ode clade chirrups and tilts her head toward her cocladist at the pinch to her ear, eyes half-lidding at the little tingle of sensation that comes with it. “Did she now!” she says, laughing. “How delightful. I am pleased to see that she leaned as much into that playfulness as we have, over the years.”

-

She sighs pleasantly, sounding relaxed. “I heard little from Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres. She seemed pleased to continue as she was, and I was rather tickled by the sense of divergence that came with not interacting, not sharing. Perhaps it is some of Dear rubbing off on me.” She grins, gently poking Pointillist on the knee. “Or you. Still, when she did talk, she sounded quite happy.” -* 8/21/2023, 11:05:44 AM: Pointillist of the Ode clade laughs vibrantly at Talonstrike’s comment! “Yes! My own secret up-tree, only technically an Odist. Beholden and I each forked to indulge in a more domestic sort of romance with one another. We are the performers and party-goers. A Finger Curled and Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres are boring cottagecore housewives.”

-

She kisses the top of Beholden’s head, then. “A Finger Curled never stopped sending merges from time to time. I had one pending during New Year’s I had planned to address in the morning, in fact.” She sighs, resting her mug on her knee and holding it there in her hand. “I do not know what became of it. I could not have known I would be sent here, but a part of me resents that I did not merge those memories sooner. Now they are lost.” -* 8/21/2023, 11:10:08 AM: Beholden of the Ode clade furrows her brow. “Really? I did not know, my love. I am sorry,” she says, turning that little poke into a gentle caress of the knee. “You, then, had a better sense of their happiness. One of Beholden To The Music Of The Sphereses and I’s early conversations was to agree that we would not merge. It felt so subversive! Transgressive, to view that core mechanic of our lives and say, ‘nah’.”

-

She laughs, shaking her head. “But listen to me, I am sounding like Slow Hours. Perhaps it is this weather, putting me into a more thoughtful mood than usual.” -* 8/21/2023, 11:13:30 AM: Pointillist of the Ode clade nods, crossing her legs and bringing her arm down to cup Beholden’s caressing paw. “Wildfire smoke is so paradoxical. I am at once enraptured by the novel beauty of the hauntingly still air, unnerved by the bleary familiarity of the angry Sun, and nervous that our cocladists in the woods might have been displaced or, worse, caught up in the blaze. It is burning somewhere, and here I am feeling rather cold.” -* 8/21/2023, 11:15:15 AM: Beholden of the Ode clade slouches a bit further, snout dipping and gaze drifting. “I had not thought of them. I suppose we are rather collecting them out there, are we not? True Name and, of late, Laz, and now apparently E.W. is here. I do hope that they are safe. I never was close to E.W.; not as much as you. I know that Heat And Warmth is rather excited, though. Or perhaps nervous.” -* 8/21/2023, 11:20:06 AM: Pointillist of the Ode clade smirks, bumping her temple against the skunk’s. “Heat And Warmth is positively terrified of E.W.; I am curious to see what will become of those two in the end. He has such a stony personality. I am unsurprised ey has such a hard time connecting with him. It took me decades of nagging him via sensorium before he finally accepted my request to visit. I brought him a bottle of whiskey and I think he was more enamored by the vessel’s utility as a water flask than the drink itself! It is such a fascinating life he lives.” -* 8/21/2023, 11:23:07 AM: (arrive) What-Lives Of the Ode clade arrives from the train station. -* 8/21/2023, 11:30:27 AM: Beholden of the Ode clade snorts! “But ey is such a dear! And so delightfully an armful of skunk. I do not feel quite the sisterly cameraderie with her as I do with Motes, but she is a little bundle of joy that is perfectly bully-able.” She giggles, adding, “I am also a little afraid of E.W., but mostly because he is so frighteningly competent.”

-

She perks, waves to What Lives. “Speaking of skunks, though!” -* 8/21/2023, 11:33:27 AM: Pointillist of the Ode clade perks up, waving a hand at What Lives. “Ah! You must be…one of Praiseworthy’s, surely…” She lifts her tinted glasses up, smiling. “Welcome to the Rift! It is not so miserable, but also, yes, we all appear to be stuck in Limbo.” -* 8/21/2023, 11:35:03 AM: Talonstrike Broadwing chuckles. ((Belatedly. Attending to tasks while Mirrdae takes a turn doing the driving.)) “Cottagecore skunks. Awww. That’s cuuute. Way cuter than my unsaid jokes.” ((Also Cadmium would draw them well.))

-

“I see the courtyard of an abandoned schoolyard overgrown with frosted branches and cast in a blanket of blinding white. I hear the stillness of the air, the chill of that heavy silence that comes when a pressure front has rolled in and your voice carries twice as far. I feel the warmth of a paw on my back through fur, under a coat far too thick for my liking. I smell the breath of Beholden sharing the air under my jaw. I know she has just nudged me in that deadly way of yours by the buzzing up and down my neck, by the way my arms subtly curl in against my chest as if to embrace her despite the weight of her head on my shoulder.” -* 10/14/2023, 6:05:43 PM: Beholden of the Ode clade listens, rapt. There are a few more gentle touches along Pointillist’s cheek before the skunk once more gets both arms around her, the better to focus on these fragments of dreams. It is all very Odist, this piecing together a whole rather than a linear plot, There is a metaphor to be made about putting together the seeds of a dandelion to see the puffball again, but it slips from her mind before she can make it.

-

“I remain very pleased to hear that A Finger Curled still enjoys that little touch, and that my up-tree still does it. For the little cutesy maneuver that it began as, it has turned rather meaningful to us, has it not?” she says, sighing happily. “Winter, though, and abandoned school yards. That is curious. It still feels so prosaic, to me. Far less rushing about, far fewer wild nights. They had a very different kind of peace.” -* 10/14/2023, 6:18:18 PM: Pointillist of the Ode clade smiles softly. “That was always the point, was it not? To lean into domesticity with one another? It was on just such a night that they forked, after all. So they went on to build their cabin in the woods, to sit under the awning of that porch bench of theirs to indulge the light of dawn and dusk alike. I remember how you began to count the colors, to make silly names from their kenning like lividpurple and ultrablue and sweetlight.” She kisses the skunk’s near ear. -* 10/14/2023, 6:28:59 PM: Beholden of the Ode clade flits that ear at the kiss and buries her face against A Finger Pointing — yes, with her snout tucked up under her chin. “Lividpurple! That sounds very like me. I suppose she is nothing if not myself.” The skunk giggles quietly, sounding more content than anything. “She did offer merging down a few times, you know, Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres. We talked it through over sensorium messages over the years. She had about convinced me a few times, but I always held back. I liked what we have, even when what we have started to be colored by A Finger Curled’s memories in you. It was touching to me that we live separate lives, that I lean more into electronic instruments and her the analog ones, that I lean more into partying and her the caipirinhas on the porch. It was even important to me that you and I approach that differently. A part of me doubts that decision, but here I am in the Rift and still yours, so I am content in that, at least.” -* 10/14/2023, 6:32:48 PM: Pointillist of the Ode clade nods along, petting gently over Beholden’s mane. “Yours as a neighborhood, my muse. And I, your very own.” She smiles, kisses the top of the skunk’s head, and coaxes her up so she can stand. “I am feeling rather tired, of a sudden. Walk me home, please?” -* 10/14/2023, 6:35:59 PM: Beholden of the Ode clade gives a little nuzzle up against A Finger Pointing before nodding. “Alright, love.” She pushes herself to her feet and waits for her partner to stand before offering her elbow to loop an arm through. “Come, we can flop on the couch and pick out patterns in the textures of the ceiling.”