update from sparkleup
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<p>What was missing…ah! Coffee. </p>
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<p>While there was joy in making her own, she was already down, she was already comfortable, she was already finished with her time in the kitchen, and so she deemed it easier to just wave a steaming mug into being on the low table before her, already dosed with cream and sugar.</p>
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<p>She downed half of her mimosa in one go before setting that aside and focusing on her first burrito, each bite topped with a generous spoonful of the salsa until she was left nearly in tears. The rest of the mimosa and a few sips of her coffee, and then the second burrito, similarly doctored.</p>
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<p>It was some time later — she did not know how long nor care to check, though her coffee mug was empty — before Beholden and A Finger Pointing returned, talking quietly about lunch. On seeing her awake and cognizant, the empty dishes on the table, they both smiled and changed course to settle down on either side of her.</p>
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<p>It was some time later — she did not know how long nor care to check, though her coffee mug was empty — before Beholden and A Finger Pointing returned, talking quietly about lunch. On seeing her awake and alert, the empty dishes on the table, they both smiled and changed course to settle down on either side of her.</p>
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<p>“Glad to see you up and about, Dot,” Beholden said, briefly touching her nosetip to Motes’s cheek in an affectionate skunk-kiss. “We got the ping that you were, thus lunch here rather than out, but it is nice to see you all the same.”</p>
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<p>Bookending her with a similar — though far more human — kiss to herother cheek, A Finger Pointing said, “It really is. Are you feeling better, my dear? Please say yes.”</p>
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<p>Motes laughed and waited until each was finished before returning the cheek kisses to her cocladists. “I am, mostly. I still have a lot on my mind, but I am no longer buried beneath it.” She nodded towards the plates, adding, “I already ate before you got here. I am not sorry.”</p>
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<p>“Nor should you be,” A Finger Pointing scoffed. “I would be disappointed if you had not.”</p>
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<p>She laughed. “Of course you would be. You really set up the sim to ping you when I woke?”</p>
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<p>“Of course you would be.” Her grin softened to a smile. “You really set up the sim to ping you when I woke?”</p>
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<p>“Just a few things — your door opening, something being done in the kitchen or at the bar, that sort of thing — so that we would know while we were out.”</p>
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<p>“She was worried,” Beholden stage-whispered. “You should have seen her brighten when she got the notification you were in the kitchen.”</p>
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<p>“Beholden was <em>so</em> worried,” A Finger Pointing said, voice bearing all the drama of some overwrought Shakespearean performer. She spoke loudly, pretending as though she had not heard Beholden, that the skunk was not even there. “I do not know if you noticed while you were down and out, my dear, but I swear, that skunk checked on you at <em>least</em> once an hour.”</p>
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<p>“I think so,” she said, looking down at her mimosa. Beholden had topped it with a maraschino cherry poked through with a cocktail umbrella. There was a warmth of adoration starting to fill hat hollow space in her chest. “I am not going to stop playing, not going to stop being her, but…but that really fucking hurt, and I need to know what to do with that pain before I reengage with that, you know?”</p>
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<p>Letting her free arm dangle over the arm of the couch, glass held by the rim, A Finger Pointing tucked her own cocktail umbrella into Motes’s hair, adding a wheel of bright pink to the yellow of the dandelions before draping her arm around her cocladist’s shoulder. “That does make sense, yes. That was one of my worries, even: that this would leave you too wounded to reengage with that part of you that has been so important over the years.”</p>
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<p>Motes shook her head gently so as not to dislodge crown or umbrella.</p>
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<p>“Good. You are allowed to be Big Motes for a bit while you process this. You are allowed to hold back on all sorts of interactions. I have noticed a lack of ‘ma’ or ‘Bee’– no, no. No need to explain, just an observation. These are things that we will miss and then rejoice when they return.”</p>
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<p>“Good. You are allowed to be Big Motes for a bit while you process this. You are allowed to hold back on all sorts of interactions. I have noticed a lack of ‘Ma’ or ‘Bee’– no, no. No need to explain, just an observation. These are things that we will miss and then rejoice when they return.”</p>
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<p>She slouched against A Finger Pointing and hugged around her middle, careful not to spill her drink. “Thank you, my dear. I really do appreciate it. I will get there, too, for all of that. Just…not yet. Not quite yet.”</p>
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<p>Beholden smiled, reached out to brush some of her curls away from her face, added, “Yeah. And if you need us to lay off calling you ‘Dot’, I am sure–”</p>
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<p>“Absolutely not,” Motes said, laughing. “I would not have you change your ways just because I am feeling icky for a bit.”</p>
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@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
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<p>When she finished and all questions had been answered or deferred, they fell into silence for a long few minutes, the three of them just digesting the last few days each in their own way.</p>
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<p>Finally, Motes huffed and flopped back against the couch. “What a fucking bitch.”</p>
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<p>“Dot, language,” Beholden scolded, laughing.</p>
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<p>“Fuck fuck fuck,” she said, grinning wildly. “Bitch bitch bitch! You can yell at Little Motes.”</p>
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<p>“Fuck fuck fuck,” she said, grinning wildly. “Bitch bitch bitch! You can yell at Little Motes~”</p>
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<p>“No, she is right, my muse,” A Finger Pointing said. “Fucking bitch.”</p>
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<p>“Well, okay, no disputes there,” Beholden said, waving away the three glasses. “What is on your plate next, Motes?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged. “Well, I pinged Miss Genet, so we are going to meet later.”</p>
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<p>“I am so dreadfully busy, Beholden. You know that.”</p>
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<p>“You spent yesterday afternoon lounging in the auditorium trying every kind of kettle corn you could find on the exchange.”</p>
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<p>She sat up straight, staring at her partner like she was some alien creature, something too dense to understand the importance of kettle corn. “Yes. Busy.”</p>
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<p>As A Finger Pointing and Beholden finally got around to whipping up lunch for themselves, the conversation once more fell into comfortable chatter, the sort of banter that so often filed the house, and while, by the time her appointment arrived, Motes had not yet felt comfortable enough to refer to them as ‘ma’ and ‘Bee’, that welcoming sense of family had returned in force, and she felt once more in her comforting role as their Dot, their <em>dóttir</em>.</p>
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<p>As A Finger Pointing and Beholden finally got around to whipping up lunch for themselves, the conversation once more fell into comfortable chatter, the sort of banter that so often filed the house, and while, by the time her appointment arrived, Motes had not yet felt comfortable enough to refer to them as ‘Ma’ and ‘Bee’, that welcoming sense of family had returned in force, and she felt once more in her comforting role as their Dot, their <em>dóttir</em>.</p>
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<p>As the afternoon threatened to slide right into evening, Motes took her leave and left A Finger Pointing and Beholden on the couch, canoodling. Clearly that had taken precedence over whatever they had had planned at the auditorium for the rest of the day. That they had come home for her, for Motes, was the base of that warmth that had grown within her.</p>
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<p>She made her way out of the house and wandered to the center of the neighborhood. She left the automatic chalk lines going, letting them be the fuel that propelled her forward, let their flowering shapes fit into this perception of herself as a flower child rather than simply a child, a careful reframing that allowed her to have this thing, this gentle goodness.</p>
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<p>The neighborhood formed a lazy semicircle, a ‘U’ that butted up against an avenue that petered out into the nature of the sim in either direction. Across the street — inaccessible to anyone who was unwelcome — sat the back entrance of the theatre Au Lieu Du Rêve most commonly performed at. Just homes and a beloved workplace dropped together into an endless landscape like sugar into so much tea.</p>
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<p>“Is this better?” she asked.</p>
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<p>Motes smiled, nodded and gave herself another gentle kick, keeping the same back-and-forth going, the same few feet of earth wafting beneath her feet. “Thanks.”</p>
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<p>“Of course, Motes. Would you like me to prompt or wait?”</p>
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<p>She caught herself in the act of shrugging again, then shook her head to clear it. “Thanks for asking,” she said. After a long moment’s thought, she sighed. “I think I would like for you to prompt me today. I do not yet know where to start.”</p>
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<p>She caught herself in the act of merely shrugging, then shook her head to clear it. “Thanks for asking,” she said. After a long moment’s thought, she sighed. “I think I would like for you to prompt me today. I do not yet know where to start.”</p>
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<p>“That’s fine,” Sarah said gently. “You said in your message that you’ve just come up from overflowing. Can you tell me about that?”</p>
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<p>“Mmhm. Just a few hours ago, actually. Beholden and Pointillist are still back at home after coming to check on me.” She smiled down to the ground as it swung beneath her. “They set up alerts around the house so they would know when I was up.”</p>
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<p>“That’s sweet of them.”</p>
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<p>“It is. I…uh,” she trailed off. “The overflow started when I got a letter from within the clade. It really fucked me up. Like, <em>really</em> bad.”</p>
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<p>“And that’s why you’re Big Motes? Why you didn’t say ‘ma’?”</p>
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<p>“And that’s why you’re Big Motes? Why you didn’t say ‘Ma’?”</p>
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<p>She smirked. “You read me like the Sunday comics,” she said, laughing. “Yes.”</p>
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<p>Sarah smiled in turn, far more gently. “Tell me about this letter, then. Tell me what’d be enough for you to get knocked out of commission.”</p>
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<p>And so she did. She summarized portions of it, then pulled it up to read the most impactful bits. She talked about the feelings of the month leading up to this, the conversations and the dream. She talked about how she had stopped playing, how it hurt to think of reengaging, how she knew she would but there was work to be done first.</p>
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<p>Perhaps she ought to hug Dry Grass extra-tight next time she saw her.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-01-19</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-01-23</p>
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</footer>
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</main>
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