edits, publication of Motes Played

motes-played/content/004.tex

@@ -60,6 +60,8 @@ None of this was supposed to happen. None of this was right.
 
 Michelle/Sasha straightened up and said, almost bored, ``Well? Indulge, my dear.''
 
+\AddToHookNext{shipout/after}{\noindent\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{assets/mp_04.png}}
+
 With no recourse, Motes drove the blade into her own neck, an agonizing slowness that played itself out in a death she had experienced before, she had surely suffered in its own, consensual way.
 
 She died then, whimpering ever more weakly, blood staining her paw and arm and front in an outsized torrent, and as her panicked eyes drifted shut one last time, she awoke with a start, already sobbing.
@@ -80,7 +82,7 @@ Sighing in relief, the skunk nodded and padded into the room, closing the door b
 
 There was a part of her that strove to convince the rest that the voice in the dark was not that of A Finger Pointing—despite the lilting, everlasting humor that showed even in sleepiness—but that of Michelle/Sasha, her root instance who had ever loved her, now more than fifty years dead. \emph{It is her waiting with a dagger,} that fraction of her promised. \emph{It is her waiting with yet more cruel words.}
 
-But then there was the bed, and then there was the hand holding up the covers to welcome her in, and then there were the arms envelop her, and then there was the feeling of a face—a human face—an unshifting face—her cocladist-\emph{cum}-mother's face—pressed against the back of her neck, and then there was the clumsy addition of Beholden's paw draping over her side, her other cocladist-\emph{cum}-mother clearly still more asleep than awake.
+But then there was the bed, and then there was the hand holding up the covers to welcome her in, and then there were the arms envelop her, and then there was the feeling of a face—a human face—an unshifting face—her cocladist-\emph{cum}-mother's face—pressed against the back of her neck, and then there was the clumsy addition of Beholden's paw draping over her side,\pagebreak\ her other cocladist-\emph{cum}-mother clearly still more asleep than awake.
 
 And then she finally was able to relax.
 
@@ -182,7 +184,7 @@ Motes pawed up at her cocladist's hand on her ear. ``Well, okay. That is fair. N
 
 ``You see? You do understand. Now. Tell me what is on your little skunk mind.''
 
-``I had a dream last night,'' she said, beginning slowly. ``And I already talked about it with Ma and Bee, and I think I sort of understand the ways in which it is wrong. Like, we talked about the fact that it was just a dream, and that it was probably spurred by how much I have been thinking about that sort of thing anyway, and that, since I cannot tell why I started thinking about all of this stuff, what I need to do is to start thinking back and remembering what might have happened that started the thoughts before.''
+``I had a dream last night,'' she said, beginning slowly. ``And I already talked about it with Ma and Bee, and I think I sort of understand the ways in which it is wrong. Like, we talked about the fact that it was just a dream, and that it was probably spurred by how much I have been thinking about that sort of thing anyway, and that, since I cannot tell why I started thinking about all of this stuff, what I need to do is to start thinking back and\pagebreak\ remembering what might have happened that started the thoughts before.''
 
 Slow Hours nodded quietly. ``Start at the dream, then, and we will talk from there. I am sure that I will infer what you mean by `this stuff'.''
 
@@ -236,7 +238,7 @@ Motes shook her head. ``I never really talked to them, even going way back—I d
 
 ``And sometimes it feels transgressive in a bad way?'' Slow Hours asked when Motes drifted to silence.
 
-``Yeah. It feels like I am doing something wrong. That is what I got out of the dream. It was not just that I was doing a bad thing, but a \emph{wrong} thing. A bad thing might be naughty, but a wrong thing is me fuc-- messing up. It is me making a mistake. \emph{Being} a mistake.''
+``Yeah. It feels like I am doing something wrong. That is what I got out of the dream. It was not just that I was doing a bad thing, but a \emph{wrong} thing. A bad thing might be naughty, but a wrong\pagebreak\ thing is me fuc-- messing up. It is me making a mistake. \emph{Being} a mistake.''
 
 Her cocladist smiled sadly and reached out to take her paws in her hands. ``I could tell you a million, billion, trillion times that you are doing as you say and just living like yourself, that you are not doing a wrong thing, that you are not a wrong person, but I do not think that is what you need to hear, is it, Speck?''