Edits, finished majority of Idumea

motes-played/content/007.tex

@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ A Finger Pointing gritted her teeth, counting silently to ten. ``That she weapon
 
 Dry Grass snorted. ``She is an Odist; of course it is not. I am only sorry that I tuned her out for so many years, or I might have a better idea of precisely what, though.''
 
-``She is an Odist, yes,'' Sasha said. ``She is not a bad person, but neither is she good, and now we are seeing the wickedness of which we are all capable in particular. Similarly, though, I do not have an answer for you. She has been inaccessible to me for sixteen years now, and before that, I was too distracted to spend much time engaging with her.''
+``She is an Odist, yes,'' Sasha said. ``She is not a bad person, but neither is she by necessity good, and now we are seeing the wickedness of which we are all capable in particular. Similarly, though, I do not have an answer for you. She has been inaccessible to me for sixteen years now, and before that, I was too distracted to spend much time engaging with her.''
 
 A Finger Pointing sighed, slouching back against the chair. ``That is okay, my dear. You have had no easier a time of it than the rest of us. Decidedly worse, actually.''
 
@@ -324,7 +324,7 @@ But at some point, even the closest of friendships find a point of irreconcilabl
 
 Theirs was not the closest of friendships.
 
-One day, sometime late in the 2100s or early 2200s, sometime around systime 100, there was a point where the tenor of these meetings once more changed. Once more, there was a distance, a stiffness, and when pressed, once more nothing came from it.
+One day, sometime some few years into the 2200s, sometime around systime 100, there was a point where the tenor of these meetings once more changed. Once more, there was a distance, a stiffness, and when pressed, once more nothing came from it.
 
 No letter came.
 
@@ -382,7 +382,7 @@ In the end, Hammered Silver let out a frustrated sigh and said, ``We may continu
 
 She blinked, taken aback. They had ever spoken of any and all things without holding aught back. At least, so far as she knew. ``At all?'' she asked.
 
-``At all,'' Hammered Silver confirmed. ``For now.''
+``At all,'' Hammered Silver confirmed. ``For now. We may revisit the topic in a year.''
 
 A~Finger Pointing nodded stiffly, agreed, and scheduled the next lunch date.
 
@@ -438,6 +438,8 @@ There was still soreness, of course. There was soreness that A Finger Pointing a
 
 And so it remained largely at home, at home with the three of them and at home in the neighborhood that was slowly building up around them. It remained a secret, but, like A Finger Pointing and Beholden's relationship, it remained an open one. The quiet of the secret allowed them live to their fullest, and the openness allowed them to share joy where they felt safe doing so.
 
+Six months later: another letter. Another statement of distaste, and with it, a firm boundary. There was to be no further discussion of And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights from thence forth. Period.
+
 \secdiv
 
 ``I am tired, Beholden.''
@@ -486,9 +488,9 @@ It was an expectation of herself and others. It was a standard to which she and
 
 And thus it was an expectation one might fall short of. It was a standard one might not reach. It was a trust that could be breached.
 
-At some point in the past—there were so many admonitions against joy that she could choose from!—A Finger Pointing's friendship with Hammered Silver came to an end. The most visible of these was perhaps when Sasha joined Au Lieu Du Rêve as stage manager in systime 231, five years after she had become Sasha. That was when Hammered Silver had moved beyond cutting off Sasha herself and the entirety of the eighth stanza for their politicking, the first for their spying, and part of the ninth for their mere association, and had included the entirety of the fifth stanza.
+At some point in the past—there were so many admonitions against joy that she could choose from!—A Finger Pointing's friendship with Hammered Silver came to an end. The most visible of these was perhaps when Sasha became which she was, back when True Name had been all but assassinated, back when she had no choice but to change her very identity and become something new, something more. That was when Hammered Silver had, spurred by In Dreams, taken the drastic measure of cutting off not just Sasha herself, but the entirety of the eighth stanza for their politicking, the first for their spying, and part of the ninth for some mere association. All of those, yes, as well as the entirety of the fifth stanza for, as she had said in as many words, their perfidy.
 
-For the rest of the fifth stanza also bore this expectation, this standard, this trust that there was within all people something worth friendship, some kernel of joy, and none of them shunned Sasha, either.
+For the rest of the fifth stanza also bore this expectation, this standard, this trust that there was within all people something worth friendship, some kernel of joy, and none of them shunned Sasha, either. They were all precisely as guilty as the rest of the eighth stanza for their support.
 
 Cutting contact is one hell of a way to end a friendship, yes?
 
@@ -498,7 +500,7 @@ At some point back in the early 2100s, Motes had begun exploring this role of th
 
 At some point back in the late 2100s, Motes had begun exploring this form of childhood—no one's child in particular, sure, and everyone's, but a being built entirely out of play. A note arrived.
 
-And at some point back in the mid 2200s, Motes had begun exploring the concept of family. She moved in with A Finger Pointing and Beholden, and the longer she stayed, the more she fell in love with them as her guardians and the more they fell in love with her as their charge.
+And at some point back in the late 2200s, Motes had begun exploring the concept of family. She moved in with A Finger Pointing and Beholden, and the longer she stayed, the more she fell in love with them as her guardians and the more they fell in love with her as their charge.
 
 For this was true of all of her up-trees, and for much of Au Lieu Du Rêve besides. Going years back, back even to the late 2100s, this reveling in play that Motes brought to the fifth stanza had built in A Finger Pointing a sense of her place in the order: her role was a maternal one. A reveling in care, in the type of friendship that flowered in a particular dynamic.
 
@@ -520,7 +522,7 @@ She proved their fears accurate, in her own unkind way.
 
 And so, at that point, their friendship ended. They went a year without meeting, and when next they scheduled a coffee date, they spoke hardly at all. They made their goodbyes wordless. The next meeting was similarly silent.
 
-There was no more love between them. The trust had been broken. They met to keep tabs on each other. They met to ensure that the other was not living outside the bounds of society in some abhorrent way. They met to spy on each other.
+There was no more love between them. The trust had been broken. They met perhaps once a year to keep tabs on each other. They met to ensure that the other was not living outside the bounds of society in some abhorrent way. They met to spy on each other.
 
 That was the time their friendship died, the moment A Finger Pointing received that letter, the one that she tore up and burned to ash, cried over and then, determined, used the paint of which to spell out renewed love for those who remained in her life.