diff --git a/marsh/book.tex b/marsh/book.tex index 157ff8e..c1483d8 100644 --- a/marsh/book.tex +++ b/marsh/book.tex @@ -162,6 +162,14 @@ \chapter*{Epilogue} \input{content/018} + \cleartoverso + \addcontentsline{toc}{part}{Stories} + \thispagestyle{empty} + \story{Toward Eternity}{Thomas “Faux” Steele} + \markboth{Toward Eternity}{Thomas “Faux” Steele} + \chapter*{Aurélien Delacroix — 2401} + %\input{content/a-well-trained-eye} + \cleartoverso \addcontentsline{toc}{part}{Stories} \thispagestyle{empty} diff --git a/motes-played/book.pdf b/motes-played/book.pdf index 20138d3..da22b4c 100644 Binary files a/motes-played/book.pdf and b/motes-played/book.pdf differ diff --git a/motes-played/content/003.tex b/motes-played/content/003.tex index cfe5053..bf0abb2 100644 --- a/motes-played/content/003.tex +++ b/motes-played/content/003.tex @@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ Motes dipped her fingers into the glass and flicked some of the water at Warmth. ``Yeah, well, I honestly hate it.'' -``Mmhm! But you saying `passion fruit' was new. Rye just said it was''sour and sweet and unpleasant'' and Praiseworthy would not try it at all. Now I can compare it to passion fruit and try new things.'' +``Mmhm! But you saying `passion fruit' was new. Rye just said it was ``sour and sweet and unpleasant'' and Praiseworthy would not try it at all. Now I can compare it to passion fruit and try new things.'' ``Rye is always too polite,'' Motes said, grinning. ``But I like her.'' diff --git a/motes-played/content/004.tex b/motes-played/content/004.tex index 419de31..4f67444 100644 --- a/motes-played/content/004.tex +++ b/motes-played/content/004.tex @@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ Unable to hide a smile, she replied, ``You cannot just steal my weirdo questions She giggled faintly. ``Well, okay. My second greatest joy is that you brought a fricking picnic blanket out here because you knew I would just get all frumpy in one of those stupid chairs, and my third greatest fear iiiis\ldots{}'' She trailed off for a moment, thinking. ``I am afraid you are going to just tell me this is nothing.'' -``When have I ever been able to stop myself at''it is nothing'', Speck?'' Slow Hours tweaked one of the skunk's ears gently. ``And if I do say that it is nothing, would that be so bad? You may have spent some time worrying, but is that not also time spent thinking through your emotions? We will still have spoken about \emph{why} it is nothing.'' +``When have I ever been able to stop myself at ``it is nothing'', Speck?'' Slow Hours tweaked one of the skunk's ears gently. ``And if I do say that it is nothing, would that be so bad? You may have spent some time worrying, but is that not also time spent thinking through your emotions? We will still have spoken about \emph{why} it is nothing.'' Motes pawed up at her cocladist's hand on her ear. ``Well, okay. That is fair. None of us ever seem to be able to shut up.'' @@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ After a moment's hesitation, she shook her head. ``That is something I know inte Motes shrugged. ``I guess.'' -Slow Hours nodded, letting her paws go. ``I will not say''fuck 'em'', much as either of us might want. You must not hyperfixate on them, but neither must you disregard them.'' +Slow Hours nodded, letting her paws go. ``I will not say ``fuck 'em'', much as either of us might want. You must not hyperfixate on them, but neither must you disregard them.'' ``Why? Do you have a prophecy for me?'' Motes asked, smiling faintly. ``The last time you gave me a prophecy, it was about whether I should stay friends with Alexei.'' diff --git a/motes-played/content/006.tex b/motes-played/content/006.tex index 2335433..b6d7af5 100644 --- a/motes-played/content/006.tex +++ b/motes-played/content/006.tex @@ -170,6 +170,32 @@ Above all else, Motes enjoyed piggyback rides. \secdiv +Whenever Motes would visit Michelle/Sasha, or she would visit Le Rêve, their neighborhood sim, Motes would slow down. She would not tame her joy, nor tamp down her ebullience, but she would gentle the way she moved, the way she acted, the way she touched. The hugs that she gave Sasha/Michelle were soft and comfortable and unhurried. They were the hugs one gave an elder, perhaps, but they were no less full of love for it. They were not hugs of obligation, but of care. + +After all, some secret part of her reasoned, even little skunks need a grandma, though this was a term she never spoke aloud. + +Their relationship was as friends, as companions or comrades. They shared a childhood together. They had the same parents and teachers. They remembered so many of the same things from youth. They remembered so many of the same people. They remembered Miss Willard together, red paint ground into corduroy. + +Their relationship was as friends, and as Motes grew into who she became, the ways in which this presented shifted to accommodate such. + +It was Michelle/Sasha who pulled forth the memories of flower crowns from within Motes and set them so brightly before her. It was her that was the reason they so often adorned Motes's head, both Big and Little. Dandelion crown upon dandelion crown graced her hair or mane after Sasha/Michelle first made her one some two centuries back. + +It was after that that Motes made a promise to herself that she would visit her root instance—or invite her to visit in turn—at least once a year. + +Michelle/Sasha very rarely wore claw or nail polish, thanks to the shifting of her form, but when she did, it was Motes who applied it to nails or claws, the two of them laying beside each other on a picnic blanket in the warm sunlight, sharing in quiet and comfort and conversation of only the small things. What had Motes been painting? When had Debarre last visited Sasha/Michelle in the field? Who among the clade do you suppose was most likely to dye their hair or fur some wild color? + +They would talk of the small things and, when all claws or nails had been colored pink or blue or ever-shifting waves of green, they would roll onto their backs and pick out shapes in the clouds and Michelle/Sasha would tell Motes all of the things she would have done with her kids, had she had any. Flower crowns: a must. Story time: most definitely. Sleepovers and pillow-forts: a thousand times yes. + +All of these and more Motes provided for her in spades as chances, occasions, opportunities. + +Motes would explain all of the ways she would get in trouble—lying? Check. Punching a boy for calling her stinky? Check. Drawing on the walls? Check, in bold-face and italics—and for each one of them, Sasha/Michelle would counter with the most poetic of punishments: when Motes lied, she would make her live within a cone of silence for a whole day, so that no untruths could be heard. When Motes punched a boy for calling her stinky, Michelle/Sasha would take her with when she went shopping for perfumes and make her smell each and every one of them. When Motes drew on the walls, why, all other projects would need to be put on hold and she would simply have to keep going until every inch of the room was covered with the most beautiful art she had ever seen. + +And while none of these ever came to pass, Motes loved her all the more for it. + +After Sasha/Michelle had quit, Motes slept with Beholden and A Finger Pointing every night for nearly three months and talked only ever of such love that was now gone from the world. + +\secdiv + But always, Motes played. She played because play was transgressive for one such as her, was it not? Oh, there were games sys-side. Within her own clade was a game designer and curator, What Gifts—and she often leaned on Motes for input and play-testing—and so of course play was okay, but as soon as one presents oneself as she did, as a child, then suddenly that play becomes something that works to define that very part of her and thus vice versa, her childishness casts that play in a childish light. It was transgressive because when Motes played, it cast the play that every adult around her engaged with as either defined by or contrasted against her very presence. @@ -189,6 +215,7 @@ But even as she tested those boundaries and always respected them when they were It was a bit, and she was committed to it. She was an actress, yes? She had a part to play, yes? The kid? The child? The daughter and sister, yes? It was method acting over the course of a lifetime. She committed to the bit and convinced herself as best she could to forget how to uncommit, and that, in itself was lovely. \secdiv +\pagebreak Motes dreamed.