Motes stopped playing.

She stopped playing because, some weeks later, she was out with some friends, some of the others who had decided to give up on grown-up life now that they were here, now that they were decades old or centuries, now that they were functionally immortal. She stopped playing because, as she sprinted full-tilt after a handful of friends, dodging around benches and trees, seesaws and swings, a bolt of panic struck down her spine with an electric intensity and made her tumble into the gravel, made her skid through the pebbles until she crunched up against a jungle gym, left her nose, paws, and elbows bloodied. She stopped playing because for a long minute, she could not breathe, though whether from the adrenaline pulling her nerves taut or the pain in her snout or from the air being knocked out of her, she could not tell.

She stopped playing because, as she slowly pushed herself upright to a sitting position, tears already springing from her eyes, an envelope slid nonsensically from the air and fluttered to the ground before her. She stopped playing because her name—her full name, And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights of the Ode clade—was printed on the front of the envelope in a handwriting that was painfully familiar because it was her own. It was her own and it was A Finger Pointing's and it was Beholden's, it was Slow Hours's and Warmth's and Dry Grass's, and it was the handwriting that flowed from the hand of every Odist even after hundreds of years.

She stopped playing because she had a guess as to who this was from, and that only led to a second spike in anxiety, for while the first had been from a top-priority sensorium ping, this came from fear, from terror. She stopped playing as Alexei hollered, ``Motes!'' and started to run back to her. She stopped playing as she rolled to the side out of the sim and into her studio.

She stopped playing and, with a shaky paw still seeping blood from skinned pads, she opened the envelope.

She stopped playing and read:

\begin{quote}
\textbf{To:} And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights of the Ode clade \textbf{(EYES-ONLY)}\\
\textbf{From:} Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver of the Ode clade\\
\textbf{On:} systime 238+291

And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights,

I am breaking my communication embargo to write you regarding some concerns that I have on the current state of the clade, the fifth stanza, and you in particular.

As you know, the sixth and seventh stanzas, those of me and If I Am To Bathe In Dreams, have formally instituted a no-contact order with the first, eighth, and part of the ninth stanzas. As of seven years ago, the fifth stanza was added to that list due to the ongoing association with the one who has named herself Sasha.

I do absolutely mean it when I say all of the fifth stanza. That is, we have not cut \emph{just} Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself out of our lives, but her and all of her up-trees to however many degrees. That includes you, And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights.

It came to my attention some years back that I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass had nevertheless continued in her association with the fifth, particularly with you and with Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself, given your unfortunate predilection. When first I noticed this, I discussed with her my feelings on the matter and made clear my request that she live up to the original agreement that there remain no contact between our stanza and yours. She, at the time, reminded me that this decision had been made unilaterally without input from the rest of the stanza, and yet agreed to uphold my request.

It has once again come to my attention that I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass is spending time with you and those you have styled your `family'. She has the most infuriating habit of going on autopilot when I talk to her, simply nodding and saying `mmhm' or `yes, I see' throughout, and, with regards to this topic in particular, this has proven untenable. It is with great regret that she has been added to the no-contact list.

There is a very important set of reasons for this:

\begin{enumerate}
\def\labelenumi{\arabic{enumi}.}
\tightlist
\item
  Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself and Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps's ongoing romantic relationship remains a thorn in the side of the Ode clade. Even as the taboo seems to be loosening—a thing that I attribute to the one who has named herself Sasha's ongoing existence—there remains the issue of the image that this presents of the remaining Odists as a clade of some import.
\item
  Your insistence on both appearing as and acting like a child on a System where such remains transgressive both by its very nature and relation to paraphilia as well as by the fact that there simply are no children sys-side.
\item
  The `family' dynamic that you live within inside the fifth stanza. Treating Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself and Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps as your `mothers', as well as your other cocladists as your siblings, is beyond a mere dalliance, but a tainting of reputations outside merely your own; it is a way of dragging others into a behavior that has a very real impact on how they—and, by extension, the rest of the clade—are perceived.
\item
  The inclusion of the one who has named herself Sasha in not just the daily workings of Au Lieu Du Rêve but the social dealings of the fifth stanza. If I Am To Bathe In Dreams and I hold no jurisdiction over the fifth stanza, but we do hold control over our interactions with each other, and we have made our stance abundantly clear on the one who has named herself Sasha and how she has affected the reputation of the Ode clade.
\item
  The involvement of I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass counter to my requests laid out for the entirety of my stanza. This goes beyond her disregard of the no-contact order and into her willing participation in the actions of the fifth stanza in general and engagement with you specifically: these no-contact orders are expected to be upheld by \emph{both} parties. Yes, this is complicated by the individual nature of a cladist, and yet the request has been made, and plainly. For a member of a stanza to so flagrantly disregard a request and for that to be enabled by the other party leaves me feeling personally slighted.
\end{enumerate}

Therefore, I am writing to reinforce the current status:

\begin{enumerate}
\def\labelenumi{\arabic{enumi}.}
\tightlist
\item
  There is to be no contact between the fifth stanza and either the sixth or seventh stanzas.
\item
  There is to be no contact between the one who has named herself Sasha and either the sixth or seventh stanzas.
\item
  There is to be no contact between I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass and the rest of the sixth stanza until further notice.
\end{enumerate}

You are not just playing a dangerous game, And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights; you are losing it. We \emph{all} are losing it with you, too, with the risk that it places on the entirety of the Ode clade, even those with whom you no longer speak. I will not say that this is all on your head, but consider that three of the five points above relate directly to you.

\begin{quote}
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, \emph{I put an end to childish ways.}
\end{quote}

— Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver of the Ode clade
\end{quote}

When Motes overflowed, she cut herself off from play. She froze where she was. She went nonverbal, became all but catatonic. It would last days. She would disappear from the world and she would stop playing, and if she stopped playing, she would no longer be herself.

So, when Motes stopped playing that day, she promised herself that she would \emph{not} do that. She promised herself that, as best she could, she would do anything \emph{but} that. She promised herself that she would keep going because she did not want to be seen like this. She did not want to be caught like this, with a letter in her hand, with shame on her face, with guilt all matted in her fur.

Instead, she stood up, committed the contents of the letter to an exocortex, a hidden and compartmentalized part of her memory that rendered it inaccessible until she went looking, and then destroyed the original. There was a part of her that wanted to rip it up, to rip it into confetti and stomp on the shredded paper, to burn those shreds in a small pyre, to put the fire out with her crying, to grind ash and tears together until she had a paint with which to spell out her anger and despair.

But no, she should not do that, either. She should not do anything so childish. She should not do childish things. When she was a child, yes, she spoke like a child and thought like a child and reasoned like a child. She acted like a child when she was a child. \emph{Was.} She was not, was she? She was an adult, and when she had become an adult, it had come time to put an end to childish ways. She was no longer a child, she should not aim to remain or become a child, she was no longer a child, she was an adult, she should put away childish things, she was an adult, she no longer thought or reasoned like a child, she was an adult\ldots{}

Her mind became a mire, a marsh, a crowded bog full of unpleasant smells and tangled reeds and matted rushes and wilting flowers and sickeningly green ferns and twisting roots and\ldots{}

Her muscles clenched and bunched and tensed and pulled her down into a ball so that her feet were flat on the ground and her butt hovered some inches above and her face was buried in her arms where they crossed over her knees and in her ears was the rushing of so much blood and her vision was black and red and full of phosphenes and all she felt was the pain of her skinned paws and bloodied nose echoed in repeating waves radiating throughout her body.

``Oh, Dot,'' she heard above the din, Beholden's anxious and aching voice barely audible. ``How long have you been here, my dear? You never came to dinner and-- oh shit, are you okay, Motes?''

She felt, muffled by those waves of stinging and soreness, the pair of paws that had helped to gently unfold her now touching gingerly around her snout, blood all dried. She saw Beholden's face as though it was one she herself might bear in some thirty years, and that anxiety ratcheted up several notches. Any hope she had of staving off that overflow was now long, long gone. \emph{I am an adult, I should put away childish things, I am an adult\ldots{}}

``Whoa, whoa! Hey, come here,'' Beholden murmured, and Motes realized from some few feet above herself that she had started to thrash and wail. She looked down with distant concern.

She should stop that.

She watched her body slowly relax, watched her face screw up and the tears once more start to flow.

\emph{Interesting,} she thought dispassionately. \emph{Yet I acted like a child when I was a child. I am an adult\ldots{}}

Her sense of self lagged behind—a hint of a mote of a Motes tethered to her body like a helium balloon on a string—as Beholden carefully lifted her unsouled-yet-still-living body and hoisted her up to carry her from her studio—\emph{the lights, she left the lights on}—to her bedroom. A place of soft things. A soft mattress, a too-thick duvet, stuffed animals and yet more stuffed animals. \emph{I should put away childish things, I am\ldots{}}

Beholden set her on her feet and carefully lifted her muzzle to face her. ``Motes, I know that you are overflowing, but can you fork for me, kiddo? Your nose is swollen and your paws look awful.''

\emph{I should fork away the childish things,} the her that lingered above thought. \emph{I am an adult and the time has come to put away the childish things.}

``Do you think you can do that, Dot? You can fork into your PJs even, and we can get you into bed.''

She saw a new instance come into being beside the first. Still a skunk. Still a kid. Still not putting away those childish things! Look! The cartoon dogs floating in space, glass helmets over their heads! Space puppies! She was an adult, it was time to put away\ldots{}

The other, still-bloodied instance quit and Beholden smiled, carefully guiding the pajama-ed Motes up into bed. ``Do you need anything, my dear?'' she asked, signing the question in tandem.

\emph{Hug,} Motes's body signed. \emph{Hug. Alone. Dark.}

\emph{And the toys?} this other her thought. \emph{Tell her to get rid of the toys!}

But no, Beholden only hugged her, kissed her on top of the head, and tucked her in before turning out the light, telling her along each step of the way that she loved her.

\emph{I am an adult\ldots{}}

And then it was dark and she was alone, her body and this mere mote of a Motes who lingered up above.

Days passed out of time and time passed out of mind and mind drifted only in darkness where darkness gave no count of days. Delineations came only ever from within. She knew, for instance, that she got hungry at one point and quickly turned the sensation off. She knew that at one point she got too warm and so she commanded the room to be colder so that she could bundle up.

The only interruption of note that came from the outside was the door at one point creaking open. Motes did not know how long had passed—this life without play admitted no hours—but she did know that it must have been night, for precious little light came in, and what light did make it into the room was Moon silver. She knew also that she was far closer to her body now, perhaps halfway there.

Even with so little light, it was plain to see A Finger Pointing's silhouette, tall and slender, and so she remained where she was.

Her down-tree instance did not wait by the door but instead crept in and closed it behind her, and Motes had to track her progress by the whisper of her slacks, the soft sound of her feet on the carpet. And then there was the shifting of the bed and the feeling of a weight settling down behind her, laying over the covers.

``I love you, Dot,'' she said, arm tucking up and around her.

Motes watched dispassionately as her body started to relax at the gesture, the words.

``I am sorry,'' A Finger Pointing continued in a whisper.

There was confusion, then, and a spike of anxiety—had she found out about the letter? Was Motes in trouble? Was there a `but' coming, and A Finger Pointing was about to ask her to change?—but when only silence followed, Motes relaxed the rest of the way and nestled back into her cocladist's arms. She was not yet able to speak, was still without her beloved play, but comfort was comfort and love was love and here is where it was to be found.

Finally she slept, finally she dreamed.
