Motes played.

She played in the dark. She played crawling on hands and knees. She played hide and seek. She played stealth missions. She played silently, muffling the sound of her passage and keeping her breathing quiet; it was against the rules to turn it off. She played base commander, repelling invisible foes, hollering out orders to her friends. She played noisily, her voice echoing off the rocky walls with laughter and shouts bouncing around seemingly endlessly.

She played in Rock Park, a hulking mound of salmon, pink, gold, and buff flagstone that had been stacked in such a way as to create a series of twisty, narrow tunnels throughout. The tunnels turned sharply, or required her to climb up vague suggestions of ladders made by protruding slabs of rock, or dumped her down into a central cavern, the ground covered in a layer of velvety soft mulch to cushion any falls. The cavern opened out on one end into a broader playground, all of the equipment themed to be related to a quarry: dump trucks and bucket hoists and front end loaders and excavators.

She played throughout the rest of the park, hauling that mulch or digging into it with the equipment or her paws, putting those digger claws of hers to use. She played in the grass, played in the little stands of pine trees that dotted the field beyond, the two whitewashed gazebos. Sometimes there were roller-blades or bikes or skateboards. Sometimes there were self-propelled levitation boots that let you putter along at a few miles per hour a hand's breadth above the ground and which would do all they could to keep you from falling over.

She played with her friends. She played with strangers she had seen before yet never talked to. She played with those she saw once and then never saw again.

She played until she got tired, until enough of her friends got bored and wandered off, until the long, breezy morning in this sim sighed its way into the heat of afternoon. She played until the obvious thing to do was to climb up to the top of the tunnel-ridden pile of flagstone to sit at the summit, enjoying the sun with Alexei.

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The park was only one part of a small town, only one part of a sizeable sim, but it was a popular destination for those who leaned into childhood on Lagrange for its permissive attitudes and curious inhabitants, most of whom seemed to be families—found or blood—and many of whom were the kids who played here. Alexei lived here with the family he had built: three guardians—one of whom was his great-grandfather by blood—and a sister.

``I'm glad you're here, Motes,'' he said after they had sat in silence for some time. ``Where were you, anyway? I know you said you didn't want to talk about it, but it's just us, right?''

She shrugged and picked at the rock with a claw, worrying loose a thin chip of flagstone. ``I still do not \emph{want} to talk about it,'' she said, then grinned over at him. ``But I will anyway.''

``That's because you never shut up.''

She laughed and threw the chip of rock at him. ``That is not \emph{not} true. I guess it is extra true, actually, since most of my time away was spent talking.'' She tried to scratch up another chip, but she seemed to have lucked out that first time. ``Sorry I just disappeared a while back.''

``Yeah, I was worried. I thought you got hurt real bad. What happened?''

She hesitated, averting her gaze to look out into the park around her, the park she had claimed as her domain not half an hour before. ``I got a high priority ping that made me fall, and then I hit my face on that stupid dome.''

``I saw you had a bloody nose, yeah,'' he said, patting her shoulder. ``That sucks. Was it a come-home ping?''

``Nah, it was just a warning,'' she said, speaking slowly while she organized her thoughts, trying to figure out just how much to say. ``It was one of my cocladists being rude. She sent me a horrible letter, and wanted me to be in all the wrong moods when I read it, I think.''

``Ew.''

``Ew is right. She is one of those in the clade that does not like me doing this,'' she said, gesturing down at herself, out at the playground. ``She sent me a huge letter telling me that in a million different ways.''

Alexei screwed up his face in a wince. ``Double-ew. So were you in trouble? Are you still?''

``I do not think so. At least, everyone is telling me I am not, that it was just her being a b-word and that she just wanted me and my family to feel bad so that she could feel like she had done something.''

``So a bully,'' he said flatly.

Motes giggled. ``I mean, I guess so. Big Motes understands it better, but she is busy.''

This had long ago become a hint to drop into conversations that to continue would be to break the illusion, to pull back the curtain and expose the play for what it was: merely a performance.

Neither of them, neither of these two consummate performers, wanted that. Alexei could probably pry it out of her, pry out all of the details of all that had happened, pry her out of this space for a little bit if he wanted—and she may yet send him a letter as Big Motes for more context later.

He did not, so he said nothing and flopped backwards on the rock, resting his head on one arm while draping the other over his face to block out the sun. ``Sounds dumb,'' he said. ``I'm just glad you're back and that you're not in trouble or anything.''

Panting, Motes scooted so that her back rested against a spire of rock to get as much shade as she could. Black fur and bright sun coexisted too energetically at times. ``No, not really in trouble,'' she said. ``I may have made myself feel like I was in trouble, but that is just me being a dummy.''

There was a snort of laughter from the boy. ``That's \emph{definitely} a you thing.''

She mulled over this, tallying up the various anxieties she had felt over the years, the worries she had expressed or let color her actions, all the times she disappeared from youth, from play, from this form. Despite her desire to let Big Motes handle such things, a question began to gnaw at her, a desire for feedback. ``Yeah, I guess,'' she mumbled. ``You ever get anxious about all this?''

``All this?''

``Being a kid, that sort of thing.''

``Isn't this stuff for Big Motes?''

She frowned. ``I know, but I want to know. I just got back from two weeks of freaking out.''

``Two and a half,'' Alexei said.

``Please?''

``Hmph.''

``Pretty pleeease?'' she whined. ``With a cherry on top?''

It was his turn to mull things over, apparently, given the comfortable, thoughtful silence that followed. ``I dunno. Sometimes, I guess. Sometimes I worry about where I can go like this, right? Like, we met when we were big. We met at that crazy bar with all the crazy music. I go to that stuff as Big Alexei, kinda because I don't want to get trampled, and kinda because I'm worried they'll kick me out.''

``Yeah,'' she said, lining a few pebbles up in a row. ``I have been kicked out of lots and lots and lots of places.''

``You're also older than I am,'' he retorted. ``So we've probably been kicked out of places at the same rate.''

She blew a raspberry at him, got one in return.

``You're not really talking about anxiety, though, right? Like, you're talking about shame, I think.''

Another few pebbles wound up in the row as she sat in silence.

``Yeah.'' He rolled onto his side to look at her, leaving his arm half-draped over his face to block out the sun. ``I guess I kinda do, though it always comes from the outside. Like, getting kicked out of a place is whatever, but when someone I meet as Big Alexei learns about Little Alexei and gets all upset and yells at me or cuts contact--''

At this, Motes winced.

He frowned. ``That's what happened, isn't it? You had someone cut contact because they learned of it? One of your cocladists?''

``Yeah,'' she mumbled. ``She already knew, though. She just found out one of her up-trees was still talking to me.''

``She made her own up-trees cut contact, too?'' He furrowed his brow. ``Aren't you guys like super-dispersionistas?''

She laughed. ``Some of us. Some of us drifted apart, but some of us stick together really tightly. I have Ma and Bee and a bunch of siblings, right?''

``I guess, yeah,'' he said. ``I'm not a dispersionista, though, so I can't really understand. I don't have any up-trees or cross-trees or whatever. It sucks that she's being a bully, though, 'cause she kind of \emph{is} you, isn't she?''

Motes sighed. ``Sort of, yeah. That is why it hurt and why I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it.''

He reached out and gave her tail a light tug—not something she usually tolerated, but the conversation had been so gentle that it had no scent of meanness to it—and smiled up to her. ``Well, \emph{I} think you're better than she is, so clearly she isn't you. Tell her to get stuffed!''

She laughed, reaching out to bat at his hand. ``I guess I pretty much did, because here I am\textasciitilde{}''

After that, their conversation fell back into more comfortable things. They spoke of friends. They spoke of the pros and cons of Rock Park. They spoke of families and the secret pleasures of being punished. Then they played a half-hearted game of tag before Motes finally said goodbye and stepped home just in time for the evening's planned activities, floating on a cloud of joy like she had not experienced in more than two weeks.

At home, she dashed to the kitchen and gulped down a glass of water, laughed at the uncomfortable chill this left her with, and then ran out into the fading afternoon.

It was a night for good food and terrible movies.

Beholden grilled hot dogs and bratwurst, and Motes, yes, had them loaded up with veggies, dragged through the garden.

Ioan grilled \emph{frigărui,} kebabs loaded up with Carpathian seasonings, and \emph{mititei,} yet another sausage.

Warmth made an array of its best guesses at Artemisian food, some of which were quite tasty. Few who tried the fluffy tower of \emph{frahabrodåt} went back for seconds, at which ey seemed quite proud.

Motes ate it all. She ate herself overfull. She ate herself messy, leaving her shirt dotted with mustard and grease, her lips shining with the oily sheen of at least three different types of sausage.

Thus sated, she darted around the gathering, the thirty or so people who had showed up from both within the clade and without. She hugged everyone who wanted a hug, chased Warmth in multiples, the two little skunks leapfrogging each other and leaving their fur and clothes stained green with with grass. She drank a few margaritas, allowing through only a modicum of the drunkenness so that she remained cognizant and present through the tipsiness, awake and alert through the haze.

She wove around A Finger Pointing and Beholden, drawing figure eights around these anchors of her life with wanderings of herself, trailing love and affection as she went, demanding that they dote upon her, that they lean down so that she could give them nose-dot kisses.

And then, as she had several times over the last week, she latched herself onto Dry Grass. As they had over the last week, they revelled in the closeness and affection, the joy in allowing themselves to be around each other despite meaningless admonitions. As they had, they spoke mostly of small things, of interesting things they had seen or nice foods that they had eaten or simple stories made up on the spot.

It was important to her that she be around this person she considered a member of her family, her Ma 2.0. One of the close ones, not one of the distant ones, not one that had cut her off. One of the ones who reminded her that she was \emph{not} an outcast. It was important that they spend quality time together, that through that time, she \emph{lived} her gratefulness for Dry Grass's presence.

And then, when they all piled into the movie-theater-\emph{cum}-cuddlepit, A Finger Pointing, Beholden, and Dry Grass slouched into a beanbag. Dry Grass dragged Motes into her lap while they all settled in. They sat silent through the first part of movie, watching off and on, dozing now and then. The movie was not important. It was good, she was sure, or bad, but that was not the point.

An hour or so later, after Beholden and A Finger Pointing had well and truly fallen asleep against each other amid all the softness, Dry Grass set up a cone of silence over herself and the skunk, nudged Motes to sit beside her rather than on her, and said, ``Hey, kiddo. I would like to apologize for everything that happened this month.''

Motes scrubbed her paws over her face to wake up more fully. ``How do you mean?''

``All of that wretched business with my down-tree.''

``That was not your fault, though. She is just a bit-- she is just a b-word.''

Dry Grass smiled faintly. ``I will let that slide. She is \emph{definitely} a bitch, yes.'' A pause, and then she continued, ``But it rather was my fault, my dear. I mentioned that I had been visiting after that evening with the salad and maccy chee. I made her mad, then told her to go fuck herself.''

Motes sat for a moment in silence, watching the movie, half-listening at the muffled audio that made its way through the cone of silence. ``I had guessed, yeah.''

Her cocladist frowned. ``That is why I am sorry. So much happened, and I started it without really thinking of how it would impact everyone.''

She shrugged. ``But then, maybe I started by whining at you about it. It is nobody's fault but Hammered Silver's.'' She giggled sleepily, adding, ``She made herself mad, even. I do not believe you that you say you did.''

Dry Grass's expression softened and she brushed some of the skunk's mane out of her face. ``I suppose there is that,'' she said quietly. ``We could go back and forth placing blame as much as we would like--''

``And she would always be the wrong one,'' Motes interrupted. ``Frick her. She is the one holding grudges, we are the ones doing what we want. She is the one hurting people, we are the ones just having fun and playing. She is just a bully.  ''

There was another moment of silence, of Dry Grass furrowing her brow and thinking, and then at last she lay back on the beanbag and tugged Motes back up to lay on her front. ``Yes,'' she murmured as the skunk got comfortable. ``Yes, I guess both of those are true.''

They stayed like that for the rest of the film, Dry Grass petting Motes and Motes telling Dry Grass stories about the day, little nothings that showed that fun, that lack of pain.

And then, when the movie was over and many of those in the community center had started to doze on their beanbags and couches, when her ma and Bee put kisses on her snout and left arm in arm, when Dry Grass fell asleep one too many times and begged off to walk back home—not without yet another tight hug from Motes and a promise to be back soon—when Motes caught herself nodding off, she disentangled herself from the rest of that dozy comfort and slipped out into the cool of the night.

Rather than turning left, off toward home, she turned right to the other arm of the `U' that made up the neighborhood and started wandering through the grass until she hit sidewalk. There, vines in chalk blossomed lazily behind her footsteps, and in the night, in the light of the stars and the moon and the streetlamps, they seemed to glow in pale oranges and whites and blues. She played with them by taking wobbling, drunken steps, crossing one leg in front of the other, pirouetting clumsily to make them tie themselves into knots.

Even so, she continued down around the slow curve of the neighborhood's main street, not bothering to venture into any of the cul-de-sacs. The chalk lines were fun, a little trail describing where the little skunk had wandered, but she \emph{was} tired. It had been a long first day back as Little Motes, and she had successfully packed it to the brim with all that she had wanted to do, and that success gave to her a sense of rightness.

It was a rightness of form—of species, of size, of appearance.

It was a rightness of mindset—of play, of childlike wonder.

It was a recognition of who she was and who she had been and who she could become.

She made it halfway around the bend, down to the very base of the `U', and, following some whim, some spark of desire, darted back into the grass to race up the ladder of the jungle gym and launch herself down the slide with a shout. She tumbled off the end and into the gravel in an undignified, giggling heap.

Motes played, because how could she not?
