A Finger Pointing was not playing.

She was not fucking around. She was not putting up with this. She would never put up with this, never \emph{should} have put up with this. Seven years of silence, five decades of barely concealed spying, a century of awkward attempts to maintain a friendship, a cohesion, a sense of community with someone who clearly loathed some integral part of her life.

She was not going to play around, here. She was not going to play soft. She was not even going to play hard: she was not going to play at all. Not with Hammered Silver. Not anymore.

\begin{quote}
\textbf{To:} Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself 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

Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself,

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 And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights.

Upon learning that I Remember The Rattle Of The Dry Grass has continued in her association with you, And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights, and the one who has named herself Sasha, I have instituted a no-contact order between her and the rest of the sixth stanza for her perfidy. It was my hope that my previous directive regarding the fifth stanza would have been clear enough to require no further clarification, and yet this is the situation that we have found ourselves in.

This letter serves as a means to reinforce that this no-contact order still stands. That I even need to send such a reminder is upsetting and insulting. I have sent a letter to And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights explaining my reasoning more clearly for someone who seems obstinately opposed to staying grounded in reality. I will reiterate the status of this request here for clarity:

\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}
\pagebreak

I expect better from Odists. Perhaps my expectations are misguided.

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

\secdiv

One treacherously sunny afternoon some centuries back, Sasha/Michelle Hadje sat tiredly on the edge of a fountain in the middle of a brick-paved pedestrian mall. Just a woman or a skunk or perhaps both sitting on the rough stone in classical white, head bowed in exhaustion and concentration as the sun warmed the back of her neck. Beside her sat a man, a politician, watching as she drained her reserves of reputation to bring into being ten more instances of herself, each blissfully unafflicted by the restlessness-of-shape and in many ways less affected by the restlessness-of-mind that plagued her, though never completely without.

``So, what next?'' the man asked.

``What is next is that I get assignments from the Council and then take a fucking vacation,'' she replied. ``I plan on sleeping for at least three days straight.''

He laughed. ``I wholeheartedly endorse this course of action. One of you want to take on an assignment today?''

They—this gaggle of skunks and women who were still in some way skunks—put their heads together to discuss, and even then, even so few minutes after they had come into being and taken for their names the first lines of the ten stanzas of a poem each held close to their heart, it became clear that they differed in some fundamental way that went beyond simple individuation.

Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself, the woman who bore the first line of the fifth stanza for a name, had lived through this four times, enough times to know just what had been done, for had she not been Michelle/Sasha for the first four first lines coming into being?

Sasha/Michelle had sat on the rim of the fountain and looked out on the world with tired eyes and wondered at the simple beauty of Old Town Square, the brick pavers and the gas lamps and the twee shops, and forked her first long-lived instance, I Am At A Loss For Images In This End Of Days of the Ode clade.

Michelle/Sasha had remembered a day two decades back when she had sat on the rim of a fountain not so different from this one, sat beside an erstwhile partner who made such a better friend than lover that they remained in love in friendship in their own gentle way until ey had given emself to the act of creation, and forked into her second long-lived instance, Life Breeds Life But Death Must Now Be Chosen.

Sasha/Michelle had thought of their conversation together, those two better-friends-than-lovers, about some musical her grandparents had taken her to for her birthday, how she had sung out of key, \emph{``Oh, my Rivkah, where have you gone?''} then hid her face behind her coffee cup, and forked off her third long-lived instance, Oh, But To Whom Do I Speak These Words.

Michelle/Sasha had smiled at the memories of how she had, despite her poor attempt at expressing the joy of that song, gushed about nearly every aspect of the production, the use of projectors to add a visual dreaminess to the stage, the subtle use of props as percussion instruments, and forked again into her fourth long-lived instance, Among Those Who Create Are Those Who Forge.

And at last, Sasha/Michelle remembered how, even after she fell silent, she and her friend had sat in the glow of the sun, thinking about just how wonderful a time she had had—her directly, her friend in compersion—seeing so complete an experience of a well-produced musical, and forked into her, into Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself.

She was forked smiling.

And so when this man, this politician, this Jonas asked who wanted an assignment, she had decided instead to linger in that joy, to remember that lovely day instead of searching for some way to reengage with politics. That was left to The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream, the first line of the eighth stanza. She did not know what compelled True Name to lean into politics as she had been forked after A Finger Pointing, but she wished her all the best.

When Michelle/Sasha stood at last, swaying, and tottered towards the remainder of her newly-formed clade, these ten emanations bearing in their heart some secret, individual joy bestowed upon them by their tired creator, they had all welcomed her into their presence as a first-among-equals and bore her away to home, to her field of grass and dandelions.

What followed was a conversation that lasted until dusk. Each of them minus True Name, already at work, talked about the experience of coming into being, the experience of being settled firmly into one shape unlike their root instance, about the things that they loved and what they might do with that love.

They had not existed for a day and yet A Finger Pointing still loved them each and loved them all together.

She learned of all of their different focuses and kept them straight in her head that she might know them better later, but also she watched how each of them moved, how each of them acted. She kept in mind all that they talked about so that she might share it with True Name.

Hammered Silver was there. She was the one who, after Sasha/Michelle had tired of walking and requested to sit down, had offered her lap as a pillow that she might dote on her down-tree. There was such love in her eyes, such maternal love, for this woman who was at once herself and not. She did not smile, but cooed in concern as a mother might to some crying child. A Finger Pointing made note of this, too, for, yes, she also felt that concern, but also to see such in someone so like herself was a joy in its own right.

From that point on, A Finger Pointing made herself the glue of this growing clade. She would share weekly or monthly lunches and dinners with each, keeping up with them via letters and, once they were implemented, sensorium messages. Even as her smile remained or veered towards a smirk or wily grin, even as her opinions on each of her cocladists grew more complicated, watching burgeoning loves and animosities, she kept in touch.

\secdiv

Yes, there were steps that she needed to take. There were ways that she needed to keep herself safe. There were ways that those who above all else she loved might come to harm and she needed to keep them safe as well. She needed to ensure their safety even above her own.

Dry Grass was the first she kept safe. A home was provided to her within the fifth stanza's neighborhood, a little cottage some doors down from where A Finger Pointing, Beholden, and Motes lived. She may have been safe where she was, they both agreed, but safety from her down-tree's anger was not the only safety that was needed. There was also safety from being alone, from being left without support.

Dry Grass did not weep. She did not sob. The tears she shed that night, sitting around the kitchen table with A Finger Pointing and Beholden, were tears of fury. They were tears of betrayal.

The next day, they worked together.

They reconvened around that same kitchen table, though this time, instead of Beholden, Sasha joined them, the cinnamon skunk holding a mug of coffee—one of those mochas she so loved—in her paws, staring down into the remnants of the whipped cream that remained atop.

``I am sorry to hear that, Dry Grass. I am sorry to both of you,'' she said.

Both nodded.

``Is there anything to do about it?'' Dry Grass asked. ``I do not need to go back. I do not need her back in my life. What I do need, though, is to know if we need to respond in any particular way.''

``It has been more than a few years since I have spoken to Hammered Silver,'' Sasha admitted. ``I last spoke with her around the time that the Artemisians arrived, yes? Before I became that which I am, yes?'' A faint smirk painted her muzzle as she added, ``The one who has named herself Sasha, yes?''

A Finger Pointing gritted her teeth, counting silently to ten. ``That she weaponized all of our names against us only makes me all the angrier. I do not know what to expect of her, though. I do not know what her true intent is.''

``As in what is her goal for sending this letter?''

``Yes. Ostensibly, it is to simply tell me that Dry Grass has been ostracized, but I do not imagine that that is the \emph{only} reason.''

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.''

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.''

Sasha laughed.

``Still, can you at least tell us if you believe there is anything that we need to worry about?''

``Worry?'' The skunk took a moment to think as she lapped at a bit more of the whipped cream. ``Are you asking after danger? Are you asking if she might make your name anathema or find someone to hunt you down with a vial of CPV?''

Her two cocladists tensed. Neither wished to contend with the thought that Hammered Silver might have it in her to kill anyone in the only way the System knew how, some object loaded up with a contraproprioceptive virus to pierce their very being and crash them entire. However, though neither wished to, they both had to, and so they both nodded.

Sasha smiled reassuringly. ``I do not believe you need worry about \emph{that.} Making your name anathema would taint her own reputation, would it not? And she does seem rather more concerned about that than anything. She is mad, yes, and perhaps feeling betrayed, but she is not feeling murderous. She does not have that within her, I do not think. Would you like me to check all the same?''

Dry Grass nodded.

``Will it put you at risk?'' A Finger Pointing asked earnestly. ``It is not worth that.''

``Not at all, no. I have limited contact with the eighth stanza still. They are careful, of course, but I can ask When I Dream a yes or no question and expect one ping for no, two for yes.''

``Please do, then.''

The skunk bowed and then let her gaze drift briefly around the kitchen, unseeing, while she sent her question via sensorium message. It took all of thirty seconds before she returned her focus to A Finger Pointing and Dry Grass, grinning. ``More than just a no, When I Dream let me hear eir laughter at the very idea. You are \emph{quite} safe from that.''

The others both sighed, then laughed at the shared relief.

``Thank you, my dear,'' Dry Grass said, reaching out to rest a hand on the skunk's forearm. ``That is incredibly helpful. We may still wish to ask Waking World—if he will still speak with us, that is—but that does mean a lot.''

Sasha smiled and patted the back of that hand. ``Of course. If I am able to soothe your worries any further, I will do so. This is, I must say, fucking bullshit.''

\secdiv

To fall in love with a cocladist is to engage in a radical form of self-love. To fall in love with a cocladist is to find the ways in which perhaps you \emph{are} your type. To fall in love with a cocladist is to accept that you are large; you contain multitudes. To fall in love with your cocladist is to recognize that your hyperfixations define, in part, your sense of self, and that if you expand beyond one hyperfixation, then perhaps you can be more than just one self.

A Finger Pointing forked all nine of her up-tree instances in systime 3, back in the early days when it still cost to fork. She had plans, though, and she had a way around those costs. She forked once, leaving her and her new instance with half of her original reputation, less than it would cost to fork again, and then her new instance simply granted the reputation back to her, enough to fork once more. She had a way around those costs, for in those days, back before the reputation market had patched out that particular glitch, her up-tree instances did not need reputation beyond hers. She had plans. She had ideas for her particular joy. She would lean into theatre, build a troupe made up of just herself, for surely there were ten roles that needed to be filled in running a theatre.

There was her, the executive director and administrator.

There was That It Might Give The World Orders, the director.

There was The World Is An Audience Before A Stage, the educator within and without.

There was Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress, the script manager and librarian.

There was And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights, the set and prop designer.

There was Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps, the sound and music director.

There was If I Walk Backward, Time Moves Forward, who explored interactivity in art.

There was If I Walk Forward, Time Rushes On, the dancer and choreographer.

There was If I Stand Still, The World Moves Around Me, the stage manager who dabbled in lights.

There was And The Only Constant Is Change, an actor with a penchant for death scenes and just plain strange bird.

And they all acted, and they all promoted, and they all taught and helped as techs and loved each other. They were all hedonists, to the last, because A Finger Pointing was a hedonist, one who wanted to enjoy life to the fullest and to be everybody's friend.

She spent time with them all, yes, but the benefit of diving deep into music is that Beholden began to seek out live shows and concerts, and so when A Finger Pointing spent time with her, they became events. They started to veer perilously close to dates.

At some point, though they disagreed on when—was it five years later? Ten? Each argued passionately for one, and then the other—they \emph{became} dates.

There was sense of aromancy in A Finger Pointing that grew after she forked. She never could say where from; perhaps it was simply that she would rather have been friends with everyone than foster a particular friendship with one person. And yet there was something about Beholden. Something fulfilling, perhaps, or complementary, or a self-love that rose above all others.

And so they fell in love, each in their own way. They fell in love and, for the most part, reveled. Yes, they had their spats, their breaks from each other. Yes, they had their flings besides, and the occasional relationship, all negotiated and cherished and bound up in compersion. But always they had each other.

There were, of course, the social implications to consider, the taboo around intraclade relationships, the implications of narcissism and other, far more crass terms. Suggestions were made from on high, such as it were, from across the clade.

True Name suggested. She suggested that, as pleased as she was for them—and she \emph{was} pleased!—their relationship remain something for behind closed doors. Something where they kept their I-love-yous and kisses for a shared bed rather than out on the town or at however many gatherings they might wish to go to. Politics was, as ever, politics, and here are the political reasons laid bare. Jonas had, after all, set the plan before her after he had already spun it into being, and even she was beholden to it, much as it rankled for her, too. Much as it was nearly the death of her.

Hers were the kind suggestions. The comprehensible suggestions. The ones based in logic and explained clearly: maintaining a sense of taboo in what was quickly becoming a queer-normative society added to the desire for change by providing something to reach for. Comprehensible, yes; the logic was sound, internally consistent. Wrong, of course, but if such was to be the way of things in this plan-twisted world, if such were the optics to which they were all held to account, then so be it. Such were the optics to which they were all held to account.

True Name, ever her friend, made her kind suggestions, hugged her, and reassured her of her camaraderie.

Other suggestions: not so kind.

For there was Hammered Silver, strangely quiet during one of A Finger Pointing's many lunch dates with her. Quiet and distant, all conversation polite and full of nothing comments about the sim, the soup, the coffee, all gazes cast upon everything but her.

When pressed, she had simply shrugged and offered some plainly false words about being distracted and begged an end to the meal.

A Finger Pointing hardly needed to wait for some explanation more true, for when she arrived home—home to that apartment building, home to the simple and cozy unit that Beholden had only moved into a few weeks prior—there was an envelope waiting for her, taped unceremoniously to her door. In it were words of scorn, a sense of a nose pointed snootily up into the air as though to escape some rancid smell.

Did she not know what she was doing? Did she—A Finger Pointing! One of the first lines!—not consider the optics of an intraclade relationship for the rest of her stanza? The rest of the clade? Really, \emph{the} A Finger Pointing ought to know better.

It was the first letter of several. It was the first time of many that she stood stock still, seethed, and counted to ten before opening her door to greet Beholden—her partner regardless of Hammered Silver's haughty implications—with her usual jaunty smile once more firmly in place.

\secdiv

A Weapon Against The Waking World, it turned out, was perfectly happy to meet with them.

Waking World had long ago taken up the mantle of `dad'. Not father, not guardian, but specifically \emph{dad.} Where Hammered Silver reveled in feelings of motherhood, of caring and cherishing and clinging tight, such as they might be sys-side, he had reveled in all the glorious humor of fatherhood, of protecting and uplifting and letting go. He was a being of idle quips and truly terrible dad jokes. He was a man who might call you `sport' or `champ' as easily as `friend'. He was, in all ways except physical, \emph{your} dad, whoever you might be.

He had long ago taken the form of a stocky man, hairline receding, tall enough, looking just enough like an Odist that one could see that he might belong to the clade—his name aside, of course—and yet the resemblance was slight enough that seeing him beside Hammered Silver would not inspire comments of ``siblings\ldots?''

He was not beside her now.

The first thing that he did upon arriving at the Au Lieu Du Rêve library—a location carefully chosen for the ease with which it might be secured—was to open his arms to Dry Grass and, when she dashed to him, wrap her up in a hug.

Once he had guided her to one of the overstuffed chairs and she had had her cry—one of relief, this time, rather than fury or despair—he pulled up a seat to join the loose circle within the solarium.

``Wifey is pissed,'' he began, then laughed. ``I called her that and she hit me so hard I saw stars. Usually, I just get a \emph{look.}''

A Finger Pointing sat bolt upright. ``\emph{What?!}''

``Jesus,'' Dry Grass whispered, eyes wide.

He shrugged. ``It is not the first time.''

Beholden, leaning back with her arms crossed over her chest, snorted. ``Great,'' she said. ``I know that Sasha said that she was not an existential threat, but apparently we still have to worry about violence.''

He held up his hands and shook his head. ``No, no, I do not think you do. She hit me because that is the relationship that we have.''

``\,`Relationship'?''

``Yes. A lover's spat. Despite how often we say `I love you' or the fact that we share a bed, despite the fact that I \emph{do} earnestly love her, she remains staunchly of the opinion that we are in no way in a relationship.''

``Okay, but how can you love her after all she has done?'' the skunk snapped. A Finger pointing rested a hand on her paw, but she continued regardless. ``Motes is fucking catatonic in bed now. She cut us all off, cut off whole stanzas, cut off the Bălans. Now she has cut off Dry Grass—one of her own—and here you are, skulking into the library because you know that she cannot track you here.''

Waking World averted his gaze. ``That is not how love works, Beholden. I do not like what she has done. I \emph{hate} what she has done. I wish that I could get to know Motes better, even, but I do love her, and my position in our little game is\ldots precarious. I must be careful.''

``Bullshit.''

``My muse,'' A Finger Pointing murmured. ``I know that you are angry. We are all angry. Hell, I am \emph{livid,} but this needs to be a conversation for another time. Right now, there are too many pieces in play.''

Beholden subsided, lips still curled in a snarl. After a moment's silence, her shoulders slumped and she looked away, resting her paw atop A Finger Pointing's hand. ``Yes, of course. I am sorry, Waking World. I was the one who found Motes overflowing. She was covered in blood from getting hit in the nose or something, and was all scraped up. It was\ldots hard on me, is all.''

Waking World blanched. ``Wait, shit, really? Uh\ldots{}'' He folded his hands in his lap and frowned down to them. ``Shit. I am sorry, Beholden. I did not know.''

She nodded. ``None of us know why, but we are asking around to see if anyone knows what happened. It could be she just fell or something. I imagine the letter she got must have been a hell of a shock.'' She smiled faintly, shakily. ``I apologize, though, earnestly. That should not have spilled over onto you.''

He nodded, giving a hint of a bow from where he sat. ``Well,'' he started once more. ``All of that to say that she is mad as hell, but in a very \emph{her} way. She is feeling mad at Dry Grass for visiting and mad at herself for the decision she made—I do not think even she agrees with it—so she is just getting mad at every little thing. That is probably why she sent off that flurry of letters.''

``Flurry?'' A Finger Pointing asked, frowning.

``I got one too,'' Dry Grass said. ``Probably five or six pages of yelling at me, yelling about all of you, and just plain yelling.''

Waking World shrugged. ``She even sent me one. I got it while in the next room over from her.''

``Jesus Christ,'' A Finger Pointing said, laughing. ``She really \emph{is} mad.''

``Right. Sasha is right, though, you do not need to worry about any existential threat from her. She is not going to come hunting any of you down. She is not going to do anything but seethe.''

``Is that something we need to be concerned about, though?'' she asked. ``Beholden is not the only one worried about her getting violent.''

``Really, no, I do not think you have anything like that to worry about from her.'' Rubbing his palms together, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. ``I might, but that is my role in this: I rein her in by being a target.''

``Well, is there anything we can do about it, then? I do not like your role in this either, but again, that will be a conversation for later. I find myself all but blind with fury, though, and the thought that I might just let this slide back into silence is unconscionable. Were she to allow us to be in the same room\ldots{}'' She trailed off, letting the aposiopesis speak for her.

``I am half tempted to find a way back just to give her a punch to the gut, if she is hitting you,'' Dry Grass growled. ``But I have been locked out of the entire sim.''

Waking World laughed weakly. ``Please do not do that, my dear. That is not what anyone needs right now, least of all her.''

``What \emph{does} she need, then?''

``She needs to feel like she has hurt you,'' he said, speaking slowly. ``She needs to know that her words had the power to do that, since silence did not work. She needs to feel like she accomplished something through them.''

``She \emph{did} hurt us, though,'' A Finger Pointing said flatly. She could feel a wave of dissociation, of vertigo. She pushed it down so that she could continue. ``She hurt Motes—quite literally. She hurt Dry Grass, and she re-traumatized us all all over again. I would say that she succeeded admirably.''

He shrugged helplessly.

``Well, I ask again, then: can we do anything about it?''

They sat in silence for nearly a minute while Waking World thought. A Finger Pointing gave Beholden's paw a squeeze before retrieving her hand once more. Her sensorium felt like it was lit up with fairy lights and arc lamps, a gently twirling Christmas tree of a self. She could hear the rushing of water, and much of what she was seeing was beginning to blur, but she forced herself to remain as present as she was able, turning her senses down as much as she could get away with in the moment.

``Hammered Silver is having a tantrum,'' he said at last. ``She does not want to argue with you. She will not be convinced because she does not really care if anything changes. She does not \emph{want} anything to change, I think. She does not want to win. She just wants to be angry and she just wants you to hurt.''

``A \emph{tantrum?!}'' Beholden cried, then quickly and visibly tamped down her temper. ``She is having a tantrum? A tantrum does not lead to bleeding children.''

Waking World once more raised his hands in placation. ``I cannot speak to that, Beholden, I promise. What I \emph{can} promise is that she would never strike anyone.'' He winced, his previous words standing in immediate contrast. ``Well, okay. I, uh\ldots all that to say, I do not know what happened to Motes, but I cannot believe that it was her doing.''

Furrowing her brow, A Finger Pointing nodded to Beholden, feeling her sense of the world lag behind. ``I am with Waking World on that. I cannot believe she would do that, herself, and we do not know what happened to Motes, may not until she returns to us,'' she said slowly, then let her gaze shift over to him. ``But I am also with Beholden on her incredulity. What does it mean to have such a tantrum? What cruelty goes into wanting us to hurt?''

``I do not know, A Finger Pointing,'' he said, lowering his hands to rub them over his knees. ``I try to hold her back. I try to mellow her role.''

``What even \emph{is} her role?'' Beholden asked.

``Family,'' he said, then rushed to continue, heading off complaints about the family before him. ``She focuses on the idea of familial connections between sys- and phys-side, how people maintain them, how families deal with relatives uploading.''

``Do found families not count?'' Beholden sneered.

``They do, but she is\ldots prescriptive about them.''

The skunk snorted.

``No--'' A Finger Pointing paused, regained her sense of self for a moment, continued. ``No, Beholden, it is as internally consistent as Jonas's thoughts on intraclade relationships. It makes sense, it is just wrong. It hurts for us—and it \emph{does} hurt, Waking World, she has succeeded in that—because we have our own internally consistent view that she doubtless sees as just as wrong. We just do not throw tantrums that lead to such pain. We hate less.''

``For as much as she apparently hates Motes, she sure is being a fucking child about this,'' Beholden mumbled.

A Finger Pointing laughed bitterly. ``You are not wrong, my love. Motes at her youngest has never thrown a tantrum quite like this. Do we just drop it, then? Let her feel superior?''

``That would certainly work,'' he said, shrugging. ``I do not know how much it would accomplish for your feelings, but she would leave you alone. She really does just want to feel like she is in the right, and no amount of argument will make her feel anything but justified.''

``Yeah, fuck that,'' Beholden said, to which Dry Grass nodded emphatically.

``Fuck that, indeed,'' A Finger Pointing said. She could feel just how inadvisable the attitude was as the words left her mouth, could feel her control slipping, and yet she had her role to play, her guardianship to uphold.

``Well, whatever you do,'' Waking World said cautiously, ``be careful. Keep yourselves safe above all else. If not from her, then at least from your own anger.''

She nodded and pushed herself slowly to her feet through a wave of unreality, of derealization, swaying for a moment. ``We will,'' she said, bowing to him and turning to Beholden. ``My dear, I am quite done, will you take me home?''

\secdiv

Letter after letter, topic after topic. They became rote. They became routine. They became a signature of Hammered Silver after every little decision that A Finger Pointing made which did not meet her standards. Every little decision that \emph{anyone} made, if what True Name and Praiseworthy had to say was true.

And it was not just her, after all, was it?

For better or worse, she was the representative of her stanza. She was a synecdoche: she \emph{was} the fifth stanza. Anything that the stanza did, whether as a whole or individually, she would hear about through those tetchy letters, those little missives Hammered Silver saw fit to send her.

A note here: \emph{Surely The Only Constant can find some less dramatic way to depict death on stage; has ey no thought for how that might reflect on the rest of us as so public a clade?}

A message there: \emph{Beholden To The Flow Of The Crowds was seen punching someone at The Party. I would ask that you inform her of our standards of behavior.}

It became something of a joke—granted, mostly to herself, for she rarely shared any of these messages with others. Even True Name thought less of optics than Hammered Silver. Even the politician! These notes began to feel like letters to the editor for some small-town newspaper: semi-public complaints about propriety that left a sour whiff of entitlement in the air behind them.

And yet their apparent friendship continued. Somehow, against all odds, they continued to meet weekly for years, for decades. They would find some dainty cafe in an equally dainty neighborhood in the middle of some enormous city serving wine and sandwiches on baguettes. They would find some twee farm stand in the middle of millions of acres of carefully curated land serving the best fucking salad either of them had ever tasted. They would stand in the middle of nowhere, some flat plane of an unfinished sim with a single, incredibly detailed tree right in the `middle' of all that nothing, with lunches they packed for the occasion.

They would meet up and they would talk, and A Finger Pointing would swallow enough of her frustration with the letters to maintain this friendship without compromising her morals.

But at some point, even the closest of friendships find a point of irreconcilable difference. There is a point at which there is no way to agree upon a topic, and one must choose: do we agree to disagree? Do we argue forever and hate it? Do we argue forever and turn it into a cherished pastime? Do we simply part ways? Even the closest of friendships must confront this decision.

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.

No letter came.

The next meeting was much the same.

No letter came.

The next meeting was canceled: ``I am not feeling well.''

Fair enough, there were days when A Finger Pointing did not feel well, were there not? Sickness, a thing of the past, nonetheless still appeared psychosomatically, or perhaps Hammered Silver was going through one of the spells each of the Odists had been left with, those little bits of overflowing when being oneself became too much and overrode whatever it meant to exist and the world was too noisy to see and too bright to hear. Perhaps Hammered Silver was overflowing.

The next meeting was canceled: ``I am still unwell.'' Well, okay. At times The Only Constant would be taken out for weeks at a time, desperately clinging to life despite death a thing of the past. A Finger Pointing sent a get-well-soon note and a dichroic rose to her home sim.

The next meeting was canceled, and this time, the note was: ``I have a prior engagement.''

This was bullshit, patented and trademarked, registered as a copyright and service mark. A prior engagement, indeed! Did she think that A Finger Pointing was a brand new upload? Did she think that her cocladist was really so stupid? The Odists! The Odists not forking! Were Hammered Silver a member of the tenth stanza—were Hammered Silver actually Death Itself, that most lovely of people—perhaps she could understand, but she was not. She was not! Hammered Silver had laughed countless times before over the sudden disappearance of the need to worry about `prior engagements'.

A Finger Pointing knew this was bullshit, and she also knew that Hammered Silver knew this, knew that she knew it was bullshit.

\emph{``Hammered Silver, my dear, I would rest much easier if I knew what was happening,''} she sent over a sensorium message.

The reply: \emph{``Oh, you know how it goes. One simply overbooks oneself. Let us meet next week at the usual time, yes?''}

And so she agreed, and so at last they met, and once more there was a stiffness and closed off nature about Hammered Silver.

``Okay, Hammered Silver,'' she said, sitting back with her tiny (and frankly far too bitter) espresso in hand. ``I really would like to know what it is that is happening. Often, there have been chilly moments between us, but rarely one so enduring or one that includes avoiding each other.''

``Really, my dear, it is nothing,'' Hammered Silver said. ``I was feeling unwell, and then I had a prior engagement.''

``And the meetings before?''

Hammered Silver only looked out the window, expression blank, unreadable.

``Hammered Silver,'' A Finger Pointing said gently, putting every ounce of gentle earnestness, soft coaxing, heartfelt concern into her voice that she could manage. ``If you were feeling unwell, I wish that I had been able to in some way help.''

No answers were forthcoming.

She ran through recent events in her mind and, finding nothing, began to run through events from months past, the last year.

Ah.

``This is about Motes, then?''

The wrinkle that appeared dead center between Hammered Silver's eyebrows made a rather efficient reply.

A Finger Pointing sighed. ``Please, my dear. I would love to be able to address your concerns about Motes, but I cannot do so unless you tell me what they are.''

And so she did. She laid out several points about what she felt described Motes's behavior as inappropriate. The lack of children on the System. The existence of pedophilia. The baseless accusations that Lagrange had been a haven for pedophiles. The reception that others who presented themselves as children had received. Point after point after point.

They all boiled down to yet more of the same. Optics and optics and optics. Even True Name thought less about optics than Hammered Silver. Even the politician.

The lunch date ran long and A Finger Pointing grew weary of discussing point after point after point, talking about optics and optics and optics. There were no refutations that made a dent in the argument.

In the end, Hammered Silver let out a frustrated sigh and said, ``We may continue to meet, my friend, but only on the condition that we do not speak further of Motes.''

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.''

A~Finger Pointing nodded stiffly, agreed, and scheduled the next lunch date.

\secdiv

The walk home was slow; any faster, and she feared that she might stumble.

Beholden walked with her paws stuffed into the pockets of her hoodie, mostly looking down to her feet as they trudged along the sidewalk, while A Finger Pointing walked with her arm looped through her partner's, trusting the skunk to get them both home.

She needed it. The world had indeed stopped making sense, as though seen in watercolors, too much pigment on canvas. The sound of their footsteps on gravel and concrete and grass was a fine grit within her ears. The sound of the door opening, the feeling of the couch beneath her, the colors of Motes's paintings on the wall, each was too much.

There was panic, there, yes—there was dissociation, derealization, depersonalization—panic about the events, panic about Dry Grass and Motes and herself and Beholden, but there was also exhaustion. There was also the knock-on effects of a fit of play some years back, all welling up within her.

In that fit of play, that bout of instance artistry decades prior, one of her up-tree instances—two degrees up, a fork of a fork—started to crash. Before they did so completely, however, they managed to quit, to merge back down. Her immediate up-tree, another instance of ever-curious her, accepted the merge blithely. After all, when else would she ever know what a crash felt like without crashing herself?

Nothing happened. It was strange, yes. It was weird and confusing and uncomfortable, but it did not hurt, it did not leave that instance of her affected in any apparent way. Just a pile of jumbled memories slowly seeping in between the ones she had made, herself.

And so, A Finger Pointing accepted her up-tree's merge just as blithely.

The effects were both subtle and dramatic.

They were subtle because there was was no sudden incapacitation, no torturous existence that left her craving non-existence. They were subtle because they left her with a life so much like the one she had, but for the fact that her\pagebreak\ sensorium and sense of self had been severed, separated. \emph{That} was the drama.

This was the dissociation. This was the derealization. This was the world around her ceasing to make sense, as though in a dream. As though in a dream because she \emph{did} live in a dream, did she not? She lived in the consensual dream that was the System, yes? It was hyper-dreaming, then, it was understanding a dream within a dream.

It was like the System before the dream had been made consensual. It was like what image or audio or video transfers had been attempted before the introduction of AVEC, all blurry, all smudged, all almost-but-not-quite what they were, what they were meant to be.

It was having a conversation with a dear one when tired, when one's attention drifted, and then trying to repeat the words that you had almost but not quite heard. It was looking at a scene and remembering that you were standing on a beach a moment ago, and yet being unable to tell water from shore, from sand. It was looking at your partner and not recognizing their face, not recognizing what a face \emph{was.}

It was pain, but she could not tell where or what kind or even if it was pain at all. It was vertigo. It was no up, no down.

It was curling in the corner in a fetal position because to do aught else was to risk falling over and breaking a limb.

She wished dearly that she could do so now.

``I am tired, Beholden.''

``I know, love,'' the skunk said, sitting beside her on the couch and dreaming up a glass of water for her.\pagebreak

She could still comprehend, at least, and could still see Beholden there beside her, a look of tired concern painted on her face.

``Do you need anything else?''

She shook her head and carefully sipped her water. ``Nothing in particular, no, though if you could stay here for a little while, I would appreciate that.''

``Do not be ridiculous,'' Beholden said with a wan smile. ``Like I would ever fucking leave. I \emph{am} going to send a fork to go check on Dot, though.''

``Please do so, yes.''

A second instance of Beholden appeared to the other side of her, pushing herself up and padding to go poke her head into Motes's room, then quitting from there. ``She is asleep still, I think, or close enough. She has not moved.''

A Finger Pointing sighed. ``I suppose she would not have, no.'' She rolled her head to the side to glance at her partner, saying, ``I have an idea for what to do, but I am worried about what it will mean.''

``\,`What it will mean'? Not what it will accomplish?''

``Yes. I do not think that you will like it, but I think it will accomplish much of what Waking World said. It will get her to just leave us alone. To leave Motes and Dry Grass be.''

Beholden nodded slowly. ``That is good, then.''

``It will just mean a bit of a compromise on my morals.'' She paused, organizing her thoughts. ``It will mean letting some of this hurt through. It will mean letting Hammered Silver get to me—just a little bit—so that she can feel a little bit of a victory and hold onto that instead of us. It is a compromise.''

The skunk bridled. ``You are right. I do not like it at \emph{all.} That is a shitty fucking compromise.''

She chuckled drily, took another sip of water. ``To be fair, my muse, neither do I, but if it gets her to fuck off for good, then so be it.''

\secdiv

An end to a friendship with a person is not the end of knowing that person. An end to a friendship can be sudden or gradual. It can be the type of thing that happens in one fell swoop: an argument, perhaps, or a disappearance. It can be the type of thing that takes months and years and decades: a drifting apart, perhaps, or a series of slow decisions. It can be both: an inflection point is reached and neither realizes it until down the line and, oh, perhaps it had ended long ago.

A Finger Pointing was not sure when it was that her friendship with Hammered Silver \emph{actually} died, because there were so many points at which it \emph{could have} died that it was hard to pick just one. There were so many letters, now all stored in a single exo so that they would not simply live within her actual memory at all times, and each of those could have been the end of a friendship as easily as any other.

There was still that point of realization, though. There was that point when she realized that she had long ago ceased to be Hammered Silver's friend, had long ago become merely her cocladist, some obligation to be followed up upon out of a tired sense of formality or information gathering over friendship-colored lunches.

They were friendship colored because that was the tinted glass that A Finger Pointing held before her eyes. She viewed the world with friendship, with the joy of joy itself. She looked at all times through a gel—one of those transparent, colored sheets used to tint a stage-light—colored with friendship, colored by joy.

It was not a pair of rose-colored glasses. She was not burying her head in the sand to avoid some unpleasant facts. She was as realistic as ever she had been, as Sasha/Michelle had been before her and Michelle Hadje before that.

It was an expectation of herself and others. It was a standard to which she and others were held. It was a trust that others would aim for joy and friendship as she did.

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.

For the rest of the fifth stanza also bore this expectation, this standard, this trust that there was within all people something\pagebreak\ worth friendship, some kernel of joy, and none of them shunned Sasha, either.

Cutting contact is one hell of a way to end a friendship, yes?

But no, the end of their friendship had almost certainly come far earlier. Decades earlier.

At some point back in the early 2100s, Motes had begun exploring this role of the babiest Odist of the fifth stanza—in her twenties, sure, but a being built entirely out of play. A note arrived.

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.

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.

She was their matron, in a way. She was their protector. She shielded them as best she could from the politics that so much of their cocladists were engaging in throughout the rest of the System. ``But that is my job,'' she reasoned aloud when she became\pagebreak\ more open about this protection. ``That is why we have an administrator for Au Lieu Du Rêve, yes? Someone has to deal with the politics of running a theatre, yes?''

The first time Motes called A Finger Pointing `mom', there had been a conversation, full of various confusions and hurts, inquiries and boundaries, tears and tears and tears. Both came to an agreement that this was not comfortable. Not now. Not yet.

These optics they must consider, this awful taboo, they spoke of intraclade relationships in terms of incest, and now here was her Motes reifying this abstract concept of family by calling her `mom'! Such language had ever been used as a weapon against her and her Beholden, and it was not yet time to reclaim that.

It built up a false equivalence within all three of them. It allowed them to consider this taboo as applying to all relationships within a clade beyond simple community, simple friendship; all those big-R Relationships like those of A Finger Pointing and Beholden, and like those of Motes with the two of them were of equal dire import. This desire for such family to be constrained to a private setting must apply to all types of family dynamics, yes?

A year later—for what is a year to a cladist?—Motes did it again, and this time she asked first, and permission was granted to see how it felt. It was still quite uncomfortable, but perhaps there was joy to be found. Perhaps there were expectations and standards and trust that could be built up, refinements to be made. Not mother, no, but perhaps `ma' was alright. Not daughter, no, but what of \emph{dóttir?} What of `Ma' and `Dot'?

``Beholden and I are still smarting because we must sequester our affection for one another in private. That is why I have been hesitant to take on the caregiver role that you have sought from me,'' A Finger Pointing had said during that quiet night's conversation, skunklet curled beside her on the couch, getting pets. ``But I do care for you, do I not? I do feel like a sort of matron amidst the fifth stanza, do I not? Perhaps it is time I reconsidered my aversion to such language. Perhaps it is time I considered reclamation. After all, everything I have done has been so that you can live in peace. Are you living in peace, Motes? Are you at peace when you must restrain your feelings for me for reasons neither of us particularly care for?''

And so, as it had been with each of Motes's tentative explorations and gentle testing of mutable boundaries, this became a thing that was okay at home, okay in limited doses, okay for a trial period. It was worthy of exploration, for if there was the potential for joy—and everyone deserved such—then perhaps there was some way Motes could be granted such a thing.

This private setting, this iterative context, this ongoing play allowed for growth and change.

There was still soreness, of course. There was soreness that A Finger Pointing and her Beholden still had to deal with the optics, that it was still not permissible for this reason or that for them to kiss in public, for them to share their I-love-yous where others might witness that joy. There was still soreness that such soreness affected Motes.

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.

But then, some time back around systime 182, back around the time the clocks ticked over to 2306, back around the time Michelle/Sasha had summoned them all to her field to merge centuries of memory and then quit—perished—Hammered Silver sent one of her longest letters yet. It was in some ways a screed. It was beyond simply admonition, note, or missive. It was an epistle, some general letter intended to be a point of instruction not just to her but to the world as a whole.

The screed—well worth embodying as a physical letter if only to be torn up, ripped to shreds, burnt to ash, soaked with tears to douse the fire, ground into a paint, and used to spell out anger and despair—laid out in nigh-unintelligible detail all of the ways in which she and hers had fallen short.

Motes had existed. She had tested the limits and found them flexible. She had found the boundaries negotiable. She had poked her nose out into the world and found it largely amenable to her existence. She had lived her life in play. She had played as a child and played as an adult. She had gone down slides and been bitten during sex and died on-stage and off, all countless times.

All of these were unacceptable. All of these had led to letters and notes of their own. All were rehashed through paragraph after paragraph of spiny invective.

But a full half of the letter was devoted to a particular combination of particular topics that had apparently struck Hammered Silver as particularly worthy of ire: Motes had started calling A Finger Pointing `Ma' and A Finger Pointing had started calling Motes `Dot'. Two syllables worthy of an essay-length diatribe, for if A Finger Pointing and Beholden had bought into the taboo in their own way, accepted it as the way of the world for so long, Hammered Silver had wrapped herself up in it most securely.

How dare she, Hammered Silver cried—and with such a loss as that of Sasha/Michelle, she truly sobbed. How dare she test the clade's position in this most precarious life time and again by doing this awful, awful thing. On and on and on.

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.

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.

\vspace{-0.5em}

\secdiv

\vspace{-0.5em}

The dissociation had before long defined her life, her existence.

It had dampened her hedonism. It had put a stopper on so much of her wild enthusiasm and had led her to so often asking Beholden to take her home when she had so often before outlasted the skunk on their outings. Whereas before she had dwelt in even the excesses of hedonism until she overflowed and locked herself away from it, a self-harm by omission, she now dwelt in the quietudes of hedonism until she overflowed and threw herself with abandon into wildnesses, a self-harm by overindulgence.

The dissociation, derealization, depersonalization had defined her in her play and, perhaps more painfully, in her care. Here she was, sat on the couch and staring unseeing toward the kitchen, having had to step away from a meeting of care, unable to engage. Here she was, unable to help—never mind that there may not be anything she \emph{could} do to help right now—until her sense of self recohered, until she could return to that care.

Once she had had her water, and then a simple drink mixed by Beholden, and spent an hour resting once the wave of dissociation had started to roll back out, A Finger Pointing stood and walked to the back patio, out where the concrete ended in a sharp seam and the wild grass of the field threatened to tickle at her ankles, were it not for socks and slacks.

She forked, and her new instance moved to stand facing her. When she nodded, the instance opened a simplex sensorium message to Hammered Silver. It was essentially a recording of whatever the instance saw and heard that would be sent when she was finished.

``Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver,'' she began, bowing toward her recording instance. ``I will not apologize for breaking our silence, but I will allow it to fall over us once more after I am finished with this message. This is simply too important for me to leave unsaid.

``The letters that you have sent to me, Dry Grass, and Motes have left in their wake a pain that I cannot adequately describe. Motes was pushed almost immediately into overflowing, leaving her all but catatonic and unable to interact with the world.'' She laughed, letting the exhaustion she felt show through along with the very real pain. ``Hell, I wish that I could do the same right now, myself.''

She sighed, took a moment to reclaim her calm, and continued from there. ``I understand that we have irreconcilable differences of opinion on this. I will not attempt to sway you, just as I know that you will not attempt to sway me. That is the point of this no-contact order that you have levied, broken, and then reinforced.''

She cursed herself mentally for that `broken', a little bit of her anger showing through. She only hoped that it came across as yet more pain. She did not want this to turn into a fight.

``I will follow that order to the best of my abilities going forward, but you must understand that you have wounded us, well and truly.'' She bowed once more before saying, ``I will expect no reply,'' and then falling silent.

Her recording instance sighed once the message was sent and then quit.

With that done, she turned to face out to the prairie, and spent a few minutes just enjoying a little bit of stillness, a little bit of quiet. The air was just on the cool side of perfect. There was the smell of rain. The sky was gray without being bruised.

And then, with a small ping of a notification, an envelope blipped into being at eye level and fluttered down to the ground before her.

``Of course,'' she mumbled, bending down to pick it up. Sure enough, it bore the expected handwriting, the expected address.

\begin{quote}
\textbf{To:} Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself of the Ode clade \textbf{(EYES-ONLY)}\\
\textbf{From:} Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver of the Ode clade\\
\textbf{On:} systime 238+292

Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself,

I have received your message. I appreciate your acknowledgment that you will not change my mind. I hope that you consider that this is because there is a correct and incorrect way of thinking about these issues.

May the pain be instructive, and may the silence between our stanzas be complete.

Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver
\end{quote}

She read the letter through twice and then committed it to her long-running exocortex and destroyed the original.

``What a fucking bitch,'' she muttered to herself as she turned to return inside.

At least it had worked.

A simple dinner. A few glasses of wine. A quiet evening saying nothing as she lounged with her head on Beholden's lap while the skunk worked. Simple pleasures as she mulled over the day and its varied traumas.

There was so much more she wished she had done. There was so much more she wished she \emph{could} have done. Perhaps there was nothing more available to her, no further tasks before her to address in order to make Motes more comfortable or Dry Grass's life easier, but all the same, the drive to care itched. It grated up against her inability to engage further, thanks to her sense of self already being stretched taut, thanks to that dissociation preventing her from being more earnestly herself.

As darkness fell, as they planned on bed, she checked up on Motes for herself.

The skunk lay tightly curled beneath her covers, a pillow held tightly in her arms, eyes clenched tightly shut. She was tempted to stand there for a few minutes, simply watching her charge, her Dot, sleep.

Or\ldots not sleep, but withdraw from the waking world.

Better to show what she could. She stepped quietly into the room and climbed up onto Motes's bed with her, curling behind her and draping an arm across the little skunk.

``I love you, Dot,'' she mumbled, burying her face against the back of her neck. ``I am sorry.''

There was more she could say—so much more—but for some reason, words failed her after that. Words and will both failed her, and so she simply lay there with Motes, replying to Beholden's gentle, inquiring ping with a soothing one of her own. She had told Motes that she loved her, as she never tired of doing so, and that was enough.

She lay there until she felt her \emph{dóttir} slowly relax beneath her arm, heard her breathing slow, and then for a while after.
