Add edits, epigraph

content/draft/007.md

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ She was not going to play around, here. She was not going to play soft. She was
 
 -----
 
-Some 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 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.
+Some 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 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.
 
@@ -68,9 +68,9 @@ From that point on, A Finger Pointing made herself the glue of this growing clad
 
 -----
 
-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 need to keep them safe as well. She needed to ensure their safety even above her own.
+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 her own home. She may have been safe as 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 in without support.
+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 as 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.
 
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ Both nodded.
 
 "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 grit her teeth together, 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."
+A Finger Pointing grit 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?"
 
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ A Finger Pointing grit her teeth together, counting silently to ten. "That she w
 
 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 bad side in particular. Similarly, though, I do not have an answer for you. She has been inaccessible to me for sixteen years now, and before that, I was too distracted to spend much time engaging with her."
+"She is an Odist, yes," Sasha said. "She is not a bad person, but neither is she 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."
 
@@ -102,9 +102,9 @@ 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 in particular after danger? Are you asking if she might make your name anathema or find someone to hunt you down with a vial of CPV?"
+"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. Though neither wished to, the both had to, however, and so they both nodded.
+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 *that.* 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?"
 
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ Dry Grass nodded.
 
 "Please do, then."
 
-The skunk bowed briefly 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, smiling. "More than just a no, When I Dream let me hear eir laughter at the very idea. You are *quite* safe from that."
+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 *quite* safe from that."
 
 The others both sighed, then laughed at the shared relief.
 
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ Sasha smiled and patted the back of that hand. "Of course. If I am able to sooth
 
 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 a way that perhaps you *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, then perhaps you are 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 up a troupe made up of just herself, for surely there were ten roles that needed to be filled in running a theatre.
+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.
 
@@ -156,7 +156,7 @@ She spent time with them all, yes, but the benefit of diving deep into music is
 
 At some point, though they disagreed on when — was it five years later? Ten? Each argued passionately for one, and then the other — they *became* dates.
 
-There was sense of aromancy in A Finger Pointing that grew after she forked. <!-- Discuss --> She never could say where from; perhaps it was simply that she would rather have been friends with anyone 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 others.
+There was sense of aromancy in A Finger Pointing that grew after she forked. <!-- Discuss --> She never could say where from; perhaps it was simply that she would rather have been friends with anyone 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. Yes, they had their flings besides, and the occasional relationship, all negotiated and cherished and bound up in compersion. But yes, they had each other.
 
@@ -176,13 +176,13 @@ A Finger Pointing hardly needed to wait for some explanation more true, for when
 
 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, *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 smile once more firmly in place.
+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.
 
 -----
 
 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 pa, but specifically 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 actual, *your* dad, whoever you might be.
+Waking World had long ago taken up the mantle of 'dad'. Not father, not pa, but specifically 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, *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...?"
 
@@ -198,7 +198,7 @@ Beholden, leaning back with her arms crossed over her chest, snorted. "Great," s
 
 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. Despite how often we say 'I love you' or the fact that we share a bed, despite the fact that I *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, even as she rested her free paw atop that hand, 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 stanza — and here you are, skulking into the library because you know that she cannot track you here."
+"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, even as she rested her free paw atop that hand, 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 *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...precarious. I must be careful."
 
@@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ Waking World shrugged. "She even sent me one. I got it while in the next room ov
 
 "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 worry about, though?" she asked. "Beholden is not the only one worried about her getting violent."
+"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."
 
@@ -238,13 +238,13 @@ Waking World laughed weakly. "Please do not do that, my dear. That is not what a
 
 "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. She needs to feel like she accomplished something through them."
 
-"She did hurt us, though," A Finger Pointing said flatly. "She hurt Motes and Dry Grass, and she re-traumatized us all all over again. I would say that she succeeded admirably."
+"She 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 and 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. 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.
+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 *want* anything to change, really. She does not want to win. She just wants to be angry and she just wants you to hurt."
 
@@ -260,7 +260,7 @@ A Finger Pointing snorted. "You are not wrong, my love. Motes at her youngest ha
 
 "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, 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?"
+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?"
 
 -----
 
@@ -280,7 +280,7 @@ And yet their apparent friendship continued. Somehow, against all odds, they con
 
 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 now 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 make this decision.
+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.
 
@@ -331,9 +331,9 @@ The wrinkle that appeared dead center between Hammered Silver's eyebrows made a
 
 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 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.
+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.
+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. Even refuting these claims about the optics of the problem led to Hammered Silver admitting in essence that the core of the problem was that she did not like it. Simply did not enjoy it.
 
@@ -351,29 +351,41 @@ 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 ink on canvas. The sound of their footsteps on gravel and concrete and grass was a fine grit within her ears.
+She needed it; the world had indeed stopped making sense, as though seen in watercolors, too much ink 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.
 
-In a fit of play some decades back, one of her ephemeral up-tree instances had quit right as they started to crash and she, ever curious, had accepted the merge. After all, when else would she ever know what a crash felt like without crashing herself?
+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.
 
-The effects were both subtle and drastic.
+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?
 
-They were subtle for their insidious nature. The sensation of the crash was startling, painful, a dissolution of the self that she had not expected. The pain had come in the sensation of her entire sensorium catching fire all at once. The dissolution of self had come with those nerves-on-fire rapidly unwinding. And even after she returned home, even after she slept, the memory of that sensation lingered within her.
+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.
 
-It was more than just a memory, though. It lingered there, quiet, beneath her own senses. She felt that pain waiting for her, felt the way her every nerve, no matter which sense it controlled, was pulled taut.
+And so, A Finger Pointing accepted her up-tree's merge just as blithely.
 
-They were drastic because now here she was, some decades hence, still suffering, still feeling the way her vision and hearing and touch and taste and sense of smell all were affected, and when the stress rose, so too did these sensations.
+The effects were both subtle and dramatic. 
 
-Beholden led her through the door and into their house, guided her to the couch, and bade her sit. She returned a moment later with a glass of lukewarm water, lest the cold from the tap burn her throat. She drank carefully and then lay back against the cushions.
+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 sensorium and sense of self had been severed, separated.
+
+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 *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 *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 or 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. 
+"I know, love," the skunk said, sitting beside her on the couch and dreaming up a glass of water for her. 
 
 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. "Nothing in particular, no, though if you could stay here for a little while, I would appreciate that."
+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, grinning wanly. "Like I would ever fucking leave. I *am* going to send a fork to go check on Dot, though."
 
@@ -403,7 +415,7 @@ A Finger Pointing was not sure when it was that her friendship with Hammered Sil
 
 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 friendship, colored joy.
+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.
 
@@ -427,9 +439,9 @@ And at some point back in the mid 2200s, Motes had begun exploring the concept o
 
 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 allowed when she became 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?"
+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 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 she called A Finger Pointing 'ma', there had been a conversation, full of various confusions and inquiries and boundaries. Both came to an agreement that this was not comfortable. Not now, not yet.
+The first time Motes called A Finger Pointing 'ma', there had been a conversation, full of various confusions and inquiries and boundaries. Both came to an agreement that this was not comfortable. Not now, not yet.
 
 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 uncomfortable, but perhaps there was joy to be found. Perhaps there was expectations and standards and trust that could be built up.
 
@@ -437,19 +449,19 @@ And so, as it had been with each of Motes's tentative explorations and gentle te
 
 This private setting, this iterative context, this ongoing play allowed for growth and change.
 
-There was soreness, of course. There was soreness that A Finger Pointing and Beholden still had to deal with the taboo of intraclade relationships, 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.
+There was soreness, of course. There was soreness that A Finger Pointing and Beholden still had to deal with the taboo of intraclade relationships, 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.
 
-This built up a false equivalence within all three of them. It allowed them to consider this taboo as applying to all intraclade relationships beyond simple community, simple friendship. Big-R Relationships like those of A Finger Pointing and her Beholden and little-r relationships like those of Motes with the two of them. This desire for family to be constrained to a private setting must apply to all kinds of family dynamics, yes?
+This built up a false equivalence within all three of them. It allowed them to consider this taboo as applying to all intraclade relationships beyond simple community, simple friendship. Big-R Relationships like those of A Finger Pointing and her Beholden and like those of Motes with the two of them. This desire for family to be constrained to a private setting must apply to all kinds of family dynamics, yes?
 
-"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 a quiet night's conversation, skunklet curled beside her on the couch. "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 familial 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?"
+"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 a 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 familial 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 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, 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.
+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, spelled 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, all countless times.
+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.
 
@@ -501,20 +513,20 @@ And then, with a small ping of a notification, an envelope blipped into being at
 
 She read the letter through twice and then committed it to an exocortex and destroyed the original.
 
-"What a fucking bitch," she muttered to herself as she turned to return inside. "At least it fucking worked."
+"What a fucking bitch," she muttered to herself as she turned to return inside.
 
 A simple dinner. A few glasses of wine. A quiet evening saying nothing while she lounged with her head on Beholden's lap while the skunk worked.
 
 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 in her arms, eyes clenched tightly shut. She was tempted to stand there for a few minutes, simply watching her charge, her Dot, sleep.
+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...not sleep, but withdraw from the waking world.
 
-Better to show what she could without bothering the girl too much, so she stepped quietly into the room and climbed up onto Motes's bed with her, curling behind her and draping an arm across her.
+Better to show what she could without bothering the girl too much, so 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 the skunk's 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.
+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 Motes slowly relax beneath her arm, heard her breathing slow, and then for a while after.