Dream d1802-s: Drizzle Between Two Lights

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the rain came in fine curtains that were more mist than water, and Nettlefall was already out of sight behind the last bend. The road ahead ran straight between hedgerows going brown at the edges, and somewhere past the grey horizon Kestrelsquare waited behind its walls, showing us nothing yet.

Lano trotted close to my left boot, her white coat picking up the damp, her nose working the verge. Every few paces she'd slow to read something invisible to the rest of us - a rabbit's crossing, the ghost of old cart grease on a milestone - then catch up in a quiet trot.

"The pressure's still falling," the Weather Reader said, reading the small dial she kept hung from her pack. She held it up without breaking stride. "There was a storm parked over Nettlefall when we arrived. It stayed the whole time. I wonder if it's the ruin that holds weather, or the memory of what was built there."

"Both," the Builder said. She was walking with her hands behind her back, the way she did when she was turning something over. "A ruin remembers its own weight. The ground still carries the footprint of the granary. I could feel it in my soles - the compression."

"What do you think of it?" I asked. "Nettlefall overall."

She was quiet long enough that Lano looked up at her. "Sad and honest," she said finally. "I liked reading it. There was nothing left to perform."

We made camp at the fork where a lesser track branched north into dark pine. Rurik took the fork himself - not far, just to the junction - and sat there in the wet looking down both directions. His amber eyes caught what little light was left. After a while he came back and settled near the fire as though the matter were settled, though he'd said nothing about what it was.

"Tranquila," I told Lano when she leaned against my leg, watching the dark where Rurik had watched.

I wrote the last entry for Nettlefall in the book, pressing hard to get the ink down through the damp paper. What the Weather Reader had read of its pressure history. What the Builder had found in the foundation stones. What we'd helped mend, small as it was - the channel cleared, the record updated, the marker set back upright. I closed the book and it made a sound like a finality.

Kestrelsquare tomorrow, or the day after. Its walls were said to be solid. The Builder had already started asking questions about them, out loud to no one in particular, which is how I knew she was looking forward to it.

The fire hissed at the drizzle. Rurik slept curled tight. Lano's ears stayed up until she didn't need them to be.