Dream d2041-s: Blue Dusk, First Names

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where Ospreygreen was just beginning to glow.

The lamps were freshly lit when we stepped onto the main street, each one burning with a steadiness that told me they were tended regularly, not merely filled and forgotten. Rurik moved ahead of us in his unhurried way, placing each paw with deliberate care on the smooth stone pavers, pausing at the corner where the street split toward a small square. He looked back once, then continued.

"The joints in these buildings," the Builder said, crouching to run her fingers along the edge of a doorframe where it met the threshold stone. "They've been repointed within the last season. Someone here knows what they're doing."

I wrote that down. The book of readings was already filling with small observations - the height of the kerb stones, the way the drainage ran at an angle toward the brook.

A woman with a long-handled lamp-pole emerged from a side street and stopped when she saw us. She did not look alarmed, only appraising.

"Travelers or readers?" she asked.

"Both," I said. "We're staying five days."

She nodded as though that were the correct answer. She introduced herself as the Lamplighter, the title given simply and without ceremony, and told us the second lamp on the eastern row had been burning at three-quarters flame for two days now - a slow leak in the reservoir, nothing catastrophic, but worth watching. The Weather Reader asked about the prevailing wind direction and the Lamplighter pointed southeast without hesitation. They spent a moment in professional appreciation of each other.

Lano had found the brook before any of us reached it. By the time we crossed the small bridge she was already on the near bank, nose working along the waterline, tail moving in short arcs. The Brook-warden was there - a compact figure in a waxed coat, watching our dog with mild amusement.

"She smells the cress," the Brook-warden said.

"She smells everything," the Weather Reader replied, and the two of them exchanged something close to a smile.

I stood on the bridge and looked both ways. The water ran clear over pale stones, and the sound it made was even and low. In my book I wrote: clean volume, no silt smell, consistent flow. Then I crossed to find the Schoolkeeper waiting by the hall on the far side, holding the door open with one hand, patient, as if she had expected us at precisely this hour.

Lano trotted up beside me and sat. Aqui, I thought.

Here.