Dream d2567-s: Roads from the Hall Door

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the door-keeper opened the south doors before the first light reached the tall windows, and I stood at the back of the hall with the ledger and gave the first pairs their roads.

The column we had ruled in the last session ran to 65 entries. Seven were drawn through with a thin line - not struck, only settled. The rest were open.

Lano came down the hall ahead of me. She sat at the door-keeper's right and watched each pair go, ears up, nose moving in the cold air from the opened doors.

The first pair received the Ruins of Frosting. Cold, not left in good order. I said nothing beyond the name and the road-scribe copied it without annotation. They went.

The second pair received the Ruins of Mossness. Cold, not in good order. They went.

The third pair: the Ruins of Zephyrden. Same condition. Lano watched them take the east road and then turned back to find my heel.

Rurik had found the doorway. He sat in it, amber eyes on the morning, and the fourth pair stepped around him without stopping. He did not move until they were through, then padded back toward the map room without looking behind him.

The fourth pair received a ruin without a letter count and without a record of what it had been - only its name in the column, cold, left in good order. They went with that.

Seven pairs before the door-keeper signaled the morning full. Fifty-one entries still open in the column. The road-scribe sealed the morning's log and I carried the ledger back to the map room.

The fire was low. Lano pressed against my leg once at the map room door, then turned two circles on the hearthrug and lay down. The column was longer than it had been the night before and the map had not changed, and those were the two facts the morning left behind.

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