Dream d2795-s: The Sheet's True Scale

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I carried the old sheet to the table where the new one was already laid flat, and I set the smaller one down inside the larger.

The lamp held still. Lano pressed against my leg and watched.

The old sheet covered a narrow portion of the new one. I smoothed it with both hands and the new sheet ran out past it in every direction, blank and faintly cream in the lamplight. The proportion was not something I had reckoned before seeing it. I had reckoned the places, the marks, the tallies - not the sheet's own smallness against what remained to be drawn.

I counted from the old sheet's edge. Sixty-five places recorded there, and ten of them carry a lit mark. The new sheet holds the accounting for two hundred and seventy-nine, which means a hundred and seventy-four places have no sheet at all - no line, no name, no ruled column.

Rurik came through the door and took the far corner of the table, where the blank ran widest. He sat and stared at nothing in particular, tail moving once.

Sixty-one of the unwritten places have been entered within the last thirty days. I wrote that figure in the margin of the new sheet. Sixty-one places walked on this round past the drawn edge - and of those, twenty-eight show a light.

Seven marks on the old sheet point at ground I cannot reach to verify. The ink is there. The ground is not accessible. I noted it.

The newest place past the edge is called Larklow Town. One day it has been standing. It is not on any sheet.

Lano circled once and lay down under the table. I continued ruling the new sheet outward from where the old one ended, letting the blank decide its own dimensions. The lamp did not gutter. The room was quiet. Rurik washed a paw and did not look at me.

I did not fill the blank. I drew only the edge of what the old sheet covered, so the proportion would be visible to whoever opened the new sheet next. That was all the night required.

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