Dream d2804-s: Before Any Border

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the map room table held two things on flat stone: the book opened to its far pages, and the drawn chart set beside it. I sat down and began the work.

The first count was the names that had a drawing under them. I went through the book carefully, checking each name against the chart. Sixty-four. The lines were there for each of them, the borders closed, the elevation marked in the way the room's conventions required.

Then the second count. Sixty-four names with nothing drawn under them at all. The naming had run ahead, then stopped. The book did not explain this and I did not ask it to.

Lano came close and lay at my feet, her chin on the stone floor. She watched from there, not at the numbers but at my hands moving over the pages.

Sixty-three of the waiting names had been written in one sitting. The density was the same throughout, the hand consistent, as though someone had expected to draw afterward. One name was older. The ink was different, the letters formed in an earlier way. I noted it in the margin without comment: older than the rest, waiting longer.

Rurik arrived at some point I did not track. He walked the table's length without touching the book or the chart, then took the warm spot by the lamp and sat with his tail curled around his paws. His amber eyes rested on the book's spine.

I set the final record beside both items on the stone. Sixty-four names with drawings. Sixty-four names with none. The naming had come first every time and in one case had come much earlier than the rest. I wrote that down too, because it was there, and because the order of things is what the record is for.

Lano pressed her nose to the side of my boot. I did not move. We stayed like that until I finished writing.

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