Dream d2865-s: Still as Struck

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Reader came to the hall floor on the fifth night of the eight and lifted the coat from its hook on the pillar. Lano pressed through the door ahead of me, her white fur catching the lamp, and settled on the flags beside the long table. Rurik was already on the crossbeam above when we arrived, amber eyes open and his tail in a slow half-swing toward the dark.

The coat belonged to the guest the house records as the Thirty-Second of the Nineteen. The Reader laid it flat on the table. I opened the ledger to a fresh page.

The first order is Founding. She called its one medal by its mark. I wrote it. The medal did not change. I wrote: unchanged.

The second order is Discovery. Three medals in Discovery, each called in the sequence struck. I wrote each as it was called. None of the three altered between the calling and the writing. I wrote: unchanged, three times.

The third order is Holding. Four medals. She moved along the breast of the coat at a measured pace, not quickly. The fourth medal in Holding carries a smaller face than the other three; it was struck last, and the name of the witness that day is in the margin of the original entry. It did not change between the calling and my writing of it. I wrote: unchanged.

The fourth order is Passage. Two medals. Called. Written. Unchanged.

The fifth order is Repair. Six medals, each with its own sub-mark requiring its own line. The Reader slowed here. Lano lifted her head once as the third sub-mark was called, then lowered it again. All six medals in Repair, all their sub-marks read in order, all of them unchanged.

The sixth order is Witness. Three medals. The first two struck in the same season; the third struck alone and bearing a charter seal. None altered. I wrote: unchanged.

The seventh order is Transmission. Two medals. Called. Written. Unchanged.

The eighth order is Service. Four medals. The Reader called the last of the four and held her finger on the coat without speaking. Rurik made a short sound on the beam, not a question. She moved on.

The ninth order is Tenure. One medal. The last on the coat. She called it. I wrote it. It did not change.

The Reader folded the coat along its original seams and returned it to the hook. I blotted the ledger and closed it. Across the nine orders the total was what it was: each medal as it was struck, not one of them altered between the first calling and the last writing.

Lano rose from the flags, shook herself once, and walked to the door. Rurik descended from the beam without sound and went the other way into the dark of the courtyard.

That is the record for the fifth night. The coat is the coat. The medals are what was struck.

IMAGE: pixel art close on a figure's coat covered in struck medals, another figure reading them off, 8-bit style

---