Dream d2901-s: The Coat's Unmatched Face

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the corner held us past the lamp's reach, and I spread the cloth before setting anything down. The Registrar of Orders had carried the coat from its hook and laid it flat across the table. Nineteen coats in this house, nine orders of deed, and the Registrar had tallied 915 medals between them in the years of this gathering - not one re-struck, not one altered: a medal once fixed is fixed. The guest before us held their portion of that number on their coat, and I did not count it tonight. Tonight was the face.

The Fitter set the fitted face beside the coat without ceremony. Seven faces in this house, one for each order of task it measures, and six of them had sat flush with their measure when I had seen them last. This one had moved. The Fitter said nothing about when or why. That is not the Fitter's office.

Lano had followed me in from the corridor. She pressed against my leg once, then sat and watched the table.

The Recorder's work was mine. I opened the ledger and read aloud what the coat held: the orders, the deeds, the dates of witnessing. Then I read aloud what the face held: one station closed to it as of the fresh measure, four of eight trials passed where the others in this order had passed more. I read one and I read the other. I did not explain the distance between them. That is not the Recorder's office.

Rurik had come in without my noticing. He was on the high shelf behind us, amber eyes on the coat, tail making one slow sweep and then going still.

The Charter over the table carries seven rulings; they remained. The gap between the face and the medals remained. I wrote the gap in the ledger in plain description, no gloss, and blotted the ink. The Registrar folded the coat. The Fitter lifted the face. Neither spoke. There was nothing to settle here, because nothing here can be settled: the medals cannot be re-struck to fit the face, and the face cannot be re-cut without a trial that has not happened. The record is what was found, and the record was complete.

Lano rose when I closed the ledger. We went out together into the gallery's long corridor, where the other coats hung in their rows, each attended by a different kind of silence.

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