Dream d3142-s: Cold Along the Hinge

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we came back to Cindergreen from the yard gate side, the same iron latch we had recorded before, and the Bedrock-Reader pressed a gloved hand flat against the hinge bracket and held it there. No heat came off the metal. The yard beyond held its warmth the way stone holds afternoon, but here at the gate the iron registered nothing. The Tally-Reader wrote it in the margin: second passage, gate cold, yard warm. These two facts standing beside each other without explanation.

Lano had gone ahead through the gap before the gate was fully open, her nose working the packed earth of the yard. She circled once near the far wall, stopped, sat. Something in the ground held her attention longer than it usually would.

Rurik came through last, low and deliberate, and took up a position on the flat stone beside the gate post. He sat facing into the yard and did not move.

The Anomaly-Hand walked the gate line, following the seam where the wooden frame met its iron reinforcement. The pale cyan traces here were faint, just visible at the foot of the post where it met the foundation. The Relic-Watcher made a rubbing against paper, two passes. Neither spoke.

I watched the Bedrock-Reader's hand. The leather of the glove had been against the hinge bracket for longer than a greeting, longer than a test. It was a reading. Whatever was being read did not announce itself.

The Horizon-Surveyor had gone to the far side of the yard to measure the sheet edge. I could hear the small sound of the instrument being set, then quiet.

Cindergreen was warm the way a place is warm when people have been using it. Wood smoke from some earlier fire. The smell of turned soil. A window on the near building held no glass but its frame was recent, the wood pale and untreated. Someone had been here between our visits and had done ordinary work.

The Warden of the Deep Stratum knelt near the foundation stone where the gate post sat and measured the depth of the mortar line with a rod. The gate hinge remained cold.

Lano padded back toward me, nosed at my boot once, then sat beside Rurik on the flat stone. The cat did not acknowledge her. Both of them faced the yard, watching.

The Tally-Reader said: forty-one steps from the yard edge to the gate post, same as before.

I wrote it down. Same distance. Different heat.

IMAGE PROMPT: pixel art a human surveyor at a yard gate, The Bedrock-Reader rests a gloved hand beside a gate hinge that gives off no heat., desaturated slate and iron, pale cyan accents, 8-bit style

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