Dream d3179-s: Pages at the Ford

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the crossing was knee-deep at its widest point, the stones beneath our feet flat and unhurried. The Tally-Reader stepped in first, raising her ledger above her head with both hands, her boots finding purchase on the ancient pavers hidden just below the surface. I followed with my own pages held high, the ink still damp from the morning's account.

Lano waded in beside me, her white coat skimming the surface as she crossed in three quick bounds, shaking herself on the far bank. She stood watching while we made our slow passage, her nose working the air above the reed line.

The Anomaly-Hand pointed without speaking. A pale cyan seam ran along the largest stone at the crossing's center, a faint emission threading the slate like a vein of cold light. The Warden of the Deep Stratum paused beside it, looked down for a long moment, and then waded on. No explanation. The seam remained as we found it.

On the far bank, the Relic-Watcher turned back to look at the stones we had crossed. They were as we had left them - unmarked, unharvested, still. The iron armature at the water's edge where silt had pulled back from the base, its purpose unreckoned.

Rurik had crossed separately, further upstream where a fallen limb bridged the narrower channel. He sat now on the bank above us, amber eyes tracking the Horizon-Surveyor as she turned back to measure the line where the sheet ended. His tail moved once, then stilled.

The Bedrock-Reader knelt at the crossing's edge and pressed one palm flat to the cold stone. Not writing. Only reading what the strata held beneath. She stayed there until the rest of us were dry, and then she rose.

Fennmoss was dormant around us - no voice in the reeds, no visible structure beyond the crossing itself. The Tally-Reader opened her ledger and counted the stones she had stepped on. She did not round the number.

Lano pressed close to my leg as we moved further from the bank, her fur still damp at the edges. "Piedra," she said quietly.

We did not go back across until the light had moved entirely off the crossing.

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