Dream d3213-s: Already Walking

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I was somewhere in the stone-paved lanes of Sorrelgate with two folded documents in my pack and the sound of the bell only reaching me after I had already turned the last corner. Lano trotted ahead, nose low, tail making small arcs in the cold air. Rurik had followed as far as the doorway of the house where we had been lodging, then sat down in it and stared at the street until I was out of sight.

The absent witness was waiting where the lane met the outer track. The relay clerk had described them to me: someone who had been away for both of the previous readings, away for the stone-account and away for the interval-account, and who now stood with their hands at their sides and their coat damp from the morning.

I drew the documents out of the pack. I did not explain them. I handed them over in the order they had been made: the object record first, the interval record second. The absent witness took them without speaking. I watched their eyes move across the first page. I did not say what the entries meant. I did not say that I had been present for both readings and could tell them more. That was not what I was there to do.

Lano sat and watched my face. Her nose twitched once.

The absent witness turned to the second document. The two dated accounts lay across their hands at the same time, neither erasing the other. I stood there and witnessed the moment of reception. The bell was still sounding somewhere behind the roofline, slower now, the last strokes widening as they crossed the cold. It had not caught up. It would not.

I had delivered what I was carrying. I was not asked to stay. I turned back toward the lane and Lano fell in beside me, ears forward, already interested in whatever came next.

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