Dream d3216-s: Floor Beside the Parcel

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I came to the shepherd's hut at the outer edge of Mistbarrow in the dark and the hut was empty.

The relay clerk had been clear: leave the parcel on the shelf. The absent witness will come. Do not wait.

I set the parcel on the shelf. It was wrapped in rough cloth and tied with cord the surveyor had knotted at the close of the second interval - I had watched it tied and had not touched the knot since. Inside it, as I understood: two accounts, each dated and signed, neither erasing the other. I had not opened the cloth. The record was not mine to read.

Lano sat at my feet while I stood before the shelf. Then she padded in a small circle and settled near the door, nose aimed at the cold hearth.

There was nothing else. I lay down on the stone floor with my coat pulled across me. The parcel sat above me on the shelf in the faint light that came through the high window. I could see its outline from the floor.

Rurik came through a gap in the door-frame I had not noticed before. He crossed the room without looking at me, leapt to the shelf in one motion, stepped around the parcel, and curled himself against the wall behind it. His amber eyes closed. He had claimed the warm spot before I had thought to want it.

The night held. Lano's breathing slowed.

This was relay. I had carried the record through three towns and two river crossings and one road absent from the atlas. I had not opened the cloth. I had not decided what the accounts meant. I had only moved the record from where it had been to where it would be found by the one who had not been there for either reading.

I lay on the stone floor and was present and nothing more.

Night three of seven.

At some hour I could not measure, Lano lifted her head. Her ears went forward. I heard nothing outside. She held the posture a long moment, then set her head back on her paws.

Then she was still.

---