Morning came like a clean ledger. Oakwatch blinked — . (ready) from its glass eye; the river—full but civilized—slid past Glass Isle; the horn cairns along Founders' Way hummed the same note when Jory tapped them—each a syllable in the language of ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Novaterra• White-Cut (Day 1/6): allow 10 Fort foragers (no drums) to cut reeds at left bank (mid-sun)• Posts: Squires (Garran/Orla) on bank edges; Fen middle; Piet reserve; Ras rope; Bryn shadows; Calder + Ameline (binders) at aid plank; Mara water only• Signals: two short = space/medical; one long = end; no bells• Cordon: arcs steady; sand lines refreshed; caltrops/whiplines reset (non-white zones)• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Spawn Window: 5–10 days (watch)• Morale: Work-bright, watchful 🙂
Ansel marked the white boundary into the sod—straight, honest—so even pride could see it. Garran and Orla planted their semicolon standards where the bank began to lie about its edge; Fen stood middle like permission; Reeve Piet tucked the reserve in shade with the posture of a hinged door. Jory hooded two gourds and blew a quiet test; the notes landed like manners. 🫡
Mara set a water bucket under the white awning and nothing else. "Soup after," she said. "Water now. Less romance, fewer misunderstandings." 🍲😑
Calder and Ameline (Duvall's binder) laid out salves and cloth on a plank with sleeves rolled—two empty hands, easy to read. Ras ran a rope along the slickest lip where tired ankles would confess early and be forgiven. Bryn watched the current and the hills with the soft, predatory patience of a cat that had read a map.
"Elbows down. Tongues down," Elara said to the wall. "We don't help unless two short says help. We don't shame hungry hands. We don't forget the line."
Aiden nodded. "Good arithmetic."
They came quiet.
Ten goblins with mats and knives that could be tools if a man wanted them to be. Mokh walked among them—lacquer peeled, eyes like rules. Tavi, unmasked, wore the rope token at his belt. Two forearms were striped with paint—foremen by posture. No drums.
They stopped at the line because the line existed in their heads now.
Elara raised white and lowered it to waist—parley posture. Jory gave two short so soft it taught feet without waking pride.
"Grass," Tavi said.
"Grass," Elara agreed.
Cutting began the honest way. Reeds gave; sedge argued; blades worked. The foremen kept count with their fingers—three bundles, five—dropping a little stall tap between full mats. Ras counted with them, amused; Jory hummed a translation nobody needed aloud.
A young cutter slipped, knee kissing the bank and lying about being fine. He kept cutting.
Calder didn't move. Elara didn't blink.
A sedge-snake flashed from a mat and nipped a wrist—green as gossip. The cutter yelped, stamped, pride negotiating with pain.
Two short, Jory breathed—space.
Elara raised white a hand higher—medical. She tipped Calder and Ameline forward.
They went visible: open hands, slow steps, no bags. Garran's Stand Tall aura held the wall's breath. Mokh watched like a man trying not to learn a new habit.
Calder lifted the wrist, squeezed above the bite, checked the head mark. "Sedge-bite," he told Ameline. "Hurt, not death." Rinse. Bind. A mint-smelling paste. Two words in Tavi's tongue he'd practiced at breakfast: "Hurt ends." The cutter's eyes went round, then suspicious, then relieved without admitting it. Ameline raised her empty hands and stepped back.
Two short, Jory murmured—clear. The line didn't clap. It breathed. 🙂
— White-Cut — Incident• Minor: sedge-snake bite (1) — rinsed/bound; pain ↓; cutter continued• Protocol: two short → medical cross; hands visible; return on two short• Wall: steady; foragers: cautious → cooperative
Mokh spat into the river (away from the bucket) to see whether mercy left an aftertaste. If it did, he didn't hate it.
"Name," Aiden said, because promises weigh more when you carry them on time.
Tavi set a worn copper tag on the plank: a crooked T, the scratch of a newer hand—Tomas. "We try to say it," he added. "He breathes. He gathers brush. He has a cough."
Calder's jaw changed shape around the news. "On day three, if he comes under white, we'll carry him home," he said, already stacking the little plans a good healer carries like coins.
Mokh made a sound that might have meant if. Aiden didn't press. He laid a second rope token beside the tag and slid both back to Tavi—go, bring the name with a body if you can.
The cutting resumed. Ten mats became eight, then six—not hoarding, just enough to measure trust. The foremen nodded at the sand lines Aiden's people had brushed into the slope and used them. Hungry men grasp the kindness of friction fast.
A stone—small, wrong—skipped off the water downstream and died in reeds with theatrical bad aim. Bryn's head turned a degree; Hale's fingers said wait. Ras's pebble rolled into brush and kissed the heel of a boot that belonged to neither wall nor forager.
They flowed as commas do: there when the sentence needs to keep sense. Canvas. A hand mirror cut from scrap. A boy whose pockets smelled like walnut ink and coin and whose eyes had read handbills until the storm taught him the weight of wet.
"Bridge Law," Bryn said, gentle as a broom. "Light is for letters. If you rent fear during white, you sweep for a season."
He looked past her at the water bucket, at a goblin with a bound wrist, at a woman with a ladle who wasn't using it as a weapon. Something in his neck changed. He nodded.
Hale took the mirror; Ras snapped the tell seam on the canvas with bored kindness. Bryn turned him toward Mara.
"Water," Mara said, not a question. "Then broom." 🍲🙂
One long, Jory gave—end. The mats tilted once on purpose so reeds were visible—a visual oath that no one had taken what wasn't grass. Elara inclined her head the length of a breath. Garran and Orla drew their standards back together, and exactness became a kind of poetry.
Tavi lingered at the line. "Day three," he said. "We bring Tomas if Mokh is not made into a fool."
Mokh made a noise like a hinge trusting a door and pretended not to.
— Parley — White-Cut (Day 1 of 6)• Foragers: 10 (no drums) → 8 mats filled (two sent back early)• Incident: 1 sedge-bite (treated); no stones (ours)• Provocateur: 1 human mirror-runner (Pike hire) removed without incident (assigned broom work, season)• Name delivered: Tomas (Millcross) — alive; cough; brush detail• Next: Day 3 mid-sun attempt to present Tomas under white
Afternoon turned comfortably into nouns again.
Cordon: whiplines and knee teeth restored outside white; sand lines re-brushed; white rolled and stowed where hands will find it without thinking.
Drum Lexicon v0.4: Ras added bundle-count ticks (two quick taps between clusters = mat full); Jory mapped them into a horn note even though Elara told him not to get cute. 🫡
Optics: Venn posted the Optics Addendum at three more posts; Baptiste (Duvall's trumpeter) practiced not catching sun by accident.
Clinic: Ameline drafted sedge-bite care (rinse, bind, reassure—no heroics); Calder grunted approval that counted as applause.
Clove left a folded leaf on the mirror shelf.
Your white worked because it looked like work.Next: someone will try white with a drum.Bring a hollow drum to parley and knock it first.— C.
Jory's smile was unholy. "A prop honest enough to embarrass liars," he said. Elara's mouth allowed itself a small, sharp yes.
Lucien arrived late enough to be polite, early enough to be useful. "I'll place two binders at the left bank on day three," he said. "If Tomas coughs blood, we'll want steady hands and a clean blanket, not drama."
"Good arithmetic," Elara answered.
Bryn checked the west run: no Three Slashes dust—storm had scattered their errands. The Fort smoked like a kettle counting to six and not enjoying the arithmetic. The gourds along the road wore their hats; the cairns hummed — . (ready); the mirror shelf kept its mouth shut because evening belonged to sound.
Mara ladled Night Soup at the river shrine, one scoop for watchers who kept white honest and one for men who had said no to their own feet. 🍲🙂
Elara leaned on her knees at the bank and watched water continue to be water. "We taught wait to stand beside and," she said.
Aiden bumped her shoulder with his. "Semicolons earn their keep."
"Do not tell the line grammar jokes," she warned, fond.
"I won't," he said. "I'll just think them loudly."
She sighed like a person whose day contained only the right number of small miracles. "Good arithmetic."
"Novaterra," Aiden told the cairns and the tower and the river that had taken a breath in the right place, "we kept white boring and true. We crossed only on two short, bound a bite without buying a fight, brought a name out where numbers can't bully it, and caught a mirror without turning it into a story. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
The wind went down a gourd and came out two short—make way. People stepped aside for sleep and nobody charged it a coin.
— Evening Summary — Novaterra / Left Bank• White-Cut (Day 1/6): complete; 0 stones (ours); sedge-bite treated; 8 mats filled; foragers compliant (no drums)• Provocateur: human mirror-runner removed; Optics Addendum enforced• Name: Tomas (Millcross) pledged for Day 3 under white• Cordon steady; sand lines fresh; standards held; no pursuit• Drum Lexicon v0.4: bundle-count tick added; hollow drum parley prop planned• Spawn Window: 5–10 days; Fort sally appetite low• Morale: Quiet-proud; white trusted (cautiously) 🙂