The river wore morning like clean metal. Oakwatch flashed a pale wink where the mirror frame waited; the horn cairns down Founders' Way hummed the same note when Jory tapped them—each a syllable in the language of ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Novaterra• Glassworks: build & first melts on Glass Isle with Duvall's team (salt/sand/fuel)• Oakwatch: mirror perch glazing (T+1 after panes cool)• Cordon: Riversong Fort arcs steady; weirs −4; spawn window 14–19 days• Training: Militia (Anchor Step); riders (serpentine corrections)• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Morale: Work-bright 🙂
The river forked a small gravel tongue a quarter-mile below the ford—Glass Isle, soon to be. Ansel had staked a rectangle above flood-mark; Kessa the gearwright had arrived with brick molds and opinions; Lucien Duvall came with salt, a sand cart, and a kiln-master who introduced himself as Émile with a bow that made soot look formal.
"Island keeps fire where it belongs," Ansel said, patting a foundation trench like it had an ego. "Prevailing wind pushes heat away from town."
"Bridge Law for flames," Mara approved, ladle looped on her belt like a badge. 🍲😑
Émile traced the kiln's mouth on hard earth with a charred stick—dragon's breath style: low firebox, long throat, crown chamber, pot-arch like a rib. "We'll marry wood to temperature with patience," he said, accent turning patience into a nicer word. "No rush. Glass bites boys who hurry."
"Good," Elara said. "We've learned our lesson about rush."
Lucien dismounted with ridiculous elegance and produced a case—thin panes wrapped like letters. "We brought trial plates for signal tests," he said, "until your kiln sings."
Aiden took one, surprised by how much sky a palm could hold. "We'll make our own," he said. "But thank you for the loan."
Venn balanced a slate on his wrist and spoke arithmetic. "Fuel stock stack: alder and willow (fast heat), oak (steady), ash (polite ash). Sand measure: two carts. Salt: one barrel. Clay saggers for pots: six."
Kessa clicked her tongue at the brick line. "Kiln crown needs a back. Ansel?"
"Here," Ansel said, producing a drawing. The two argued like well-married crimes, then agreed as if they had planned to.
They raised the kiln as a small temple to controlled danger—brick, mortar, a low door that looked like a mouth that might forgive you for a while. Bellows without zealots; flues where heat could confess and leave; a glass bench on the leeward where panes would cool under blankets like sleeping cats.
— Glassworks — Glass Isle (Build)• Kiln: firebox + crown chamber + flue; crown braced; pot-arch set• Fuel stacks set by burn profile; sand/salt staged; clay saggers cured• Safety: water tubs (3), ash rake stow, Bell-Code: island only (trial)
Jory, fascinated by anything that made sound or light behave, had rigged a mirror shelf on Oakwatch—a simple cradle pointed at Glass Isle and, farther, at Cairn #8 on the far bank. "Helio is for letters, not alarms," he told anyone who'd listen. "Horns are for between, bells for inside, light for line-of-sight whispers. Don't teach fear to a mirror." 🫡
Elara planted flag posts where crews could see a hand gesture and not guess. Bryn posted a Pathfinder pair in the riverside copse—not for enemies, for idiots.
"Shall we light?" Émile asked, eyes bright.
"Light," Aiden said.
They coaxed fire into the dragon's breath. Heat crawled, then strode, then settled. Sand in the pot went from dull to pensive to clear at the edges like ice changing its mind. Émile sang softly in a language that probably meant calibrate your pride.
Kessa watched the crown with a scowl that was actually love. "Hold there," she said, and Émile held there without pretending he had meant to. The kiln hummed back.
"First draw is never the prettiest," Émile warned. "We accept bubbles like babies and try again."
They drew.
The first pane was warped and hopeful. The second was smug and cracked at the corner from someone who had thought cool air was friendly. Mara smacked the hand (lightly) and put a blanket over the bench. "Glass catches colds if you draft it," she said, inventing science. 🍲
The third pane let the river live inside it. When Aiden lifted it, he could count the far reeds through it and see his own face admit tired and not be ashamed.
Lucien smiled a fox's professional smile. "There. Your eyes just got longer."
"Let's teach them to speak," Jory said, eyes alight.
They hauled the loaned plate and the new pane to Oakwatch, set them in the mirror shelf, and angled the light at Cairn #8 across the river. On Glass Isle, Émile lifted a hand mirror and grinned like a boy with a magnifying glass and an antless afternoon.
"Dot-dot," Jory said. Light kissed cairn stone, hopped to the hand mirror, and flicked back: dot/dash/dot in a little song. Children gasped like birds. Adults pretended not to.
"Remember," Aiden told the crowd. "Light for whisper and counting. We do not ring danger on mirrors. We don't send screams where a horn should sing."
Mara had chalked a plank near the mirror shelf:
Light . . = "count."
Light . — = "ready?"
Light — . = "ready."
Light … = "bring water."(And under it: NO PANIC ON LIGHT. HORNS ONLY.) 😑
They practiced quiet things: How many sacks? (. .) Ready? (. —) Ready. (— .) Bring water. (…) The river learned to answer politely.
— Optics Test — Oakwatch ↔ Glass Isle ↔ Cairn #8• Mirror link stable (afternoon sun)• Light-calls established (logistics/quiet relay)• Drift: minor; corrected by shelf ticks; children banished from shelf 😅
Ansel and Kessa went back to bricks. Calder and the binders took linens out to sun where dust couldn't ruin their bragging. Bryn's Pathfinders refreshed gourds; Ras tucked a spare mouthpiece in a knothole with a little prayer about tomorrow.
Elara drilled hinge and serpentine again in the heat; Lucien sent two riders across the ford for pike-lite courtesy and did not make a festival of it. The fox was learning to enjoy being useful more than he liked being watched. That, Aiden suspected, was the kind of neighbor you pay for once and enjoy for years.
— Cordon Update — Riversong Fort• Smoke anxious; sally appetite low• Weirs: still −4; brush tunnel denied• Spawn window: 13–18 days (watch)
In the late afternoon, heat did what heat does: it made a man think air was safe. A kiln worker—keen, tired, exactly the sort children copy—cracked the kiln door too quick. A gulp of oxygen licked a rag at the bench. Flame ran up the rag and looked around for more to love.
"One short!" Jory rang island-only—the bell on the kiln post clanged with calm.
The riverbank walked, not ran. Water tubs slid into hands the way the right word finds a sentence. Émile clapped the door shut with a paddle and swore in pastry-language. Kessa threw a wet cloth over the bench edge. Mara pointed the ladle at a boy who wanted to help too close to flame; he helped further, and still felt heroic.
Calder pressed a cloth to the kiln worker's forearm—pink, not blistered—and told him a small lie that would be true if he obeyed instructions. "It will itch. Itches are arguments you win by not scratching."
The flame didn't get a story. It got a lesson.
— Incident — Glass Isle (Minor Flare)• Bell: 1 short (island only) → responded• Contained in 58s; 1 minor scorch (treated); no spread• Correction: door discipline posted; bench windbreak extended; wet cloths staged
Mara made the boy who'd cracked the door stir the cooling tubs for ten minutes so he'd remember with his arms. He cried a little, then smiled when Émile clapped his shoulder. "Now you are a glassman," Émile told him. "Glassmen learn by almost."
"Soup," Mara said, which cured shame better than philosophy. 🍲🙂
They drew panes four through seven: two perfect squares, one long strip for the clinic window, one oval by accident that made Lia's cousin laugh and call it a river egg. Even Kessa smiled.
— Glass Output (Day 1)• Panes: 2 signal-grade (Oakwatch), 1 clinic strip, 1 window oval (non-standard), 1 loaner replace (to Fox)• Waste: 2 (bubbles/crack) → cullet for remelt• Fuel profile logged for consistent crown temps.
Jory slid the best pane into Oakwatch's mirror shelf. The tower blinked and saw farther. He sighted Cairn #8, flashed — . (ready), got . — (ready?) back by mistake, and laughed as the children echoed him under their breath. "We'll teach the grammar," he promised the light. "Like we taught the horns."
Aiden let After-Sight sit unused; there was no malice here, only physics and manners. He looked at the island—fire where fire belonged, water within lazy reach, a fox praising without smirking—and felt the town's edges grow clearer.
Clove drifted along the bank with a notebook he didn't open. "Mirrors make letters more expensive to lie about," he observed. "My employer will hate that, which is why I'm fond of it."
"Tell him to bring sand next time," Mara said, then handed him a bowl. He ate, confessed to enjoying it, and walked away without writing that down. 🍲
By evening, Oakwatch had a real eye. Aiden and Jory stood in the tower mouth as the sun considered bed and tried a quiet test: … (bring water). On Glass Isle, Émile lifted a jug and raised it toward them like a toast.
"Tomorrow we glaze the perch," Ansel reported, patting the frame like a good line in a ledger. "Your mirror will sit in a cradle, not a guess."
"Good arithmetic," Elara said, which had become the day's blessing.
Downriver, Riversong Fort pushed one smoke too dark and then thought better. Bryn's gourds listened. The cordon held its ring without drama. Thorn and Bramble sat in their sheds like punctuation marks that knew when not to interrupt.
The kiln cooled under blankets. The river took heat and gave it back as fog in the first blue minutes. Venn wrote glass onto the stock list with a satisfied underline. Calder mounted the clinic strip window and watched dust fail to settle on patients' faces. Lia's cousin traced the oval river egg and decided it was good to see your own smile not waver.
"Novaterra," Aiden told the cairns and the tower and the little island that had learned to hold fire without bragging, "we made light behave like a messenger and fire behave like a tenant. We'll use both to keep our bridges heavier than luck. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
The wind slid down a horn gourd and came out as two short—make way. On Glass Isle, Émile lifted his hand mirror and returned — . (ready). The town smiled with its feet.
— Evening Summary — Novaterra / Glass Isle• Glassworks built (Glass Isle); first panes cast; minor flare handled (no spread)• Oakwatch mirror shelf glazed T+1; light-calls (logistics) established (no alarm use)• Cordon steady; Fort spawn window 13–18 days; sally appetite low• Cross-training cadence continues (hinge / serpentine)• Clinic window installed (dust control ↑); morale: Clear-eyed, steady 🙂