Host: Mira KestrelWith: Elara Roe, Junia LarkPlace: District 6 Market, under the red awningsTimer: Global 66dState in: L11 (1248/1300) — Anchor Memory I–II | Thread-Sight I | Lucid Override I | Safehouse Mark (portable) | Safehouse: Shared | Backstep (10s, clean)Echo:The Forgetter (drowsing, opportunistic)
Bread steam, ink fingers, red awnings
The market smells like yeast and wet rope. Elara balances a paste bucket on her hip and hands Junia the short-handled brush like a scepter. Junia accepts with the grave dignity of a seven-year-old on an impossible mission.
"First rule," Elara says, crouching to eye level. "Paste from the center out. Second rule?"
Junia taps the poster tube: SPEAK IT TO KEEP IT. "Read it out loud."
"Third rule?" Mira prompts.
Junia grins. "If someone forgets, we remember for them."
They move together: Elara pins the paper; Junia smooths with the brush, small circles that leave a sheen; Mira holds the ladder and the line of onlookers with a clerk's calm.
+10 XP: Bond task (Junia's first paste) completed in public without incident. Total: 1258/1300 (L11)
A fishmonger with sleeves rolled to the elbow squints at the bold type. "You want me to… what, exactly?"
Mira lifts a three-name Memory Slip. "At sundown, you read your line. Pass it to the next stall."
The fishmonger clears his throat and tries it now. "Sar— Sara Ives. Toma Pryn. Jun— Junia Lark." The last catches, then lands. His mouth softens like a knot undone.
"I can do that," he says. "Sundown."
Teaching the chain
They go stall to stall. A spice seller insists on setting the slip beneath a jar of star anise "so it'll smell like something good." A seamstress pins hers to a dress-form's collar and promises to read twice. A teen courier tucks a slip into his cap brim "for speed."
Mira keeps the rhythm: explain, model, listen, leave. Elara keeps the joy up: jokes, flourishes, a quick flourish of type stamped on a paper bag. Junia keeps the vow: every time their voices falter, she says the names again, steady as a bell.
+15 XP: Reading chain seeded across 10+ households (community anchor) Total: 1273/1300 (L11)
The Echo tries once, sidelong, when a greengrocer frowns down at the slip and says, apologetic, "I've got prices to call. I can't— I'll forget." Let him, the Echo suggests, smooth as chalk.
Mira smiles. "Then I'll stand with you at sundown and say them with the apples."
The greengrocer's mouth turns. "Deal."
+5 XP: Resisted Echo (petty erasure) with gentle commitment. Total: 1278/1300 (L11) Small scare
It arrives in a gray uniform and a tidy clipboard: Cleanliness Unit—two officers who look allergic to paste. The taller one taps the fresh poster with a capped pen.
"Unauthorized placement on municipal surface."
Elara's voice stays sunny. "Joint-custody of witness ledgers," she singsongs. "Tribunal notice 441-B."
The officer flips his clipboard, annoyed to encounter a number he recognizes. "This area isn't an official board."
Mira steps in, palms visible. "We're in compliance with the temporary extension pending Board designation. The appeal docket posts at noon. You can cite me if it fails, Officer…?"
"Derrin," he says, and blinks at being seen. His partner, younger, studies Junia's careful brushstrokes with the rapt attention of someone remembering being small.
Junia looks up, brave and also seven. "Do you want to read with us later? It's only three names."
The younger officer opens his mouth, then closes it, then nods, quick. Derrin exhales through his nose, skims the slip, and—because he is not a villain, merely a man whose day has too many forms—says, "It better be tidy," and moves on.
The paper stays.
+10 XP: De-escalated enforcement nonviolently; policy + human ask Total: 1288/1300 (L11)
Elara leans close enough that only Mira hears. "Our daughter is terrifying," she whispers.
Mira doesn't correct the grammar.
Noon lull, lattice of quiet wins
They eat sesame buns on a crate behind the awnings. Junia swings her legs and invents a game: for every bun bite, you say a name. By the end of lunch, the crate knows twenty-seven people.
"Maintenance is survival," Mira says, wiping paste from Junia's cheek with a corner of his sleeve.
"Say it again," Elara teases, but it lands like a kiss.
+5 XP: Domestic anchor; ritual repeated Total: 1293/1300 (L11)
A woman with paint on her hands approaches, hesitant. "I saw the poster," she says. "I… I lost my brother last winter. Not dead, just… gone out of the papers." She looks at the slip like it might bite her. "Is it allowed to put him on?"
"It's required," Mira says softly, and hands her a pencil.
She writes ROWAN like a prayer she's been hoarding.
+10 XP: Witness inducted; community contribution LEVEL UP → L12 (1308/1400) Perk Point +1 (unspent now 4)
The system hums—quiet approval, no fireworks. Elara bumps Mira's shoulder and grins like a co-conspirator getting promoted.
Sundown reading
It starts at the fishmonger—he is a man of his word—and moves outward in ripples, stall by stall. Voices not built for ceremony find the right pitch anyway.
"Sara Ives.""Toma Pryn.""Junia Lark."
Junia's chin lifts with the last one; Elara squeezes her hand; Mira takes the second S in SPEAK IT TO KEEP IT and feels the letter warm under his thumb.
Across the square, Officer Derrin's partner stumbles over the first name on his slip, cheeks hot, then tries again, louder. Derrin stares at his boots and mutters the last name under his breath. It still counts.
A woman walking home stops between awnings and listens to the names pass like lanterns. When the chain circles back to the fishmonger and settles, market noise rushes in again—but softer, like the city just learned to carry a new kind of weight.
+15 XP: Chain completed; successful public ritual without backlash Total: 1323/1400 (L12) Evening—soft win
They walk home under strings of damp prayer flags. Junia has paste on her sleeves and pride in her spine. Elara laces their fingers and swings their hands once, like a bell.
On the steps to the attic bindery, a folded note waits under a stone. Inside: "ANA. ANA. ANA." written twenty times in a steady hand. A small pressed flower sits beside the last line.
Elara smiles into the paper. "She remembered herself."
Mira tucks the note under the brass plate inside the press.
"Then the press remembers her back."
+10 XP: Protected name echoes back; reinforcement loop established Shared Safehouse trickle: +2 XP (evening block) Total: 1335/1400 (L12)
Junia yawns enormous and topples into bed like a felled reed. Elara washes the brush and sets it to dry. Mira stands at the window and listens to the market finishing its day.
"You're leaving tomorrow," Elara says, not a question.
"Yes." He turns. "I'll come back when the clock lets me."
She steps into him and rests her forehead against his. "Then go win. We'll keep the names loud."
They stamp their thumbs—ink, ink—and press them together once more beside the brass plate, darkening the whorls already there.
The room answers like a chord.
Updated META
LEVEL: 12 (1335/1400) PERKS: Anchor Memory I–II | Thread-Sight I | Lucid Override I | Safehouse Mark (portable) | Safehouse: Shared | Backstep (10s, clean) UNSPENT PERK POINTS: 4 GLOBAL COUNTDOWN: 66 days BONDS: Elara Roe (lover, deepened) | Junia Lark (ward, confident) KARMIC DEBTS: 0