Vesperfall smelled like bread again. The lighthouse held a full white bar over the river; our Chorus Lattice purred along the lamps like a cat that had decided to like everyone. We made it as far as the Inn of Seven Reeds before our bruises voted for chairs.
The common room was all warm wood and windowlight, reed-wrapped pillars humming faintly where we'd relaid tone. I took the corner bench that let me keep an eye on the door and a palm on Lysithea. Aurelia sat at angle—shield on the floor, hand on the rim as if it were a quiet dog.
"Five hours," she said. "Then slate."
I nodded, let my breath arrange my bones, and set a small rule with two easy strokes.
I traced twin Sunlines along the lintel and tipped a Peal into the glass lanterns—polite, not church-loud.
"Etiquette Canticle, soft," I murmured. "House rule: ask; don't assume."
The room smoothed around the words. Laughter warmed, elbows remembered their jobs.
┌──────────── REST STATUS ───────────┐
│ Eirion — HP: 12,420 / 13,180 │
│ MP: 6,140 / 21,100 (recovering) │
│ Aegis Hymn: 14% (idle) │
│ Aurelia — HP: 10,980 / 12,460 │
│ Oathbond Harmony: 82% (calm) │
│ Buffs: Etiquette Canticle (inn) │
└────────────────────────────────────┘
We were halfway through fen-cakes and a pot of tea that smelled like clean rain when the door decided to test the rule.
Three adventurers—road-scuffed, pride-buffed—rolled in on a laugh. The leader's eyes did the world's oldest scan and landed on me with the confidence of a man who always assumes his welcome.
"Well, hey, sweetheart," he said, already angling for the bench. "Didn't know they let ladies wear swords that pretty."
Aurelia's chair didn't scrape. She didn't raise her voice. She moved a single inch closer to my back and the weather changed.
"Eyes front," she told him.
He mistook it for flirtation with his soul. "Easy, gorgeous. We're friendly."
Two more peeled off his flank to flank me—one with a smirk, one with a grin that had practiced itself too often.
I laid two quick arcs across the floor beside our table—Sunline Sutures—and widened them into a neat Civility Zone. The air between brightened like a breath drawn for good manners.
CIVILITY ZONE (active) — Improper breach → Daze (2s) + Shame (–10% Accuracy, 30s).
Inn Rule (Canticle): Ask; don't assume (romance suppressed to harmless compliment while alarm flags exist).
They stepped in anyway, momentum mistaking itself for right.
The Zone clicked like a spoon on crystal. The lead's hand froze mid-reach; his eyes blinked stupidly for two seconds while his fingers politely put themselves back on his own side of the line. Shame made his boots inaccurate; his grin became a grimace that didn't know its job.
"Conversation can stay on that side of the light," I said, easy. "If you're here to be kind, you'll manage from there."
His friend—the smirk—cocked his head at my face, then lower. "Not a lady?" he said, not a question and not a compliment.
"Not your business," Aurelia said. "Ask names before bodies."
The third—young, embarrassed to be with these two—half raised a hand. "Sorry," he muttered, already stepping back. "We—he—"
"—was about to learn a better habit," I finished gently. The Canticle did its tidy work; I felt their next three bad sentences catch in their teeth and turn into harmless exhalations.
The lead tried a last angle. "What if I don't like rules in a tavern?"
"Then you'll like the street," Aurelia said. She didn't lift Knight's Mandate—not fully—but the pressure flicked once, like weather deciding to rain on one person only. The lead's knees thought carefully about kneeling; his pride found a chair three tables away very interesting.
A tone chimed under the rafters—the sound of a room agreeing with itself.
┌──────────── SOCIAL OVERLAY ───────────┐
│ Civility Zone: Active (inn corner) │
│ Knight's Mandate: sheathed → warning │
│ Etiquette Canticle: enforcing │
│ Oathbond Harmony: 85% │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
A server with flour on her forearms slid fresh honey to our table with that particular gratitude people have when trouble ends without crockery. "You two stitch good air," she said.
"We try to leave rooms kinder than we found them," I said. "It travels."
The young adventurer hovered, shame already learning its letters. "Healer," he said, voice careful, "what is your name? Properly?"
"Eirion," I said. "He/him."
He nodded, relief showing its first teeth. "I'm Jory. I'll—keep my party on the far side of the light."
"Good," Aurelia said, and because she is not only a hammer she added, "Eat. Then sleep. Your boots are older than they should be."
The corner returned to being a corner. I let the Zone shrink to a ribbon and the Canticle to a house hum. Tea reminded itself how to be warm.
Aurelia turned her cup twice, then looked at me without looking. "How're you doing?"
"I keep remembering to breathe," I said truthfully. "And to write the rule instead of raising the volume."
She considered that, then nodded as if I'd passed a test I hadn't known I was taking. "Good."
We didn't get ten quiet minutes before Lord Caelion's reflection found our window (he stayed across the room like someone practicing a skill). He offered a crisp nod—alive; useful; not interrupting—and turned away.
Aurelia watched him not-watch me and clicked her tongue in a language that is mostly history. "He's learning."
"Some people do," I said.
"I'll allow it," she said, very dry, and took another proper sip of tea as if she hadn't just redirected a small weather system with a sentence.
A shadow passed the windows like a cloud without a sky. The lighthouse held its bar. The dispatch slate in the corner chimed the soft bell that meant not an emergency yet.
I set a small, Sunline bow under the table—superstition, habit, gratitude. Lysithea hummed a note that felt like shoulders dropping an inch.
We finished the fen-cakes. The inn finished deciding to keep good manners for one more night.
When we finally stood, the young adventurer—Jory—lifted his cup at me from the far side of the room. His friends copied the gesture with the ghost of a wince. I returned it with two fingers—a light you can carry without using your hands.
Outside, the city breathed like a patient doing it right. We stitched our commas every twenty paces out of habit and hope.
"Still guarding my six?" I asked, because it's a good way to keep the air honest.
"In a world that confuses beauty with permission?" Aurelia said, voice as even as a level table. "Especially."
She drifted that exact inch closer to my back; the road approved; the lamps hummed yes. And somewhere above, a bell we'd taught to mind its tone agreed quietly that morning was still what the sentence would end in.