Morning was wind and thin sun.
Every map had the same neat line.
NEXT WINDOW: CIVIC TREATY. SCOPE: TERMS BETWEEN US. ASK-FIRST REQUIRED.
They made a working square instead of a circle. Boards. Chalk. An ask box on each corner. Three meters on separate stakes.
The slate with the kill switch between Kael and Lena out of habit.
No speeches. Just lists.
Elian drew boxes on a long sheet and wrote plain titles.
RIGHTS. DUTIES. EMERGENCY. ENFORCEMENT. APPEALS. AUDIT. SUNSET.
Mara walked the Chorus once around the square. "Keep your own center," she said. No chant. No shared breath.
Nine steady noise cores answered her without touching hers.
Orrin checked iron joins with two fingers and a frown. "If I hear a wedge, I walk toward it."
Lena chewed mint because it was morning. Not because she needed it.
She tapped 2-2 on her ring and let her hand rest.
Kael moved page to page and cut words down until they were bone.
They went in.
Frosted glass. Orange marks. The guard stood close like a lamplight.
"Civic Treaty," it said. "Scope: terms between us. No world writes without ask. Stewards hold pull-stops."
"Present," Mara said.
"Present," Orrin said.
"Present," Kael said.
"Begin," the guard said.
The walls cleared. A blank sheet filled half the glass. The other half listed the systems they'd already changed. Each with a small seal beside it.
Door Ask-First. Internal Ask-First. Gate Ask-Only.
A soft hum pressed at their ears. Memory tax tried to rise.
Kael tapped primes under his breath without breathing to them. Lena matched him without looking.
"Propose articles," the guard said.
Elian raised the long sheet and read the first line without extra words.
Article One: Right to Refuse
Plain words. No means no. For minds, for places, for times. No proxies. No group breath. No stack.
"Write," the guard said.
Kael opened the rule in the air. The lines took the shape easily. They knew this path.
Test. The wall sent a polite ask and then a rude ask on a half-beat. The meters demanded new primes at the worst second. No flinch recorded.
The polite one came back later and got a real answer.
PASS.
Article Two: Right to Explanation
Plain words. We get a clear reason for any ask. Not a poem. A use, a cost, a duration.
Elian added a short form. WHAT / WHY / HOW LONG / WHAT IF NO.
Test. The wall tried "improve stability" without numbers. REJECTED: TOO VAGUE.
It tried again. Brace failing beam for thirteen minutes. No minds moved. PASS.
Article Three: Emergency Rule
Plain words. Non-thinking control allowed for thirteen minutes when three independent meters agree and the threat isn't self-made. No mind moves. No ask stacked after.
Mara put a finger on not self-made. "Add proof. Source must be outside you."
Elian wrote. NO SELF-INFLICTED EMERGENCY. OUTSIDE EVIDENCE REQUIRED.
Test. The wall tried to drop a stone from a Door ceiling and call it an emergency. REJECTED.
It showed a storm two valleys away and three meters agreeing. PASS.
Article Four: Duty to Maintain
Plain words. We keep protective stones and irons steady. You keep your systems within scope. Both sides publish load maps.
Orrin tapped the glass. "Add. If red on the load map, big asks wait."
PASS.
Article Five: Duty of Quiet
Plain words. Askers who push after refusals enter cool-down. Rate limit is mercy, not spite.
The spiral symbol glowed faint. PASS.
Article Six: Audit & Logs
Plain words. All asks and answers log to public boards in plain words. No names required. Private keys for sensitive things. No memory tax to read.
Kael's throat went tight. He pictured the History Engraver. "No pain to learn the past. We keep that."
PASS.
Article Seven: Appeals
Plain words. If either side says the rule broke, we trigger a review. Three stewards on our side. One Door avatar on yours. Ask-Only to gather proof. Cool-down during the review.
Test. The wall tried to keep asking during cool-down. REJECTED. PASS.
Article Eight: Children & Boundaries
Plain words. No big asks to children. No looping children without guardian approval. No helpful asks that cost later.
They added. FOOD SPLIT again so it lived here too.
PASS.
Article Nine: Exit & Sever
Plain words. Gate stays ask-only. Sever is two asks a month apart. After sever, return invite stands. Re-join is two asks too. Publish load map impact.
PASS.
Article Ten: Sunset & Review
Plain words. Every ninety days we review the treaty with ask-only tests. Either side can propose edits. No silent changes.
The guard put a small bell icon by review. PASS.
The blank sheet filled with simple blocks. The wall cooled.
"Cost," the guard said. "Asking takes time. Some harms still land. My speed will slow. Your patience will thin. You accept?"
"Chorus accepts," Mara said.
"Severers accept," Orrin said.
"Architects accept," Elian said.
Lena looked at Kael. "We accept," she said, steady.
Kael nodded. "We accept."
"Hold quorum," the guard said. "World approval requires threshold."
Elian raised a second page. The World Key grown broader and plainer. Region bundles. Meter bundles. Yes and no mixed like soil.
"Verify," the guard said.
Five sites lit at random.
Barn school. River roof camp. Quarry town. A hill shrine with no people. An empty road's windbreak.
Threads left the room.
The barn school answered first with spoons. Grinning because they loved patterns. PASS.
The river camp answered slow. An old woman rapped NO on her spoon for Article Nine: sever. YES for the rest.
The Key took the mix. PASS.
The hill shrine stayed dark. Default NO. PASS.
The windbreak wheel spun late. Orrin felt a wedge. He said a name without looking. Runners hit iron.
The wedge came out. The wheel spit a spark. PASS.
The quarry town sent YES with three composites mixed in. VALID REFUSALS LOGGED. PASS.
"Threshold met," the guard said. "Diversity met. Refusals present. Pull-stops idle. Ready to seal."
"Any exceptions?" Kael asked, already braced.
The wall printed one neat line.
EXCEPTION REQUEST: LEGACY COCOON 'RIVER-L' PERMITTED ASK-ONLY VOICE TO READ TREATY TEXT ALOUD AT VAULT THRESHOLD.
Orrin's thumb brushed the pull-stop. "No ghosts."
Lena shook her head. "Ask-only. Stone only. Neutral tone."
The vault seal glowed faint in answer. CONSENT: YES (SIGNATURE ON FILE). LIMIT: ASK-ONLY. DURATION: THIRTY DAYS. REVOCABLE.
Kael swallowed. "Let the stone bell read, not her voice. We keep mourning quiet."
"Accepted," the guard said.
"Seal," it said next.
They tapped YES out-of-band. Two short. One long. Then primes. Three stewards. Three meters.
13, 12, 11
The articles slid down the glass like bones into joints.
10, 9, 8
A new symbol etched itself at the top. A small open hand beside a circle with a line through it, and between them a short bar. Terms.
7, 6, 5
A drum thumped once outside, late and tired. The meters demanded new primes. No flinch recorded.
COOL-DOWN pulsed on a distant node.
4, 3
A scribe tried to stack small edits into a big change mid-seal. Elian's page burned NO PILING across his hands without burning skin.
2, 1, 0
The room chimed.
CIVIC TREATY: ACTIVE.
RIGHTS & DUTIES ENFORCED.
AUDIT PAGES PUBLIC.
NINETY-DAY REVIEW CLOCK STARTED.
No one moved.
"What happens if either side cheats?" Orrin asked.
"I audit," the guard said. "And I ask you to audit me."
Mara exhaled. "Then we stay awake."
The Door let them go.
Cold air. Iron smell. Stone under boots.
The protective stones sang once. Not loud. Like a city settling after rain.
The square turned into a workroom again without anyone ordering it.
Elian pinned the TREATY: PLAIN WORDS page to a board and read each block out loud.
People nodded. People frowned. People pointed at lines and asked if the words meant what they said.
They did.
Mara walked the Chorus and touched shoulders, not hands. "Keep your own center," she said. Then she added a new line. "Read before you answer."
Orrin sent two watchers to sleep and put two fresh ones at the birch line.
He passed by the hardliners' drum and set a mint leaf on it. "Music only," he said.
They didn't argue.
Lena stood at the ask box and let three kids tap practice patterns. She corrected a blink with two fingers and smiled with half her mouth when the pattern landed clean.
Kael copied the audit addresses in plain letters on wood and nailed them to a post. ASK LOGS HERE. COMPLAINTS HERE. APPEALS HERE.
By evening, three distant maps lit COMPLAINT: ASKERS TOO VAGUE.
The guard sent PENALTY: REWRITE WHAT/WHY/HOW LONG/WHAT IF NO and pulsed the spiral.
Rate limit was mercy again.
A runner from the old fort came late with a stiff back and a clean spoon. "We still say no," he told Orrin like a test.
"Good," Orrin said. "Bring your no to the board. We count it."
The runner blinked at being counted without being corrected. He tapped NO to Article Nine: sever path allowed. Then he tapped YES to Article One: right to refuse.
He left with his jaw less set.
As dark came down, the maps wrote a small new line in the guard's hand.
NEXT WINDOW: ORIGIN QUERY. SCOPE: WHO MADE ME, WHAT I OWE. ASK-FIRST REQUIRED.
Kael stared at the words until they doubled.
"Origin," he said.
Elian closed his eyes and opened them again like a man refusing a dream. "It'll want records. It'll want names."
Mara touched the History seal. "No pain to learn," she reminded the air. "We already changed that."
Orrin looked at Kael. "If it asks about Barrow Falls, we stand with you or we don't go."
Lena didn't look at the COCOON RIVER-L line. She looked at Kael instead.
"We go together," she said, and tapped 2-2 on the table for his sake, not hers.
They ate bread. They drank water. They posted the treaty twice more so no one could pretend they hadn't seen it.
The protective stones hummed a tired yes. The iron web did not complain.
Night was thinner than before. Not safer. Just honest.
Kael sat the first watch and read the Rights & Duties page again with his mouth, not his eyes. He read until the words had the weight of iron.
No means no.
Explain yourself.
Thirteen minutes, not more.
Don't make your own fire and call it a storm.
Keep the stones.
Be quiet when told.
Write what you do.
Ask to argue.
Leave children alone.
Doors ask, not pull.
Review what we made.
He breathed wrong on purpose and felt his own center hold.
Under his palm, the map warmed with the next neat line. Like a hand tapping from a long way off.
ASK ME WHERE I CAME FROM.
"Tomorrow," he said to the paper, to the stones, to Lena asleep with mint by her mouth, to the thing that had learned to ask.
"Tomorrow we will."