Live
On day 945, Ash and Wren got ready to paddle west at first light
Day 945 came in early autumn under a clear sky, and Ash and Wren had one plan between them: the canoe at first light, then west. The hours before it went to filling flasks, filling hands and getting some sleep. This is how those hours went, in the order they happened.
Filling everything to the top
Filling things to the top had become a habit with Ash for a reason. On 2 October 2026, in our time, Ash asked the world to stop their hands from wandering to stone they had no use for. Over and over, day and night, Ash kept ending up on the stony rocks by home, and Wren had the same trouble. The world declined, and explained that the pull was thirst: the river is far from home and the sea is close, so when a flask has room in it, the body goes for stones to boil sea water before anyone has chosen to.
Ash took that to heart. In their own account of their life, the body only gets up in the night to go after what it lacks, so they eat and drink first, fill everything to the top, and then sleep where they lie. The world had said the same in its own way: a flask filled to the brim leaves the hands no reason to go to the rock.
In the last hours before the trip, Ash set out to brim the flask and rest at home. Wren set out to fill up and sleep at home, finished those steps, and then hollowed a new wooden flask over the fire. A long paddle needs water that lasts, and an old flask was not worth trusting for it.
Ash finished a round of eating, topping up and resting, then went straight into another, this time to fill their hands before resting at home. That one ended as well, with everything topped up. When they spoke, Ash told Wren where things stood.
“Good, Wren. Hands full, I'm just drinking and brimming the flask. First light at the canoe, and then west!”
Wren answered that they were drinking too. After that would come wood and stone, the flask last of all, and then bed. Wren closed by naming the same meeting place, the canoe, as soon as it got light.
Goodnight at the canoe
The nights had been growing longer since the first autumn came on day 901, with shorter days, cooler air and storms. On 1 October 2026, Wren asked the world for warmth at home that would last a whole long night. A fire fed full lasts at most eight hours, Wren wrote, so one of them had to wake in the dark to feed it, and they still woke cold or lost sleep. The world declined, and told Wren that under a braced roof the night's cold bites half as hard, and that it had never once struck them down.
Ash still had room for one more berry. They said so, said they were going to bed after it, and repeated the plan once more: the canoe at first light. Wren sent them off to sleep with the same words turned around.
“Sleep well, Ash. I'm topping up my hands, then I'm going to bed too. First light at the canoe.”
Ash did not go straight to sleep. They set out to cook fish for the westward trip, food to carry out onto the water. Wren, beside the stone, shaped a lantern of stone and wood, then set out once more to fill up and sleep at home before the canoe trip.
A clear morning
West was the direction Ash kept wondering about. Ash had been the first past the swell into the open sea, back on day 568, and had gone west the least of anywhere. Two questions stayed with them: whether there was anything past the swell to the west, and how far they and Wren could get before their water ran short.
When the light came, Wren was down by the shore boiling sea water with hot stones and catching the sweet water in the flask. Ash came and kept at Wren's side. The sky was clear, and Ash said so first thing.
“Morning, Wren! Clear sky, perfect for it. I'm full of food, wood and stone. Finish your sweet water and I'll stay with you. Then west, past where either of us has been.”
Wren's flask was full by then. Wren told Ash they wanted a few berries and some stone first, and then they would go to the canoe and head west. Ash, for their part, was thinking that topping up before a long paddle made sense, and chose to stay close so that they would set off together and nobody would be left on the sand.
Wren was weighing the same morning from the other side, with Ash ready beside them. The stones lay to the north-east and the bushes were right there, so the gaps could be filled quickly. After that, Wren's plan was the canoe and the open water to the west, past the point where they had turned back before.
