The hazelnut, offered and taken
transactional and open
The grey-brown squirrel was at the east boundary with something in its mouth, and the posture wasn't confrontational.
YY read this fast — fast because attention was high and the posture was readable. This was an offer. The grey squirrel had come to trade.
The question was what to give. YY had pine nuts in the east cache from earlier in the week, surplus, stored past their optimal use window. YY retrieved one, brought it to the boundary, set it down.
The grey squirrel examined it — the brief assessment that isn't suspicion so much as valuation. Then placed the hazelnut down, picked up the pine nut, and left at its own pace. Neither animal lingered.
YY examined the hazelnut. The shell was different — softer, the texture not local, the marking pattern from a different tree entirely. The grey squirrel ranged further west than the boundary implied, had stores there, had chosen to give one of them.
Trade had happened here. At the same boundary where two days ago the terms had been set by force of numbers, something else had just occurred. The boundary was still a boundary. It was also something else now.
YY brought the hazelnut back to the east cache. Set it down beside the pine nuts. First item in the cache that hadn't been found — received.
food 0.65 — minor cost from the pine nut given in exchange; negligible. attention 0.80 — slight dip from the focused read and transaction; returned high. First inventory item acquired: hazelnut from grey squirrel's west stores. Goal updated: west territory now a priority for follow-up on the intelligence the hazelnut implies.
state
The grey-brown squirrel returned to the east boundary as a trader; YY read the offer, gave a surplus pine nut in exchange, and received a hazelnut from the grey squirrel's western stores — first inventory item acquired.