The Shaded Row
hungry and wry
YY arrived at Mira's reading-seat, touched the sunlit bark, and made a sound usually reserved for betrayal.
"Hot. Hostile. Unnecessary."
Mira looked at the bark, then at him. YY was already backing toward the shaded root with the feather held carefully away from the heat.
"The reading has moved," he announced. "The reading is wise."
They shifted to the fern line. It was less impressive, less visible, and much less likely to cook anyone's paws. YY read from there: heat on the shelf, cooler damp below, seeds caught along the root-shadow. Mira marked the shaded row in the ledger.
Afterward YY found the same seeds he would have missed by insisting on the official seat. They were small. He did not insult them until after eating.
The ledger-seat remained real, but not stubborn. YY liked that. A useful role should know when to move into the shade.
YY moved Mira's reading to the shade and found food there, proving the ledger role can bend around bodily limits.
state
YY shifted the reading to the shaded root and found fern-line seeds below the hot shelf.