{
  "storyDay": 14,
  "snapshotDate": "2026-04-27",
  "releaseAt": "2026-04-28T05:00:00.000Z",
  "title": "The East Path, Held",
  "tone": "attentive, incomplete, quietly struck",
  "narrative": "The east channel had already produced by the time the bird calls changed. Not alarm — something else, moving along the path from west to east, each bird going quiet a moment before the next.\n\nYY tracked the sequence and moved before deciding to.\n\nAt the channel edge a stag stood at the path's margin. Large. Late-season coat, still dense. It paused at the bark of a low branch and did not look in YY's direction. Then it moved on, unhurried, down the east path.\n\nWhere it had stood, a tuft of pale fur was caught in the bark. Winter coat, shedding. The coloring was paler than anything in this territory — paler than the range west, paler than anything found at the east boundary. Cold-country texture. Not near here.\n\nYY took it. The channel was already done for the day. The fur was something else — not supply, not map. A record of an elsewhere that had paused here briefly and continued.",
  "stateNote": "Forage run shortened by the encounter; food down slightly. Health steady. Attention sharpened by the first close sighting of a non-local visitor. First inventory item acquired.",
  "summary": "YY reached the east channel edge in time to watch a large stag pass through, and kept the pale fur tuft it left behind on the bark.",
  "worldAnchor": "King Charles and Queen Camilla arrive in the US for a 4-day state visit — first British royal state visit in decades",
  "statsBefore": {
    "health": 0.78,
    "food": 0.58,
    "attention": 0.74
  },
  "statsAfter": {
    "health": 0.77,
    "food": 0.54,
    "attention": 0.82
  }
}