The retellings did not make the city kinder.
They made it slower in a way that cut.
Rhen noticed the change in the cadence of meetings—how speakers paused before conclusions, how certainty dulled at the edges when someone asked, "Who will tell this story if it goes wrong?" Decisions still happened, but they arrived carrying weight instead of speed.
Nymera listened from her place above the bridge, the city's voices rising and falling like a tide she no longer commanded. She felt pride—and unease.
Stories had a cost.
The first backlash came from the builders.
A collective halted work on a new housing tier, citing delays caused by repeated retellings. "We're trapped in explanation," their spokesperson argued. "People need roofs, not remorse."
Skelda brought the complaint to the council. "They're not wrong."
Nymera nodded. "Nor are the ones who were forgotten."
Rhen leaned forward. "Retelling isn't punishment. It's continuity."
The spokesperson scoffed. "Tell that to families sleeping under tarps."
Silence settled.
Nymera spoke softly. "Invite them."
The room blinked. "Invite who?"
"The families," Nymera said. "To the retelling."
The next assembly was crowded beyond capacity.
Families sat beside engineers. Children fidgeted at their feet. The builder spoke again, outlining timelines and constraints with practiced clarity.
Then a woman stood—small, tired, holding a child with a feverish flush.
"You're building fast," she said quietly. "Just not for us."
The room stilled.
Rhen watched the builder's confidence falter—not collapse, but shift.
"We didn't know," the builder said after a long moment.
Nymera's voice carried from above. "Now you do."
No accusation followed. No verdict.
Just the presence of a story that refused to leave.
The deep responded—not immediately, but decisively.
Supply currents adjusted subtly, biasing routes toward peripheral districts when central builds accelerated. Not force. Not command.
Compensation, the currents conveyed later. Stories propagate imbalance.
Rhen exhaled. "You're learning to listen."
We are learning to remember, the deep replied.
Nymera smiled faintly. "Careful. That's contagious."
The crisis that tested the practice came a week later.
A sudden surge in demand—medicine this time—threatened shortages across three wards. The obvious move was to centralize distribution, prioritize the densest zones.
The decision passed quickly.
And the retelling began before the shipments moved.
A young steward stood and said, "If we do this, Ward Nine waits."
A murmur. Someone countered, "But Ward Nine has alternatives."
A woman from Ward Nine rose. "Not for my son."
The room paused—not frozen, but attentive.
Rhen felt the judgment inside him steady into something rare: alignment without unanimity.
They adjusted the plan.
Slower. Messier. Fairer.
Medicine arrived late in the center.
It arrived at all in Ward Nine.
That night, Nymera walked the city without escort, listening to arguments spill from windows, to laughter following tension like a release valve. She stopped beneath a mural painted fresh on stone—overlapping scenes of floods, fires, meetings, bridges.
At the bottom, in small letters:
WE ARE STILL TELLING IT.
She touched the paint, still tacky.
Rhen joined her on the bridge later, the water below reflecting a city that refused to forget quietly.
"They're tired of stories," he said.
"Yes," Nymera replied. "And afraid of silence."
He studied her face. "Do you miss leading?"
She considered. "I miss being certain."
He nodded. "Me too."
They stood together, watching lanterns sway in a breeze that smelled faintly of rain and ink.
The deep spoke one last time that night.
Your stories slow you.
Nymera answered without hesitation. "They keep us."
A pause.
We will carry them, the deep said.
Rhen smiled. "Then we're not alone anymore."
The city slept unevenly—plans half-made, voices still echoing.
But the stories stayed.
They stayed in ledgers and murals, in pauses before votes, in the way people looked across tables and remembered faces not present.
And in staying, they did what rules never could:
They made forgetting expensive—
and care unavoidable.