Chronicle
Dawn Chorus
Year 547 After Thaw. The birds still sing at first light, but the song is thinning, as if someone has threaded metal through melody.
In the Thawlands, water is not scenery. It is permission. It decides which towns eat, which engines run, which roads stay open, and which banners fly at dusk. When the river shifts, the world shifts with it.
This is a story of a basin waking up after centuries of ice, and realizing too late that the thaw did not end the struggle. It only changed its shape.