northmoss

what the aurora does at night, moss does by day: it films the shaded north faces of stone and trunks that have stood a while, so a wall tells you which way you are facing without a compass or a hud. the clock is real standing time — a faint film after about a day and a half, full moss around four days — and placed walls start counting from their own placement, not from the world's age.

shears take it back off. a honeycomb wax seals a face against it forever, and that seal is respected everywhere, including by the ruins that ask northmoss to backdate their stone into looking its age. winter stills the growth; rain, petrichor's wet hour and the haar all hasten it.