Arthur received an urgent complaint at dawn. Not about trade. Not about crime. Not about infrastructure. Two families were arguing—violently, according to the messenger—over a corner lot in the new residential district.
He arrived expecting a serious issue. Bloodshed. Sabotage. At the very least, a heated confrontation requiring arbitration.
Instead, he found two perfectly respectable families arguing about who got a slightly larger garden.
Family One: a carpenter with calloused hands and a patient wife holding a sleeping infant. Family Two: a baker with flour still dusting his apron and a sharp-eyed teenage daughter. They stood on opposite sides of a surveyed lot, arms crossed, expressions equally stubborn.
"We marked it first," the carpenter said.
"The survey stakes were moved," the baker countered.
"By the wind."
The baker's daughter snorted. "The wind doesn't move survey stakes."
