Avout

First Appearance and Context

Avout are those who live within a Math under the Cartasian Discipline, distinct from the world Extramuros. The word is used by insiders and outsiders to mark that boundary. During Apert, gates open on a regulated cycle and brief, supervised contact is permitted.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Observances and duties: Avout wind the great clock, ring bells during public rites, and carry out coordinated tasks that set the community’s rhythm.
• Learning and outreach under Discipline: During Apert, avout may briefly go extramuros for errands and conversations while visitors enter select precincts under rules set by the Discipline.
• Information hygiene: Communities work to minimize unintended information flow; when coordination is unavoidable, it is routed through hierarchs and established procedures.
• Evocation for praxic work: Through Voco, avout may be formally called out to perform outside tasks. Instructions can include traveling in small groups, avoiding distinctive garb in public, and proceeding by ordinary means to a designated site (for example, to help form a Convox at another Concent).
• Community response to rare calls: After a widely noted six‑fold Voco, many avout turned to music and late‑night chalk‑hall work as ways of processing loss and focusing effort; details of such efforts varied by order.

Relationships

• Sæcular authority: The outside power can request expertise via Voco; within the maths this is treated as a solemn farewell for those who are Evoked.
• Practical counterparts: The Ita tend tolerated mechanisms and help enforce device limits; avout maintain respectful distance and reduce contact when paths cross.
• Orders and cohorts: Within a math, avout belong to chapters and orders that shape duties and study; some open their gates more rarely than others and coordinate cycles at Apert.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Attire and kit: Everyday clothing centers on a long strip of cloth called a bolt, usually managed with a waist cord ("chord") and a portable sphere used as a seat. Under certain directives (e.g., during Evocations), avout may be told not to wear bolt and chord under the open sky and to keep spheres small and unlit.
• Speech and terms: Members use traditional honorifics (e.g., fraa and suur). Teaching and mentorship by elder avout are common, with fids apprenticed in study and chores.
• Work and avocations: Beyond theorics, many pursue practical skills that support life inside the walls (e.g., beekeeping, woodworking), rotating with study as seasons and duties allow.

Current Status/Location

Avout continue to live intramuros under the revived rules observed since the Reconstitution. Following the six‑fold Voco, the rite was rung again before dawn and multiple avout were Evoked with instructions to travel under cover to Saunt Tredegarh by any available means, while those remaining maintained ordinary observances inside the walls.