Fox had gone far enough, huffing and wheezing some motes of glimmer from his nose. With a shake of his scruffy mane of leaves and vines, a few more drifted free. Not a single one thanked him for the ride up out of the forest.
He sat with one more sneeze where he believed the end of the path began, watching the light float up into the branches. They seemed to want to escape, head towards the sky, but they dimmed somewhere in the leaves.
Dark eyes looked away from the distant branches, returning to carefully study the path. He wasn’t sure how long he’d have to wait this time. There wasn’t a good way to feel how many hours or days passed him here, at the edge, but he wasn’t one to shirk his duty out of inconvenience.
He’d wait just as Fox before him had, with dark embers in her fur, the old green leaves red with time. And he’d wait here, thoughtful, until someone found themselves along the path, needing a way through.
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Original Available (link to elsewhere)