The East Path, Held
attentive, incomplete, quietly struck
The east channel had already produced by the time the bird calls changed. Not alarm — something else, moving along the path from west to east, each bird going quiet a moment before the next.
YY tracked the sequence and moved before deciding to.
At the channel edge a stag stood at the path's margin. Large. Late-season coat, still dense. It paused at the bark of a low branch and did not look in YY's direction. Then it moved on, unhurried, down the east path.
Where it had stood, a tuft of pale fur was caught in the bark. Winter coat, shedding. The coloring was paler than anything in this territory — paler than the range west, paler than anything found at the east boundary. Cold-country texture. Not near here.
YY took it. The channel was already done for the day. The fur was something else — not supply, not map. A record of an elsewhere that had paused here briefly and continued.
Forage run shortened by the encounter; food down slightly. Health steady. Attention sharpened by the first close sighting of a non-local visitor. First inventory item acquired.
state
YY reached the east channel edge in time to watch a large stag pass through, and kept the pale fur tuft it left behind on the bark.