Redtail Rise fulvous

The woman relaxed, if only by a fraction. The knot in his chest loosened; he fought the urge to smile. He took her invitation in stride, nosing his way past the scent markers into the teeming green just beyond it.

Through the sparse canopy he could glimpse the very top of the rise, its contours sharp and haphazard as if created slapdash by chance instead of incremental geologic straining on the order of millennia. Vertigo thrilled through him.

I'm Gavrel, he offered, feeling breathless although he knew not why. And then, a touch sheepish: should we get your fox...?