As the light shifted enough to be useful, the forest seemed to loosen its grip, not because it had become welcoming, but because one set of rules had ended and another had taken its place.
The night had been governed by listening, by restraint, by waiting. Morning brought visibility and motion, but not safety. It simply changed the terms.
The green glow threaded through the canopy thinned, losing some of its intensity and settling into something closer to normal daylight.
Shadows softened first, blurring at their edges, then retreated into clearer shapes. Depth returned gradually to the spaces between trunks, so distance could be judged again without constant correction. The forest did not brighten so much as clarify.
Fog rolled low across the basin and through the exposed roots like slow-moving water. It hugged the ground in wide sheets, drifting around the remains of their camp.
