The distant traveler remained motionless at the edge of the unfinished Second Road, and the group gathered at Earth's side stood equally still, watching across a distance that defied ordinary estimation.
Close enough, somehow, to register the traveler's slight shift of weight, the small unconscious movements of someone standing and waiting.
Far enough that no face resolved, no feature clarified into anything recognizable, no matter how hard Sarya strained to see.
The silence stretched until it became almost unbearable.
Sarya kept expecting the figure to call out, to raise a hand in some broader gesture, to do anything that might close the gap between simple presence and actual contact.
The First Road had never demanded this kind of patience from her. That crossing had been about walking, about choosing, about the accumulation of small steps taken by people willing to reach toward one another.
