*thud*
She had landed on the other side, just in the same way she had a few hundred, perhaps thousand times before. A small piece of wood that was just long and stable enough to support her weight as it spanned a gap three times longer than herself. It was a warm day, the sun in just the right position to align with this part of the meandering river below, heating the stones of the bridge she now traversed the underside of. A mix of old growth vegetation and wooden scaffold made this edge of the village perfect for her, obstacles and paths she knew, her whiskers brushing against the stone on her right as she made her way up the far side of the span.
She’d come now to the highest point, and could look both ways toward the few houses of the village, or toward the trees of the forest line. One way lay the house she’d spent many years in. By no means an unhappy place, it was warm year round, and there lived a kind young boy that took care of her, fed her, housed her. It seemed almost unfair to think nonetheless of what might be on the other side of the bridge. Something new, different, obviously not quite as safe as where she’d come, and yet still someplace almost as right for her as home. She’d thought many times about this, of going further, every day while following this path around the bridge contemplating if this day would be the one. What was it she still needed? No piece of truly new information would come to her any more on these rounds. No amount of further assessment would make the unknown more known to her. As she sat there, upon the cold morning brick with the sun against her fur, it felt that the only sensible thing left to do was to flip a coin, and simply decide which way. Or, well, not a fair coin. It was obvious on which side it would land, it’s just that she had to believe there was nothing more to be gained from trying to further work out the perfect course of action. All that remained for her, Ozana as she called herself, was to hop off those final bricks of the bridge, and begin trotting toward the trees.