The Stepping Stones

The stones were set irregularly across the stream.

Some were broad and flat, others narrow and tilted, their surfaces worn smooth by water that never asked permission. From the bank, the crossing looked almost deliberate — a path suggested rather than made.

Liora stepped onto the first stone and immediately felt how misleading that suggestion was.

The stone shifted slightly under her weight. Not enough to move, but enough to inform her. Her foot adjusted. Her ankle followed. She did not think about balance; balance happened.

Halfway across, she paused.

The next stone was close enough to reach, but higher than she expected. The water between them moved quickly, flashing silver in the afternoon light. She could feel, faintly, the pull to hurry — not as a thought, but as a tightening in her legs.

She waited.

When she stepped, it was not because she had calculated the distance. It was because the moment had become available. Her body knew when the reach would hold.

One stone was slick with moss. Her foot slid, just a little, and her arms rose without instruction. The movement surprised her, but only briefly. The correction was already complete.

Standing still again, she realised that nothing she had done had been planned.

Yet nothing had been accidental.

Each step had emerged from the meeting of surface, weight, speed, and timing — all of them changing, none of them represented. The crossing was not executed from a stored sequence. It was assembled as she went.

On the far bank, she turned back to look.

From here, the stones looked even less like a path than before.

Liora smiled. She had not known how to cross the stream. She had crossed it.

The knowledge, if there was any, had never been ahead of her.