Benny poked his nose through the curtain of hanging silver-bark branches and tumbled into a forest where the ground was stitched with glowing moss. The starlight above whipped in a swirl, and the dirt path he just walked disappeared behind a wall of creaking trunks.
His ears flattened against his round head and he pressed his small white body against the bark, holding very still while the trees hummed a low, long note. A tiny, stuttering glow bobbed into view at his paws—no bigger than the pad of his thumb.
The firefly shook, her light blinking on-off-on like a candle caught in a draft, then nudged her soft body against Benny's toe and flickered twice toward the dark gap between two trunks. He whispered, 'I'm not… I'm not good at dark places.'
The firefly's glow pulsed brighter, steadier, and she bumped his toe again—harder this time—so Benny cupped both paws and scooped her gently inside. His nose twitched against the cold, damp moss as he considered following her deeper into the shadows.
Three paths of starlit moss branched ahead, each glowing a different shade of blue, and the firefly's light went so dim it was almost gone. Benny spread his ears forward like two funnels, closed his eyes, and listened to the slow rhythm of the whispering trees.
The whispers tilted left, left, left. The dancing bioluminescent flowers parted like a heavy curtain as Benny stepped forward, and the firefly's glow suddenly surged—she had been storing the light all along, waiting for someone to carry her close enough to share the dark.
The canopy split open and the stars poured down like a slow waterfall of white-gold dust, landing on the moss and burning bright around their feet. The firefly lifted off Benny's open paws, spiraling up through the falling starlight.
Her glow stretched long and silver, carving a single straight blaze through the forest all the way home. Benny let his paws hover, still shaped around where she was, his big brown eyes wide and dry as the path ignited ahead of him.
The firefly landed on Benny's shoulder, her light now steady and warm, a tiny lantern ticked against his white fur as they stepped out of the forest onto the ordinary dirt road. The last silver-bark branch peeled away and the night was just a quiet night again.
Benny's ears were forward, not flattened, and he stopped to nuzzle his nose against her once, gently, while the long dirt path stretched ahead and neither of them hurried.
