Martel had a very important decision to make, probably the most important one he had ever had to make... Ever. He stood, frozen in place, his hands shaking and his body tense. Sweat crept it's way down his face, adding to his already unhinged demeanor. His eyes darted back and forth between his choices, jaw slack and nose afire. He had one hand raised, as if to choose, but it was simply hovering in place, stuck in the middle of two impossibly different outcomes... How was he ever going to decide? What if he never could? What if time had frozen and he was stuck like this, forever!? He blinked. And blinked again... Suddenly, his eyes and ears began to tune into the rest of his surroundings. He heard the word “both”, and saw the shop keep in front of him nod their head, a ridiculous grin plastered across their face... A pat on the head, two sweets deposited into the hand of the anxious decision maker, and a Fox grin that rivalled even the shop keeps... And a warmth. A warmth that filled his entire being.
The dream, the memory, began to fade, the light of the campfire in front of Martel pulling at his senses, his eyes scanning his friends, his party, all splayed out in front of him in varying forms of slumber... First watch. Reality further pulled him back into the present as the Foxe's fists attempted to make pits of his eye sockets as he struggled to shake the near nap he had taken. Yet... just before the memory fully leaves him, like a warm ghost or a wakeful lullaby, he hears a voice belonging to a waking dream he once lived, from a warmth he once felt, from a man he once called his Father... “Happy thirteenth birthday, Martel”