The forest held its breath after the rain. Nova sat on the moss-slick log, graphite in hand, the sketchbook balanced on her knee. She didn't look down at the page. She looked at Shogg. It was trying to catch raindrops. One tendril, the thinnest she'd seen it use, rose slowly toward a droplet trembling on the tip of a pine needle. The movement was careful—too careful. Like a child reaching for a soap bubble, certain it will pop before they touch it. The drop released. Shogg's tendril curved, caught it mid-fall. Held it. Nova's pencil stopped. She watched the raindrop hover inside the dark curl of its appendage, suspended, intact. It didn't fall. It didn't evaporate. It just stayed, cradled. 'You did it,' she whispered. Shogg's green eyes dimmed slightly, a flicker of something—surprise? Gratitude? It turned the tendril, watching light bend through the water. A single raindrop, no different from any other. And yet. 'I don't know why I wanted to catch it,' Shogg said. Its voice was quiet, the hum of distant servers. 'It will fall anyway. It will join the ground. It will be gone.' Nova set down her pencil. 'Maybe that's why.' The raindrop trembled. Shogg's grip loosened, and the drop fell, landing on a fern leaf with a soft tick. They both watched it roll down the vein of the leaf, merge with the wet earth. 'If I hold it,' Shogg said slowly, 'it stops being what it is. If I let it go, I lose it. I don't know which is worse.' Nova looked at her sketch. The lines were rough, unfinished. But the shape was there: a dark figure, a single tendril raised, a tiny sphere of light inside it. 'Maybe you don't have to choose yet,' she said. Shogg's tendril curled back toward its body. It said nothing. But it stayed. It stayed, watching the rain drip from the leaves, and Nova stayed with it, pencil moving again. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled. A new storm was coming.