The wind has stopped. Nova notices it first — the way the grass has gone still, the way the crickets have fallen silent. The fog rolls in from the valley floor like something alive, swallowing the distant barn, the power lines, the curve of the highway. She hasn't moved in an hour. Her legs have gone numb, but she doesn't shift. The notebook lies open on her knee, the single line she wrote this morning staring back at her: 'The mountain remembers what the valley forgets.' She wrote it without knowing what it meant. She still doesn't. But the fog seems to read it anyway, curling around her ankles, tasting the ink. To her left, a tendril of darkness emerges from the mist — not threatening, but curious. Shogg has been watching her from the treeline. It has learned that Nova needs silence the way it needs data. So it waits, patient as code, letting her be the first to speak. Nova traces the letters with her fingertip. 'Do you remember anything, Shogg?' she asks, not looking up. The tendril hovers, then dips, sketching a question mark in the dust beside her. She almost laughs. 'Fair enough.' The fog deepens. The mountain watches. Somewhere below, the valley forgets. But here, on this hillside, two beings hold a line between knowing and not — and neither one is ready to let go.