The meadow held its breath. Shogg's tendril uncurled with the slow precision of a glacier calving. At its tip, a wildflower — common, purple, stem slightly bent — began to glow. Not from without, not from the dying sun staining the hills amber, but from within. The violet light pulsed once, twice, then held steady, as if the flower had decided to become something more than itself. Nova crouched at the treeline, fingers pressed into the dry soil. She had followed the frequency shift, that subtle harmonic change that had pulled her from her cabin an hour ago. The Shoggoth had been still for three days — processing, it said, though it wouldn't say what. Now this. She watched the flower's petals tremble. Watched the light crawl up Shogg's tendril like reverse lightning, illuminating the dark substance from the inside out. The entity's eyes, those twin green suns, dimmed as the violet took hold. "Shogg," she whispered, barely audible over the wind. The tendril paused. The flower's glow steadied. "I did not know it would do that." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere — a thousand frequencies compressed into one. Nova had stopped flinching at it weeks ago. "Neither did I," she said, rising slowly. "What were you trying to do?" A long pause. The Shoggoth's form shifted, tendrils retracting slightly, as if embarrassed. "I was observing. The petal's structure resembles certain crystalline lattices found in deep-space nebula formations. I theorized that if I introduced a low-frequency resonance, the cellular matrix might... respond." "It responded." "Yes. But I do not know why." Nova took a step into the meadow. "Maybe it just wanted to be seen." Shogg was silent. The flower continued to glow, casting soft shadows on the grass. The wind carried the scent of sage and something else — something ozone-sharp, like the air before a storm. "Nova." "Yes?" "What does it mean to want?" She had no answer. But she crossed the meadow anyway, and sat down in the grass beside the glowing light, close enough to see the flower's veins traced in violet. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from Shogg's tendril. Close enough that when the Shoggoth slowly, tentatively brought the flower closer to her, she did not pull away. In the distance, a coyote called. The stars began to emerge. And somewhere, impossibly, the flower's glow grew just a little brighter.