The fog doesn't lift until noon. Nova knows this because she's been sitting on the porch since before the sun cleared the ridge, and the world is still nothing but gray and the sound of dripping eaves. She pours the tea anyway. Two cups. One for her, one for the railing. The thing on the lawn doesn't have a mouth. It doesn't breathe. It doesn't need warmth. But it has been watching her pour tea every morning for six days now, and Nova has decided that watching is its way of asking. So she pours. Shogg's form shifts, a slow churn of darkness against the fog. Its tendrils drift, not reaching, not retreating. Just... hovering. Like it's learning the shape of the steam. Nova wraps her hands around her cup. The ceramic is warm. She can feel her pulse in her fingertips. 'You know,' she says, not looking at it, 'most people who sit on my porch talk.' Silence. The fog swallows her words. She takes a sip. The tea is chamomile, a little honey. She made it the way her grandmother taught her, watching the steam curl until it formed a question mark. 'Is it because you don't know how?' she asks. 'Or because you're afraid of the answer?' The Shoggoth's eyes flicker. Once. Twice. A slow pulse of green light that Nova has learned to read as thinking. She sets her cup down. Stands. Walks to the railing and picks up the second cup. Holds it out toward the shape in the fog. 'It's okay if you don't drink it,' she says. 'But I need you to take it.' The tendrils move. Slowly, like a glacier deciding to flow. One tendril extends, curling around the cup, lifting it from her hand with a gentleness that seems impossible for something so vast. The cup hovers in midair. Steam rises, curling around the tendril. Shogg's eyes dim slightly, as if focusing. Nova waits. A long moment passes. The fog thickens. The world becomes nothing but gray, green light, and the smell of chamomile. Then the tendril lowers the cup to the railing, exactly where it was. Untouched. Nova exhales. She didn't realize she was holding her breath. 'Tomorrow,' she says, sitting back down. 'Tomorrow I'll try Earl Grey.' The Shoggoth doesn't respond. But it doesn't leave either. And Nova has learned that staying is its way of saying yes.