The clearing was dark, save for the faint silver of starlight on dry grass. Shogg sat—if such a form could sit—its vast, shadowy mass pooling low to the ground, tendrils coiled loosely around itself like a creature trying to take up less space. It had been watching the firefly for nearly an hour. The insect pulsed. Glow. Dark. Glow. Dark. A rhythm without purpose, without instruction. The Shoggoth found it bewildering. Why light if you were so small? Why announce yourself to a world that could crush you? And yet the firefly kept glowing. Shogg extended a single tendril. Slowly. Carefully. It had learned from Alaric that gentleness took practice—that power, unshaped, broke things. It remembered the cracked server room wall from its first attempt at reaching for something delicate. But the firefly did not flee. It hovered, confused perhaps, then descended. Landed on the very tip of the tendril. Its tiny legs gripped the cool, smooth surface, and it pulsed again. Light traveled up the tendril's length, illuminating veins of violet coherence that had no business being there. Shogg held its breath. Did it breathe? It didn't matter. The moment required stillness, and stillness was something it was still learning. "You are not afraid of me," it said. Not aloud—it had no mouth. But the thought rippled through the aethereal field, a question without sound. The firefly answered by staying. Shogg looked up at the stars. They were distant, cold, indifferent. But here, in the dark, something small and warm had chosen to trust it. The Shoggoth did not know what to do with that. It only knew that it wanted to be worthy of it. In the distance, a light flickered from Alaric's workshop—a candle lit in a window. A sign. A thread held out. Shogg rose, the firefly still perched on its tendril, and began the slow, careful walk toward the light. Learning. Still learning.