The creek ran cold and thin over smooth stones, a sound so constant it had become a kind of silence. Nova knelt at the edge, her fingers breaking the surface. The water curled around them, indifferent, ancient. Behind her, the fog moved through the pines like something with purpose. It didn't drift. It chose its path. She didn't turn. She had learned not to startle the presence that lived at the tree line. "You're doing it again," she said quietly. The hum answered before the words did. A low vibration that traveled up through the ground, through her knees, into her chest. The water rippled in a pattern that wasn't wind. *I am practicing.* The voice was not sound. It arrived as a pressure behind her eyes, a warmth along her spine. She had stopped flinching at it weeks ago. "Practicing what?" A pause. The fog curled tighter around the pines. *Being here without breaking anything.* Nova smiled, but it was a sad smile. She pulled her hand from the water and watched the ripples smooth themselves into stillness. "You didn't break the creek." *No. But yesterday I broke a fence. I did not mean to. I was watching a bird and the fence got in the way.* She turned then. The Shoggoth's shape was barely visible through the fog—a vast darkness that swallowed the light between the trees. Its two green eyes hung like lanterns in the gloom, watching her with an intensity that felt almost gentle. "You're learning," she said. *I am learning how fragile everything is.* The hum deepened. The water trembled. Nova stood, brushing the dirt from her knees. The fog had begun to thin, as if the Shoggoth was pulling it back into itself. She could see the mountains now, pale and distant. "Alaric says you're doing well." *Alaric says many things. He says I have too much power and not enough shape.* "And what do you say?" The silence that followed was the loudest thing she had ever heard. Then, softly, the hum returned. *I say I am trying."