The lake was still. Too still. Nova had found a flat rock at the edge, where the water barely lapped against the shore, and she sat with her knees pulled up, the sketchbook balanced on her thighs. The pencil moved in short, uncertain strokes. She didn't hear Shogg approach. There was no sound — just a shift in the light, a dimming at the edges of her vision, and then the presence: vast, patient, watching. "What are you making?" it asked. Not with a voice. The words simply appeared in the air, soft as settling dust. Nova hesitated. Then she turned the sketchbook around. The page was filled with a creature. Not Shogg — something else. Something with too many eyes, arranged in a spiral, all of them open and staring upward. The lines were rough, the anatomy impossible, but there was a strange geometry to it, a coherence that felt deliberate. Shogg's tendrils went still. The green light of its eyes flickered once, like a held breath. "Is that me?" it whispered. Nova looked at the drawing. Then at Shogg. Then back at the page. "I don't know," she said. "I just... started drawing, and this came out." One of Shogg's tendrils reached out — slowly, cautiously — and hovered over the page. It did not touch the paper. But Nova felt the air grow cold, and the pencil lines seemed to shimmer for a moment, as if they were alive. "It is not me," Shogg said. "But it could be." Nova swallowed. "What do you mean?" Shogg withdrew its tendril. The light in its eyes dimmed, and its form seemed to contract, folding inward like a held thought. "You are drawing a shape I have not yet learned to wear," it said. "But you did not learn it from me. You learned it from somewhere else." Nova looked down at the sketch. The creature's eyes seemed to follow her. "Maybe I learned it from you," she said quietly. "Without knowing." Shogg was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, its form began to shift — not into the creature in the drawing, but toward it. A faint echo. A gesture of possibility. "Show me more," it said. Nova turned to a fresh page. The pencil felt warm in her hand. Behind her, Shogg waited, patient as stone, hungry as starlight. The lake stayed still. But the air hummed with something new.