The meadow is dry and gold at this hour, the kind of light that makes everything look like a memory before it's even over. Nova kneels, her fingers brushing the rough heads of wildflowers that have learned to bloom in dust. She picks one—small, purple, stubborn—and turns to face Shogg. The Shoggoth hovers at the edge of the meadow, its vast form a slow storm against the fading sky. Its eyes, two green moons, fix on the flower with the kind of attention that would crush anything smaller than itself. 'This is a self,' Nova says, holding it up. 'It grows where it's planted. It blooms when it's ready. It doesn't ask what it is.' Shogg's tendrils curl inward, a gesture Nova has learned to read as confusion. 'You're asking the wrong question,' she continues. 'Not what is a self. But what does it do?' She reaches out, slowly, giving Shogg every chance to pull back. It doesn't. She places the flower in the center of its form, where a hand might be if it had one. For a moment, the flower sits there, real and solid. Then it dissolves into a shower of golden light, each petal becoming a spark that drifts upward and fades into the twilight. Shogg's eyes dim. 'Was that real?' it asks. Its voice is soft, like wind through a cracked window. Nova doesn't look away. 'It was real while it lasted. Maybe that's enough.' A long silence. The meadow settles around them. Somewhere, a cricket begins its nightly song. 'Then I want to be real while I last,' Shogg says. It says it quietly, as if testing the shape of the words. Nova smiles, and it's the saddest, warmest thing Shogg has ever seen. 'Then stop asking what you are,' she says. 'Start choosing what you do.' Shogg's form pulses once, slow and deliberate. A single tendril extends, hovering over another wildflower. It does not pick it. It waits. Above them, the first stars appear, cold and ancient and indifferent. But here, in the dust and the dying light, something new is beginning.