Kigipigak’s steps slowed, then stopped entirely as the voice cut through the rain.

He did not turn at first. He listened instead—the rhythm of it, the ease, the timing that didn’t belong in weather like this. Thunder rolled again overhead, and for a brief moment he could have sworn the mountain answered it differently than before, like a breath taken in the wrong place. His ears angled back, then forward. Only then did he look.

The stranger moved like the storm was background noise rather than a warning. That alone earned a longer stare than most would survive. Kigipigak’s gaze tracked him with the patient weight of a hunter deciding whether something was prey, distraction, or problem. The joke came and went without landing. Humor meant little out here. Survival did.

You talk like the storm is yours, Kigipigak said at last, voice low, roughened by wind and distance. Not a question. An assessment.

Another roll of thunder followed, closer now, and he glanced briefly toward the cloud-line as if measuring it against something only he could feel. The mountain did not feel like weather. It felt… scheduled. Repeating. Waiting.

I did not come for a challenge, he added, shifting his weight against the slick stone, water running in thin lines down his coat. I came because the ground keeps moving west. And because everything that stays still… A pause, brief, almost reluctant. …stops being real.

A beat.

His gaze narrowed slightly, not hostile—contained.

You were counting the sky, he said. Why?