The wind changed.
It was subtle—barely enough to stir the loose snow along the ridges—but Noctyrr felt it immediately. Not against his scales, but through the mountain itself. A shift in the air carried with it something unfamiliar.
Noise.
Not the roar of battle or the clamor of armies. This was smaller. Fragile. Irregular. The sound of uneven breathing, of feet slipping against stone.
Noctyrr opened his eyes.
He listened more closely.
Below the peak, far beneath the cavern where he rested, something was moving where nothing should have been. The lower paths were abandoned. Even beasts avoided them. Yet now there was hesitation in the air, the kind born of fear and exhaustion.
He frowned slightly.
It was not unusual for mortals to die on the mountain. They usually did so quickly. This presence, however, lingered.
The world had been quiet for a long time. Quiet enough that he had almost mistaken it for permanence.
Noctyrr considered ignoring it.
Whatever struggled below would soon be claimed by cold or gravity. Intervention would only prolong the inevitable. He had learned that lesson repeatedly.
Still, the sound persisted.
A pause.
Then a soft, broken exhale.
No plea followed. No prayer. No voice called his name.
That, more than anything, unsettled him.
Noctyrr did not move, yet his senses extended downward, threading through stone and snow. What he found was small—so small it barely registered. A warmth flickering weakly against the mountain's indifference.
A child.
His gaze hardened.
The world was never kind to those who wandered where they did not belong. He had seen that truth proven across countless eras.
Noctyrr closed his eyes again.
He told himself that this, too, would pass.
The mountain, however, did not forget the sound.