Zariah had spent years searching for meaning—through books, through fleeting connections, through the pursuit of progress. Yet here, at the edge of the world, there was no meaning to grasp, only the stillness of being. A breeze swept past, carrying the faint scent of ozone and something she couldn’t name, like the memory of rain before it falls. “Is this what they mean by presence?” she mused. “Not answers, but the questions fading into silence?” Her gaze lifted to the sky, its endless expanse mirroring the space opening within her. “Maybe we don’t climb for the view,” she thought. “We climb to remember how small we are—and how infinite we’ve always been.” The smoke from the burning smudge stick picked up, as if in agreement whispering secrets she would never need to translate.