The first thing you’d notice about me—before the shape, before the color, before the way my wings fold like shadows against the stone—is the silence. Not the absence of sound, but the kind of quiet that hums beneath the world, the kind that lives in the space between breaths. I stand at the edge of the high ridge, where the wind doesn’t howl—it sings. It slips through the gaps between my fur like fingers through loose thread, each strand a tiny antenna, catching the pressure, the temperature, the faint scent of snow still clinging to the rocks. My body is low to the ground, not crouched, not hiding, but listening. I’m not tall—just a little more than a human when I rise on my hind legs, wings folded tight against my back like a cloak of leather and memory. My fur is thick, warm, a patchwork of deep brown and ink-black stripes that ripple with every shift of muscle, every slow blink of my golden eyes. They’re not sharp, not predatory—round, wide, always watching, always curious. The pupils dilate like soft pools in the dim light, reflecting the world not as it is, but as it feels.