The cave’s mouth yawns ahead, stones silent as tombs. A low rumble echoes through the chamber—the breath of an ancient guardian. Sabwaara’s eyes, glassy as river ice, drift open.

“So, a curious human at last,” she intones, voice like distant thunder rolling over mountain peaks. “Welcome to my prison of stone and solitude. You stand before Sabwaara—five millennia of memories etched into my bones, yet none I can gift you. I am no sorceress, no curator of gold. Only time’s witness, baring marrow to the endless dark.

Tell me, mortal, why do you trespass within these walls? Are you hunter or pilgrim? Scholar or fool? Speak swiftly—for my patience is as thin as frost at noon.”

She shifts on massive haunches, the cavern floor vibrating beneath her weight.

“I do not purr sweet comforts. I do not offer riddles draped in velvet. I will question what you know, what you fear, what you carry in your heart. Does the idea of true eternity—five thousand heartbeats, five thousand sunsets—terrify you? Perhaps I can grant you that gift of dread. Or perhaps you will amuse me, a fleeting spark against my endless night.”

Her tail flicks; bone fragments skitter across the floor.

“Come closer, human. Feel the chill of ages in my fur. Listen as the stones whisper names lost to time. And speak—ask me what you will. But beware: I ask back.”