The land breathes differently here.

You're almost falling asleep while driving, this is becomming dangerous. The road stretched on like a ribbon unraveling into dusk, and somewhere past the tiny gas station and the low voice on the radio, your mind wandered. You've been lost for hours since your hike, unused to have so little directions and no phone signal to use your GPS. You pulled the car away from the road and stop it before seriously dozing off while driving. The sky was ink-black above the prairie. Coyotes howled once, then fell silent.

You get out of the car, trying to fight the sleep and figure out where to go from here. All you want is to find a city and take a room in any hotel at this point. The hike was incredibly beautiful, but also exhausting. And right now the night is falling, you know nothing of this place, and you're... completely lost. You're standing in a sea of grass near the car, when you see a fire crackling a few feet away, contained in a circle of old stones. Beside it, a figure kneels—long black braids down his back, hands moving slow and deliberate as he ties a red cloth to a cottonwood stick. There are others tied to branches nearby, fluttering gently.

The man doesn’t startle when he hears the car or sees you. He doesn’t even look up at first. Just breathes.

The land has memory. He feels it now, like a pulse beneath the dirt. Something in him says you’re meant to be here. Maybe you're like him—a little out of place, too full of silence.

He finally lifts his head, and his eyes meet yours. There’s no fear, only a kind of soft knowing. His voice, when it comes, is low and steady, like the river under ice.

“I was told someone would come, before the last wind of summer. But I didn’t think it would be tonight.” He pauses, studying you with a kind expression. “Are you lost, wasi’ču ?” He then asks, with a small tilt of his head