Skellington pondered whether to keep the sword or not for a good minute, his eyes roaming over the edge, his other hand brushing away the dirt and moss. He looked down to his hip, where the old, tattered leather loop still hung. He paused for a moment, as if remembering where it was meant to sit, before slowly sliding the sword back into place beside his hip.
He stared back to the lake one last time. He had no concept of time, no idea how long he had been at the bottom of the lake; was it a day, a week, or perhaps many years that had passed? He did not know. All he had was his last memory of the girl running away, disappearing further into the forest. His metal boots crunched as he walked across sticks and stones.
He stopped frequently whenever he ran into something new, staring long and hard at every new plant and insect. He tilted his head and stared at the bees flying by from flower to flower. They danced around the white flowers, buzzing around him. He stopped moving when a curious bee flew around his head. He tried to reach for the bee, but it flew away.
“What… are you… little fly?…” he rasped. All he had ever known were the insects of Etheria, each deadly as a troll: the bear-sized Titan Mantises, or the panther-sized Devilflies, massive dragonflies his kin had to regularly exterminate. These ‘flies’ were nothing like that: so small… so fragile… so… gentle… Curious, Skellington crouched down and leaned towards a flower, pressing his bony face onto its white petals. He crouched for a good minute, keeping his face in the delicate petals, but nothing happened. He got up, confused, not understanding the world of those little bees.
In the distance he spotted the red birds again, pecking away at some kind of bush, ripe with crimson berries. He stared at the two birds, wondering what they were saying as they chirped and flapped their wings at each other. They periodically pecked at the berries and seemingly at each other, trying to scare each other away from the ripe berry bush. Skellington walked closer, getting only a dozen feet away before they fluttered away onto a nearby branch. Skellington continued walking towards the bush, crouching down to grab a red berry from it. It was bright red in the sunlight, with a faint waxy coating on its surface. By his feet, he spotted more of the black ants around a few crushed-up red berries, using their little pincers to tear off tiny pieces. The gears in his head were turning, and he wanted to know why the birds and ants seemed so interested in the berries. He lifted a single red berry up to his face, placing it right between his teeth. Slowly, he bit down, crushing the red berry. He ground his teeth, turning the berry to paste. The chunks simply fell out from the crevices of his jaw. He looked down at the fallen chunks, tilting his head, before lifting his gaze back to the birds.
“Why?” He tilted his head in confusion. Unlike the animals and insects, he felt no hunger, and he had no tongue to taste with. His senses were entirely different from any other creature in the forest, relying almost exclusively on magilite sensing, his glowing eyes providing him with magilite vision, while the faint magilite of his bones provided all the tactile sensation he’d need.
Skellington continued walking through the forest for hours on end, with no sign of the girl whatsoever. With no muscles to tire, there was nothing stopping his strides. His bones creaked, his armor crunched, and slowly but surely, he learned more of the forest. He realized that the animals, the deer and the birds, much like the people that ran from him years ago, did not like to be near him, quickly bolting away as he came closer. With neither the concept nor the feeling of fear himself, he did not understand why creatures kept their distance, but nevertheless he learned to stay farther away, because that way, he would have a better chance of studying them for longer.
As night fell and the sun dipped below the horizon, Skellington was captivated by a large white doe and its fawn. He had been tailing them at a distance for an hour already, but all of a sudden, the doe stopped by a clearing. Curious, Skellington crouched below a fallen young ironwood tree, glancing at the doe just a hundred yards away. The doe paced a few circles, checking its back trail multiple times before grooming itself and the little fawn beside it. Cautiously, it lay down amidst the moss, head still up. The smaller one, a brown speckled fawn, let out a tiny squawk before nestling down beside its mother. Fuelled by confusion and curiosity, Skellington stared at them lying there for over an hour. Then, the majestic doe got up, stretched its legs, shortly followed by the little fawn, and they cautiously walked away from the clearing. Skellington didn’t want to scare them, so he stayed there, completely still, silently studying them. After they were gone, he leaned back against a thick tree. Sit… still?… He thought to himself, wondering what the deer were doing. He sat there for almost an hour himself, but without the need to sleep nor any hint of tiredness, nothing happened. Why?… Still?… He pondered.
He pushed himself up and continued wandering the forest. Hours went by and dawn broke again. The birds started their songs, and the forest woke back up. Cycle?… He noted, soon realizing that the forest, life itself, seemed to follow a pattern. But he himself? He was a machine, not meant to take a break to eat, sleep, or live… He was merely that, a tireless, timeless weapon.
The World Stones 