Monday, July 3, 2023

Page 3353

At first, he answered everything he could, as their curiosity was matched only by his own, and he wished to know more of them, as well. In time, however, their questions became so incessant that he resorted instead to trying to make them laugh.

Within the clutches of the forest, the sun was often not visible at all, because the canopy of leaves overhead was so thick. And in the company of the wisps, Skapa lost track of the days, but he began to notice that he never seemed to grow tired or need sleep.

He began to suspect that the ethereal, hypnotic lights of the forest were having an effect upon him. He worried that, perhaps, this place was not the beautiful haven that it first appeared to be.

But he was enjoying himself, nonetheless. The wisps harbored many secrets, and they seemed to care for him.

They shared with him their visions, images from their minds of beautiful places they hoped to one day visit or return to. They shared with him their dreams, feelings from their hearts of things they hoped to one day do or accomplish. And perhaps most importantly of all, they shared with him their Pool of Stillness, a secluded body of water and nectar that invigorated him as he immersed himself in it.

The longer he spent within the forest, the more enraptured he could feel himself becoming. Increasingly, his life outside the forest seemed a distant memory, a thing of so little value compared to what he had discovered here that it was hardly even worth remembering.

And he was torn. In the back of his mind, his concerns were growing, the stubborn vestiges of his past self. But another part of him wanted to let go, to simply be.

Eventually, the wisps grew to love him so much that they deigned to share with him their greatest secret, the thing they treasured most of all.

It was the fallen star. The very thing that had led him into the forest in the first place.

When he saw it there, shining even more radiantly than anything else he had seen within the forest, he was reminded of his deep curiosity, of his thirst to learn more about the unknown. In this way, the star embodied everything he missed of his past self and revealed to him a dissatisfaction with the comfortable life that he had come to find here.

So he stole it and fled.

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