A dying world. A burnt out sun. A pagan Goddess.

Nostalgic. Comfort and revulsion mixed together as its thoughts struggled to grasp at the ethereal threads that were its memories. Its mind was empty, opinions and memories stripped away by what it presumed to have been itss death, but still, the imprint was there. Like footprints covered by snowfall, the phantom was remained. A father, a mother, a lover, a daughter. No passion followed the faceless shadows that melted away in its thoughts, but it offered it some solace.

At least it once had such things. Though it may not exist in this ruined world, it must have existed somewhere before. There was a trace of its past self in the land where it once lived. That imprint, that mark too, was enough.

It wasn’t a lost soul, it decided, unseen eyes gazing over the self-same companions that the Goddess brought in two at a time. It once was something, some[i]one[/i]. Not just a lost soul. Not just forgotten, abandoned, left behind by time. Nor fated and chosen, a mere slave to an identity placed upon him by this horned deva.

It was simply [i]wandering[/i].

The void above threatened to swallow it up in its enormity. Its ethereal nature was absolutely mind-boggling, its own hands passing through its misty form. The wreckage, organized as it was, tore at its still-soft heart with its terrible beauty and wondrous desolation. So many sights to brand into its nubile mind, but it was the words of the Goddess that caught its attention. The Grand Journey. The First Challenge. The fragrance of nostalgia overcame its senses once more, the wisp shuddering in a mixture of delight and horror, pleasure and irritation. Like an itch it couldn’t scratch, photographs rolling in their abyssal grave.

It was something that was removed instantly by the pagan Goddess’s sudden transformation. A sword of silver. An ivory aberration. A gaze that promised death once more. Countless irrational thoughts squirmed within, a thousand deaths flashing before its eyes regardless of rationality. Bones that did not exist, turning into powder at the slightest twitch. Brains that did not exist, crushed into pulp at the thought of fighting back. Flesh that did not exist, bursting with goosebumps. A desire for a weapon, even though its ghostly strength was lacking, even though a rock meant nothing against a Goddess. In the face of the eldritch abomination, the wisp’s fear was first and foremost, but a rebellious undercurrent ebbed beneath, oozing different thoughts.

Violent thoughts.

It vanished like morning dew as the threat of extermination subsided, her charming appearance overriding the lingering dread, her promise that they would face greater predators than herself lighting that spark within it once more. A spark that illuminated the one meaningful question within his strange mind, discarding the value of practical knowledge.

[b]“Why are you so [i]small[/i]?”[/b]