A slow swipe of his claw and the stone shifted. He contemplated an emotion he had not felt in a long time.

Another swipe and the hill turned a tiny bit more into a pillar.

"I am bored", the man stated. And another swipe moved yet more stone.

He had not been bored in his now almost eighteen years of life. But ever since his focus shifted to shaping the dreamlights of winter just right and his progress slowed to a crawl, the hunger had lessened. And this summer it finally left him. And while he could feel that he was tantalizingly close to completion, this still left his days empty of the task that had consumed them for years.

A gentle twist of his wrist smoothed over the almost vertical surface he was shaping only by touch.

And he could only wait for so long before it drove him mad.

He had visited the western village numerous times and learned quite a few of their words. Strolled through the forest at day and met many a beast great and small, resting or in slumber.

But he knew miles and miles by now and his focus had turned to applying his earthshaping powers to remodel his home. Handful by handful he moved, night and day. For there was little else to do. And since it was dawning, it was time to surface once more.

So he rose and leapt upon his current work. A rough pillar of stone that extended from the bottom of the swamp and rose almost a deers length above it. Fifteen more rose from the swamp, forming a rough spiral where he had pulled up the bedrock for his purposes. And in the middle stood the biggest of them all. A platform big enough he, who was by now the size of a pony, could pace on it. And which peaked almost three times his length over the swamp.

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He jumped from his platform and opened his wings to glide to the next. Then he followed the curve of the spiral inwards with lazy jumps until he stood upon it. Here he was on a level with the lower treetops. It had been a work of weeks. And for a bit he just sat there, before the urge to do something overwhelmed him again.

When a noise from the forest called his attention. It came from the south and as he turned in the direction, a chariot burst forth from the trees. It was drawn by winged bulls and adorned with golden and silver ornaments depicting sun and clouds. The beast tensed at the intrusion into their territory, but the man noted that the man driving the chariot held no weapons.

The winged bulls simply continued onto the swamp as if it was solid ground and only slowed to a stop a respectful distance from his current perch. The furclad rider made a gesture of greeting and then spoke strange words. He mimicked a greeting in the tongue of the western village in return and the man held in for a moment, seemingly in thought. Then he pulled out a strange scroll and spoke through one side of it.

Fascinated, he could only watch as the scroll unfurled and upon it were no letters but faces racing by. The man then gestured to him and once more he greeted in the language of the village. The scroll stopped upon a peculiar face of a strange lizard, which smiled with malice. The man spoke his language and the scroll exclaimed: "Greetings, Lord of the Swamp. I am the Messenger. I have been tasked to deliver a sword to Him. Might you be Him?"

"I might be he, yet not the He you seek", he returned and the scroll translated to the man.

He took on a contamplative look for a moment before he took out a big bag, opened it and pulled out a rock bigger than a man by one hand. In it was stuck a sword of masterful make. "Might you know who He is by happenstance?", the man asked.

Looking upon the sword brought forth memories. Stories. "You might have luck in the Lands of Avalon", he replied.

The man listened, then smiled and put away the rock. "Thank you for your Wisdom, Lord of the Swamp", he exclaimed, then waved and the winged bulls charged forth, carrying the chariot far and away into the forest faster than the wind.

For a long while he simply sat there. "Strange", the Beast remarked and the man agreed.

"We, he and He, we might need a name", the man stated and the beast simply nodded.

Then, as noon turned to afternoon, a sweet yet rotten smell drifted from the west. It was peculiar, disgusting, delicious.

He found himself at the edge of the swamp before he knew it, but the smell was gone with the wind.

So he simply returned to shaping his domain.

The next fall could not come fast enough. Then, he would finally see what happened if the dreamlights were complete.