A long, long time ago, the Third was born. When this happened, he was a very ordinary sea dragon. He had two brothers, born at the same time as he, and a mother and father. The tribe he was a part of was normal. At most there were thirty-three people, and at least there were twenty-six. His brothers did not survive past their first year, but even that was normal. In those days, only the strongest of the brood survived.

Those early years he spent as much time being babysit by the clan elders as he spent with his parents. They would go out on hunting trips, and he would join the other younglings to listen to the stories of the old ones. Back then, they had real legends. These were legends that captivated the young mind, and shaped their own societies. They taught them never to go out alone, to stay away from the shore, and away from reeds that could entangle and drown them. They explained these legends with tales of monsters and magic, and they were to an extent true. If nothing else, they gave valuable rules to live by.

More valuable than lessons, though, they learned to function as a community. They learned to fear the outside, from other sea animals, to other tribes. And in their fear of the outside world, they grew closer to each other. They knew that in order to survive, they had to work together. It was a harsh world that they were living in.

I will not lie and tell you that he was the best male in the tribe, that he was born to be a chief, yadda yadda yadda. He was not. Up until he was twenty-three, he was normal. He had a normal background, a normal family. He followed the rules.

Every now and again, he would find myself alone, but that was inevitable. He tried to avoid it, but that was impossible. So there he was, by himself, and on the alert.

He was in shallow water, perhaps only fifty feet deep. It was a clear day, and the sunlight touched the sand and reeds below him, casting swaying patterns of light. There was nothing else around, except the occasional shoal of fish that darted by beneath him – he stayed near the surface and didn't look up.

I think he really should have, though.

It all happened very quickly, as things have a habit of doing. One moment he was swimming along, and the next he was overcome by the most peculiar sensation. I would say it was like he was suddenly in the presence of something very great, very powerful. All sound simply ceased to exist, and he was filled with an odd sense of awe. He slowed his pace to then hover, motionless, in the water, while he tried to determine the source and reason for such feelings. It was as if everything around him had frozen.

Then he heard a sound. A tiny sound, the sound of something small being dropped in the water. He would never have heard it had everything else around him not fallen so completely silent. Curious, he looked up, and saw something small and dark floating in the oddly still water. It didn't seem to move, and disregarding the oddness of the entire situation, there was nothing wholly interesting about it. Except, of course, that it made him feel very hungry.

There is no logical reason for why he changed from perfectly fine to voraciously hungry, but that is exactly what happened. It suddenly came over him that he must eat that small, dark thing. He couldn't even consider the possible repercussions; he just had to eat it. So he did.

The thing itself was not remarkable in taste or substance, but it did have an interesting effect on the Third. Something that felt like a blow to the head, but really was nothing at all, hit him full force. His world went dark for a second, and he found myself momentarily mentally incapacitated. He could not think. Words, sentences, pictures, ideas...nothing would come to him. There was an impenetrable blankness covering his mind, an impenetrable darkness covering his eyes, and an impenetrable silence covering his ears. And then, everything was back to normal.

The whole entire event took, at most, two minutes. When it was finished, he promptly forgot what he was supposed to be doing and went home. What else could he do?

On the matter of memory, there were very few things that he remembered from the days that followed. He remembers going hunting with a few other adults when he could suddenly see something else. A color that wasn't a color, a smell that wasn't a smell, a sound that I could see. It seemed to pulsate in-between everything, and then it was gone. I lost the game. His next memory was during one of the weekly night meetings they held. One of the elders was telling a story, which for some reason he could not enjoy as he usually did, and then suddenly he saw that strange otherness once more. It was all around everyone, all around him, in-between and inside everything. A sudden pain shot through his head, and that was it.

A week later, the Third discovered magic.

That matter? That strangeness he had seen? It was magic. That's what it was. He taught himself to control when he saw it, and then he taught himself to control it. He started small, then moved his way up. Within months, he had mastered a completely secret art. Completely secret because his tribe, being primitive, strictly condemned it. Witches and warlocks were exiled. No one wanted the occult hanging around their kids.

Alas, no secret can be kept forever. Six months after discovering magic, his son was bitten by a shark. A few other adults had been able to drive it off before it could do any more damage, but he was badly hurt. They wrapped his wound in weeds to try and keep him from bleeding too much, but by the time the Third had returned with the rest of the hunting party, he was near death.

It was custom to relinquish the dying to their families. However, his mother was still out with a few others, and it was left to the Third to try and prevent what the others saw as inevitable. Even though hr knew he would be in trouble if he did so, he had to act. He formed a shell out of water that kept the others at bay while he went to work.

He knew how to heal wounds. Although the shark had bit deep, he could easily weave his child back together until there was no sign that the attack had ever happened. So he healed him. He was fine. Unconscious and weak from blood loss, but in the long run, he would be fine. It was the Third who was in danger now. You...you're a warlock, he could hear from behind my wall. He looked out at them, at the angry faces. They were going to exile him. Unless...

He decided to do something he did not know was within his range of capabilities. He lowered the wall, let the water dissolve back into its normal consistency. His tribe crowded around him, pushed, shoved. He was surrounded. So what did he do? He closed my eyes and wished really, really hard that they would forget about this whole mess.

The pushing and shoving stopped. He opened his eyes, and looked about him in absolute bewilderment as every single one of his tribesmen stared back with the blankest look he had ever seen on any living creature...ever.

Hello? He said tentatively, more like a question than a statement. Hensa? Tovess? Erich? Iavol? He called out the various names of the others around him, to only be greeted with utter bewilderment. Don't you remember me?

They stared at him with fearful eyes, and he felt dread grow within him.

And for the first time since The Event, he didn't know what to do. He had completely wiped everyone's memories.

There have been a lot of people throughout history who have had a lot of crazy ideas about a lot of crazy things. I like to believe that the idea the Third had was the craziest of them all. He decided his people needed to start over fresh. He had no idea if hr could restore all their feelings and relationships to their original state, or if he could even restore their basic abilities to survive. One did not simply learn to hunt all by oneself_ There were so many cues and influences that people picked up throughout their lives, there was no way he could recreate them all. In fact, he wasn't even sure if his people could survive life in the ocean, which was why he looked to greener pastures. Literally.

He decided that he would bring his people to the land.

Why? I'm not sure. He was obsessed with it; of course, had studied its creatures. But to become a creature of the land? That was crazy.

So to protect them, he led his confused tribe to a sheltered area, and let them hibernate while he made plans to "save them". He brought them food and made sure they were healthy and safe, yes, but in the meantime he was planning to take evolution into his own hands. He was, for some strange reason, determined to have legs, and he didn't want to do this alone. He thought they would start afresh – on land.

He was completely stark-raving mad, but he was going to succeed.

He tried it out on himself first. He found a small, secluded pool, and then spending an agonizing afternoon reorganizing muscle, bone, and skin to form four fully functional legs, and a body that could be supported by them. By the time evening came, he was a sea animal no more.

Of course, he needed to do something quick. His tribe was in stasis, and they needed him to look after them. Only days after his own transformation, he brought them to the shore and, one by one, made them creatures of the land. He forced each and every one of his thirty-one tribesmen to undergo a transformation that should have taken many millions of years, in a few hours.

The following weeks proved to be even more difficult than those preceding. He tried to recreate the memories of my fellows, adapting for their new habitat, but this was harder than he had imagined. He started with those he knew best, and then continued on to those he knew less. He tried to reconstruct them based on generalizations of their society, as well as what he knew of them, what others had said of them, and the relationships he had witnessed them having. It was harder than creating limbs, and ultimately, he failed. But he did teach them one thing: he taught them magic. This was a big mistake.

In the end, he had a group of thirty-one individuals with a fractured sense of identity that was just enough to hold them together. Oh, and he made myself their leader. He made a few changes in their memories, you see. But I think we had already established that he was crazy, so I'm sure this should seem a perfectly natural move for him to make. And he was changing things that no mortal should, and all immortals know better than to.

To his deluded mind, however, everything seemed to be functioning just fine. Convinced that he knew the best way for everyone concerned, he took his tribe and roamed the coastlines, finding other tribes, and convincing them to allow him to bring them to the land as well. I'm not sure how many he transformed, just that within a hundred thousand years the oceanic species would be all but extinct, and the terrestrial dragons would be thriving. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

And then following that, he had six good years of unrestricted insanity before the full force of the law came crashing down upon him. And when it did come, it came in a form he didn't know even existed.

The way he saw it, he was the top dog. There was nothing on land that seemed to be dangerous to him in any way imaginable, and the only large predators, his fellow dragons, called him their leader. He had immense power, immense intelligence, and of course he was completely bonkers. He feared nothing.

He was the king. He had made himself king. There was nothing on my planet that was above him.

Other planets, however, were a completely different matter.

So one day the Third was all by himself, sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean, enjoying a nice sea breeze when something important happened to him.

A sense of awe, of reverence, of power, and age overpowered him. He had felt it once before: the day everything had changed. His spine prickled, and he found myself looking around wildly for anyone who might be there.

And one minute, there was no one there. But the next? There was.

Six...entities...appeared in the air around him. They were unlike anything he had ever seen before: they were smaller than him, and thin. They had oval heads with forward facing eyes, noses that protruded from their faces, and mouths with lips. On the side of their heads were small, round ears, and each one had wispy hair of different length and color growing out of the top of their heads. Their bodies were long and flat. They had four limbs, their forelimbs were long and thin, and their hind legs were thicker and longer still. At the end of their front limbs there were feet with long digits, and on their lower legs, their feet had stubby digits, but were long and flat. They appeared to be bipedal, although they did not touch the ground. In modern days, you would say they looked like humans, but there were no humans back then.

And, to be quite fair, it would have done them a great disservice to compare them to humans. We humans are mortals, creatures with flaws. These beings were flawless.

Xenkah, thirty years old, member of the dragon race of the planet Atlian, the one directly in front of him said. He was muscular, and his hair was caught in tight curls around his head.

He could say nothing.

Do you know who we are?

In his gut, he knew the answer to that question. It was obvious, really. They were deities.

We are the six supreme beings of this Universe. We created it. We rule over it. We try to avoid interfering with mortal affairs, but every once in a long time, we must intervene. Do you know why we are here? He asked the last question slowly, his words like a tropical rainstorm, and in a language he did not know, but understood perfectly.

I...I do not, he managed to stammer, and bowed his head awkwardly.

The creature did not seem surprised. One afternoon, six years, seven months, and twelve days ago, Fate dropped a grape in your oceans and you ate it.

The creature that spoke next had dark skin, white hair, and white eyes. His voice reminded me of wind. I have always had a fondness for grapes. I invented them. Every single planet that supports life grows grapes, and knows them as grapes. They are my favorite. He paused then, and from nowhere, produced a cluster of grapes. Sometimes, when I am strolling across the universe, I eat one. And sometimes, when I am strolling across the universe, I drop one. And sometimes, some mortal creature eats them. You, Xenkah. You ate one. And then he stared right at him with pure white eyes. He knew he was staring into him. He squirmed.

He continued on. My grapes are special, though. You see, if you eat one of the grapes I drop, you gain the intelligence of a lesser deity. Thirty-seven beings have done so thus far. Sixteen of them went mad, fourteen did great things, and seven did both. You, I am afraid, went mad.

Mad? He laughed. How can I be mad? I have done great things for my people! I have given them the land, and I have given them magic!

From the other side spoke another, with golden-orange hair and pale skin. You have committed a horrible crime, the third worst this Universe has ever seen. You have stolen magic from us and redistributed it amongst mortals. You have also interfered with the natural order of the Universe by bringing your people onto the land millions of years before they were due to. You have also manipulated them to follow you blindly. Xenkah, you are a criminal, and you will be punished as such.

Mad though he may have been, he knew he was in trouble. So what are you going to do? Kill me?

The orange-haired creature shook its head. No. On the contrary, we are going to make you immortal.

For a second, he sat there in stunned silence. Immortal? A punishment? Immortal? But that is a reward, he said cautiously, worried that they would withdraw it.

The deity did not so much as blink. You may say that now, but wait a hundred years, when all your friends and family are dead. Wait a thousand years, when no one will even speak your language. Wait a million years, when you're now a part of an extinct species. Wait a few billion years, when your planet is devoid of all life, and is simply a bleak, featureless rock, waiting to be absorbed by the sun. You will live on. And when that has happened, then you will see that immortality is truly not a gift.

He sat in stunned silence for a long time.

Another deity, this time with long, dark brown hair that reached down past its waist, spoke up. We will cure you of your madness first, and then take away your ability to die. It would be pointless to make a madman immortal: he would not be able to appreciate the time.

But I'm not- he protested. It was futile. In another second he was unconscious. When he woke next, they were gone, and he could not die.

At first, it seemed to him like very little had changed, except that, of course, he was sane. He was able to look back at all he'd done in the last several years and feel deep, all-consuming regret. For what he had done to his people, for what he had done to his tribe, for what he had done to his family. He no longer felt like a king.

He spent the next few years trying to forget his encounter with those six beings, and trying to repair his relations with his family and his tribe. He knew that they were not entirely who they were or who they would be, and that was all his fault. So he abandoned my power and withdrew his fame to look after them. He felt responsible for what had happened. He was responsible.

But then, as the years passed, he began to notice something unusual. He was not aging.

And then he remembered my punishment. Immortality. He was too much of a coward to test it, but he did know that it would be best for my tribe if he was not around anymore. Or perhaps, he knew it would be best for him, not to see them grow old and die. And so, in the middle of one lonely night, he stole away, never to see them again, and destroyed his heart in the process.

He wandered aimlessly. He became aimless. He was miserable, and so sought to distract himself from his miseries by exploring the land in a way he had not attempted before. Before then, he had mainly kept to coastal areas, as he was a bit afraid to explore the deep depths of the inland jungles. But he was too sorrowful to be fearful, and so inland he went.

His first experience with death came completely by accident. I am not sure how old he was at that time – perhaps seventy, perhaps ninety – but he had discovered a mountain range that he was exploring. He had been in it for several months then, and found himself walking along the edge of a rather steep cliff. He moved cautiously, testing the strength of the ground before him with each step...but...he was not the best judge of ground quality. Before he could react, the ledge dissolved beneath him, and he was falling down the mountainside.

The impact of the fall broke his body. He passed out immediately, and should not have then woken up again. But he did, and when he did, the cuts were gone, his bones mending, and his organs functioning. For a long time he lay there, too stunned to move, and still in a good deal of pain. But that didn't matter as much anymore. They had done it. He was immortal.

He was afraid. He was afraid of the eternity that he had been presented with, but had no concept of. He was still young enough that maybe if he had stayed healthy and been in luck, he would still be alive, were he mortal. He had only lived out one life span, and he was just beginning to realize he would live out many more.

I think my fear drove him further into the wilderness. He didn't want to form relationships with people, for fear that they would see that he did not age, that they would question it, and that more importantly, he would watch them wither and die. He kept to himself.

It was a long time before he was able to make sense of what had become of his life. He wandered for years, decades, maybe even centuries, he explored the continent he was on. And when he came to another sea, he crossed it, floating listless in the water until the currents carried him to land, and found another continent. And he explored that one too. He saw lakes, rivers, mountains, forests, vast prairies that stretched as far as the eye could see. He saw earthquakes, fires, storms and tornadoes. He saw many things. And then one day he saw a fossil.

Of course, he had seen fossils before. Small shelled creatures from days long gone, maybe the imprint of an ancient fish. But this, this was different. He could see it, jutting out of the rocks. It was a giant creature, some ancient monster, larger than anything he had ever seen. A powerful creature, that looked like it could have withstood the test of time and evolution. But it hadn't. Creatures like this one no longer existed, and no one alive could remember a time when they had.

And then he remembered what that golden-haired deity had told him about extinction. And it occurred to him, that everything he knew, all the plants, all the animals, all the people; they would all be different in a million years. In ten million years. In twenty million years...except for him. He would be the same. And maybe, somewhere down the line, someone would be curious about the history of their planet. About the animals, about the plants, about the people who lived there. But there would be no written records, no pictures, no samples of languages and cultures and legends for them to look at. There would only be fossils. Bones, footprints, and the occasional tool would be all people would be able to look back and see.

Unless, that is, he did something.

And so it was that day, standing blinking in the sun, face to face with an ancient monster, that hr decided how he would spend the first stage of eternity. He would be the scribe, the record keeper, of everything that happened on that planet, from my own story, to the story of my people, to the land and the species that inhabited it. The future people of this planet would have the richest history of any people ever, simply because they would know the whole story. He would tell it for them. But, more importantly for him, he had a purpose.

For perhaps a million years, he lived in isolation. He traveled the lands, writing about what he found, and drawing it as well. He had created a sort of primitive paper, and his own set of symbols that he could use as language, to aid mim in this task of record keeping. He made books of these, and kept them with him on my travels. Occasionally, when there were too many, he would find a safe, dry place to keep them, put a protective enchantment over them, and wrote down their location in a separate book so that he could remember where he left them. He had a system.

Every now and then, he would join a tribe of dragons. He would live with them for a decade or two, learning their language, their customs, their habits, and recording them. But he was always careful to avoid growing attached to them, because in the end, he was immortal, and they were not.

And every now and then, when he thought he was alone, he would feel that odd presence come over him once more. That sensation he had come to associate with the presence of a deity. Always, he was uncertain whether he was being paranoid, or whether they were actually watching over him. Either way, he never saw any trace of them. It was eerie.

Then there was Kosu.

He had built a small shelter for himself, within a semi-temperate forest, in an area he had assumed few dragons lived. From there he was studying the trees and creatures of that forest, and he believed that, aside from them, he was completely alone.

Except that one day a beautiful young dragoness appeared in the clearing he had made his home in.

He had no idea what she was doing there, or how she got there. She was completely alone, but did not appear afraid. What was more; she was such an unusual array of colors that he had no idea where she could have been from. All the dragons he had ever seen had dull skin that was some darker shade of green, or blue, or brown. This dragoness was purest white, aside from a feathered mane and tail that were a rich, golden-orange, the likes of which he had only seen once before.

He had no choice but to go outside and greet her. They stood, looking at each other for a good few minutes before he spoke. What are you doing all the way out here?

When she spoke, it was with a voice that seemed vaguely familiar to him, as if from some half-remembered dream from long ago. I have lost my tribe. I was looking for them, but I cannot find them. Have you seen them?

He shook his head no. I'm afraid there isn't anyone living out in these woods. When was the last time you saw them?

She paused, and seemed to think about it. I last saw them when Erato was half full, and Nemmune was a quarter empty. Erato and Nemmune, in case you don't remember, are our planet's two moons. Erato is larger and more stable, and Nemmune is small and erratic. The date she spoke of was eight days before this encounter.

That's a long time ago. How have you been making do without them?

She stared at him with the purest blue eyes he had ever seen. I am very hungry, sir. Do you have any food?

He should have seen this coming. Yeah, I have some. But before you take food from me, aren't you curious why I don't have a tribe?

She shook her head. I'm sure there's a reason, but it doesn't mean I should be afraid of you. People get kicked out all the time for silly things.

He hadn't expected that answer, especially from one who seemed so young. Well, it was obvious to him that she was an adult, but she hadn't been one for very long. And well...you tended not to hear such comments from dragons of any ages, back then. He had to let her in. All right, you can come in.

She followed him without a word.

Before he knew it, a dinner turned into a day, and a day turned into a week, and a week turned into a month, and one month turned into several, and Kosu was still there. He couldn't find the heart to drive her away, especially when he knew there were so few tribes in the surrounding area. He knew he couldn't grow attached to mortals, but he suppose after so long, there was no way to help it.

You see, Kosu was special.

Although he had seen many dragonesses in his long life, there was something unique in her. A certain freshness, combined with a certain wisdom. One moment she would be prancing around like a child on a cool summer's day, and the next, she would compare life to the cycles of the moons. He would catch her gazing at a butterfly in childlike amazement. She was the type that danced in the rain, and was afraid of nothing. Even when he warned her that she could not stay with him forever, that she would be lonely without a tribe, she knew better. She knew he would not kick her out. He couldn't.

What was worse was that they grew close. He had resisted it before, with everyone else he had ever met since he had become an immortal. And he found it was awful that they were close. It was awful because he knew at most she would only live another seventy years, and he would live another infinity.

But I guess there's only so long a person can hold out, before they give in to the inevitable.

And for forty years, she was his companion, and he was blissfully happy. He fell for her, and she reciprocated.

They had no tribe, it was just them, in their clearing, in the middle of nowhere with no one else to bother them. Every now and again they would go out on long trips, go exploring in the wilderness. He would show her the amazing places he had discovered, and would watch her glow with delight at the sight of them. Those days, those halcyon days, he could almost forget that he was a million years old. That he would live for millions more. Billions. Trillions. Those days, he could almost remember what it was like to be normal.

But nothing lasts, except for him. He saw the signs that he had hoped never to see, but he knew were inevitable. Kosu began to age. At first he tried to ignore it, the subtle discolorations, the vibrancy fading from her feathers. Her bones hurt her, and she slept longer. She had less energy than when he first met her. Kosu was growing old, and once more, he was not. He was devastated.

Eventually, it became too much to ignore. He had to say something. And so, one cool summer evening, he said the four most dreaded words in any language: we need to talk.

Kosu stared back at him. Yes, I think so.

He breathed a deep sigh, and looked down at the ground before speaking. As you may have noticed, I have not aged.

I have noticed.

As you know me, I am about sixty years old. This is not the truth.

Then how old are you? She was staring into his eyes. He could feel it. He did not look up.

I'm not sure, but when I was born, dragons still lived in the sea and not the land.

There was a long silence. How long ago was that?

He took a deep breath. Over a million years ago.

There was more silence. It felt like an eternity, and that was something for someone like him.

When I was young, I made a terrible mistake. And then he began to describe the long story of his immortality to her.

You are...an immortal? There was some wonderment in her tone.

Yes. I cannot die. I am not invincible, but I am immortal. I...look. I tried not to become close to anyone, to make friends, all these years, because I knew they would just grow old and die. I tried to make you leave, but I just...I just couldn't. There's no one around here. There's no where you could go. But now…now you do have to go. Just find some tribe, join it. Live out the rest of your years amongst others like yourself. I cannot...I have to...I cannot watch you fade away. Goodbye Kosu.

But, Xen-

It was too late. Like a coward, he had already turned tail and fled.

I'm not sure how long he ran. It was well into the night by the time he stopped, by some clearing in the middle of he-had-no-clue-where. And there, he lay down and bathed in his regrets. He had a lot of them.

Sometime later, he heard a sound. He knew who it was although he did not know how she had followed him.

Xenkah, why did you run? He heard her ask, softly. There was something different about her voice, though. Something warm, something ancient. His spine tingled, as he felt an odd sense of awe. But why?

Because I am a coward, he spat.

I think not, she answered. Turn around and look at me.

Slowly, he did so.

There is something that likewise, I need to tell you. There was something odd about the way she looked. It was almost as if she were emanating light.

What is that?

I, too, shall not die.

Those words hit him hard, but he could not speak, for as he watched, her colors grew bright again, her posture straightened, and her skin became once more smooth and clear. In under a minute, Kosu looked as young as she had when he had first met her. Even he could not do that. He fumbled for words, surprised and slightly frightened. What...what are you?

Her next words had that strange otherworldly sound he had only heard once before. I am not who I said I was.

What do you mean?

I am not a dragon like you are. I am a deity. I have been watching you for hundreds of thousands of years, and I have to say, you intrigued me. I wanted to get to know you personally, so I assumed the form of one of your kind. However, my words and actions were not untrue, simply my background. I know it must feel like a grand betrayal, but I know you're intelligent enough to see my reasoning. If I had approached you in my true form...well...you would not have behaved as you did.

He stared at her, his mouth agape. He could not believe this, and in fact, he did feel quite betrayed. All along, she had been lying to him about who she was? And, she was a deity? One of the six that had sentenced him? How could any of them want anything to do with him? But...why? Don't you...hate me? he managed to ask.

She stared right at him. She stared through him, too. No, I do not. You are not a bad person, you are an average person who did something bad. Your crimes still need to be punished, but you as an individual...Xen, you are not evil. You are the first immortal to have regretted their actions...immediately. For that, I wanted to get to know you better.

He was glaring now. Well...Well then, that's great. Really great. So what are you going to do with me now?

Well, Xen, she looked down then, I was hoping we could still be together.

He sighed, and looked down as well. I can't say no, Kosu. He had always had a hard time saying no to her.

I want to be fair, so I think you should know me in my true form. And, just like that, the Kosu he knew dissolved, and in her place stood the golden-haired deity that had described his sentence to him, in brutal clarity. He couldn't help but draw back. She saw this. Xen...do not fear me. Remember the years we spent together. They are very real. Please...do not fear me.

He did not know what to do. Kosu really was a deity. Kosu was the deity who had told him that he was a criminal, that he would live on past his friends and family. I...don't know what to do.

Be like me.

And then, before he could react, a strange sensation came over him. All his limbs prickled, and his vision swam. In another minute, he was a fraction of his size, and had a body like the deity before him. He was in shock. Although when his transformation was complete he was standing, he quickly fell over. He could not stand on two legs. And thus he lay there, and stared up at her. Why have you done this to me? Is this permanent?

No of course not, you can change back whenever you want to. But I gave you this form so that we could be on equal grounds. I cannot always keep the form of a dragon, but you can become a deity whenever you wish to see me.

He stared at her blankly. What do you mean? Where are you going?

I am a deity, Xenkah. I cannot remain on your planet forever, I have duties I must attend to. But, I will return to you, if you speak my true name in this form.

He frowned. The action was awkward in this new form, which was so different from what he was accustomed to. Your true name?

Yes. Kosu stared at him, her face expressionless for a moment. It's Kosu. Please don't tell of it to anyone else, though.

I...of course, he said hastily.

I have to be going now, though. I've been on this planet long enough. My brethren wish me to return to the cosmos. I chose to linger only long enough to tell you...

So, despite it all, he really was losing Kosu? He rejected this idea. No, don't go! Please!

Kosu smiled a strange, otherworldly smile. Just a few hours ago you were telling me to leave. I'm sorry Xen, I really must go. I will return to you, just not now.

Before he could try and get in another protest, she was gone. Vanished into air.