The rhythm was changing.
The infant noticed it long before he understood that anything was wrong.
Not because he understood weakness.
Not because he understood injury.
Not because he understood death.
The pattern was simply becoming different.
And patterns mattered.
Patterns were the world.
The sky brightened.
The sky darkened.
Cold followed.
Then light returned.
Again.
And again.
The rhythm beneath the creature's chest had always followed its own pattern.
Rise.
Fall.
Rise.
Fall.
A constant among constants.
Something he could always find.
Always hear.
Always feel.
Yet now it was changing.
The pauses grew longer.
The breaths grew shallower.
The warmth faded slightly with each passing cycle.
The creature moved less.
Its eye remained closed more often than open.
When it opened, the golden color seemed dimmer.
Cloudier.
As though something inside it was slowly disappearing.
The infant did not understand.
He only watched.
The battlefield remained silent.
The endless shapes remained still.
Nothing changed.
Except the creature.
Every day brought another difference.
Another break in the pattern.
Another small alteration.
The infant found himself remaining closer.
Exploring less.
Watching more.
Listening.
Waiting.
The creature had become the center of his existence.
Not because he loved it.
Not because he cared for it.
He did not understand either concept.
The creature simply was.
And things that always existed became important.
The dark liquid appeared less often now.
The wounds had not healed.
If anything, they looked worse.
The flesh around them had darkened.
The scent had changed.
The infant noticed that as well.
Another pattern.
Another difference.
The smell was stronger.
Sharper.
Wrong.
Though he could not define why.
One gray morning, he awoke to silence.
Not complete silence.
The wind still moved.
The battlefield still groaned occasionally beneath distant shifting metal.
Yet something was missing.
Something familiar.
Something constant.
The infant lifted his head.
The warmth remained.
But weaker.
The creature lay where it always had.
Its eye closed.
Its body motionless.
The infant waited.
Rise.
Fall.
Nothing.
He stared.
Waiting.
The pattern should continue.
It always continued.
Rise.
Fall.
Rise.
Fall.
He knew this.
His world knew this.
Yet the creature remained still.
Minutes passed.
Perhaps longer.
Time held little meaning.
The infant continued staring.
Waiting for movement.
Waiting for breathing.
Waiting for the pattern to return.
Eventually—
A breath.
Weak.
Tiny.
Barely noticeable.
The creature's chest rose.
Then fell.
The infant relaxed slightly.
The pattern returned.
The world corrected itself.
The creature remained.
But the next breath took much longer.
And the one after that longer still.
As darkness approached, the creature opened its eye.
For the first time in many cycles, it looked directly at him.
Not past him.
Not through him.
At him.
The golden eye lingered.
Watching.
The infant stared back.
Neither moved.
The wind swept through the battlefield.
The eye remained fixed upon him.
Then, slowly, very slowly, the creature lowered its head.
Until it rested upon the earth.
The movement exhausted it.
The eye closed.
The creature did not move again that night.
The infant slept beside it.
Wrapped in his stained silk.
Curled against fading warmth.
Listening.
Waiting.
Expecting.
The pattern would continue.
It always did.
When he awoke, the world felt colder.
The warmth had weakened further.
The creature remained motionless.
Its eye stayed closed.
The infant watched.
Waited.
Nothing.
Hours passed.
Nothing.
The infant crawled closer.
The fur beneath his fingers felt familiar.
Warm.
But only barely.
The warmth was leaving.
Slowly.
Like something drifting away.
He pressed his ear against the creature's side.
The rhythm was gone.
The rise.
The fall.
The sound.
Gone.
The infant remained there.
Listening.
Waiting.
Nothing came.
The pattern had broken.
The infant pulled away.
He stared at the creature.
The creature stared at nothing.
Its eye remained closed.
Its chest remained still.
Its body remained unmoving.
The infant waited longer.
Because patterns returned.
Sometimes they paused.
Sometimes they changed.
Sometimes they slowed.
But they returned.
That was how the world worked.
Light faded.
Darkness came.
Still nothing.
He slept.
Curled against the creature.
The remaining warmth comforted him.
The pattern would return tomorrow.
Tomorrow arrived.
Nothing.
The warmth had weakened again.
The creature remained still.
The eye remained closed.
The chest remained unmoving.
The rhythm remained absent.
The infant crawled onto the creature's side.
He pressed tiny hands against its fur.
No response.
He pulled.
No response.
He pushed.
No response.
He made sounds.
Weak cries.
Soft noises.
The sounds disappeared into the battlefield.
The creature remained silent.
Another day passed.
Nothing.
The warmth continued fading.
The scent continued changing.
The body continued becoming colder.
The infant did not understand what had happened.
Only that the pattern had not returned.
For the first time in his life, a constant had vanished.
Not for a moment.
Not for a cycle.
Not for a day.
Gone.
The battlefield around him suddenly seemed larger.
The silence seemed deeper.
The cold seemed harsher.
The creature had not moved.
Not once.
The infant found himself staring often.
Waiting.
Watching.
Expecting.
The eye to open.
The chest to rise.
The warmth to return.
Nothing happened.
Days passed.
Still nothing.
Gradually, another pattern formed.
The creature belonged to the still shapes now.
The same as the countless others surrounding them.
The same as the bodies scattered across the battlefield.
The same as the towering remains buried beneath crimson soil.
Still.
Silent.
Unmoving.
The realization came not through understanding.
But repetition.
The creature no longer belonged among the moving things.
It belonged among the unmoving things.
The infant sat beside it.
The wind moved through his growing hair.
The silk fluttered softly around him.
Gray clouds drifted overhead.
The battlefield watched.
Silent as always.
His small hand rested against the creature's fur one final time.
Cold.
Not warm.
Cold.
Another pattern.
Another truth.
Warmth could disappear.
Movement could disappear.
Rhythms could disappear.
Things that existed could become things that no longer existed.
The creature remained motionless.
The infant stared at it for a long time.
Then slowly turned away.
The battlefield stretched endlessly before him.
A sea of still shapes.
Countless mysteries.
Countless patterns.
Countless things waiting to be discovered.
Behind him, the creature remained where it had fallen.
No longer a moving thing.
No longer a warm thing.
No longer a breathing thing.
Just another shape within the endless graveyard.
And for the first time since his birth, the child who would one day be called Reige faced the battlefield alone.