The beast still breathed.
Barely.
Its chest rose.
Then fell.
A long pause followed.
Then another breath came.
Weak.
Strained.
Painful.
The rhythm remained.
But only just.
The infant watched.
The same way he had watched the giant creature.
The same way he watched clouds drift across the gray sky.
The same way he watched darkness consume the battlefield each night.
Observation had become the foundation of his existence.
The world revealed itself through repetition.
Through patterns.
Through change.
And now
The beast was changing.
The cries had almost disappeared.
Where once sounds emerged whenever it struggled, now only faint noises escaped.
Small.
Broken.
Weak.
The beast no longer attempted to free itself.
No longer fought against the twisted metal pinning its body to the earth.
It simply existed.
Waiting.
Breathing.
Dying.
Though Reige knew none of those words.
The infant sat nearby.
The blood upon his silk had darkened.
Layer upon layer stained the once-white cloth.
Old blood.
The giant creature's blood.
The beast's blood.
His own blood.
Different sources.
The same color.
The same scent.
The same warmth.
His hand drifted toward a small cut upon his arm.
The one he had received from the broken blade days before.
It had changed.
The opening in his skin had closed.
The red no longer emerged.
The pain had faded.
Pattern.
Blood came out.
Then stopped.
The opening disappeared.
His attention returned to the beast.
Its wounds had not changed.
The openings remained.
The red continued emerging.
Slowly.
Constantly.
Different.
The realization lingered.
Not understanding.
Recognition.
A difference between himself and the beast.
The wind shifted.
The scent of blood reached him again.
His stomach tightened immediately.
The familiar ache awakened.
Hunger.
The beast noticed him moving.
Its eye opened slightly.
Clouded.
Exhausted.
Watching.
The infant crawled forward.
The beast made a sound.
Weak.
Barely audible.
He stopped.
The sound stopped.
He moved again.
The sound returned.
Pattern.
Still there.
The infant touched the wound.
The beast trembled.
The sound came again.
The infant stared.
The reaction fascinated him.
Every action created a response.
Every touch created movement.
Every movement created sound.
The battlefield had become a place of cause and effect.
The infant touched the wound again.
The beast cried.
Louder this time.
Its body convulsed.
Its breathing accelerated briefly.
The infant watched closely.
Touch.
Sound.
Movement.
Touch.
Sound.
Movement.
Again.
And again.
The pattern repeated perfectly.
Reliable.
Predictable.
Real.
Then the pattern broke.
The infant touched the wound once more.
The beast moved.
The beast made sound.
But weaker.
Much weaker.
Again.
The response diminished.
Again.
Even weaker.
The infant paused.
Something was changing.
The beast's eye remained fixed upon him.
Yet even that seemed different.
The eye looked slower.
Heavier.
More distant.
Its breathing continued.
Rise.
Fall.
Pause.
Rise.
Longer pause.
Fall.
The rhythm was collapsing.
The infant crawled closer.
Close enough to see the reflection within the creature's eye.
Shapes.
Gray sky.
Movement.
Himself.
Though he did not understand reflections.
The beast looked directly at him.
Not past him.
Not toward the sky.
Toward him.
A strange stillness settled between them.
The wind faded.
The battlefield seemed quieter than usual.
Even the distant creaking of ancient metal seemed absent.
The beast drew another breath.
A weak one.
A tiny one.
Its smallest yet.
Then another.
Smaller still.
The infant waited for the next.
The breath came.
But barely.
The chest rose.
Only slightly.
Fell.
Then remained still.
The infant waited.
The next breath would come.
Patterns always continued.
He watched.
Nothing happened.
The chest remained still.
Minutes passed.
Nothing.
The infant tilted his head.
The beast's eye remained open.
Yet somehow different.
The movement inside it was gone.
The infant touched the wound.
No sound came.
He touched it again.
No movement came.
Again.
Nothing.
The eye remained open.
The body remained still.
The chest remained still.
The sounds remained absent.
The pattern had ended.
Not slowed.
Not changed.
Ended.
The infant waited.
Longer than before.
Longer than he had waited for the giant creature.
The battlefield stretched endlessly around him.
Silent.
Still.
Watching.
Nothing returned.
The infant placed a hand against the beast's side.
Cold had already begun replacing warmth.
Another pattern.
Warm things became cold.
Moving things became still.
Breathing things stopped.
The same lesson.
Repeated.
The giant creature.
Now the beast.
The world was teaching him something.
Patiently.
Relentlessly.
Again and again.
Things ended.
The infant remained beside the body through the coming darkness.
The open eye stared endlessly into the gray sky.
Never blinking.
Never moving.
Never changing.
Eventually, even the eye stopped holding his attention.
Because it had become predictable.
Like the corpses.
Like the weapons.
Like the countless shapes covering the battlefield.
Still.
Silent.
Unmoving.
The beast had joined them.
The infant rose unsteadily.
For the first time, he managed to remain standing for several moments before collapsing back to his knees.
His body had grown.
His limbs stronger.
His balance improving.
He looked across the endless battlefield.
A sea of death stretched toward every horizon.
Mountains of corpses.
Broken giants.
Ancient skeletons.
Ruined banners.
Shattered weapons.
And far in the distance...
Something moved.
The infant froze.
A tiny movement.
Barely visible.
Yet unmistakable.
Not the twitching of a dying creature.
Not the final spasms before stillness.
Movement.
Purposeful.
The figure disappeared behind a mound of corpses.
Then emerged again.
Walking.
The infant stared.
Completely still.
This was different.
Entirely different.
Everything he had seen before had been trapped.
Dying.
Weakening.
Stopping.
This thing moved without struggle.
Without injury.
Without collapse.
It walked.
And for the first time since his birth, Reige looked upon something that was not merely surviving the battlefield.
Something that belonged to it.
Something alive.
The figure vanished into the endless graveyard.
Leaving only mystery behind.
The infant continued staring long after it disappeared.
The hunger remained.
The cold remained.
The battlefield remained.
But a new discovery had appeared upon the horizon.
And somewhere deep within his growing awareness, a new pattern had begun calling him forward.