She isn't the only thing here in the center of the universe.

The pungent smell of sweet herb permeates the overgrown grotto and hangs thick in the air like fog, billowing lazily in slow circles until the memories of a distant life are orbiting each other in a merry dance of union. They are delirious in their jubilation, faces split unnaturally wide with their smiles and heads thrown back at impossible angles in raucous laughter that sounds more like the wails of the dying rather than the cheerful peals of a couple coming together in matrimony. Caught up in the tornado of their circling feet lay a lavender babe, wet with new life, soaked in blood.

It continues through the smog without a care, cutting through their ceremony until they fade into nothingness and their screams are but a distant echo. They call for him in pathetic desperation but it only ignores their cries. Agony turns to anger returns to laughter in such rapid succession that it threatens to give him vertigo, a pain blooming behind his temples that makes it screw its eyes shut until he's seeing stars. They are with him here as well, their dancing bodies made up of galaxies destined to collide and tear each other apart until the only thing left of them is the lilac supernova they've created, alone and all-consuming at the center of the world. When he opens his eyes the only thing left of them is a faraway memory it tries hopelessly to forget.

The sound of spitting smoke stacks breaks him from his reverie. The sizable toad is a local legend, the tales of his inquiring mind having been told by many a courser coming through the dungeons for the first time, but Wraith hadn't been around this part of the kingdom in more than a couple of years now and no doubt it had forgotten all about him by now. It comes to stand at the foot of the craggy rock the mysterious toad is perched on and waits patiently for him to notice. It doesn't take long; the toad inhales a great hit from his pipe and laughs the smoke out through the stacks protruding from his back.

"Ah, there you are again," the toad greets. His wide mouth is curled in a grin.

In the heart of the great tree is a pocket flooded with rainwater, sheltering a single tadpole in the midst of sprouting its legs. It keeps the lavender babe company when it's instructed to stay put but isn't very fond of the way it pushes him around in the puddle as a way of creating its own amusement. He suffers, thrown about in his watery grave without the means for escape until one day he loses his tail and the insufferable babe with it. He leaves the puddle, much too large for it now, and disappears over the horizon without looking back once.

The black patterns on his back create rorschach designs and Wraith stands, transfixed. Over and over they come together to create the amalgamation of a question mark. This question is inevitable: he asks this of everyone who stumbles into his cave and Wraith, a historic visitor, is not exempt.

"Ask your question," the courser says. His own rorschach pattern moves like ferrofluid across the raised ridges of his exposed spine.

"You already know what I'm going to ask," the toad replies then takes another long hit from the pipe. He doesn't immediately blow the smoke from his stacks but when he does it is with a thundering whistle that breaks the spirit apart and stitches it back together again. Beneath him, the black mass comes together and clings to the safety of its ankles, disturbed by the toad's call.

It's true that Wraith knows what the toad wishes to ask him but he knows the toad already knows the answer. It is the same every time they cross paths with one another: I am Wraith, who are you? I am Wraith, who are you? And yet every single time, it cannot help but feel that this isn't the correct answer and that the toad is growing impatient with him the more he receives it. What he is looking for in particular escapes the courser. Does the toad wish for him to lie? It is Wraith, nothing more.

"You know who I am."

It is Wraith, nothing more.

"You're lying to me."

It is Wraith, nothing more.