Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5543592-20150321040314/@comment-12599067-20150321221645

Six months later...

Much had changed since the Colossus had first woken. The world was... quite different from what it had remembered. Of course, not many people woke to find themselves trapped in the body of an atronach of some kind, but the Colossus didn't exactly have any power over that.

It wondered, some days, if it had always been this way. It didn't think so, but it was never quite certain. It thought it may have been something or someone before it was whatever it was now. The necklace around it's neck seemed to indicate that. But if it had been something before this, then it couldn't remember it. Still, it was something to think about.

All things considered, it had adapted to this new life well. It had taken some getting used to, at first-- it couldn't seem to remember exactly how to move when it had woken. But after long days and nights of practice, it had gotten used to it. It was fairly certain it had been human, once, so it maintained as best a semblance of humanity as a hulking goliath of it's type could. He (at least, it was given to understand it was a he) had given himself a name-- Malus. He usually slept at night and he usually bathed, although he was actually incapable of resting for long periods of time and didn't really need to bathe, since he always smelled of the earth regardless of how clean it was. he didn't really have any way to eat or drink (which he had found out the hard way), so he didn't. He didn't really know why he did these things. It was routine, he supposed.

Unfortunately, others did not take to Malus' new life well. Generally people were quite afraid of him. The last time he'd tried to stop by a village, the townsfolk had screamed and run into their homes. Those brave enough to fight grabbed weapons and tried to drive him off. It hadn't been much of an issue-- bladed weapons didn't do much to him-- but it was very hurtful and it made him sad. He didn't know why, since he wasn't even entirely certain he'd ever been human, but that did absolutely nothing to comfort him. In truth, it just made him even more sad.

So he'd gone off to live in the wilderness. It was a pretty simple life. The creatures of Skyrim's wilderness stayed away from him, so he was rarely in any danger. Whenever he was attacked, he usually just scared away his attacker. If they didn't fall for it, he just did his best to ignore him and continued on his way. Usually they gave up when they realized he didn't care. He was fine with that. It gave him more time to enjoy the beauty of the wilds.

Like he was doing today. He'd made the trek to the hot springs of Eastmarch, which he'd seen many times before but never really got tired of. Something about the landscape just seemed right to him. Right now he was sitting on a hill and looking at the city of Windhelm from a distance. He knew that the city itself was probably a wreck, thanks to the Legendaries (who he had never really met in person), but at least it looked nice from where he sat.

At that precise moment, a butterfly flew by, drawing Malus' attention. He watched it for a moment, then slowly brought up one arm and extended a large finger. The butterfly flew about for a moment longer, then finally settled on the tip of his finger. Were it possible, Malus probably would have smiled. He found that there was something about the little things in life that made him quite happy to be alive.