Skalos liked this forest way too much. The people who passed through here wanted to play chase every time. He simply walked up behind some of them and said hello and they begun to play. And they would run until they reached "home", and then they got the villagers involved in chasing! And the villagers tried to play party games, like pin the tail on the donkey, but they had to use arrows, as, in Skalos' mind, he couldn't comprehend the idea that they were trying to kill him. He reasoned they had run out of donkey tails, and were just using arrows as a substitute.
As he plucked an arrow from his trawl of shadow, he wondered if he could play that game too. No, he didn't have their fancy bows to shoot the tails at them. He threw the arrow into the pond and saw a fish. Then he remembered a song he had once heard.
"The cold hard lands
They bites our hands,
They gnaws our feet,
The rocks and stones
Are like old bones
All bare of meat.
But stream and pool
Is wet and cool
So nice for feet!
And now we wish........
Alive without breath
As cold as death
Never thirsting, ever drinking
Clad in mail, never clinking.
Drowns on dry land
Thinks an island
Is a mountain,
Thinks a fountain
Is a puff of air
So sleek, so fair!
What a joy to meet!
We only wish
To catch a fish,
So juicy-sweet!"
He remembered that a hunting demon had once sung that sung near him. And so, he sang it, over and over as he jabbed his sharp tendrils at the fish, trying to spear it and eat it. He paid no attention to anything but the fish, as he tried to catch it, desperately stabbing and jabbing and clawing.
