Something unusual was happening to the earthen anomaly. Until recently, its existence had been like any other animated mass of rock. Its behaviour was so typical amongst its kind that the anomalous creation thought it wasn't even worth describing. In all fairness, it had never met another animated collective of stone such as itself. That didn't stop it from assuming that if it were to have met another animated collective of stone then that collective would have behaved just as itself did. Or at least behave as it used to, the earthen anomaly was different now.

  It was an indescribable change. A change that evaded the creation's understanding. Where once it saw the world only in how it could practically aid in its duties, now it saw the world in… some way; the creation couldn't describe it after all. The creation wasn't abandoning its duties, no, no, no; it would never think of doing that. It just meant that it occasionally came across some minor distractions along the way.

  The vitalized totem of cobblestone found itself staring down at a small, round pebble. It was an inexplicable action, one whose allure the creation could neither comprehend yet could not ignore. It had never stopped to stare down at things before, and it hadn't any plans to do so again in the future. And yet, to its own bewilderment, it had stopped—here, now—its attention inexplicably fixated on this insignificant pebble.

  There was something about the pebble that attracted the creation's gaze. Perhaps it was that perfectly smooth body, the delicate rounded edges; maybe it was those beautiful streaks of light blue that blurred into the stone's grain. The pebble was, in many ways, the creation's opposite—a perfect contrast. Its serene blue hue was like a negative reflection of the faint red streaks etched into the creation's own humanoid chest. Blue and red. Pristine and marred. Free and confined. The creation couldn't tear its eyes away from the pebble.

  The pebble stirred something in the creation, something that confused it. When it stared at the pebble, its limbs did not seem so independent of itself anymore. The pebble awakened a deep, inexplicable need within the creation—a compulsion to remain connected to it, to ensure their proximity was preserved. And so, for the first time in its existence, the creation made a choice: it reached down and decided to take the pebble with it.

  The creation had never interacted with something that did not further its task, let alone something that outright hindered it. The pebble was a second thing to protect, and the pebble did need protection. The creation had to ensure that nothing bad could possibly happen to the pebble. It didn't understand why this was so, but the conviction burned deep within its core: the pebble must not be harmed. Nothing—no force or fate—could be allowed to threaten it.

  Even the simple act of taking the pebble proved unexpectedly tricky for the creation. As with everything about this pebble, the difficulty was abstract, intangible—a challenge it could not fully comprehend. As far as the creation could tell there were no physical barriers, no visible force preventing it from reaching down.

  Yet, as the creation looked at the pebble nestled among countless others, the thought of separating it from its kin weighed heavily. Its arm, though fully under its control, seemed to push against an invisible resistance, as though some unseen force sought to tether the pebble where it belonged.

  An intangible presence seemed to resist the creation, pushing back against its attempt to claim the pebble. This was not a good sensation and the creation deemed ascribing that sensation to memory so it may be recalled as a hindrance to be avoided in the future. Though the creation had to infer that there was a flaw in its threat identification and management because as the creation had deemed the sensation undesirable, it also ignored its own judgement with deliberate defiance and pushed through the unseen resistance, ignoring the discomfort, and closed its hand around the pebble.

  The creation journeyed far and wide across the land, tirelessly seeking a way to fulfill its mission. All the while, it carried the pebble with it, cradled delicately within its protective hands. Ever since the creation had chosen to take the pebble with it, the amount of distractions from its mission had dramatically increased.

  The strangest of these distractions had occurred to the creation not too long ago. The creation found itself seated at the edge of a hill, the pebble resting by its side, watching the sunset. It was unbelievable! Alarmed by its own inaction, the creation instinctively ran a threat analysis, searching for signs of a hostile plant or some other force keeping it rooted in place. But there was no enemy, no external cause. It had been itself—its own will—that kept it there. It stayed, seated beside the pebble, simply because… it wanted to.

  Objectively, it could identify that sitting and watching a sunset with the pebble did not further progress the success of its mission, but somehow the action, specifically performed with the pebble, still had the same rightness to it. Even though watching the sunset was an unrelated task, it felt right to do with the pebble by its side. Well, everything felt right when with the pebble, but there was a strange special rightness to explicitly taking time to dedicate solely to the pebble. A rightness that felt similar to when it completed a mission.

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  The sunset was just the beginning of these odd changes in the creation's behaviour. Ever since it had felt the rightness of that moment, the creation continued to feel that same rightness when looking at other things with the pebble. Things started off small at first. It continued on its mission and would raise its palm up to show the pebble the things that it could see. It showed the pebble the trees, the dirt road, the screaming humans. But eventually sharing these mundane sights with the pebble no longer gave the creation that sense of rightness like the sunset.

  It was then that the creation began seeking out unique sights to share with the pebble, almost as if the sightseeing had become a mission of its own. Just like a mission, it ended with some sense of rightness upon completion, but this second mission was not one given by its master. The creation couldn't trace the source of this rightness, couldn't identify where it came from, just that it was there, and it was… right.

  The creation and the pebble visited many unique sights, with the passage of time constantly bringing ever more wondrous ones. Waterfalls, mountaintops, dank caves, and the more time the creation spent with the pebble, the more right everything felt. The creation hypothesized that perhaps the pebble itself was right. Sort of similar to how the master was right, but in a different way. The pebble's rightness appeared to be purer in a vague fashion.

  Whereas the master really was only right because it was master, the pebble was right because it was… the pebble. The creation's thoughts couldn't pinpoint the exact difference between the rightness of the master and the rightness of the pebble, but it knew, without a doubt, that there was a difference. The creation could only describe this certainty of the difference in rightness without empirical proof as a new never before qualified sensation that the creation called: feelings.

  There was rightness in that nomenclature. The master was right because it was right, and the pebble was right because of feelings. When the creation was with the pebble, these "feelings" seemed to be everywhere, swarming like prickling sensations that were so powerful they almost felt physical. The creation often searched its own surfaces, convinced it must have sustained some injury, but each time, it found nothing.

  The creation would have never imagined it was possible, but over time, the master was no longer the only thing of absolute reverence to the creation. The pebble had gradually climbed its way up the creation's list of priorities. Now, both the pebble and the master held equal importance—but unlike the pebble, the master needed help now.

  The creation and the pebble arrived at a small, rundown clay hut tucked far away from any nearby village. The hut, weathered and worn, could hardly have contained more than three cramped rooms. Its walls, cracked and uneven, bore the scars of time, and a lingering scent of mud and dampness clung to the air. A rack of dried meat hung near the entrance, its strips swaying slightly in the breeze, while a thick, untamed garden spilled over the right side of the hut, its vines creeping up the walls as if reclaiming the space from nature.

  The creation considered the building with indifference, finding it structurally sound enough, but from its limited prior experience, it understood that no human would deem these living conditions acceptable. Luckily, the creation did not seek a typical human.

  The creation approached the lone entrance of the hut and found the door already ajar. Without hesitation, it stepped inside and surveyed the first room for any humans. The room was a chaotic jumble, a tangle of plants in various stages of drying, scattered tools, and bottles of brightly coloured elixirs cluttering every surface. The air was thick with the scent of herbs, and something sharper, almost medicinal. The creation felt an almost instinctual need to begin tidying the room with how much it reminded the creation of its master's old chambers, if not a little more archaic.

  Next to a large, cast-iron cauldron stood a short, round woman with scraggly grey hair, her hands struggling to stir a thick, viscous concoction inside. As she turned to see her new visitors, her eyes widened, tripling in size as she took in the sight of the creation and its companion.

  The creation, instinctively protective of the pebble, half-covered it, certain that the woman shared the same feelings of rightness it had toward the object. The pebble was right, but it was right for the creation alone.

  However, as soon as the elderly woman broke from her stupor, the creation realized it had misinterpreted her response. With a cackle of delighted astonishment, she exclaimed, "Is that an animated pile of therra!? Amazing! Truly amazing!"

  The woman glanced at her cauldron, then back at the creation. "I can't really leave this potion alone; I'm in a bit of a critical moment, so I can't come to greet you—or your... construct. As much as I want to," she said with a grin. "But feel free to come in. As long as I get to see that thing up close, I'll happily play host."

  The woman chuckled to herself, her eyes flicking back down to her cauldron as she analyzed the bubbling concoction. With a nod to herself, she tossed a handful of thorny herbs into the mix and resumed stirring. "As you can probably tell by where I live, I'm not one that's much for socializing. As soon as I sensed you enter, my hackles were up. I was ready to flip this cauldron over and book it!" She cackled, "But hey, even if you are an enemy, I would be honoured to have my back snapped in two by that outstanding magic. Is it even magic? Or is it truly pure therra? It couldn't be; how would you manipulate it then? You have to tell me how you do it before murdering me if that's your goal."

  After a stretch of silence, the woman glanced back toward the entrance, her stirring slowing as her eyes fell on the creation, protectively cradling a pebble. A mix of confusion and mild concern settled on her face. "Hello? You can come in, you know," she called out, her tone somewhere between inpatient and curious. "I wouldn't even be able to cause you any harm, rock guard or not. I'm no wizard, though you probably knew that. I'm guessing you're here because you figured out I was one of the lost vvitchenbreivers, aren't you?"

  Her lips twisted into a wry smile. "If you're not here to kill me, you'll have to explain how you found that out before you leave. I like to keep that particular detail very secret for fairly obvious reasons. White Witch hysteria and all that. That crazy old hag gives all the rest of us slightly less crazy old hags a bad name, you know!"

  Still, there was no response. The woman craned her neck, trying to peer around the creation, her scraggly hair swaying with the motion. She found no one else, only the stoic, looming figure clutching its pebble. With an exasperated sigh, she slumped back toward her cauldron and muttered under her breath, "Well, this is just grand."

  After a moment of hesitation, she straightened up, fixing her gaze on the creation with a mixture of annoyance and reluctant curiosity. "I can't believe I'm about to do this," she grumbled. Then, in a tone both cautious and uncertain, she ventured, "Hello… can you understand me?"