He had gone by so many names over the millennia he only barely remembered what he had gone by, could barely bother to try yet again at… humanity.

Humanity required a name, but he had been wandering for so long, was so tired of everything… would he even bother this time?

He was immortal, invulnerable, and nothing ever changed. The people he met never changed, the problems only ever evolved to new versions of the same… the beasts only slightly less so.

In a listless search for a reason to keep going, he had headed into the forest.

With nothing better to do, he continues until he’s reached the scrublands.

No one to stop him, he walked until the ground turned soft, the scrub turned to the swampland.

It was a bother, he thought, that it was only his continued interest in existence that kept him alive—a bother that he had no need for food nor water and yet here his ribs were starting to press his skin, dark circles under his eyes… wandering still for a reason to keep going.

He kept going for lack of a reason to stop.

His shoes, worn as they were, are soggy and full of mush now, but he doesn’t care.

His pants legs have rips up to the knees, and his belt—the rope he used as a belt—needing to be hitched up his hips. He doesn’t bother beyond what will keep him moving.

He met creatures, some sentient, some sapient, and none interested in the hollow-eyed figure wandering their land. He doesn’t blame them. He also doesn’t care.

He’s nameless, disinterested in…everything. At this rate he would almost welcome the Death his boredom would bring should he stop for any reason—he trips.

It’s so unexpected in his endless trudging through the swamp that he feels an entire five pounds heavier for it, and he’d feel sad for himself, that the first thing to give him life in…however long was an unexpected trip…

Except in his fall his hands land on something soft, velvety, and it mashes in his fingers when he automatically grips.

It’s a mushroom, he knows… one that takes only a moment to identify, as his body immediately locks up, muscles refusing to cooperate as the toxins paralyze him.

Oh, joy.

He knows this mushroom only by reputation, having managed to avoid making contact with it the other times he’d been in an ecosystem that supports their growth. Dark brown with bright blue spots on its crown, the boletus immobilia had the fastest acting paralyzing toxin in the southern hemisphere. It was deadly because it immediately stopped any voluntary or involuntary action for three hours—but also not because if you were a being that could hold off braindeath for three hours, it simply kept you immobile. For how long? For no one has bothered to see how long as humans usually just died.

Eyes slipping closed, he felt the sweep of the toxin through him and wondered if, at this point, he’d actually die of boredom before his body restarted, before he could move again, before he could continue on his meandering search for a reason to stay alive for a little longer.

Time passes strangely in darkness, unable to move, but when at last a mortal hand found him, whistling a tune of all things, while lifting his still immobile body from the muck, Beau felt the first unfamiliar flicker of surprise he’d experienced in ages.