Zogrusz wandered between the stars, searching for something he could not describe.

He sank into the depths of a world formed from swirling gases and stood upon its churning molten core. He ran his tongue along the flowing metal, but this did not assuage the ache inside him. Elsewhere he explored pockmarked surfaces and ammonia seas and moons scoured by flensing solar winds, but he found nothing, and during this long and empty time his strength began to seep away.

On a frozen world, he felt a stab of hope that his long search was finally over. As the ice surged and clashed around him, he sensed something strange beneath his taloned feet. A dim awareness, unlike anything he had encountered before. Then the ice cracked and shattered and through this gap emerged a blunt, eyeless head. It swung back and forth as if trying to understand the nature of this new interloper in its domain. Zogrusz also extended his perception – he sensed a great sinuous length, its coils studded with shards used to break through the icy crust. He lingered in its rudimentary mind, tried to make sense of the worm’s stunted consciousness, but in the end decided there was not enough there to try communication.

The creature seemed to arrive at a similar conclusion, as after snuffling around his legs it dove once more into the ice and was gone.

Zogrusz was briefly tempted to pursue it and attempt to fill the emptiness inside him with whatever he could take from the worm, but somehow he knew that he would find no satisfaction here. This thing did not have what he needed.

So with a sigh he lifted from the ice and resumed his quest.

***

His body continued to weaken, his thoughts slowly clotting and growing slower, and when he found the next world he briefly wondered whether its strangeness might be the result of hunger-induced delirium. It was blue and green and banded with white clouds, and as he approached, Zogrusz could sense something different enveloping this planet, protecting it from the ravages of its star and holding tight a rich and fragrant mix of gases. He breathed deep as he descended through the atmosphere, savoring these new smells, and his mouth-tendrils writhed in excitement as he burst from the clouds and beheld a great sweep of verdant forest.

It thronged with life, the sheer overwhelming fecundity of this world making Zogrusz dizzy. Countless tiny consciousnesses infringed upon his thoughts, many of those far more complicated than the ice-worm he had encountered in the frozen waste. None were as deep as the baroque, fathomless minds of the Old Ones, but this was almost a relief. As far beyond the worm as he had been, the gap between him and the dreamers in darkness had been even greater. But perhaps here, among this panoply of shrieking chittering buzzing life, he might find something to communicate with.

And then he would no longer be alone.