Archive of Our Own

Oblio thought it was odd, wishing for something your whole life only to find in the end that it wasn't what it seemed to be. He should have been used to it, he supposed. After all, if he'd learned nothing in the Pointless Forest, it was that things were never as they seemed, and what should be clear was usually not.

The problem, Oblio thought, was that he'd never really wanted a point. He'd simply wanted not to be different. Of course, he'd always thought the way to do that was to grow a point, but as it turned out, in gaining what he'd thought would allow him to fit in, he'd only distinguished himself yet again.

Mostly, these days, Oblio wished there was a giant stone hand all the time in life, one that knew where you were supposed to go and just pointed you in that direction. Oblio often felt he was going in circles now, days as round and unending as the shape of everyone else's heads. He spent the majority of his time with Arrow, which wasn't so different from how it had been Before. (Everything was Before or After in his head, but there were parts that blurred together, mostly the inner loneliness of both.)

Arrow sometimes chased his tail, which made Oblio laugh, but also seemed familiar, like Oblio was doing the same, just without the self-awareness to know.

*

He went back to the forest. He hadn't known he was going until he was on the edge, his feet already marching past the border. Arrow was on his heels, trotting along happily, as though they were going home at the end of a long day. Oblio sometimes wondered if Arrow was smarter than he was.

Realistically, the ground was probably no more soft once in the forest than surrounding it, or even in the village, but Oblio felt as though he could lie on it, rest until he wasn't tired anymore. He couldn't remember not being tired.

Arrow rounded on him, as if to say, "Move it along, slowpoke."

Oblio smiled at him and found a stick to throw. Arrow brought it back, again and again and again.

*

They didn't come across any of the inhabitants they'd met on their first journey through, but it wasn't far in that Oblio was smacked square in the face by a—well, Oblio wasn't sure what it was. It flew like a bird, but had a body much closer to a very tiny human. Like everything in the forest, its physique drew up into points, both atop its head and at the tips of its wings.

It said, "You got in my way," clearly as surprised as Oblio was by the collision.

"Sorry," Oblio said, more a gut reaction than actual apology because Oblio had just been walking. The…human-bird thing had come out of nowhere.

It fluttered around and said, "That's all right. I don't remember where I was going anyhow."

Oblio, by now used to the directionless dwellers of the forest, nodded sincerely, not wanting to offend. "Perhaps you were meeting someone?"

The creature fluttered some more, seeming to take this into consideration. "I don't—wait! Was I supposed to be meeting you?"

Oblio laughed for the sheer joy of it. He had missed this tiny little world where nothing was out of place, not even Oblio, who hadn't come from there, simply stumbled in and out and back in. "Well, we are just meeting. My name is Oblio."

The creature grinned, its teeth sharp, but somehow unthreatening. "I'm Flint."

Arrow barked up at the two of them, clearly displeased to be left out of the introductions. Oblio motioned down at him. "That's my dog, Arrow."

Flint flew down to Arrow's level and circled around him a few times. After the second pass, Arrow took chase, but Flint was fast enough that it was harmless, and Flint seemed to be enjoying the game as much as Arrow.

When Arrow had exhausted himself and collapsed onto the earth, panting happily, Oblio settled down beside him. Flint slowed his wings and came to rest on Oblio's knee. He said, tilting his head, "Are we friends?"

Oblio was never certain what that term meant, only that he hadn't had very many. There had been kindness and companionship, certainly, but friendship? Arrow was the only constant for him, the only other being who saw all of him. It felt right calling him a friend, but Oblio couldn't have verbalized the why of it, what made the way they were unlike so many of Oblio's other relationships.

Flint looked very concerned at the answer to his question, though, and Oblio had never wanted to hurt another being. Besides which, Oblio had just spent an hour in Flint's company, contented and without expectations placed upon him. He said, "I think we could be."

Flint nodded, as if Oblio would be the one to know, and said, "I like having friends," before falling fast asleep right over the padding of Oblio's thigh.

Softly, Oblio agreed, "Me too," before cuddling up against an already-slumbering Arrow, and slipping off to his own dreams.

*

Oblio went back to town in the evening. There were, after all, people who would worry about him. They might not understand him or even believe he was one of them, truly a part of their world, but they loved him in their own way. The forest made it easier not to judge, to see that everyone's point of reference was different, and could not always be reconciled.

His father asked him, "Where did you go, Oblio?"

He saw the fear in his father's eyes. Oblio didn't know what it was to have children, but he knew what it was to worry that something precious might slip away. He hugged his father and said, "Just somewhere to daydream."

His father pressed his thumb to the tip of Oblio's point—an action Oblio had wanted to feel so, so many times as a child—soothing it down the of the cone until his hand came to cup the back of Oblio's head. He said, "Do not wander too far, Oblio."

Oblio wasn't sure how far was too far, how far was not far enough. He knew nothing, really, about distance. His only answer was, "Only as far as I need to go."