[Chayden]

Once, there was a quiet man who lived all alone at the top of a hill. Well, perhaps he was not exactly a man. Although he had not been born as other men were, he had all of the organs that a man could ever need. He showed kindness and gentility like no other man did, and although he would not speak much, one had only to look at him to know he was pure. To really look.
But he was forced to live alone in giant cathedral at the top of that hill. The eyes of the people had been clouded; there were few who could gaze upon him without fear. Most of them were too caught up in their own lives to understand the differences of the man upon the hill. In a world where appearances, no matter how untrustworthy they were, were thought to say a lot about a person, he simply could not belong.

[Chayden]

So the man spent his days in muted sorrow in that stone cathedral with low light, simply trying to get by. Although his face did not change, he was, indeed, growing, only differently than other men.
He was learning.
The bishop who had breathed life into the man had left the castle, and his creation, long ago, but he had left his books and his body behind. It was those books that the man read from as the bishop had taught him. He drank in countless volumes on strange sciences and math, brooding alone in the towers as he was.
His favorite tower was the one with the roof that had caved in. With no stone to block his view, the man was free to feel the wind on his barbs and watch silently over the people in the tiny town that he looked down on.

[Chayden]

It was in that tower that he fell in love with a girl.
She was a rather nondescript thing, modestly pretty, but he fell in love with her voice.
She would walk freely through the thinning trees, observing the flowers that still had the spirit to grow in the face of all the human ignorance. Gingerly she would extend a hand to the roses, or to the mums, and caress their petals as she sang. She sang about the birds and the butterflies that she had captured in her sketchbook; she sang to give the flowers life, just as the bishop had to bring the man to life.

[Chayden]

You see, the man had once only been a lump of clay and metal. The bishop had placed a key with a heart-shaped ring inside of a mound of thick, moist sand from the most remote of beaches. Indian clay and a place for a soul, he had called it. Day by day, he worked to transform that shapeless clay into a man. The thing was tiny, but it had heart. And that heart beat resolutely to the time of the songs that he sang to it.

[Chayden]

In that unborn state, the man learned about many things. He learned about many ideas of creation, and he learned about the gift of language. The bishop sang about great scholars, of writers, and of monks. All that the bishop sang of, the man retained. Then, when the bishop passed on, all he had to do was finish growing. After that, he would be free to live and discover things on his own, up in that lonely cathedral.

[Chayden]

At first, the man stayed hidden in the shadows of the cathedral. He was afraid of the dangers of the world; he had heard of them in passing from the bishop, but had never been taught how to defend himself from them.
In trying to protect himself by a raccoon that came in unbidden, the man learned about his barbs.

The creature had come up to him, snuffling, probably searching for remnants of the bread that the man had eaten. He had learned that he needed to eat to survive, and so he had done so. There was still bread from when the bishop had lived, as well as seemingly endless supplies of rice and dried goods. He would save the obstacle of cooking for later.
Not knowing what the poor thing was up to, the man pushed it away with his hand. Unseen, poison secreted by the barbs that covered a good part of his body sunk into the raccoon's bloodstream. It froze instantaneously; its breathing and the panicked slurping of its tongue were the only things that continued on. In fact, they kept moving for a few disgusting seconds even after its heart had stopped.
Frightened by what he had done, the man fled to the bishop's study to calm himself and read.

[Chayden]

When he was too hungry to stay hidden any longer, the man returned to the kitchens. He had to pass by the unfortunate raccoon to do so... He almost unnerved himself, thinking about it. But he knew that he must either eat or die, and so he went. As he ate, he thought about the way that the raccoon had died. The man was confused as to why the poison had no affect on him, or the hard, stale bread that he munched on.
He came to find, later, that the poison was a natural defense mechanism. He had been doomed at birth to live the lonely life that he led, void of companionship and comfort...

[Chayden]

But he comforted himself.
"It is good to have life at all, Edvin."
He had gotten the name Edvin from a slip of paper that had lain beside him when he was born. He knew, through intuition at least, that the bishop had meant it for him. The man rather liked it, as well. It gave the few sentences that he spoke direction, and direction was the same to him as purpose.
His direction? It was beyond his comprehension.

[Chayden]

When he found the girl, Edvin got a hint as to what that purpose truly was.
He was up in his study again, gazing forlornly out of the large gap in the stones. She was beautiful, he realized, as peaceful as she was in drawing the flowers of the forest. She sang as she did so, and it enchanted him. Edvin could not bring himself to take his eyes from her.
Just like that, he was in love.