[Valerie]

I glared at the tunnel before me, my ever-growing disgust was quite clearly visible to anyone around. Or at least it would have been if there had been anyone but Adrienne with me. And my dissatisfaction with the current situation was apparently fully lost on her; despite the fact that her own enjoyment of our dilemma was greatly contributing to my foul temper. For half a day now we had been lost in these tunnels and she was as happy as a kid in a candy store!

Wherever she slid along, the ground and wall were scrubbed clean from any biological matter. And if my eyes weren’t fooling me, looked like she had actually grown in mass since the start of our adventure. I really wasn’t sure what to think about that. I was certain that more of Adrienne in her current form and mindset would not be a joyful experience. Decidedly worse was the nagging thought that she might split in two at some point; that alone made me shudder, even more so than the continuous assault on my senses. Because for some fucked up reason I had to deal with quite literally tasting anything I passed by.

While I hadn’t given it much thought before, it was quickly becoming apparent just how awful having taste buds on your skin could be. By now most of my severely strained mental faculties were focused on ordering all the damn tentacles on my body to keep still, dropping my mood into the low end of ‘almost murderous’. So all in all, it shouldn’t have been so gods-damned hard for Adrienne to understand that I did not want to spend the rest of my life in the fucking sewers!

“Adrienne…” I asked her sweetly, the venom barely hiding beneath the surface of my words. “Where again did you say your ‘special super-hidden exit’ was?”

“Hmmmm, I’m honestly not sure, your highness. If I understood the map correctly it should have been three bends ago… but now I seem to be lost. Oh well, time to go back and take a second look!”

“Oh well, indeed…” Without bothering to see if she would follow, I heaved myself out of the muck and crawled up the ladder to a nearby manhole. I was more than happy to ignore her cries as I lifted up the cover and climbed out of the dank underground. ‘Sweet, beautiful, clean surface here I come.’ Almost immediately upon plopping out, the brightness took me by surprise. It was as if the sun’s fire itself wished to burn away my sight.

“Ah fuck, my eyes! All ten of them! Fucking sun, fuck!”

Writhing in my own personal little hell it took me a while to acknowledge the commotion my sudden appearance had caused. It was only when I heard a child cry out loudly that I forcefully turned my attention to my surroundings. A small crowd had formed around me, though they were making sure to keep out of reach of my flailing tentacles, which probably was a smart choice. What befuddled me was not their attention, after all, I had just crawled out of the sewers, but their vocal reaction regarding my appearance.

“Daddy, Daddy! Look there’s a monster!” A young girl was dragging her dad towards me who in turn looked mostly disgusted. Of course, I couldn’t let such an insult stand and retorted quite eloquently.

“Well fuck you too, kid! You’re more of a monster than me! I look no-.” A glance into a nearby storefront gave me a pretty good impression of what she had meant. “Okay, scratch that. I do look like a monster! Wait a fucking minute… you can all see me? Tentacles and everything?”

The crowd evidently not having expected to be hearing my voice in their heads looked at me even more confused. There weren’t that many people, a dozen at most, but still, their reaction was strange. I had assumed Mother was preventing people from realizing what I was, so what the heck was going on here? Looking back into the manhole I was treated to the sight of Adrienne’s creepy gooey face staring up at me before she slid away into the darkness.

“The fuck!?” Utterly lost with the situation I sheepishly turned towards the people watching me. “You wouldn’t mind giving me a few tissues to clean myself, would you? I think both my friend and my Goddess just walked out on me…”

To my big surprise one of the bystanders, a pretty male elf – this time I was certain of it – in very tight sports clothes, actually stepped forward. Looking them over it was clear he or perhaps rather they had truly embraced their femininity. And yet despite their pretty face and cute looks, nobody seemed too intent on stopping them. As if my admittedly terrifying appearance was only an issue for as long as it affected the humans around. Instead, being unbothered by the looks, the elf reached into their duffle bag and almost nonchalantly handed me a bottle of water and a towel.

“Here you go, wouldn’t be any sense in you walking around looking like… this.”

“I uhm… thanks?” More than awkwardly I took the two items from their hands.

“Ha! Don’t thank me yet, the lady over there just called the police.” They pointed towards an elderly lady that look rather well off. Who in turn looked at them in indignation.

“I’m only doing my civic duty, young girl! That thing is clearly dangerous! And you’re helping it!”

I didn’t even have to defend myself as the Elf was quick to do so themself.

“And how in the Hells is she dangerous? Just cause she is covered in sewage? She didn’t attack anyone! She seems to be about as dangerous as a homeless dog. And… we should probably dash now!”

Hearing the sound of sirens approaching the elf apparently decided to choose a different tactic and all of a sudden I was being dragged away like a lost child. Still insecure in walking on my new appendages, I could barely keep up with my apparently well-trained savior.

“Wait! What are you doing? You don’t even know me!”

“Don’t worry! I am used to running away from the police! It has almost become a sport for me by now!”

“What!? You are a criminal!?”

Before I could object they had already pulled me into a dark side alley. One hand on my mouth and the other hovering over inside the duffle bag, they looked at the street with a strange glassy expression. A second later their eyes regained their focus and they looked back at me, apparently, they must not have found what they were looking for.

“Don’t talk about stuff like that in the open. It attracts unwanted attention, and even if I am a criminal… I doubt someone like you has managed to get by without breaking a law or two.”

“I would never! I-…” The memories of a few days ago came back to mind, the things I had done to that mercenary. None of that had been my choice, right?

“By the gods… how are you doing that shit with your voice!? No matter… there is no shame in being a criminal, being on the outskirts of society brings with it the inevitable, for most at least…”

Apparently having realized how futile and ridiculous holding shut my mouth was, they quickly took it away, only to immediately wipe it ob the same towel I was still clutching onto like an idiot.

“Say, how long have you been down there in the sewers? Cause, Gods… you smell.”

“It’s not like it was on choice!” I glared at the elf. “My… an asshole attacked me and my… a friend dragged me away to what she thought of as safety.”

“Mhm. An all too common story these days… weird for your friend to just abandon you after that though, not very friendly like. But never mind that. Say, why don’t you come back to my place and take a shower? If you have been injured recently all that sewage will easily lead to an infection. And I doubt you can get yourself treated in a hospital.”

“I…” Why were random people being so nice to me? First in the tram with that orc and now with this elf. I had never known that people could be like this and I barely knew how to react. In the end, all I could muster was an embarrassingly mumbled answer.

“Thanks.”

“Eh, I’m just doing what I wish someone had done for me once. The emergence of the mystical races fucked over the lives of many people and those that stayed human still haven’t come to terms with us ‘outsiders’ in their midst. As if we had chosen to become what we are now.” For a second the elf’s beautiful face was shadowed by pain and anguish but as quickly as it had come, it was gone again. “Sorry about getting a little dark there. I never even asked your name! I’m Faylorn by the way, but please call me Fay. And you would be?”

“Valerie Sher-… no, just Valerie.”

“I sense some pretty deep issues there but I won’t pry. Especially considering I barely know you. For now, it might be better if we get you off the streets. My car is parked a few streets from here if you wish to take that offer of a hot bath. Or I guess you could always slink back into the sewers, though perhaps next time stick to the parts that have walkways. Much less disgusting that way.”

I hesitated, not really sure what I should do. But the elf was right, I really was in desperate need of a shower. And if they turned out to wish me harm, I was quite sure I could take them on, after all, I had fourteen additional appendages. So perhaps it was time to finally trust someone?

“Okay. You might still be a creepy murderer but I really do want that shower. And I have absolutely no desire to go back to the sewers, sooner I would ram a knife in my… well I don’t have legs but I would ram it somewhere!”

“Actually about that… if you don’t mind me asking,” They looked me up and down, apparently unsure of how to word the question. “Screw it. What by the Hells are you? I have never… wait a minute. Tentacles, kinda fishy, creepy mind voice….” The elf’s eyes grew wide as it finally clicked in their head. “That police report from a few days ago. The whole sea monster look… You’re one of those supposed sea-witches! The girls that fondled one another in the university pool and attacked a custodian! Well, fuck! That only makes it all the more crucial to get you away from the cops!”

My tentacles twitched in agitation, not at the elf’s enthusiasm but at the implication of their words. How many people knew about us already? If the news was so widespread, then I was certain that my dear Clarissa was either in danger or – far more likely – was being the danger. Already I could feel a headache announcing itself. If taking care of the Clarissa problem was what Mother had wanted me to do, then I was definitely in some way at fault for whatever she did in the meantime. Then again, I was covered in sewage, incredibly sore, and most certainly in desperate need of a hot shower, so could anyone really fault me for accepting the invitation? Deciding that it wasn’t really worth mulling over such things, I was quick to push off my ‘duties’ and instead delighted at the promise of a hot bath.

. . . . .

The first oddity I noticed was pretty much immediately upon entering the back of Fay’s van. While on the outside the car had looked like any other van of the make, the inside was fashioned very different from what anyone would have expected. Four heavy-looking seats were sat in strange metal caskets along the walls, which itself seemed far thicker than needed. Sadly upon trying to sit in them the large tentacles on my head made it basically impossible to find a comfortable position. To say that this annoyed me only further was an understatement. I actually had to physically restrain myself from just smashing everything around me; arms wrapped around me and other appendages coiled up it took me a few moments until the feeling finally passed. My nails were already digging into my flesh when Fay’s voice startled me out of my thoughts.

“Hey! You okay back there?”

“Ah, yes. Don’t worry about it. Say, you have a really strange car you know?”

“Haha, that’s true. But don’t mind that, how about you sit in the front? I doubt with looking like that you can actually fit into the seats.”

“Sure…”

Doing my best not to hit Fay in the face with an errant appendage, I eased myself into the front seat as best as I could. The tentacles on my head were so long that they still trailed all the way to the back of the van. I could honestly no longer say what Mother was thinking when rebuilding my body. Not to mention her doing it all without my permission, but she actually had made my life worse! Now that I was away from Adrienne and Clarissa my mind seemed to have cleared a bit. It was honestly terrifying to think how different I had acted before. But while I was happy to finally be able to think on my own again I wasn’t sure what had caused Mother’s influence on me to wane. Leaning on the car window I let my mind drift.

‘If I recall correctly all this started about when Tanya confronted me. Afterward, I grew angry at Adrienne, and somehow this must have reduced whatever this bitch of a god-like is doing to me. Sure growing angry and upset like this isn’t really something new for me but now it is happening far more often! I think before I met Mother the only times I felt this volatile was when I didn’t take my medication in a while. Wait… this… my medication!’

Suddenly it all made sense to me; I had taken my medication ever since childhood, this was the first time I had been off of it for so long! It must have been connected to all of this in some way. But I still didn’t understand how not taking my medication could have suppressed Mother’s hold on me. The only reasoning that came to mind is that with the medication no longer suppressing my magic I had grown too strong for Mother to handle. But that didn’t make any fucking sense, because god-like, even ones as obscure as Mother, were far more powerful than any mere human. I mean they could kill demons! So this couldn’t have been the reason, after all, I didn’t even have access to my magic anymore, right? Or perhaps I still had, and I was just going about this all wrong? Perhaps I simply had to… I was pulled out of my thoughts before I could formulate a proper plan.

“Valerie?”

I turned my eyes to glance at Fay and the elf immediately recoiled.

“Yes?”

“Uhm… sorry, you weren’t reacting. So I kinda thought you were asleep.”

“With open eyes?”

“Maybe? I’ll be honest I have no idea how octopussies work!”

“It’s octopuses or octopi, definitely not octopussies. But yeah, I was thinking about some stuff.”

“Interesting stuff? Cause you looked a bit… upset?”

“Magic stuff, if that sates your interest.”

“Oh cool! A friend of mine is a mage! Maybe you know her?” Fay seemed awfully excited about the news.

“Look, Fay. I only came along because you offered me a shower. I’m not all that big on… friends. Never works out anyway, so just… let’s keep this an exchange of favors only, you need something from me and I’ll come help if I can. Not sure what has the same value as taking a shower, but I’ll figure it out.”

“I…” The elf looked a bit upset as far as I could tell but didn’t object. “Okay, sure. I just thought you would like her. I’ll just tell her to not bother you when she comes home.”

“Believe me, I’ll do my best to be out of your hair as soon as possible. And in turn, you can be out of my hair… or well… tentacles.”

Apparently, this had been enough to shut up my small acquaintance. The elf’s head had only come up to my chest before, now they looked downright like a dejected fairy. With the sad expression and delicate face, they seemed more like a depressed doll than a real person; part of me wondered what they would look like all dressed up in a cute outfit…

I quickly turned away, the idea was a bit too entertaining and I was not about to trust my tentacled body to actually control itself. Instead of stripping the small elf and holding it like the tiny delectable creature it was, I barely managed to ask where the bathroom was before I was already rushing towards it. At least finally I was going to get all this shit off of me and take a nice relaxing bath, even if it was in some stranger's home. But oh well, a fugitive couldn’t be picky, especially not if she had tentacles and quite literally was covered in sewage.

After all that had happened in the last few days, it wasn’t like there was anything else that could still surprise me, right?