As I studied the ledger before me, an idea prickled at the back of my brain. I knew I’d forgotten something. Something important. A birthday? No, that wasn’t for a month. I chewed my lip and shook my head. The memory vanished, and I knew from long experience that worrying about it wouldn’t help.

My thoughts scattered as a gentle aroma of a new blend of tea wafted through the house.

It wasn’t the first time she’d experimented with brews, and I still bore the scars of her last attempts. A silk concoction that tasted of strawberries and memories of my childhood. It brought back memories of my mother, and I had nightmares for weeks.

I spun away from the ledger I had opened and leaned back in my chair.

My smile widened in time with the opening door.

A woman stood there and curtsied as she recognized I had preempted her arrival. Tentacles pushed up her skirts, and even as she lowered herself, her mask stayed locked onto my face. It was a farce of sorts. The Victorian maid skirt she spread was nothing but her own amorphous body, recolored to mimic a design in a book I had lent her.

I observed as eyes blinked in and out of existence along the pristine white apron, each a different size with a varying display of pupils. Without thinking, my hand moved to the pewter necklace, and stopped on the small ruby that rested on my throat. It was warm, a side effect of the spell that stopped my sanity from leaking out of both my ears.

The warmth in my smile at her appearance was genuine, however, and her mask shifted to mimic it. I watched in fascination as it redrew itself, as though by an invisible hand.

A small nod was all the incentive she needed to enter, and I sat still as more tentacles sprang from beneath her skirt. Four reorganized my shelf, and others remade my bed, but it was her hands that poured the tea.

They were small and delicate, dwarfed by the over-large teapot she had crafted herself from her brief excursion into pottery. Both trembled, but the concoction went into the matching cup without a single spill.

“Thank you, Sho.”

She curtsied once again, her tentacles never stopping their work as she backed away from me. Two spiraling red spots appeared on the cheeks of her mask. A blush? That made me wary. She could do odd things if she got overexcited.

I looked down and hid a wince. The tea looked like boiling tar. I stared in concern as it slowly shifted around the cup in ways no liquid should ever move. As I watched both, entranced and disturbed as sections of the liquid lightened. Before my eyes, a pattern emerged, two tentacles that flipped and swirled until they created a heart.

That was impressive. She’d never shown that ability before, and I had a suspicion I knew where she had gotten the idea.

“Were you spying on the coffee shop again?”

Her blush deepened. Without a word, she turned her mask away and focused entirely on my books. I chuckled.

“You know if you want a shift or two I can probably arrange wards?” I gestured to the table, where several sets of polished engraving tools sat scattered about. “They have had weirder things than you come through their doors, I bet.”

My ego rose, knowing that I was only responsible for some of those.

Her mask changed rapidly as the eye lines widened into circles, and the mouth gaped wide. Her hands remained clasped in her lap, as she used her tentacles to gesture at me. That would be a no.

Truthfully, I hadn’t expected her to answer any differently. Shoggoths were incredibly territorial, over both places and people, so Shog not wanting to serve someone else made sense. As I rested my hand on the wheels of my chair, I remembered it had been one reason I had summoned her.

“I won’t force you, of course. Simply an offer.”

That calmed her down, and her mask returned to her regular smile. With a single hand, she gestured towards the tea on my desk. I looked down at it again; to find the heart had vanished back into the dark, swirling void.

With a murmured incantation, the gemstone chilled for exactly two seconds, meaning my spell was still present. Satisfied I would be safe, I raised the cup to my lips and drank.

The texture hit me first. I had been preparing my gag reflex for perfumed sludge, but what I got instead was smooth. It massaged my throat as it flowed deeper down, more under its own power than any small gravitation pressure. My stomach churned, and I could sense its wraith as pressure built behind my eyes.

Tentacles cupped my face, and I could feel the gemstone heat as I stared into the smiling mask. I tried to thrash, to grasp the wheels of my chair and move away, but she held me firm.

The walls darkened, and the ceiling vanished to be replaced by stars in patterns I’d never seen. With a gentle pop, she released my face as she stepped back, leaving me trapped in place.

I floated within the star field, my limbs tingling with each twitch of my body. My eyes locked on to her mask as she stood there, surrounded by a mass of swirling stars. Bile churned in my throat, but the tea rose to quell it.

As the heat of my necklace became unbearable, everything stopped.

Shog stood proud, her mask a picture-perfect smile. Tentacles waved around her and formed hearts before my eyes. Both of her hands spread outwards and gestured towards the message written in stars all around us both.

Thank you for 10 years of companionship.

The niggling in the back of my brain vanished. I would plan a party when she let us return.