And so the dripping wet drenched Di'Jinn silk merchant did precisely this, after spending quite some time first drying his long floor sweeping hair.

Quaraun listening to the soft hum of the crickets, cicadas, and frogs croaking and chirping and buzzing. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine that he was lying in the soft warm furs that lined BoomFuzzy’s bed.

The furs were soft and fluffy and smelled like him, and there was a comforting heat that wrapped around Quaraun when he slept. He wondered if it could feel as comfortable to anyone else, but he never felt more comfortable than with the furry blankets.

Feeling BoomFuzzy’s gentle caress, warm flesh and passionate kisses. He tried to remember what BoomFuzzy smelled like. BoomFuzzy had a distinctive scent to him warm and sensual like a mix of honey and moss blended with cloves and exotic spices and peppermint. BoomFuzzy spent most of his hours in the kitchen cooking candy, pulling taffy, braiding peppermint sticks, and rolling chocolate. The scent of sweet spices and pepper weren’t absorbed into his hair, skin, and clothes. A wonderful smell of candy hovered around BoomFuzzy everywhere he went.

A few moments later, Quaraun drifted off into a peaceful slumber, to dream pleasant dreams of his youth spent with his lover, BoomFuzzy.

"Argh!" Quaraun half screamed from fright and half yelped from pain in his hip, as he felt someone shaking him out of his dream.

A newcomer, a stranger, a mature female Human, stood in the eccentric silk weaver's tent with him, leaned over the dishevelled sleeping silk merchant, shaking him, struggling to wake him.

"You gotta help me! Please!" The woman desperately pleaded, almost yelled, while trying to nevertheless be quiet and whisper. "Please, help me!"

Quaraun blinked sleepily and yawned, before slowly sitting up and peering around, disoriented and bewildered and trying to remember where he was. It took the tired bleary eyed Moon Elf a moment to recall he was in Pepper Valley, had set up a tent to wait out the deluge, and had now been here in Pepper Valley for ten days, still waiting for the precipitation to stop.

He sat and dreamily watched the little silk moths fluttering about the room.

The tired jelly brained Elf shivered.

His bones ached.

His muscles were sore.

And the salty ocean air was cold and damp, both chilling him and making his aches and pains more noticeable.

The chill from the wet, stormy night air drifted through the tent, chilling him. Quaraun yawned again, then pulled the soft rusty coloured fox fur blanket up around his shoulders before finally focusing on the frightened woman. She looked at him, wide eyed and panicked, eyes darting, as if she expected something to come leaping out of the woodwork.

"Who are you?" Quaraun asked. "And why are you in my tent? How are you in my tent? I put up a barrier. You should not have even been able to see my tent, at all, let alone get through to come inside. How did you even see my tent to begin with? It should have been very, nearly, completely invisible to the naked eye."

"You gotta help me," she stated, completely ignoring the Moon Elf's questions. She was shaking from fear and damp and cold.

"Why? You seem to be perfectly capable of breaking through magic barriers. That's not something normal people can accomplish. That is not even something the most competent of mages can manage."

"They're after me."

"What? Who is? Whoever it is, they are not likely to find you in here. You are safe in here. In fact, I am surprised you even found your way in here at all."

"Please, you gotta help me."

"I don't gotta do a damned thing. Who are you and why are you in my tent and how the hell did you even get through my barrier to get in my tent?"

"My name's Ghirardelli. I'm from The Godforsaken City."

"Ghirardelli? The Swamp Hag?"

"I'm a Human. I'm not a hag."

"Fair enough. But that does mean you are a mage? Does it not? And a powerful one. You're a Guild member. I recognize your name. I find myself being very weary of any Guild member. Why are you in my tent?"

"Some men. . ." she paused for a moment, anxiously eyeing Quaraun up and down. "Wait. Are you a man?"

"I'm an Elf."

"Elves went extinct centuries ago."

"I know," the old Elven silk merchant replied as he reached for his hookah. "I'm the last one."

"I hoped this tent belonged to a woman when I came in here. You look. . . you look. . . female. But your voice. . ."

Quaraun puffed on his hookah for a few moments before answering the woman.

"I assure you I am a male, or at least I used to be before a group of wretches castrated me, regardless of what my features may tell you. Why are you in my tent? What precisely do you require?"

"Castrated, you? You mean you don't have. . ."

"Do you want me to show you, exactly what it was that they did to me?"

"No. I. . . uhm. . . no. I am so sorry."

"About me being castrated or you so rudely trespassing in my tent and waking me up?"

"Uhm. Both, I guess. It's just that I noticed the tent. It was pink and, decorated and ruffles and beads and, I ran inside thinking it was a lady's pavilion. I didn't realize. And then I saw you asleep, you looked, I assumed, your hairstyle and your gown and your face, you. . ."

"You did what every one does and judged me to be a woman, yes, I understand. I get mistaken for being female all the time. It's annoying really. You'd think no one in America ever saw anyone from the Middle East before. What do you want?"

"Are you trying to uhm. . . are you trying to be a woman?"

"No. This feminine face is just what I was born looking like. I can't help the face and hair I was born with."

"And your clothes?"

"I'm Persian."

"So?"

"So? This is how Persian men dress."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Aren't those women's clothes?"

"No. These are not women's clothes. These are not dresses. They are caftans and cloaks and coats. Every man in the East wears them."

"In pink?"

"Yes. In pink."

"Really?"

"Yes. It's the colour of royalty."

"Are you royalty?"

"I am The Grand High Emperor of The Triple Planets."

"You're an emperor?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Living in a tent?"

"Yes."

"With no castle or palace or body guards or. . ."

"No. None of those things."

"And you wear pink?"

"What is wrong with pink?"

"It's a girl's colour."

"I like pink," the ancient pink robed silk merchant stated without further explanation.

"You sure do," the woman said as she stepped back away from the Elf and looked around the tent.

Everything was pink.

Everything.

Every stitch of absolutely everything was pink.

Every single item.

Every detail.

Pink curtains.

Pink pillows.

Pink quilts.

Pink blankets.

Pink tapestries on the walls of the tent.

Pink rugs and carpets tossed around covering the dirt and grass making a soft, pink, plush floor.

A small, purple creature with green stripes curled up asleep underneath one of the pillows. floor. It was the only thing that wasn't pink. It had black wings and it's scales shimmered blue in the light. It looked to be a miniature dragon.

A gold throne with bright pink velvet cushions.

As she surveyed the gaudy pink decor, it suddenly occurred to her that this tent was much bigger on the inside than it had been on the outside.

From outside it had appeared to be a small little circular marquee, perhaps big enough for one person to sit and sip tea. It was certainly not big enough to lay down or stand up in. And yet, once inside the pink tent, the room was so incredibly vast.

And pink.

So very desperately pink.

Even the moths were pink.

Fat, chubby, fuzzy pink moths covered in yellow spots were flying lazily around the tent.

Fluffy white silk months fluttered around loose in the tent, as well.

After getting over the shock of how overly pink everything was, she suddenly realized how quiet it was inside the tent.

So very, dreadfully quiet.

It was too quiet in here.

The quiet was unnatural.

Outside the sounds of the hurricane ripping the forest apart, crashing, clattering, roaring, howling, thunder, lightening, high winds made it deafening to the point of being unable to concentrate. Yet stepping through the cloth door-flap of the tent was all it took for every sound outside to vanish.

"What dark magic is this?" The woman whispered under her breath as she listened to the absolute silence.

The ceiling tall shelves were lined with books and trinkets and potions. Herbs reducing down to their oil essences, bubbled in various double boilers, while small cauldrons simmered with spices.

Stacks on woven reed and marsh-grass baskets were piled around in various places. Some filled with fruits and vegetables, mostly apples and potatoes. Others filled with various sewing, weaving, and embroidery gear. Still others with glass blowing and wood carving tools. Most of them contained various dried herbs and flowers.

It appeared as though the Elf made everything himself, from the little wooden tables to the woven baskets, as there were also stacks of partly carved wood and partly woven baskets laying about as well.

There was even a collection of clay pots containing different coloured plants.

And then there was one table that stood out from the rest, and it had what looked like two large baskets sitting by it. Each basket had several pieces of cloth laid over them, some more elaborate than others. In the middle, however, was one small.

From the bamboo tent poles hung hemp braids, full of dried pomegranate and oranges, both stuck full of anise stars and cloves. The heady aromatic aromas of sandalwood and patchouli incense burning filled the air.

Braided garlic, nets of red wax dipped cheese balls, strings of dehydrated apple slices, and bunches of dark brown vanilla beans, dried opium poppy pods, and large cocoa pods also hung from the ceiling.

Spices, cheeses, fruits, and chocolates were stacked on various tables and clearly made up the bulk of the old Elf's diet.

One pot was cooking what appeared to be wassail. The citrusy, clean smell of boiled orange slices, mixed with the pungent fragrance of anise stars, cinnamon sticks, and cloves, wafted up from the syrupy mixture of spices, cut fruit, and rum.

There was a large pot of stew that would have been enough to feed five people for a month already simmering in the middle of the room. And, of course, there was a small pile of white and golden gold coins, each one representing about thirty or forty silvers. Each silver coin held different magical properties—the power to grant wishes.

"There are so many exotic smells in this tent," she said as she walked around opening pots and lifting covers. "That I can not rightly tell where they are all coming from."

"Exotic is a matter of perspective," Quaraun stated dryly. He was not amused by this woman's intrusion of his privacy, nor her refusal to state why she was here, and her snooping around through his things was irritating him and raising his suspicions. "What is exotic to you, is perfectly natural and native to me. It is only exotic because you are unused to it. Please stop touching everything."

As she looked around the tent, and could see no source of light, and yet, the tent was as well lit as though she was standing in a dry meadow on a clear, bright, sunny day. A fire was lit under the cauldron and pots, but it was giving off no smoke and not nearly enough light to fill the room. The lack of smoke from the fire and the well lit light from no source alarmed her and signalled even more magic was at work here.

"There is no smoke from the fire in here," the woman said.

"No," Quaraun answered. "It is vented out."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"I don't see how."

"What matters is I did it and the air is safe and clean and non-toxic and we can breathe without choking on ash. Does it matter how I do it?"

"I suppose not."

"Why are you in my tent?" Quaraun repeated his question yet again.

"There were men after me," the women said as she continued to nosily poke around the tent, in business that was not her own. "Where is the light coming from?"

Quaraun pointed to a glowing crystal, a large quartz-like stone sitting on the table at the centre of the tent. Even the moths were pink. Fat little short wings, feather antennae silk months bounced around the glowing crystal, attracted to its brilliant orange light.

"What is it?" Asked the woman as she picked up the large rock and turned it over in her hands.

"You really don't want to know."

"Why not?"

"It's feces from the lava slugs of Fire Mountain. Dwarven miners used to use them to light the way in the deepest caves of the Earth, centuries ago, back when Dwarves were still plentiful. The Dwarves went extinct before us Elves did. Pitiful. Only Humans remain."

The woman quickly put the glowing, crystallized dung back down and the fluttering moths followed its glow. "Where did you get it?"

"From Fire Mountain."

"Well, obviously, but what I meant was, how did you get it? Lava slugs are deadly. And massive. Nearly as big as a hippo."

"You know what a hippo is?"

"Well, yeah. . ."

"I suppose the bigger question, should be: How do you know what a lava slug is?"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"I read about them once."

"Most Humans would caulk them up to mythology and not so readily accept their existence. Of course, most Humans can't see an invisible tent, or walk through a magic barrier, and you did both to get in here."

"You're a witch?" the woman inquired as she examined the rows of kettles bubbling away.

"I'm a silk merchant," Quaraun said, stating what should have been obvious, as he continued to nervously smoke his hookah.

"I see," the woman said as she peered into the enormous cauldron and found it full of silkworm cocoons soaking in a strange pink liquid.

The smaller pots, filled with other shades of pink liquid, each pot a darker pink than the next, and each likewise, also filled with large puffy silkworm cocoons, sat scattered around the larger pot.

On the table, near the cauldron, lay rows of bright pink cocoons drying on wire mesh racks. Near those were even more cocoons, these already dried and partly unravelled. The outsides of the cocoons were deep dark pinks, but the dye did not seep through to the worm in the middle, so the innermost fibres were pale pink, almost yellowish-ivory-white. Beside those were racks of long wooden poles, from which hung lots of filaments of variegated pink silk yarns.

It was easy to see how Quaraun achieved the delicate striped pattern of his striped pink silk cloth, when one saw how he dyed the cocoons before unravelling them.

"These are dyes?" she inquired, pointing to the smaller boilers filled with herbs.

"Yes. I dye my silk threads with them."

"I've never seen silk woven like this before."

"Have you ever even seen silk woven before?"

"Yes. Once. Years ago. A local tailor had ordered some silk thread to weave a shawl with. She said silk was too slippery to work with so, she never did it again. But, you don't order the thread from elsewhere. You're making it. You make your own silk threads."

"Yes. I raise my own silk worms." Quaraun pointed to the many bamboo aviary cages stacked to the back wall of the tent. These were filled with shrubs, covered in mass hoards of caterpillars chewing at the leaves. "I prepare my own dyes. Spin my own thread."

"You produce your silk from scratch, then?"

"Yes."

"That's pretty amazing, actually."

"Madame, a few moments ago you were screaming, terrified, desperate for help. You seem to have forgotten about that in favour of being nosy."

"You said this tent was invisible, so I was safe here."

"Yes. And I think you already knew that before you entered here. Who sent you?"

"Sent me?"

"Yes. Sent you. Who sent you? Why are you here?"

The woman ignored the old Elf's question and proceeded around the room. The bulk of the tent's interior looked like a tailor's sewing shop. A spinning wheel sat its spindle full of soft freshly spun pink strands. Baskets of full spindles sat around the spinning wheel.

Near the spinning wheel, sat a large weaving loom, with yardage of fine, delicate striped pink Shantung slubbed silk partly woven. More baskets full of spindles sat around the weaving loom.

Several large embroidery hoops stood on stands near the loom, each with pink silk stretched across it. Some hoops had fuchsia embroidery partly started on the pink silks, while others, already finished being embroidered, had tiny magenta seed beads and small disc mirrors being sewn on to them.

"You mentioned you travel?"

"I said nothing of the sort, but yes, I do. I'm a peddler. A travelling merchant. Yes. I travel. Why?"

"Do you take all this equipment with you?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I carry it."

"All of it?"

"All of it."

"Don't you have a horse or a wagon or anything?"

"Did you see any when you barged in?"

"No."

"Well, there you go."

"But it was dark. And raining."

"I have no horse. I have no wagon. I travel alone and on foot. I carry everything on me."

"How?"

"You are a nosy one, aren't you?"

"It's just you are so small and you don't look very strong, and there's, like, an entire house full of stuff here."

"Ah. Well, that is a puzzle then, isn't it?"

Quaraun still lingered in his bed, which was a pile of fur pelts, laid out on the floor, that he had been curled up in, sleeping in them like a bird's next or a fox's den.

The old, sleepy Moon Elf necromancer hoped that if he just stayed in bed, the woman would leave and let him go back to sleep. But she continued poking through his belongings and snooping around in every nook and cranny she found, which annoyed Quaraun to no end.

Quaraun suddenly decided she must die.

No.

He shook the image from his mind.

He tried to imagine of something else.

BoomFuzzy.

All thoughts lead to BoomFuzzy.

It was no use.

His vision was blurry from crying and he could feel tears streaming down his face once again as he remembered the last time he saw BoomFuzzy alive.

Quaraun remembered how close they were, and how beautiful BoomFuzzy looked at first glance before getting angry with him. He remembered when he was about to kiss BoomFuzzy, but then...

BoomFuzzy's BoomFudgy ButterCream Filled Chocolate Covered Apricots.

Yes.

That was a much better thought.

Quaraun pulled a box of BoomFuzzy's BoomFudgy ButterCream Filled Chocolate Covered Apricots from out of his tiny heart-shaped bag of holding.

He stared at the velvet covered brown box with the friendly gold letters on the top. Such wonderful dark chocolates. Such horrible dark secrets they held inside each bloody bite.

BoomFuzzy had died centuries ago. One bite was deadly. BoomFuzzy's last box of BoomFudgy ButterCream Filled Chocolate Covered Apricots.

The last thing BoomFuzzy ever made.

The last thing BoomFuzzy ever ate.

BoomFuzzy had poisoned the candy.

A horrible, terrible poison.

One that dissolved organs, and caused the eater to dying coughing up a pool of their own blood, mixed with their dissolved entrails.

BoomFuzzy's last box of BoomFudgy ButterCream Filled Chocolate Covered Apricots. The box of chocolates BoomFuzzy had made to kill himself with.

BoomFuzzy had committed suicide.

This horrible box of chocolates killed BoomFuzzy.

No.

This was not a pleasant thought.

This was a horrible thought.

A memory.

That's what this box was now.

A memory of the day BoomFuzzy died.

Quaraun opened the box. The deceptively heavenly aroma of bitter sweet dark chocolate, soft, fluffy buttercream, and gooey fruity apricot jam wafted out of the box.

Five chocolates were gone.

The rest still remained.

"I loved my children," Quaraun said out loud.

"What?"

"But I loved BoomFuzzy more."

"What are you muttering about?"

"I murdered my four children."

"What? Why would you do that?"

"This candy is poisoned."

"Is it?"

"I gave them each a chocolate from this box. This horrible box of poisoned chocolates. I knew what they were, I knew they were full of poison, and I did it, anyway. I knew how BoomFuzzy had died. I knew what BoomFuzzy had done to the food. And I gave these to my children anyways. Five are gone. One for BoomFuzzy. Four for my children. The rest remain."

"You murdered your children?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They were sweet and innocent. Innocent and sweet. Pure and kind. Kindness is a rare thing. So few are kind. No one has ever been kind to me. I am too different to be accepted or welcomed in any society. Unloved and unwanted, outcast and abandoned. Yet they were innocent. They were not cruel and hateful like everyone else."

"Then why did you kill them?"

"The innocent must die along with the wicked, in order for the spell to work."

"So your children were just victims."

"No!"

"Yes, they would be no better than the people that killed them if they weren't."

"No, no, no, no! I loved those children. I still do. They were innocent."

"Blood magic? Do you mean blood magic? Blood magic is the only magic that tells you to kill."

"Yes. Blood magic. Dark and evil. Evil and dark."

Quaraun's voice sounded like it was being dragged over rocks as he dragged another drag of smoke from his hookah pipe.

"Evil is right. No one does Blood Magic but the most evil sorcerers."

"Blood covered everything," Quaraun continued saying, not listening to the intruder. "They were so cold after. So very cold. The coldness of death. I had never felt before. Stiff and rigid. It was horrible. And worse as hours passed. Their spines snapped. Their bodies folded back on themselves."

"That's horrible! How can I possibly believe in something so dark, even if it does exist?"

"You must. You are a part of it. The evil inside you, the darkness within your mind will not allow you to live without it. You must fight against it with all you've got. With the darkness and darkness alone. I knew nothing of death back then. I did not know what it would do to their bodies. I put BoomFuzzy's body away, quickly after he died. He didn't go cold and his spine did not snap. But theirs did. I didn't know what death was like. Have you ever witnessed death?"

"No."

"You don't want to. The light leaves their eyes, then tremors take hold of their body. The colour leaves their eyes. Solid black. Everything. Everyone. No matter how they die. Sickness. Old age. Poison. Hanging. It is always exactly the same when the moment of death arrives. I've seen so much death now."

"And you seem traumatized by it."

"I am. I know I am. Death is horrible to watch and yet I've watched it so many times now. Do you know the first death I ever saw?"

"No."

"My mother. My father murdered her."

"That's terrible."

"I know. I saw him do it. I was three years old. He suspected she was not an Elf."

"How can an Elf not be an Elf?"

"When they are a Thullid."

"Thullids are pretty rare, aren't they?"

"Yes. Nearly as rare as Elves."

"Did he think she was a Thullid?"

"Yes. Accused her of being a Thullid. So he cracked open her skull. And he was right."

"She was a Thullid?"

"Oh yes. When her skull broke open, there was no brain inside. Instead, there was a jelly fish. A beautiful white jelly fish. He took it out of her skull, threw it on the floor and jumped on it. Crushed it flat. Both of my mothers died that day. The Elf who gave birth to my Elven host's body and the Thullid who bore my jellyfish larvae. He murdered both of my mothers."

"You've had a hard life, haven't you?"

"But they took her body away. So I didn't see what happens after death arrives. So I didn't know what would happen to my children after they died. Their bodies expelled every last fluid, from their mouths and nose and ears and eyes, their bowels emptied. Death is horrible to see. Horrible to watch. A body must be buried within 3 hours of death, otherwise it will twist and snap its spine than empty every fluid while it does. Every body does this. Every person. Every bird. Every animal. I know that now. But I didn't know it then. I'd never seen it before. I saw it happen to my children. I wanted them to die peacefully. But death is never peaceful. Death always snaps the spine and expels every fluid, no matter how you die, even if you die in your sleep just from old age. Death is always just plain awful."

"Yes. It is, but murder is worse."

"Murder. Yes. Bleak and vile. Heinous and gloomy. Sinister and evil. Malevolent and foreboding. Ominous and malignant. Malicious and gloomy. Blood. Red and oozing. Abhorrent and dismal. Anguish and despair. Malevolent and dread. Grim and malignant. Malicious and forlorn."

"What? Why are spouting off random words?"

"Hmmm? Am I? I don't know. It's something I do when I am upset. It relaxes me. I murdered my children. The Elf's children. Not the Thullid's children."

"Thullid? You mentioned Thullids before. . ."

"So much blood. The blood was everywhere."

"When you killed your children?"

"Yes. But they were the Elf's children, so why should I care? I should care for my true children. My Thullid babies. My clutch of eggs. The host's children should not concern me."

"The host?"

"This Elf whom I live in."

"You are not the Elf?"

"No. I am the Sacred Pink JellyFish. The Elf is dead, his corpse is my host. They were his children. Not mine."

"I'm confused."

"The Thullid's eggs will not hatch until they are fertilized. I must guard them until then. But the Elf fathered children. Their mother was evil, but the children, were innocent. I murdered them before I executed her. I murdered them to hurt her. She loved them. Like a mother should. But she hated BoomFuzzy and taught her children to hate BoomFuzzy and sing that horrible, terrible song. I could not listen to that song any longer, so I sent them to bed, each with one of BoomFuzzy's poisoned chocolates. I quickly regretted it, but by then it was too late. They had already eaten the candy. I slit their throats while they slept, so that they would not die as BoomFuzzy ad done, lingering in agony for days while their organs boiled inside them."

"Why would you do something like that?"

"The innocent die as a sacrifice to cleanse the caster's hands of the blood of the wicked."

"That's dreadful!"

"I know. I've lived with the guilt, my whole life. Every lifetime. So many lifetimes. I am in Hell. This is my Hell. I was so young when I killed them."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't know." Quaraun put the box of poisoned chocolates back in his bag and fell silent once again.

"I think you are tired. You should go back to sleep."

"Yes. I am very tired," Quaraun agreed.

The carelessly lazy, lackadaisical Elf watched as the woman continued to rummage around in his things. Quaraun desperately wanted to slay the bitch, but he was lacking in the enthusiasm and determination to get off his own ass and actually do anything.

Her actions agitated the irritated jelly brained silk merchant greatly. However, Quaraun tried his best to remain calm, relaxed, and civil and be polite. Yes, politeness. This current situation called for politeness, not daggers, and her still beating heart in his hand.

Quaraun squeezed his eyes shut.

Must endure.

He needed to think of something.

Anything.

Sheep.

Unicorns.

The Swamp Hag's head on a platter.

Nope.

This was not working.

Ghirardelli was acting suspicious.

Suspicious people upset Quaraun and caused him to think suspicious thoughts.

Squishy, psychotic jelly brain thoughts of murder. The mind flaying Thullid living in his skull, boiled in rage as the woman went around the tent rudely touching things. Images of millions of tentacles strangling the stranger, flashed through Quaraun's mind, as he long hair, grew longer, wriggling and twisting around him.

No.

Must not kill.

Quaraun did not like thinking suspicious thoughts.

Tea.

Yes. Tea. That's what the disconcerted old Moon Elf required.

Opium tea.

Ghirardelli would be dead by morning if Quaraun didn't have some tea to divert his glorious thoughts of ripping her head off.

No.

Silver. Violet. Purple. Flame.

Calm.

Quiet.

Polite.

Silver. Violet. Purple. Flame.

Peacefulness.

Relax.

Silver. Violet. Purple. Flame.

Heads.

Silver platters.

No.

That's not right.

No heads.

No silver platters.

No heads on silver platters.

The temptation to rip out brains was great.

Quaraun's lovely silver strands of hair began twitching at the thought of pulling the woman's brain out through her nostril.

Quaraun reached out and began smoothing and soothing his wriggling strands of hair.

Must resist ripping her brain out.

One must be good to the Americans, evil though they are, no matter how big a piece of shit said American may be.

Ghirardelli was shittier than the average Human.

Quaraun knew this to be true, for Ghirardelli worked for Finderu.

Resisting the temptation to slaughter every Human, especially every American Human, most especially every white American Human, especially the vile scum that lived here in Saco Bay, he encountered, was very difficult for Quaraun.

Ghirardelli fit all the above criteria.

White. Never good.

Human. Always evil.

American. Immoral degenerates.

Trespassing in his tent.

Lived in Saco Bay.

Quaraun liked Saco Bay.

Saco River Estuary was lovely. He could see it from here if only the hurricane would stop.

Lovely tall green grass.

Towering gentle giant white pines.

Moose wading in the river. Loons shrieking from the water.

Quaraun could wade into the water and let his JellyFish tentacles swim long, loose, and free.

Partridge booming their wings on fallen logs.

Too bad the Humans were ruining it.

Clear cutting everything.

Three giant red brick smoke stacks lumbering down over all of it, filling the sky with thick, black smog.

Pollution and filth, all for money and greed.

A crashing sound, the clattering of breaking pottery, brought Quaraun out of his thoughts. The old Elf opened his eyes, only now just realizing he had closed them. Ghirardelli had knocked over a shelf of terracotta jars, and now busied herself with picking them back up.

Quaraun watched, as he reminded himself, that he must be nice to the jackass, trespassing intruder who was right now invading his privacy, even though in his mind all he wanted to do was wring the shit head trespassing intruder's neck, shoot slugs at her from his wand, gouge her eyes out with his dagger, and then eat her brain. It had been so long since he had last eaten a brain.

The Sacred Pink JellyFish set about to thinking thoughts of how wonderful eating brains was. It had been so long since she had eaten a brain. Psionic creatures like Thullids required brains to eat, in order to strengthen their psionic abilities.

"Brains are such wonderful things," Quaraun muttered to himself.

Before Quaraun knew it he was daydreaming visions of eating her brain sliced and toasted, spread with strawberry jelly and boiling her eyes, while wearing her teeth for a necklace.

The psychotic Thullid possessed Elf thought these gloriously, lovely squishy thoughts of murder, while Ghirardelli continued to poke through his things, oblivious to the danger she had put herself by entering into this innocent-looking pink tent.

A pink tent that was brimming full of everything a silk merchant needed to grow, boil, spin, weave, dye, embroider, sew, and display his pink silk wares.

Quaraun's display of pink silk wares is where Ghirardelli was now snooping around.

Dozens of pink dresses, pink scarves, pink shawls, pink sari, pink hijab, pink coats, pink cloaks, pink capes, pink blouses, pink corsets, pink hose, pink skirts, pink shoes, pink boots, pink ruffs, pink collars, pink cuffs, pink hats, pink slippers, pink bags, and pink petticoats all hung and displayed around the tent, some finished and ready to be sold, others in various stages of construction.

"What's all this?" Ghirardelli asked, pointing to the weaving, embroidery, and sewing.

Quaraun didn't answer. He was too busy thinking squishy homicidal jellyfish thoughts, to any longer pay attention to the stranger who'd instigated those thoughts.

"HEY!" The woman yelled as she grabbed Quaraun's shoulder and shook him. "You okay?"

"What?" Quaraun blinked and looked around, trying to remember where he was. "Oh. It's you. Are you still here?"

"Are you all right?"