"Bah! Humans! No pure thoughts in your soul. Twisted and corrupted, creatures full of lies and filth."

"I'm not. . ."

"Lying, filthy, shit bag, gutter scum, pieces of trash, every one of you."

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!" Ghirardelli yelled.

The old Elf immediately fell silent and stared, blinking at her. He had not expected her to raise her voice, indeed, he seemed puzzled by the thought that she had done so.

"Are you done bitching?" Ghirardelli asked.

"I'm never done bitching," Quaraun answered dryly. "Apparently I make an art of it."

"Okay. Never mind all that. So, you're saying that you really are the Thullid god?"

"Yes."

"The Sacred Pink Jelly Fish?"

"Yes."

"But, I thought The Scared Pink Jelly Fish was an Elder Brain. One of the Ancient Ones."

"I AM one of the Elder Brains."

"But that's not possible."

"Why?"

"Don't Elder Brains swim around in giant brain form, swimming like jellyfish in slime filled primordial pools?"

"The Elder Brains are tiny. The size of maggots. Itty bitty pink jellyfish. We climb up your nostril, latch on to your brain, take control of your mind, and learn to think your thoughts, while our tentacles fuse to your spinal column, than grow into it, engulf it, attach to it, fuss to it. We become one with you, and for inside your skull, we learn your habits, your thoughts, your hobbies, your quirks, and after a few years, when we have learned how to pretend to be you, we eat your brain, grow to fill the size of the cavity in your skull, and live as though we were you."

"So, no giant elephant sized brains sitting around in slime filled primordial pools?"

"No."

"But that's what Thullid Elder Brains are always said to be."

"Who says so?"

"Everything we know about Thullids saids so."

"Than everything you know about Thullids is wrong."

"Well, yeah. Maybe. It could be. It's been centuries since the last time anyone actually saw a Thullid. They are thought to be extinct. Or living in the dark underworld. . ."

"Dark underworld? What nonsense is that?"

"Everyone says the Thullids built a system of caves deep inside the Earth and they live down there. Cultists find huge sinkholes around the world and throw sacrifices in to feed the Ancient Elder Brains. They say Thullid psionic priests roam the dark underground serving Elder Brains. And someday there is going to be an uprising. . ."

"An uprising?"

"Yeah. The Old One, The Sacred Pink JellyFish, the oldest of the Elder Gods, is supposed to return, and bring his people back to the surface kill all Humans and restore the Earth to it's former per-Human glory."

"I'm supposed to do that?"

"That's what the stories and legends and folklore about the Thullid's god say."

"There are several problems with your Human tales of my return."

"Like what?"

"Well, for starters, I'm a female."

"Maybe it was talking about some other Elder Brain?"

Quaraun shook his head. "No. Can't be. Not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because Elder Brains are ALWAYS female. There are no male Elder Brains. We are like the Queen of a bee hive or ant hill. We are always a female and our job is simple: we lay eggs."

"You. . . lay. . . eggs. . . And you mean that literally don't you?"

"Of course."

"So. . . do you lay eggs?"

"Not in a very long time, but yes."

"When was the last time you laid eggs?"

"Before I came to this planet. Long before I was implanted up this Elf's nose. I was carrying a clutch when I was put in him."

"A clutch?"

"A clutch of eggs."

"You have a clutch of eggs?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

Quaraun pointed his finger to his head. "In this Elf's skull. I keep them safe, snuggled up against my belly, wrapped up in my tentacles."

Quaraun began softly humming, seeing to his egg clutch.

"You're saying your head is full of Thullid eggs waiting to hatch?"

"No. My head is full of Thullid eggs waiting to be fertilized."

"Fertilized?"

"Yes. I must find a male JellyFish."

"You mean a male Thullid?"

"Oh no. The generic squid or octopi Thullid is a different species. Only another JellyFish is compatible for reproduction."

"How long can you wait to find a male?"

"Forever."

"Forever?"

"Yes. Forever."

"How is that possible."

"I am an Immortal JellyFish. If we get too old, we simply revert to a younger version of yourself and start life over again. We Immortal JellyFish can do that forever. I will keep doing that forever, until I find an appropriate male for spawn with. Than I will lay my eggs."

"Lay. . . where?"

"In the brains of hosts."

"How many eggs are you carrying?"

"A few million."

"A few. . . million? Seriously?"

"Yes."

"And someday you are going to lay those eggs, and. . . a few million?"

"Yes. Around seven million."

"Seven. . . million. . .? Seven million Thullid eggs? That means seven million Thullid larvae will some day be put into seven million people. And those seven million people will turn into. . . into. . . squid headed brain sucking mind flaying demons."

"Yes. And no. Not Squid headed. Jelly-brained, like me. That is how we Thullids reproduce."

"It'll be an apocalypse."

"Undoubtedly."

"Armageddon."

"Most probably."

"Like Christian ministers are always talking about. They keep saying how Demons from the underworld walk among us in disguise and no one knows because they look like us, and one day they will rise up and take over the world, possessing others, taking over their minds, making them slaves to the ancient Elder God. That's YOU! Those ministers are talking about YOU. The Bible was largely written in 800 A.D. when your people arrived on planet Earth, when you were implanted into the Elf. The Bible calls you the Alfar, the Watchers, the Fallen Angles. . ."

"The Grigori. Yes. That was what Christians called us Elves back than."

"So, the Fallen Archangels of the Bible, that's you Elves, right?"

"Yes."

"And the Demons of the Bible, that's you Thullids?"

"Yes."

"And, you are one of the Watchers, a Demon Possessed Archangel, because you are a Thullid living in the body of an Elf?"

"This is correct."

"And so the stories of the Demon taken over in the Book of Revelation, that's talking about the day when you lay your eggs in the brains of Humans and the Human race turns into Thullids. That's what the Bible means when it talks about Demon Possession? It means Thullids sucking out Human brains and replacing them with baby jellyfish, who fuse with the body, become the body, and sprout tentacles out of their mouths and turn into squid headed eldritch demons?"

"More or less, exactly that. Yes."

"So, you're an implanted Elder Brain?"

"Yes. And this host is dreadfully beautiful. He has such a lovely body."

"So, you are an ancient Thullid living in the body of an old, elderly Elf?"

"Elderly?"

"Aren't you?"

"Am I?"

"You look elderly."

"Do I?"

"Yes. You're an ancient old, elderly Elf."

"Ancient and old? Old and ancient?"

"Why are you getting upset? Didn't you just tell me you were nine hundred years old?"

"You think I'm old!"

"Well, aren't you?"

The Necromancer stopped what he was doing, stepped back, and stared dumbfounded at the woman.

"Old and ancient. Ancient and old."

His voice sounded wounded, and she instantly regretted her boldness in speaking her mind without thinking first.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"Are my feelings hurt?" Quaraun asked himself. "No. But am I old?"

"Being old isn't a bad thing, you know?"

"Yes it is. It's terrible. I am immortal. I can't get old. How have I grown old and not known it?"

She didn't know the habits of either Elves or Thullids, or Elves who were demon possessed by Thullids, so caution would have been a better move on her part.

"Ancient and old? Old and ancient?"

Quaraun silently mouthed the words ancient and old several more times. That he was immortal and would retain his beauty for many centuries was vitally important to him. Possibly more important to him than anything else. Even the slightest hint of a wrinkle at the corner of his mouth or a crow's foot beside his eye was enough to send Quaraun into a panic of looking for herbs and oils and creams and lotions and potions to dab it away.

Quaraun strode across the tent to look the woman straight in the eye, standing so close that his thin, perfectly pointed nose nearly touched hers. He stared deep into her eyes, search for a hint of honesty.

"Do I look old to you?" Quaraun asked the woman, but he did not wait for an answer. He spun away from her, kicked his bedroll aside, and nervously paced around his tent.

"How could I possibly look old?" The ancient Elven wizard muttered to himself as he racked his brain trying to determine when it was that age had caught up with him.

Quaraun's voice had changed. Calm and composed before, he could not mask the nervous, worried, panicked anxiety that shivered through him, causing his body to tremble.

Much to the woman's astonishment, Quaraun pulled a full-length mirror out of his impossibly tiny pink beaded heart shaped hip bag. The ancient wizard then stood in front of the mirror muttering to himself about being old, while he stared, horrified, stressed, and perplexed, at his own reflection. The Elf had now taken to searching for wrinkles on his face.

"I didn't mean. . ." the woman tried to explain she had not meant to upset him, but whatever it was she had said, was lost to the universe.

Quaraun wasn't listening to Ghirardelli. The abnormally vain Moon Elf had pulled a silver brush from the bag of holding and nervously brushed his luxuriant white Rapunzel hair.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

No.

Not brushing his hair.

Quaraun ripped the bristles through his tentacle locks with a frantic abandon. His hair nervously withered away from the brush.

The thought that he might have aged had triggered the Elf into a self-absorbed frenzy of fussing over what he looked like while frantically brushing his hair.

The elderly wizard continued to mutter about being old and trailed off into speaking a squishy, slithering, jellyfish language the woman did not understand. Ghirardelli tried to get Quaraun's attention. But it was a fruitless endeavour. She couldn't tell what the Elf said, but whatever it was, Quaraun sounded terrified.

The woman couldn't tell what the Elf was saying, but whatever it was, Quaraun sounded terrified.

The Swamp Hag continued talking to him, but she might as well been talking to a brick wall. The vain, self absorbed Elf was not hearing a word the woman was trying to say.

Ghirardelli suddenly realized this Elf was very self-conscious about his looks.

"Are you really going to just shut down and not respond to me anymore?" Ghirardelli asked him.

He did not answer. She regretted what she had said to him. Though she did not regret it out of any concern for the Elf. She cared nothing for him or his feelings. Rather, she regretted it because it seemed apparent that once worried about his looks; the Elf had forgotten her presence. Quaraun was too busy primping in the mirror. The Pink Necromancer was no longer concerned with helping her.

"You're not listening to me!"

Ghirardelli stamped her foot in frustration.

"I hate men," Ghirardelli said bluntly. "You are all alike. Self centred pricks. Every one of you."

Quaraun didn't answer. He was still muttering words she didn't know. She contemplated kicking the mirror, but than thought better of it. If this really was Quaraun the Insane, well, people called him insane for a reason, because he was insane. And an insane person was dangerous, wasn't they?

"Clearly you are a highly narcissistic, egotistical Elf."

Quaraun stopped brushing his hair for a moment to consider this.

"Yes. A sad, lonely, depressed, narcissistic, egotistical Elf, suffering from some serious vanity and pride issues," Quaraun said agreeing with her. "That is exactly what I am. Plus, I am not a man," he added. "So you can't possibly hate me for being a man."

"I wouldn't have expected you to say that."

"What? That I'm not a man? Obviously not. I'm not Human. Me are always Human."

"When I said men, I meant males, but. . ."

"I'm not that either. I am a female. I just live in the body of a male."

"Whatever, but that's not what I meant."

"What then?"

"I meant, I wouldn't have expected you to call yourself narcissistic or egotistical or admit to being vain and having pride issues."

"No reason to deny what I am. I know I have problems. Personality issues. I'm not the easiest person to get along with. I am a bitch. Everyone tells me as much. You even did a few moments ago. I accept that. But that doesn't mean I have to accept aging. I am a mage. I ought to be able to keep myself looking young forever."

"Do you want to look young forever?"

"Yes. Don't you?"

"I'm beyond that possibility. Didn't you notice how old I am?"

"Of course, I noticed. I'm not rude enough to call you a wrinkled up old hag or tell you look an old, dried up piece of jerky, like you did to me."

I didn't say. . . HEY! Did you just call me a piece of jerky!"

"I did. What of it?"

"You were bitching about not being called names."

"What goes around, comes around. If you didn't want me retaliating with name calling, than you shouldn't have been calling me names first. Don't suppose you thought of that did you? You'd think someone your age were have some manners and not be acting like an immature ingrate."

Ghirardelli fell silent and Quaraun went back to sputtering foreign words, while fussing over his hair and looking for wrinkles on his face. It occurred to Ghirardelli that calling the Elf old could ruin her chances of getting any help from the Elf. The Elf seemed to have forgotten she needed help.

"You were going to help me," she reminded Quaraun.

"Was I?" Quaraun pondered this thought for a moment, trying to remember if he had said he would help this women or not.

"Wasn't you?"

"Did I say I would?"

"Did you say you wouldn't?"

"No. I did not say I wouldn't. That is true. But I also didn't say I would. I said I would listen to what you had to say, and serve you tea."

Loud thunder crashed outside the tent. Lightening flashed soon after, causing a red glow through the tent's pink stripped silk.

"What was that?" Ghirardelli jumped and spun around.

"It was only the thunder. There is a storm raging out there, remember? A hurricane. It was WHY I stopped and set up my tent. I was travelling. But this storm came up on me, so I set up the tent. Was weaving for a bit. Ate my meal. Took a nap. Got woken up by you. Now I'm having my tea."

"You know it isn't tea time."

"It is always tea time."

The sound of pouring rain came rumbling down on the roof of the tent. Ghirardelli looked up at the thin pink stripped silk.

"Is this tent strong enough to keep out the rain?"

"It's not just strong enough to keep out the rain, it's strong strong enough to keep out raining cats and dogs."

"I wish it WAS raining cats and dogs."

"Don't say that."

"Why not? More rain would keep the men from chasing me."

"No. That's not what I meant. . ."

As Quaraun said this, a flurry of growling and hissing started happening outside the tent.

"Oh dear," he muttered. He put his teacup on the table, used his cane to pull himself and tottered his way over to the front door flap of the tent to look outside. Cats and dogs were falling out of the sky. "Oh, bother."

Ghirardelli joined him in the doorway.

"You know I never realized how short you were, " Ghirardelli said to the tiny, little necromancer, who was shorter than her shoulder.

"My height has nothing to do with anything," Quaraun snarled. He hated when people mentioned how short he was.

"No, but, you're a man and you don't even come up to my shoulder."

"It's raining cats and dogs," Quaraun said as he watched a herd of wet cats scurry away, hissing and growling, while packs of small muddy dogs rolled in the mud puddles. "Did you do this?"

"No! I didn't do it, but I wish I had. This is frigging awesome!"

"Don't say that. Especially not around me."

"Say what?" Ghirardelli was confused by what was happening and by what Quaraun had said.

"Wish."

"Wish?"

"Don't wish for anything."

"What? Why?"

"I'm a Di'Jinn."

"So?"

"I'm a wishing mage. When people around me wish for things, those things happen."

"You're joking."

Quaraun pointed through the door to the downpour of cats and dogs tumbling out of the sky. "Does THAT look like a joke to you, madame?"

"No, that looks like a lot of cats and dogs tumbling out of the sky. How did that happen?"

"You wished for it."

"And you granted that wish?"

"No. But that's what happens when people wish for things around me. It's part of why I stay away from people. Especially you filthy Humans. Most especially you vile jackassery white Americans. Nothing but gutter scum filth. That's all you Americans are. I should do this world a favour and rid this planet of the entire vile American existence. Nothing useful was ever birthed out of a white American Human. Not a one of you deserves to live."

Quaraun left the tent, sputtering angrily about how wet his hair was. Growling about mud on his shoes.

"Humans and their idiotic wishes. Wish your boyfriend would spend more time with you? Poof! Now the two of you are fused together like fucking Siamese twins. I was warm and dry in my tent. Now look at me. Wet. Wet. And fucking more wet. Gamblers looking to enhance the power of wishes, rub lodestones on their skin, hope to attract gold to them, all they end up with are red blisters and rashes. Idiots can't think straight enough to word their wishes rationally or logically. Soiled my shoes. Oozing black, muddy clay stuck on my silks. I should be indoors, not out here in a fucking hurricane, cleaning up jackass Human incompetence. Wishing it would rain cats and dogs, now we got herds of Llasha Apsos running wild through the first. What the fuck is wrong with her. Brain dead incompetence. That's all it is, brain dead incompetence."

The gale force of the hurricane wind was so strong, Quaraun could barely stand, let alone walk. In between tree limbs and uprooted shrubbery flying by, a random cat or dog zipped past his head, followed by several more cats and several more dogs.

After he'd gone some distance from the tent, Quaraun pulled out his wand and drew a few sigils in the mud while muttering something in Thullid. The cats and dogs immediately stopped dropping out of the sky. Quaraun turned back to glare at Ghirardelli and snarled at her, as he slowly staggered his way back through the mud into the tent again.

"Don't wish for anything else, or I WILL kill every last fucking white American Human on this entire planet. I'm so sick and fed up to death with all of you. Careless words once spoken are often difficult to undo. Wishes cause more harm than good. And no good comes from you evil ass Americans. You white Americans aren't worth the shit it takes to dung on your face. A wish spoken out of turn can be devastating. And I can't always fix them as easily as this one."

Back inside his tent, Quaraun pushed past Ghirardelli and soggily trudged back to his pile of pink striped silk pillows.

Ghirardelli laughed for several seconds, thinking the old Elf was joking, but she stopped laughing when she realized how very grave and serious he looked. Quaraun narrowed his eyes and glared menacingly at her.

"Wait. You're serious, aren't you?"

"Madam, I am an Elf."

"Yes." Ghirardelli agreed. "I can see that."

He stood, staring down at the pillows, contemplating sitting on them, then decided better of it. Wet silk was terrible to sit on, it smelled of rotting moths. One never got silk wet. Quaraun made his way to the fire pit, stripping his clothes off as he went, hung them on a rack that wasn't there a few seconds ago, then pulled some new clothes off the racks of pink silk outfits and redressed himself as he trundled back to his pillows and plopped himself down on them.

"I am always serious," Quaraun said as he pulled out a towel and began patting the water out of his twelve foot long hair.

"So, is that an Elf thing?"

"Yes, that is and Elf THING."

"I thought you were a Thullid?"

"I AM a Thullid!"

"Then why do you do Elf things and not Thullid things?"

"I already explained that to you!"

"You did?"

"Yes!"

"When?"

"When I told you we live in the host's body for several years, learning their traits and habits, before we eat their brains, so that we can know how to act like them, dress like them. . ."

"You know I don't think Elves wear pink silk encrusted with rhinestones."

Quaraun was sputtering with rage now: "I am NOT a Common Wood Elf! I am a High Elf. A Moon Elf!. . ."

"The Moon Elves wore blue, silver, and white. And they lived in the frozen tundras of the north. Silk moths and mulberry trees don't grow there. And there is nothing naturally pink up there. Moon Elves don't even know what pink is."

"Lady slipper orchids are pink and they grow in the thousands up there. And we are inbreed so many generations that we are all albino and have pink eyes. So of course we know what pink is."

"Tundra races don't wear pink."

"I wasn't raised in the tundra, I was raised in the Middle East in the Hawizeh Marshes of Mays?n, Iraq. What you Americans call Persia. I fed the wild Kelpies on the edge of the Tigris River at Al-Musharrah and Al-Kahla."

"So you're an Arabian who grew up in palaces. . ."

"Palaces? There are no palaces where I lived. I grew up in the heat of the desert. With miles of nothing but tall reeds. We lived in woven reed huts in the grass. And on reed boats and slept under tents made out of tanned water buffalo hide. There were no palaces. You've never been to Iraq, have you?"

"No, but I read about places like that in books. . ."

"In books? What books?"

"Well, children's books actually."

"You mean Arabian Nights?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"You do know that book is fiction, don't you?"

"Yeah, but, you're a Di'Jinn and you grant wishes or something you were saying."

"You are confusing Di'Jinn with Djinn."

"How are they different?"

"Di'Jinn is two syllables die-GIN, for one thing. The D is pronounced as a separate word. And it's a religion. Djinn, one syllable, GIN, the D is silent, and it is a type of Chaos Demon that acts as a nature guardians of desert sands, desert plants,, and desert animals. There is quite a big differance between a Di'Jinn and a Djinn."

"So, you're not Arabian, even though you look and dress like and Arab?"

"It's Arabian, not Arab, and no, I'm Persian not Arabian."

"What's the differance?"

"Arabia is several hundred miles north Iraq. Iraq is by Iran and Egypt. Arabia is by Turkey and Romanian. I am from the southern marsh land of the Tigris River estuary, not the big city metropolises of Arabia in the north."

"Did you not grow up in the city than?"

"No. We lived in small clans and tribes along the river. We didn't even have houses. The grass huts would last one season, be destroyed by floods, then we'd have to move inland and live under lean tos until the flood waters went down and we went back to the marsh and rebuilt our reed huts again."

"When you say huts, do you mean like, actual grass huts?"

"Yes. Actual grass huts. We wove our houses by hand, just like we wove our clothes. Weaving is the primary crafting method of the Di'Jinn."

"Wait. Is weaving like the primary industry where you are from?"

"Yes."

"So, that's why you are a merchant of hand woven cloth, than, right?"

"Yes. We wove baskets and boats and sold them to the merchant caravans that came through. Traded our silk and baskets for food, which we had precious little of."

"So, did you like eat rice and stuff?"

"You know nothing of where I grew up if you think it was a land full of riches, wealth, rice, and palaces. I may be wealthy now, but I wasn't than."

"But you're a Moon Elf. The desert is the exact opposite of where Moon Elves are supposed to be. I don't. . ."

"I was born in Ivujivik, Quebec, in the tundra and snow, like every other Moon Elf, yes. But I wasn't raised there. The Moon Elves sent me to live with the Di'Jinn Wizards in Mays?n when I was just nine years old. I lived in the Tigris River marshes my entire childhood and youth. I lived with them for more than 70 years. There was an oasis where they built their Temple of the Sacred Pink JellyFish. In that temple were hundreds of bamboo aviaries, just like those over there."

Quaraun pointed to the rows of bamboo aviary cages stacked along the back wall of the tent. Each cage housed a shrub, mulberry, tea or roses, and each plant was hung heavy with massive webbing of white spiderweb-like sheets, as the silkworms eat the lush, green leaves, then spun their cocoons. Fluffy white silk months fluttered around lose in the tent, most of them staying near the glowing lava slug crystallized feces.

"In fact, those are some of them. Mine came from the temple. I brought them with me when I left. The Di'Jinn priests raised silk moths and wove pink, yellow, and orange silk. I dress like a Di'Jinn priest, not a Moon Elf, because I was raised with the Di'Jinn, reared by the Di'Jinn. I grew up in the desert, not the tundra. I have Persian habits and Persia customs and wear Persian clothes. Don't judge me to be a spitting image of every other Moon Elf. Just because that is the race I was born as, doesn't mean it was the culture I was raised in."

"I wasn't trying to upset you. . .."

"You've been doing a lot of that today, madame."

"You weren't raised by Elves than, right?"

"That is correct. I was nine years old went I was sent away. And there were no Elves in the desert of the Di'Jinn. Only the Thullids who raised me and the Humans who lives in the marsh lands along the river."

"So, you essentially grew up with Humans, than, right?"

"Yes."

"But you hate Humans?"

"No. I quite like Humans. What I hate is the self righteous, racist, bigoted, terrorist Americans who think they own the world and can do whatever they please, to hell with every one else. They think because their god tells them they are the chosen ones, that they can kill everyone who is not them."

"Uhm. . . okay. . . I guess. . . but, if you were raised in Human areas, with no Elves to influence you, shouldn't you be doing predominately Human things, not Elf things?"

"I am still an Elf, even if I grew up with Humans and Thullids, doesn't change the fact, I am still an Elf."

"So, telling jokes didn't rub off on you, even though you grew up with no Elves around?"

"Do you think all Humans act like white trash Americans?"

"Humans are Humans. . ."

"No. Americans are a snide, arrogant breed of Humans, who murder everyone around them, bully, beat up, tease, harass, and hate all things not white, not Christian, and not American. Look how many times American trash slaughters black Humans! Chinese Humans! Irish Humans! Catholic Humans! Gypsy Humans! Do you see that happening in Europe? No! Do you see that happening in Africa? No! Do you see that happening in Asian? No! Just America, and not all of America, just Christians, and not all Christians, just white Christians. And you blame your violence, hate crimes, and murder on your god."

"So I can assume you had a bad run in with white, American Christians at some point?"

"Yes. Vilest things I've ever encountered. And they get worse in the future."

"That's right. You're not the Quaraun from this time period you said. Your a future Quaraun here in the past of your time, trying to change something."

"Yes."