"Well," the Swamp Hag stated. "From what I know of The Elf Eater, he was a warrior who crowned himself king and went on a mass murdering spread across the globe, conquering nations, raping everyone, razed villages, burned everything to the ground, and he didn't make any distinction of who should live or die, because he just killed every man, woman, and child or every race, nation, species, and creed. He killed for the fun of it, because he liked to watch people suffer. He was pure evil."

"BoomFuzzy was not evil," Quaraun interrupted her. "The man I knew was very kind and gentle. He had more compassion than the average Human."

"That's not how everyone describes him," Ghirardelli insisted. "The Elf Eater was a cold, heartless killer. Anyone who crossed his path was brutally murdered, ripped apart, raped to death, than eaten. He was a total monster in the truest form of the word."

"BoomFuzzy was not a monster."

"Do you deny that he did those things?"

"If he did those things, than he did them before I met him, because he never did anything like that while we were living together. And I knew him better than anyone."

"So you are saying he wasn't a murdering, serial rapist, cannibal, like every one says he was?"

Quaraun shook his head. "No. I didn't say he didn't do those things. I said I never saw him do those things, and he wasn't doing stuff like that while we were living together. I don't know what he did when he was younger or before I met him."

"He was evil before you met him."

"He was not evil."

"How do you know?"

"I am soul bound to him. I feel every emotion he does. I know every thought he thinks. I remember his memories."

"Can soul binding do that?"

"Yes. And he wasn't evil. He was sad. Lonely. And depressed. and unwanted by everyone. He had no one. His parents abandoned him when he was a small boy. Left him to die. He was sick. Half starved. Half frozen. In the dead of winter, when and elderly Elf found him and took care of him. The Elf was a mage who lived in a gingerbread house. Took care of the boy, taught him how to cook cookies and pastries and candy and ginger bread. The Elf was evil. Used Human children for ingredients. Ground their bones up into flour. And than one day tried to eat the boy. The boy fought back and killed the old Elf. And than ate him. Discovered he had a fetish for the taste of Elf blood, so took over the gingerbread house and used it to lure Elf children. Started cooking Elves, and became known as The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley. He lived here in Pepper Valley for centuries."

"I never knew that."

"Not a lot of people did. BoomFuzzy didn't talk much."

"You don't seem to talk much either."

"I rarely have anyone to talk to. No one ever wants to talk to me. Most people are quick to attack on sight. No one ever gives me a chance to talk."

We meet. He was going to kill me, but by that time he was elderly, sick, and wounded. He couldn't kill me, as he was too weak from his injuries. I didn't realize who he was or that he had tried to kill me. I found him, saw him as old, elderly, hurt, sick, and in need of care. I took him in, nursed him back to health, and when he was well again, he left. We meet again a few years later. He was going to kill me but recognized me and spared me. And we meet a 3rd time, after that and became friends. Became lovers after that. We lived together for 30 years."

"Only thirty years?"

"Yes."

"So you weren't with him very long than?"

"No."

"The way people tell it, I thought you two were together for centuries."

"No. He died only a few decades after we met."

"So you never knew him when he was the war lord, warrior king killing every one?"

"No. He did that hundreds of years before I was even born. I told you. I never saw the evil man, people describe him as. I only knew the elderly man, from many years later. And than my people found out I had a male lover, and went psychotic on us. Nearly killed the both of us. I healed. He didn't. His wounds became infected and he killed himself rather than suffer in agony any longer."

"But your people must have been terrified. You brought The Elf Eater into their village and they were Elves."

"Yes. They were. They were so full of fear, but I. . ."

"Did you not think they would be upset?"

"If you would stop interrupting me, you'd know what I was saying. I did not bring him to the village. I met him there. He moved in and was there a few days before I met him. And that is different. Quite different than my bringing him there. You really, should learn to be more careful with your words."

"But, you're an Elf and he eats Elves. You should have been scared too."

"I know. But I wasn't. He didn't scare me even in the slightest."

"Why not?"

"I told you, I can see people's auras. His aura was blue and purple and peaceful. He meant us no harm. I could see it in his aura."

"And the other other Elves couldn't see it?"

"They could not."

"Why were you to only Elf who could see it?"

"Because I am not an Elf. I told you already: I am the Sacred Pink Jelly Fish, last of the Elder Brains. I only wear this Elf's body like a coat."

"So, you are a Thullid?"

"Yes."

"And seeing auras is a Thullid thing, not an Elf thing?"

"It is."

"And because of the aura thing, you were not scared of The Elf Eater, because you saw no threat from him?"

"Exactly."

"So you're saying he wasn't evil."

"No. I'm saying, he was not intending to harm us."

"Did you tell them that?"

"I tried to explain he had changed. He wasn't the warrior he had been in his youth. He was an old man. Much changed from the villain of his youth. But they did not believe me. They refused to even try to get to know him. They deemed him evil. Faeries are below any other race in the minds of most Elves. To lower myself to bed with a Faerie. It was unthinkable. They castrated me. Tortured me. Dragged me for miles, stripped naked, and tied to the hooves of a team of horses. Used metal garden claws to slice the skin off my back. Broke my legs and my arms and my ribs. Than hung me by my ankles in a tree, for three weeks, while the villagers threw rocks at me, shoved branches up my arse, up my dick, and stabbed forks into my arms and belly. Strangers. My neighbours. My friends. My family. Even my own father - he's the one who castrated me."

"Are you a eunuch?"

"Yes. I am. They all turned on me. Took turns beating me and hitting me, stabbing me and slicing me, while hung upside down, naked in the tree, unable to fight back. Flies came and laid eggs in my wounds. Maggots hatched out and ate my flesh, wriggled under my skin."

"That's horrible."

"It was."

"You wasn't a necromancer back than, was you?"

"No. I was not. I was a 'good' mage back than. A member of The Guild even. No dark arts. No necromancy."

"So, you turned to necromancy because you suffered a broken heart and you wanted your lover back?"

"Yes. His death devastated me. And every one said I must be evil, if I could love something as evil as him. It was why they tortured me. That event forced me to necromancy. After I finally escaped, it took months to heal. Years to fully recover. My body is marred with scars. Some pains never went away. The bones in my limbs still ache. The pain in my joints flairs up with every variation of weather. All because I fell in love, with someone they deemed not respectable enough for my social standing. I was the crown prince, you know?"

"I didn't know."

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

"Triple Planets? What's the Triple. . ."

"But look at me," Quaraun ignored her question and continued babbling. He informed no one what the triple planets were, and he didn't plan to do so now. "Do I LOOK like an emperor to you?"

"No, you. . ."

"No. I don't. And do you know why I don't?"

"No, I. . ."

"Because I don't want to be a king."

"Why not?"

"I wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to weave silk. And what did I do? I wove silk. And they didn't like it, did they?"

"I don't kno. . ."

"Of course you don't know. You, weren't there. You have no clue. That's why YOU are evil."

"I'm evil?"

"Yes."

"How am I evil?"

"Because, like a sly snake in the grass, you judge me without even knowing me."

"How did I. . ."

"How? How?"

"Yes. How? You tell me."

"Do I really need to?"

"Apparently, you do."

"You have no clue what you possibly could have done to establish yourself as a sneaky snake?"

"Nope."

"Are you really that stupid?"

"You've gone from calling me a snake to calling me stupid."

"I am here minding my own business. Living in my tent, pitched on the side of the roadway, walking for miles every day, no destination, no ambition, no goal, just walking wheresoever the road takes me. Weaving silk. Embroidering silk. Selling silk at random marketplaces as I go on my merry way to nowhere at all. You wouldn't know I was the emperor over all Elves, now would you? Living the life of a homeless, wandering vagabond. A merchant peddling wares. A wandering wizard for hire. No one remembers I am the Elven King. Why would they? I certainly don't live a kingly life."

"Every snake must slither out of the water sometime."

"Are you calling me a snake?"

"I most certainly am."

"Why would you. . ."

"Why? Because, you deceived me, like some sneaky, slimy, slithering snake! That's why."

"Did I?"

"I came in here because I thought you would help me!"

"No. You came in here to hide. Hide from men chasing you. You said as much. Also, you said you thought I was a woman and would disguise you and say you had been here with me all along."

"I did but. . . you. . . I didn't. . ."

"You know that's what you did," Quaraun wouldn't give her a chance to talk. He interrupted everything she tried to say. "Don't deny it."

"I wasn't. . ."

"I hate liars," Quaraun continued to not let her get a word in edge-wise.

"I didn't. . ."

"I despise liars as extreme as I hate bullies." Quaraun continued. "And I won't think twice about slitting your throat if you lie to me."

"Will you let me talk!" Ghirardelli yelled.

The old woman, raising her voice, took the old Elf by surprise momentarily. He stopped talking and stared at her, blinking, looking as though he'd forgotten she was there and only just remembered he was actually talking to someone, rather than to himself.

"All right," Quaraun said quietly. "What is it you want to say?"

"You are an evil super villain."

"Am I?"

"Aren't you?"

"I have a hard time seeing myself as evil or a villain or super. Although I do like soup. BoomFuzzy made wonderful soup. But that's beside the point. Pray tell, how do you think I am an evil super villain?"

"Everyone knows that's what you are."

"Well then, everyone doesn't know shit, do they? Do you always listen to rumours and gossip, let people drag you around by a ring in your nose?"

"You're the one with a ring in your nose."

"I have three rings in my nose. My nipples are pierced too."

"Why would you pierce your nipples?"

"So I can shoot fireballs from them."

"Shoot. . . fireballs. . . from your nipples?"

"Yes."

"Can you really do that?"

"I can."

"Why would you want to?"

"I have many centuries each in many lifetimes. I get bored and think up new spells."

"Like shooting fireballs for your nipples?"

"Exactly. I make enchanted, magically endowed jewellery. I have rings that shoot fireballs and rings that shoot lightening and rings that shoot ice. I should invent milk producing rings, so men can nurse babies."

"Can you do that?"

"I don't know. I'll have to try it and find out."

"You've got some kind of piercing fetish, don't you?"

"Oh yes. I've more in my scrotum."

"I don't think I wanted to know that."

"There are 48 rings in my scrotum."

"Again, not information I wanted to know."

"And as many more in my foreskin."

"I didn't want to know that either. And I thought you were a eunuch?"

"They drove three daggers up my penis and split it in half, lengthwise. I sewed it back together and used gold rings to hide the scars. So many scars. My whole belly is scars. And my thighs. And my groin."

Quaraun sighed a heavy sigh, put his mirror away and sat down on his pile of pink stripped pillows once again.

"They scarred me for life and you call ME evil for defending myself. You have a twisted sense of logic. But than on top of that, YOU are the one carrying an evil sword and running from a group of men and asking me, who call an evil super villain, for help. There's some irony, yes?"

"It's not meer men who are after me."

"No?"

"No!"

"What are they than?"

"They consider themselves gods."

"Gods? Haha." Quaraun chuckled at the thought.

"You think that's funny?"

"Yes, actually I do."

"Why?"

"Well, because I AM a god."

"You really believe that don't you?"

"I don't have to believe it. I know it."

Quaraun busied himself with refilling their teacups. Ghirardelli watched and wondered why it was a god would need to drink tea.

"You're a god?"

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"Yes. I am"

"A god who wears pink and sits around drinking tea in a tent?"

"Yes."

"Aren't you on the run from the Guild?"

"Yes. I am."

"Well, how can you be a god than?"

"What do you mean?"

"Gods don't have to run. You could just kill them all."

"I don't like killing. I avoid killing when necessary. However, I do kill the Guild whenever one gets close enough to be a threat to me."

"I'm a Guild member."

"I know."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Do you still think I look old?"

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Quite a lot."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't. You're a stupid little Human who won't live long enough to learn anything, even if you live the full extent of your natural life."

"Instead of calling me stupid, why don't you just explain yourself?"

"Beauty is a matter of great importance to me."

"And?"

"And I do whatever I have to to maintain my entherial beauty."

"Really?"

"Really. I surround myself with beautiful things. I maintain my own beauty. I dislike things that are ugly. When I find things which are ugly, I make them beautiful or I remove them from my life."

"Would you kill someone just because they were ugly?"

"No. But I wouldn't subject myself to their presence either."

"Ugly people need friends, too."

"Sure they do. But that doesn't mean I need to be one of them, now does it?"

"You are as ugly on the inside as you are beautiful on the outside. You know that right?"

"You are not the first person to tell me. Nor will you be the last. I am not easy to get along with. I know that. It is why I live alone."

"Are you going to help me?"

"Perhaps. What is it you need help with?"

"The men who are after me."

"Are they?"

"Yes!"

"Why than has no one arrived looking for you?"

"What?"

"You've been here half the day talking with me and yet, no one has arrived looking for you. You said they were on your tail. That implies they were right behind you. Where are they?"

"I. . . I don't know?"

"Were they really after you?"

"Of course they were."

"Why than are they not here?"

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"Is there any reason why I should?"

"There was a group of men chasing me. . ."

"Yes. So you have said."

"They were after my sword. . ."

"You have told me, but where are they now?"

"I don't know."

"If they consider themselves gods, then the solution is that we become god-killers, yes?"

"Wait, you mean, like, we should kill them?"

"Me? No. You? Yes."

"Are you telling me to kill them?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They are YOUR problem, not mine."

"But that's just, just. . ."

"Evil?"

"Yes!"

"Well, I suppose now I can see why it is that you consider me to be an evil super villain."

"Is your first thought always to kill?"

"Is your first thought always to run?"

"Women don't fight. That's a man's job."

"Well, than, perhaps you should get the help of a man."

"But you're. . ."

"I'm an Elf and you're a bitch."

"How dare you! You know nothing about me! What right have you to judge me?"

"The same right you have to judge me without knowing me either. What goes around comes around. Don't judge me if you don't want me to judge you back."

"You're asking me to kill people."

"You're assuming I will kill them for you, but ma'am, I am not a killer. It is YOU who has bloody thoughts in your heart, but you didn't want to sully your hands, so you thought to hire me to kill for you, because you are willing to believe rumours over facts."

Quaraun paused and picked up his teacup once again. Once again staring down into it.

"You know," he said. "Killing people prophylactically is not a slippery slope, it is a sheer drop."

"Prophylactically?"

"Yes."

"What's that mean?"

"You don't know?"

"No."

"I thought you were a mage?"

"I am."

"Are you not a swamp witch?"

"I am."

"And yet you don't know how to kill prophylactically?"

"No."

"Interesting."

"You imply I should know?"

"To kill someone prophylactically, means you make potions to help them, cure them, heal them, but knowingly make it wrong so that it poisons them instead. A healer who peddles herbs to cure all ills, but secretly, kills her enemies by slipping poisons into their tonics and elixirs. Is that not your specialty, Ghirardelli, murderer of many?"

"I am no murderer!"

"No? Are you sure?" Quaraun quietly stirred his tea as he stared, unblinking at Ghirardelli. "Tell me, Ghirardelli, when was the last time Finderu asked you to kill me?"

"I don't. . ."

"Don't lie to me. You're not good at it." Quaraun drank his tea. All of it. All at once. "Also, I'm in the habit of drinking poisons. My lover died from drinking poison and I've spent 400 years drinking poisons trying to die with him. It seems, because he and I were soul bound and he became a Lich, that I am now immortal on some level and putting poison in my tea has no effect on me. So. Now that, that didn't work, now, how are you going to try to kill me?"

"I. . . uhm. . ."

"No words? Pity."

Quaraun refilled his teacup.

"You don't know much about me do you? Poisons are somewhat of a specialty of mine. And you are too trusting, dear sweet, Ghirardelli."

"How so?"

"You are an apothecary. A potion mixer. And I knew this before I met you, but even if I hadn't, it would have been easy to guess by the stains on your fingers and skirts. Why exactly do you think I served you tea?"

"Because you drink tea at strange hours of the day."

"Because I wanted to see what you would do to my drink. And you did exactly what I thought you would do."

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"Not a damned thing. . . yet."

"Yet?"

"You tried to kill me and failed. That means number one, you're my enemy. Number two, I now hold something over you. Number three, you're an incompetent idiot, so I can't use you for anything useful. But I WILL think of something. You can be sure of that. Sooner or later, you will be useful to me and than I'll come to you and you WILL help me, whether you want to or not."

"Are you forgetting something?"

"Am I?"

"You're a killer for hire, aren't you? An assassin mage."

Quaraun scoffed at this. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe all the tens of thousands of people you've killed."

"Have I killed that many?"

"Not denying you kill people for hire?"

"Oh, no, you are mixed up there. I've killed no one for hire. I don't like killing people. I avoid it when possible. I'm not an assassin."

"But you've killed tens of thousands of people."

"Yes. It's possible."

"So, you've killed a lot of people, but you don't know how many?"

"I think so."

"How do you not know?"

"Probably the same way I didn't know people like you thought of me as an evil super villain."

"Meaning?"

"You don't know world well do you?"

"I would think I do."

"Do you know about portals and wormholes and rips in the fabric of time? Do you know that our world as we know it is just one of many that exist in this exact same spot all at once, and many versions of each of us, you, me, everyone else, exist in these worlds?"

"You're talking about an inter dimensional multiverse."

"Yes. And I'm not sure which world I came from, which world I belong in, or what my correct time is."

"What do you mean?"

"My Elf body, Quaraun, he when and where he belongs, but my Thullid body is from many thousands of years in his future and also from a different dimension ad from an entirely different planet in and different solar system. I am in my wrong place and wrong time and forced to live inside the body of a host in order to survive on this planet, and so Quaraun should not have died, because I shouldn't be living in him. I shouldn't be on this planet at all. And that's the problem."

"Okay, but I cannot see what any of this has to do with you being a mass murdering serial killer?"

"I'm not."

"Not? Not what?"

"I'm not a serial killer."

"What do you mean, not a serial killer? Haven't you killed a lot of people?"

"Yes. I have killed people. But killing someone and murdering someone differs greatly from one another."

"Is it?"

"Yes. You can kill someone by accident without ever having intended to harm them, whereas murder takes a well-plotted calculation, and then there is death by self defence, where you are scared for your life and kill out of pure gut reaction. Serial killer implies I make a habit of intentionally murdering people."

"So you are saying that you don't intentionally murder people?"

"No. I don't."

"But you've mass murdered entire cities. Killed tens of thousands. You're famous for the sheer numbers of deaths you have caused."

"Ah! But there even you have said a difference in terms, yes? Yes, I have killed tens of thousands, I think. I'm uncertain about the number, but if I had to guess, tens of thousands does sound about right. But murdered entire cities? No. That I have not done."

"But everyone says. . ."

"Everyone lies. I murdered one city, and it could barely be called a city, as there were fewer that 300 people. And they were all relatives of mine, so I murdered my extended family, not some random city."

"You still killed an entire city. . ."

"And they aren't actually dead, that's another thing."

"What do you mean, not actually. . ."

"I poisoned the food supply and while they lay dying from their organs being melted into jellied blood, I froze them, shrunk them, and put each of them in their own little glass bottle, where they continue to exist to this very day, suffering in for eternity in the exact same agony which they made BoomFuzzy suffer in. The ONLY people I killed were the people who killed BoomFuzzy, and they aren't even dead."

"How could they not be dead if you killed them? That makes no sense."

"Ah! I will show you. Than you shall understand. You see, I am a Di'Jinn."

"You can't be a Di'Jinn. The Di'Jinn are dead."

"No. There are still two of us left. Myself and ZooLock. We are the last."

Quaraun pulled a large, ornately carved wooden box from the tiny pink beaded heart shaped bag of holding on his belt, and from that box, removed a much smaller, fancily carved wooden box.

The second box contained several trays, each with tiny compartments.

The trays stacked on top of each other, filling the box. He removed these trays and lined them up on the table.

In each compartment sat a single glass vial, barely two inches long.

The Pink Necromancer pulled one vial from its slot and held it up to the lamp, so Ghirardelli could see the contents of the vial.

Inside the vial was an Elf.

Screaming, writhing, twisting in agony. Pleading, begging Ghirardelli to help them, to save them, to let them out of their miniature, icy eternal prison.

"You're torturing them!"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Quaraun put the vial back in its tray, replaced the trays in the box, put the box back in the larger box, and returned the large box, back into his hip bag.

"I asked you WHY?" The woman repeated her question. "Why are you torturing those people?"

"They deserve it."

"Deserve it?"

"Death was too good for them."

"How can you say that?"

"They did exactly the same to me."

"Put you in a glass bottle?"

"Yes!"

"Really?"

"Yes! Put me in a glass bowl and kept me there for ten thousand years! I used to swim free in my ocean. Than they caught me, put me in a greyer full of primordial goo. Bred me."

"Bred you?"

"Yes! Stole my eggs. Stole my polyps."

"Polyps?"

"My babies! Infested people I did not a approve of. Mutated them. Twisted them. Did experiments on them. Made them squid headed thralls, and demanded they worship me, their mother."

"Your the Mother Brain of the Thullids, then, right? Not just one of the Elder Brains?"

"I am their Mother brain, the Sacred Pink JellyFish. Yes!"

"You are the Scared Pink JellyFish."

"Yes. The called me their god, their creator, and they imprisoned me for centuries in a glass globe I not escape from. And when one of them rebelled, and tried to save me, they hunted him. He fled the planet, clutching the bowl. He tried to to return me to my ocean. But something went wrong. All those years in the goldfish bowl, my body mutated and now the salt ocean is poison to me. He immediately realized the water was killing me and took me back out, and he put me in the first creature he saw, this Elf, to save my life. Now I live trapped in the Elf, and ZooLock, is the only DiJinn allowed to walk free. I torture the rest for eternity, each one locked alone in a tiny glass vial, just as they did to me."

"You're a monster."

"No. I'm not. But they were. Eternal punishment, is much better."

"Why?"

"I already told you why. Evil people do evil things."

Quaraun's voice changed.

"They. CASTRADED. Me."

He now sounded bitter.

"They. Tortured. Me."

Angry.

"For. No. Damned. Reason."

Enraged.

"I. Did. Nothing!"

His voice seethed with fury.

"They just wanted their sick, perverse entertainment. They wanted to watch someone suffer, and I happened to be there. In the wrong place at the wrong time."

Pure hatred dripped from his lips as he spoke.

"They dragged me for miles, stripped naked, and tied to the hooves of a team of horses."

Ghirardelli felt an uneasy sense of dread, suddenly fearing for her life.

"They used metal garden claws to slice the skin off my back. They broke my legs and my arms and my ribs. They hung me by my ankles in a tree, for three weeks, while they threw rocks at me, they shoved branches up my arse, they stabbed forks into my arms and belly."

"What you are doing is eye for an eye. . ."

"Tooth for a tooth," he finished her sentence. "Life for life, Tit for tat. Do unto me as you want me to do back unto thee."

"That's not how. . ."

"They were not random strangers."

"No?"

"No."

"Does that even make a differance?"

"Yes. It does."

"How?"

"It hurt more. Emotionally. Had it been strangers, I could have said they were ignorant. But it was people who knew me. People I loved. People, I had thought loved me. I was not evil. They were my neighbours. They were my friends. My community. My own people. They were my family. Even my own father - the one who's vial you just saw - the one who begs you to help him - he's the one who castrated me."

"You were in bed another man. You admitted as much. And The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley no less."

"Who I love is not their concern. It shouldn't matter if my lover was male or female."

"Like I said, you're a freak."

"They all turned on me. They all took turns beating me and hitting me, stabbing me and slicing me, while hung upside down, naked in the tree, unable to fight back. They watched and laughed while flies came and laid eggs in my wounds. They delighted and glorified at the maggots as they hatched out and ate my flesh, wriggling under my skin. After I finally escaped, it took me months to heal. Years to fully recover. And the whole while they continued to beat me and hit me and tie me up and drag me through the streets. Most of my body is still riddled with scars. Some pains never went away. The bones in my legs still hurt. The pain in my joints flairs up with every change of weather. All because I fell in love, with someone they deemed not good enough for my social standing. I was the crown prince, and I've had the last laugh. I am the Grand High Emperor, ruler over all Elves, and I safely stowed all my subjects away in little glass bottles in my pocket, where they will never hurt me ever again."

"You deserved what they did to you."

"I did not. Their petty racism and desire to be segregated away from other races is not my doing. They tortured me because I was friends with a non-Elf."

"And look at how you retaliated. You're no better than they are. You're a monster."

"Perhaps."

"How do you justify what you do?"

"I do unto others, as they first did unto me. Do unto me, only thing which you desire I do unto thee. That is the philosophy I live by. That and never suffer a bully to live."

"And you see nothing wrong with that?"

"There is no one more dangerous than the man who healed by himself, for it is he who knows the true meaning of love and friendship, and the true sorrow of having neither, the true sorrow of being so hated by everyone, that he was left alone, unloved, unwanted, cast, rejected, abandoned, left for dead."

"That doesn't answer my question?"

"No? Are you sure? Perhaps you than need to learn to use your brain. I was tortured, for no reason at all. My family was killed. Why? We did nothing. We kept to ourselves. We harmed no one. We were both male and for that alone we were made to suffer."

"You live life on the edge. Hurting people who hurt you, makes you no better than they are. It makes you worse."

"They taught me well. I learned from the bigoted, racist masters, the art of torture, pain, and enteral suffering. I had no goals of practising magic, no desires to be a wizard. Without them, I never would have turned to Necromancy. Through Necromancy, I found my revenge and peace of mind. All mine enemies are safely where I can always see them. Their souls are mine now. And they will never hurt me again. With Necromancy I defeated them and now I am able to live the peaceful life of a silk weaver, as I had done before they unjustly attacked me. It is not murder for they did not fully die. What you call murder, I call justice. They were bullies, most extreme. They delighted in the pain and suffering of others. One must never suffer a bully to live. All bullies must die."

"You really believe that, don't you? That killing a bully is okay?"

"Of course. I would not say it if I did not believe it."

"So you see nothing wrong with what you do?"

"No. Why would I? They drove my lover to suicide. They got what they deserved."

"You are just pure evil?"

"Why? Because I dare fight back and defend victims who can not stand up for themselves? If that is your definition of evil, then you may want to rethink your own values and morals, for you may very well be evil yourself. Watch your tongue, dear sweet Ghirardelli, or you may just one day end up in my bag alongside them."

"What about the others?"

"Others?"

"Other cities, other villages, other towns. You've wiped out many."

"Yes. Those were accidents. Not murder."

"Accidents? How were they accidents? You've created mass chaos. Global panic. Devastation of entire countries. How was any of that an accident?"

"Inexperience. At the time of those events, I was still newly implanted, and not yet used to controlling this Elf's body. There were difficulties in learning how to make his functions aline with my functions. I'm much better at it now. Training to learn to control it was all I needed."

"Control what?"

"My Elder Brain abilities, is what ZooLock called them. Psionics. Telekinesis. Mind control. What you Humans call magic."

"So, you really are a Thullid, then?"

"Yes. On my planet, in my universe, there are people like this, like me, who can make things happen with their minds. Big things. Like telling everyone in the city to die and they immediately and obediently lay down and die like good little thralls."

"Thralls? You mean like, people you enslave with mind control and force to do all your work for you?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it exactly that way, but yes."

"You're a mind flayer."

"Uhm.. yes, I suppose that term fits."