We marched through the day, the sun rising and falling with no encounters of any kind. Usually, I would judge that to be a good thing. Infact, Going a whole day without imminent death being a factor in my decisions was positively delightful. But I quickly realized the problem we faced. I had never gone this long without having something to eat nearby, and I was actively carting around a human being that my biology emphatically insisted counted as food.

Said food was trudging slowly and painfully along behind me and Thing Two, unable to easily keep pace with even my spindly form. It surprised me that Thing Two seemed almost entirely unconcerned with her presence. Which boggled my mind, because having her there was about as distracting to me as a playboy bunny taking her shirt of and doing jumping jacks a foot away. Even when I wasn’t actively looking at her I found my attention constantly stolen by her presence. The passing breeze would change directions, and for just the briefest of moments the delicious aroma of meat would fill my mind and set me to salivating. Every errant twig she stepped on resounded in my head like an explosion demanding I turn around and address my hunger.

In short, it was fucking hell.

“I’m hungry.” Nadeen whined, nearly making me stumble on a loose stone I had been attempting to step over. Immediately I stopped and spun towards her, and had to immediately clamp down on my instinctual attempt to bite her when I found her standing almost directly behind me. I quickly hopped a step back so I wouldn’t be such a tempting distance away and then schooled my slavering jaw to stillness, cocking my head to one side in question.

This was the first Nadeen and I had spoken since her first little outburst upon waking, and I was doing my best to mimic obvious human gestures and body language. Thing Two made no such effort, and he halted where he was when she had spoken, his head swivelling around to face us curiously.

“I need food to replace all my blood.” Nadeen continued, practically hissing the statement through gritted teeth while she waved the stump of her left arm at me. I winced at that, not because I felt bad, but because seeing it made me really hungry.

The realization shocked me to my core. I genuinely didn’t feel bad that I had torn her arm off. How could I? In that moment, it had been her or me. By rights, if I was a normal Thing I would have eaten the rest of her like Thing Two did Bastok.

Wait. Is that why I’m so scrawny? I didn’t finish my dinner?

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts I gestured around the area of forest we were in, clearly indicating all the food available to us. All none of it. Then shrugged and patted my own belly to indicate that I too, was hungry.

I think she got about half of the point I was trying to make, because she immediately flinched and took a step back, seemingly only just now remembering that she was basically defenseless. I tried to rub the bridge of my nose in irritation at the fact that she obviously thought I was threatening to eat her, but became even more annoyed when I remembered I didn’t have a nose. Well, I probably had something that acted like a nose, because obviously I could smell - but it’s not like I could cut myself open and look for it.

Shakily, Nadeen raised her good arm and gestured at a spot a little to our right. I couldn’t tell what she was trying to show me, and I guess neither could Thing Two, because his head swivelled back and forth between where she was pointing and me as though expecting me to explain it to him.

“T-there are wolf tracks!” Nadeen squeaked out, her voice cracking like the adolescent she was while she spoke. I ambled over to the spot she was pointing at, but evidentally my forest craft was shit, because all I saw was some grass.

“Wolves. Meat. Food. That way.” Nadeen must have noticed my confused look, because some of her spoiled haughtiness crept back into her tone, though she still pointedly stayed just a bit further away from me than would make for a comfortable conversation.

I looked dubiously in the direction she pointed, somehow doubting a thirteen year old had the questionable ability to locate and track wolves. Then I remembered the leather armor and sword she wore, and had to remind myself that medieval societies typically married kids off by this age - so it was entirely possible she had an actual skill set of some kind.

Begrudgingly, I trilled once and looked in the direction she pointed, Thing Two happily taking the hint and shoving the foliage out of the way for us. I swear this better not be my final form or I’m going to have to be the skinny geek who’s brother does all his fighting for him the rest of my life. I felt my face flex and twist as I reflexively tried to snort, then made a gurgling noise in the back of my throat instead. I really didn’t like thinking about my future here. I found it highly unlikely that I would survive very long in this forest, especially considering the sheer number of my brothers and sisters that had died in the extremely short period of time I had been alive.

I threw a glance at Thing Two as he casually bashed saplings out of his way to make room for us in the underbrush.

Then again, we had ‘evolved’ or something so, maybe we’d be okay?

I stumbled back as I found myself colliding with Thing Two’s back where he had stopped moving. We had come out of the woods at the top of a small ravine. Brush on either side practically hid the small gorge from casual observation, and there was a cave entrance just beneath us, on the opposite side of the ravine. I could hear growling coming from the depths of the cavern and I tensed in anticipation.

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I had yet to encounter anything in this forest that didn’t make me want to cry myself to sleep every night, so I doubted the local equivalent to wolves would be any different. Suddenly, I really wished I’d had the wherewithal to bring my spider-shiv with me when we’d left the clearing, but I’d wanted to get moving as fast as I could once I’d woken, fearing another predator might stumble onto us as we prepared.

Glancing around for a weapon of some kind, I nearly screamed in frustration when Thing Two merely took a single step forward, using his powerful gorilla like arms to launch himself off the ledge and down into the ravine. Scrambling to keep up I looked for a way down that wouldn’t hurt as badly as literally falling ten feet, and when I couldn’t find one I resigned myself to it and jumped after him.

‘Okay. Tuck and roll. Easy peasy.’ I told myself before promptly slamming into the ground and sprawling forward like the world's worst stunt double. Pain rocked through me and I cursed my idiot brother for leaping in without getting my permission first. Or carrying me. I would have really preferred to be carried.

“Look out!” Nadeen yelled from the ledge where she pointedly didn’t try to come down and help us. Not that she was in any shape to help. She looked like she could barely stand now that I was looking at her and not just hungering after her.

Heeding her warning almost too late, I rolled to the side just in time to avoid the savage bite of what looked like a wolf with two heads. Before I could even push myself to my feet, Thing Two had reached out and wrapped one meaty hand around the base of one of the two necks on the beast, and squeezed eliciting an immediate pain yelp and the creaking of bones grinding together. Then the wolf was yanked away, lobbed like a tennis ball at the mouth of the cave it had come from.

I followed it with my eyes as it flew, my vision finally falling on the other five double headed wolves that had emerged from the cave to snap and snarl at Thing Two. I realized belatedly that he was holding them back, whip crack fast jabs of his boulder like fists keeping the creatures at bay while I wheezed for breath on the ground.

It was nice that he could hold them back, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think this stalemate could last. They outnumbered us nearly three to one, and I could already see the wolves at the edge of the formation beginning to shift around my giant brother to flank us. Finally stumbling to my feet jumped forward to place myself behind Thing Two, face the other way and keeping an eye on the two wolves trying to flank us.

All at once they moved, bursting into motion as one. The three wolves infront of Thing Two darted forward, taking turns distracting him so they can scour at his legs with the claws and teeth. They were light, glancing blows at best, but it was clear the tactic was meant for bringing down much bigger, much stronger creatures.

I had no time to think of a way to help because the wolves to either side of me darted forward at nearly the same time. Whirling I snapped my jaw at the beast to my left, only to be bowled over by the one that had been on my right. I thrashed as I hit the ground, lashing out behind me with a spindly arm and feeling my elbow connect with one of the wolves two noses. Hurt but not deterred, its two heads bit down hard on both of my shoulders and pain lanced through my body. Panicking I gurgled a desperate cry for help, and Thing Two whirled around to bring both its hands down on the wolves back in a single downward motion.

A sharp crack wrang out in the ravine and the wolf above me fell limp, its spine smashed beyond use. But Thing Two paid a price for coming to my aid, and the group of wolves that had been harassing him moved fully onto the offensive, two of them leaping out to bite at his ankles while the third leapt upon his back to bite at his neck.

Shit we were going to die to mostly normal fucking wolves. Sure they had two heads, but they weren’t exactly shooting lasers from their eyes.

Suddenly, I felt very ill, and time seemed to slow around me. The surviving flanking wolf was charging towards me, snarls on both its heads, and Thing Two was going to be torn apart but the combined efforts of its three attackers. There was nothing I could do. I was useless here, unaccustomed such savagery. The urge to vomit overtook me, and time seemed to snap back into its usual flow.

Falling forward to wretch, I was surprised to find I could feel something sliding up my esophagus. It didn’t feel like stinging acrid bile of vomit. Instead, it almost seemed to slither out of me. Feeling an abrupt pushing sensation, my mouth fell open as wide as it would go, and from deep in my gullet three absolutely horrific tendrils a blackened flesh erupted. The sensation of muscles I had no frame of reference for filled my mind, and I instinctual turned my head towards the wolf charging at me. Almost as though they had minds of their own the tendrils shot forward, each as thick as my arm. I wondered briefly how I was even breathing with these things sticking out of me, or staying upright when their solid weight stretched the five feet across the ravine to my attacker.

Then I got a better look at them. Each one of the three tendrils had a mouth at the end. They looked like toothy exaggerated moray eels, and they almost immediately latched on to the two headed wolf, hefting it into the air and tearing it apart, both its hind legs and a hunk of flesh from its back disappearing down their gullets before the monster even knew what had happened.

Have you ever heard a dog scream? Not howl, not yowl or whine. Scream. Thats what happened in that moment, and I stared at the poor creature being torn apart as though by piranha, shuddering in rapture as each hunk of flesh traveled into my stomach. When the wolf was finally dead, the three eel like heads bit and snapped at each other, fighting over the scraps of its flesh that remained littered over the ground.

With a final hiss towards each other, they turned, the force of the movement practically spinning my head around backwards. Then they descended on the wolf that Thing Two was viciously trying to swat off its back.

That one went as quickly as the first, disappearing in a flurry of teeth and blood. I was getting tired now, exhausted really. It was as though I had vomited all my internal organs out, but that they were stilled connected to me and functioning. The sensation was extremely discomforting, even if my stomach thanked me for my sacrifice. The wolf on its back gone, Thing Two had little problem pulverizing the two remaining monsters gnawing at its feet, and I began to relax, thinking the battle was over.

Then I realized there was one other thing still nearby. One of the eel like heads turned to present one half of its face to me, a beedy black eye giving me a malicious, knowing look, before it and its two compatriots turned towards Thing Two.

Shit fuck shit.

I lurched backward, dragging them gnashing teeth away from him before they could latch on in all their gory glory. They seemed none to pleased by that, and I marveled at the state of my life that I was now having a domestic dispute with one of my own organs.

I continued to back up, dragging the tendrils further and further from their intended target until my back bumped into the edge of the ravine. Slowly, and painfully, I began to force my jaw shut, every inch of movement seeming to reel the eel headed monstrosities further and further back, until with an aggravated hiss, they disappeared back into my stomach.

I stared at my stomach disbelieving, pressing against it with a my fingers trying to feel where the tendrils had gone. But it was a futile effort. Forget three, there was enough room in my entire reedy torso for one of those things. So. Clearly fucking magic then.

Giving up on that mystery for now, I glanced around to find Thing Two happily chewing his way through the remains of the wolf nearest him. He was bleeding from his wounds, but seemed almost entirely oblivious to the damage.

Above me, I craned my neck to find Nadeen staring down from the top of the ravine, blatant horror in her face.

Fuck me. I had tentacles.