C’thaami followed the glowy bird through the forest. Venti. The little bluebird was being shy, constantly darting around, refusing to get near her, but Aami was certain: they could be friends! Like Rowan. Rowan was a good friend. But Venti, no. Not yet. Venti was kind of mean, pecking her and chirping angrily whenever Aami snuck up to her. But Aami was confident, oh yes. Venti wouldn’t last long under her impeccable, slimy charm.

Even Rowan had learned to stop screaming eventually. And he wasn’t even all that smart!

So she leisurely slung herself from tree to tree, bounding from branch to branch. All while worbling the entire time. The sound was a strange collection of growls, gurgles, and sloshes; deep inside her mass, accompanied by her wriggling. But it wasn’t just a random worble today, no. She was singing. Like Rowan and Venti did sometimes, although their voices were prettier than hers.

But that was okay! Singing was fun. Even if Aami kind of sucked.

Ahead of her, the bluebird glanced back in irritation. Venti sent a sharp twinkle-chirp back at her.

‘Stop making those sounds at me. They’re awful, and you sound like a group of drowning frogs,’ Venti said, in bird-words. Which Aami understood because she ate some of the already. Their memories were really helpful.

It was always nice knowing stuff. Still, why was Venti so mean? The birds Aami ate were never this talkative. Or rude. The way Venti treated her made Aami’s core hurt a little. And worst of all, she didn’t understand why the bird was so angry! Did she do something to get on Venti’s bad side? It puzzled her.

Aami blinked her many eyes in confusion and replied with her own series of gurgling, messed up birdcalls, ‘Why can’t we be friends? Is it because of my bad singing?’

‘You’re fucking terrible at it! And I don’t want to be friends with a dirty world-eater like you. Shut up and leave me alone!’

‘I’m actually very clean! And I won’t do eat you, I promise. You’re my friend-thing!’

‘Agh!’ Venti turned a hard left, hoping to lose her. ‘Don’t talk to me!’

C’thaami wasn’t going to give up, though. If Venti was Rowan’s friend, then that meant they could be friends too! That was how friends worked, maybe. Aami wasn’t entirely sure what the word meant, but hearing it felt good. It made her all mushy and worbly inside, like the black core in her body was growing arms and hugging itself.

It was nice. Like eating stuff. That was nice too.

Aami found herself stopping on a branch, drooling at the thought. Her black saliva slime melted the branch underneath her with a hiss and she hurriedly shut her mouth. Aami slapped herself with a tentacle. Bad Aami! And poor tree. Sorry, tree.

She scolded herself with a series of growls before leaping forward again. Venti was far now, but that wasn’t a problem.

After all, Aami was really fast. She caught up to the bird in no time.

Venti didn’t look happy.

‘Maybe we can be friends if I get better at singing?’

‘No.’

‘Teach me!’

‘No!’

‘But—’

Venti stopped. Abruptly. The bird landed on a branch and turned to her, and it took everything Aami had to stop before crashing into the fragile little nature spirit. She snapped several trees with her tentacles, hooking into them and failing—unable to stop! So she changed course.

With an abrupt jerk, Aami slapped into a tree and splattered. She turned into a mess of black goo and eyes, wincing as she gathered herself back up.

While she tried to get herself together, Venti flew up to her.

‘Listen here, you ugly little abomination,’ the bird said, and the tone of her voice made Aami turn quiet. ‘The only reason I haven’t killed you already is because I can’t, and because Rowan would give me shit for it. Do you understand that?’

Aami paused. Blinked. She tried to reach out with a tentacle.

‘I—’

‘Shut up.’

Aami’s tentacle stopped. Venti glared at her and chirped.

‘Rowan may not know what you are, but I do. I know what your kind does. I know how your story ends, so let me tell you, you slimy little stain—you die. Horribly. Painfully. One day, the wrong person is going to find out about your existence, and they’re going to hunt you down. And you won’t survive. I guarantee it.’

Venti had a good voice. Her chirping had a beautiful sound, but her words were like blades. They cut her. They hurt. Aami gathered herself up and listened, unable to say anything back. Under the bird’s glare, Aami felt herself shrink. She drew into herself, compressing her mass until she was a small ball of sludge, cornered into the tree. Her eyes looked down as Venti continued.

‘And guess what happens when they find you? They kill us. Not just you—but me and Rowan too. The old bitch doesn’t know it—she would’ve destroyed you already if she did. No, you’re safe because only a few people know what you really are. Do you understand what I’m saying, you tiny-brained lump of shit? You’re a danger to everyone. We aren’t friends. We’re never going to be friends. I don’t like you. And Rowan isn’t your ally either—he’s a victim, and he’s going to hate you the day he realizes what you really are.’

Aami only stared up at her. Silent. The bird scoffed.

‘Did that hurt your feelings? Huh? Good. Now shut the fuck up, stop following me, and let me do my job. Great Ones only know how annoying this body is already. I don’t need you pissing me off on top of it.’

Seemingly satisfied with her outburst, the bird shot off with a chirp of Galesong, disappearing into the trees. Aami hesitated for a moment, then started following Venti once more. Her eyes sank into her mass, disappearing into the slime. The ones that remained stared at Venti up ahead, and the bird only seemed to become more irritated as the seconds passed. Aami tried talking to her again. Venti didn’t reply. Not anymore. No, she was just flying ahead. And somehow, being ignored by the bird was even worse. It hurt a part of her that Aami didn’t know she had.

Which was kind of neat, honestly—it was learning more stuff—but still!

It hurt.

Unsure of what else to do, Aami only followed Venti in silence. She slung herself over the branches and felt uncertainty fill her chest like a toxic cloud. Did the bird hate her because she was ugly? The animals she ate were all scared of her appearance. Even Rowan was scared, at first. What was with that? What made her so different?

What made things hate her so much?

Eventually, Aami stopped. She didn’t know how long she’d stopped for, but she wasn’t following Venti anymore. The bird was gone, and she was alone. On a branch. Feeling sad and upset and sad.

And being sad sucked.

Aami considered destroying a section of the brain she’d created for a few seconds—that she’d just erase the part that handled emotions. It was like a switch for her to be turned on and off, anyway. And it would be easier if she couldn’t feel this stuff. Maybe. But her brain, which was feeling bad, told her to keep it intact so it could keep feeling bad! It was so stupid! But still, she couldn’t help but listen to it.

So Aami sat on a branch in silence. Thinking.

Seconds passed. Her eyes emerged from her body, increasing in number again.

They blinked.

…If things hated her because she was ugly, she just had to make herself pretty. It was that simple, right? Ancestors, it was.Aami didn’t know why she didn’t think of it sooner. But what—who? What appearance could she take?

And then Aami remembered.

The girl in the picture! The one in the wrinkly lady’s house! She was the old woman’s spawn, apparently—a daughter. Aami had heard Rowan and Vivian talking about her, once. Vivian had called the girl pretty, and Rowan had agreed. C’thaami worbled to herself, gurgling out little sounds. Inspiration! Then, she writhed. She shrunk into herself.

Aami started changing shape. She grew arms—legs. A body and a head. She closed her eyes, let them disappear, and centered only two on her… face. She had a face! Wriggling all over in eldritch excitement, Aami continued changing. She shaped a nose. A mouth. A throat. And then everything below—everything inside. She even made sure to get everything right! At least, what she knew was right. Amarids had stomachs right? And a heart. She was sure she could do without a kidney, though. Only stupid wolves peed everywhere like that.

Once she was done, Aami found herself blinking. Her vision was so narrow. She couldn’t see everywhere anymore. And her other senses, too. She didn’t hear as much, didn’t feel touch as strongly, and didn’t smell as many things as she could before.

But this was okay. Because she was pretty now.

She laughed—laughed. The sound she made wasn’t a worble, but the same bright-chime sound that Rowan sometimes made. Her voice was lighter. Soft. It didn’t growl—no, people seemed to hate that. So she copied Vivian’s voice, made it smoother. She removed the rasp and the age and replaced it with youth.

It was kind of difficult, though.

Aami raised her fingers, up close to her face. She frowned—which she could do now, apparently—and wiggled them around. It was strange, having them. They were like little tentacles attached to the end of a bigger tentacle. And they had bones. Rigid, awkward bones.

She sighed. The things she did to make friends were truly massive sacrifices. Not having tentacles sucked. The only good part about it was that she could still alter herself in an instant. Aami tried it, and an eye-covered tentacle instantly sprouted from her stomach. She waved it around, tilting her head at it. Her own eyes stared back.

Why didn’t everyone have tentacles? And more eyes. They were so much better. Still, she’d decided. If was what it took to get along with her new fleshy friends, then Aami would do it.

Her legs wobbled underneath her. She frowned at them.

Stupid, rigid not-tentacles. She hadn’t eaten an amarid, so she wasn’t sure how their legs worked. She’d just assembled random bones inside of hers—hoping to make it function as closely as possible to Rowan’s. She took an experimental step with it atop the branch and—

Snap.

Her leg broke. Snapped like a twig. Aami staggered froward, and more cracks and snaps came from underneath her. She tried to keep her balance, but the other leg broke and then she was falling, topping down from the tree.

She hit the water below with a splash.

Aami sunk, frowning.

How stupid. She’d made the muscles too strong. Or perhaps the bones were too weak? Both, likely. She reformed her legs, weaving the muscles together, turning them into something more durable as she sank to the bottom of the flooded swamp. She laid there for a moment, staring up at the sky.

The sun was up there, somewhere. Barely breaking past the clouds. It looked so pretty—so nice. Aami wanted to be the sun. Warm and bright and beautiful. Everyone seemed to like the sun.

Maybe once she learned to be like it, Venti would change her mind. Maybe the old lady would stop sneering at her, and maybe the animals would stop running away.

And then maybe Rowan wouldn’t be her only friend.

Aami watched the fishes swim over her. Felt the lakeweeds at the bottom tickling her arms and feet. She relished in the feeling of it. Every time she stopped to look at the world, it always made her feel so bright. No more darkness. No more empty void, full of dull, hungry siblings. She was out in the light now. The world outside.

And Aami knew she would do anything to stay.

Slowly, Aami tested her legs. She bent her limbs, testing every muscle, every joint. Some parts felt stiff and unnatural. She changed those. Improved them. Slowly, very slowly, she turned herself into an amarid. She liked her original form. She enjoyed it. And that was her. That was Aami. But people didn’t like that side of her.

She felt herself stop to stare at the sky again, and suddenly, her heart was hurting. She didn’t sense any irregularities or faulty flesh-shaping. No—it was a different thing. An emotion. And she didn’t like it.

Aami wanted to ask: was there a trick to it?

Was there a way to stop feeling so sad about what she was doing?

She didn’t know. Aami didn’t know herself—what she was becoming. Her brain was a foreign thing. Emotions were a foreign thing. Perhaps even unneeded. But Aami loved the way some of them made her feel more than she hated the sadness that sometimes came. The way she felt when she learned things and felt the world around her was wonderful. Addicting, even. And she wanted to keep it, even despite how she felt right now.

But Aami was done being clueless about things. She needed to change. And to her, that meant learning. Being taught about what to improve. And right now, only one person would spare her the time of day for that.

Rowan.

And so Aami stood. She moved her new limbs, still awkward and stiff, and pushed herself up the water. She made her way up to the surface and she swam to a nearby tree. She clung to it, turning the tip of her fingers into claws that easily sunk into the bark. Aami looked back into the distance, back towards the direction of the hut.

It was a long way back.

It would be so easy to just use her tentacles, she knew. To just travel the way she did before. But right now, she had to stop herself from that. She had to be not C’thaami, but Aami. Aami the amarid. Aami the person. The thing that people wouldn’t hate.

She couldn’t let herself be ugly anymore.

So she sprung and dove into the water, swimming straight back towards the wrinkle-lady’s house. It was slower than flinging herself forward, but the changes she made to her body made it better. Stronger. Just a little faster. Aami swam quickly—passing the sunken trees and feeling the raindrops fall against her bare shoulders. They were cold. Different, now that she had skin to feel with. Like little plips of ice. She felt her body shivering—turning cold, and Aami stopped herself from turning up the temperature in her body.

No—she would not be a monster, like how everyone saw her. She would be like them. She would be an amarid. A friend. But still, her chest hurt. The heart she created stung. And for some reason, her features were twisting themselves into a frown.

As Aami came closer to the hut, she felt herself slowing down. A heavy feeling dragged at her chest. She saw the house appear over her, its legs wrapped around one of the trees, and stopped. She stared up at it, silent.

Suddenly, she didn’t want to go up anymore.

It was strange, how she stopped. How her legs wouldn’t move. But her nausea only got worse the longer she looked.

What if they still hated her? What if it wasn’t her appearance that they disliked, but her? And what did Rowan really think? What if Venti was right, and he would hate her in the end too? Her new body made these emotions worse. They clawed at her. They pulled at her heart, threatening to rip it apart. Her tummy felt like a churning ball of snakes, and Aami realized that her fingers were trembling. Her teeth were chattering.

Her body was getting too cold. That, she knew. But the way she felt was different. She had no words for it. She didn’t know enough of them to describe the lump in her throat, or even begin to tell herself why she wanted to curl into a ball and disappear.

But if she stayed in the water, she would die. Her new body would shut down from the cold.

So, Aami forced herself to climb the tree. Shivering. Soaked. She pulled herself up to the house’s front porch and stepped inside, dripping water onto the floor. The living room was empty. Dark. So she climbed the stairs, looking for a friend.

She found him.

Rowan walked out of one of the rooms and stopped as soon as he saw her. He stared, frozen, and Aami looked down at the ground. He felt his look on her. Burning. Judging, perhaps. She fidgeted around, and Aami tried her best to stop herself from simply collapsing into a ball of flesh and shooting out the window, running away. Aami shifted her feet.

“…Hello,” she muttered. “Rowan. Friend.”

And then she forced herself to look up at his face.

Rowan was pale.

Afraid.

He was afraid at the sight of her. Disgusted. At the realization that this pretty girl was her, instead of someone else. Instead of a real person. She saw it, and Aami felt her tiny heart break. She looked down at the floor, hugging herself. Covering her ugly attempt at becoming one of them.

He looked terrified. Of her. Of what she was.

Venti was right.

Aami bit her bottom lip.

“I’m sorry,” was all she could think to say.

And then Rowan grabbed her arm and pulled her into Vivian’s room.

And the door behind them slammed shut.