Tears start to fall from my face, splattering on the plastic box I'm clutching tightly to my chest as I flee from the Arby's and the overwhelming embarrassment within. I try to keep the presence of mind to avoid hitting the air holes with my waterworks. This bug—or whatever it is—could somehow be important to the question of how Tara got here. It might even be another sapient alien, trapped here like she is. I can't let some prissy jerk in a fast food joint shake me up so much that I accidentally hurt the thing, or worse.

Wiping my face to clear my vision, I bring the cage up to look at the bug again. It doesn't seem injured, at least, nor is it pounding on the wall trying to get my attention like a sapient creature might do. It's just… standing there.

"Hey," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. "Um, I don't know if you're smart or not, and I don't know if you understand me, but if you are, and you do, I'm sorry for putting you in a box and I'll let you out soon, okay? I think you might be really important to my friend. And, um, in case you're not smart I'm afraid you'll fly off and that could be bad if you're actually important. Sorry."

The bug continues to stand motionlessly for a moment, as camouflaged bugs are wont to do. But then, slowly and deliberately, it nods.

Oh boy, here we go again.

"Okay, thank you. I will be really careful and let you out when I get home, okay? Or, um, I can let you out now if you really need to but I'm worried something might happen to you and I promise to keep you safe and we'll find a way to talk to each other and stuff."

Another nod.

I wipe away my tears again. I've ruined enough first impressions today.

"Really. Thank you. I think my friend might be having a similar thing happen to her. I'll find a way to help you both, okay?"

I fumble for my keys and managed to get the door open after only dropping them once. Carefully, I locked the door behind me and call out.

"Tara? Hey, Tara! You're not going to believe this!"

"I expect I'll believe every word of it," Tara retorts from my room. "You're not in the habit of lying."

"It's an expression!" I counter. "Look, Tara—"

"I know."

My little blue friend is sitting snugly on top of my bed in a makeshift nest of old blankets and open books, looking quite cozy. She's already facing the door when I enter, her legs quivering and tapping in that pensive habit she has when she's nervous.

"Evelyn," Tara says, "I haven't been totally open with you about a few important things. I'm sorry, I should have brought this up sooner."

"What? I mean, that's fine!" I insist. "You're totally allowed to talk about stuff at your own pace, Tara. But look, I found this other bug that's—"

"That's me," Tara tells me.

"Huh?"

"The other bug you found," she clarifies. "That is… another one of my bodies. After arriving on your planet, I seem to, ah, occasionally produce more bodies that are all linked with my mind? Like that creature in the game you talk about, and well… yes. That's how it is, I suppose."

"Oh," I say.

Oh shit, I think.

"So… how does this work, exactly?" I ask, opening up the cage and letting the... second Tara, I guess? I let the second Tara fly on out. "What exactly does it mean that you 'occasionally produce' them?"

"Well, er, when I lay eggs the eggs hatch into more of me, I suppose. And I can… design the bodies to my specifications?"

"So you designed this?" I ask with wonder as the tiny bug-amalgamation perches on my forefinger.

"I did," she answers, my obvious awe seeming to calm her down. The little bug on my finger waves—no, wait, Tara waves at me. It is her, and she is it.

"This is… amazing," I say honestly. "Were you like this before coming to Earth?"

"I was not. I had initially assumed it was something your planet had done to me, but..."

"Yeah," I agree with her implication. "This is way, way beyond anything on Earth."

"So I have discovered," she confirms, tapping her legs anxiously. "But… anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about you."

"Me?" I ask, waving her off. "What? There's nothing about me that could possibly be as cool as—"

"Evelyn, I've seen enough of your fictional dramas to know what all that water coming from your eyes meant," Tara chides. "Are you all right?"

"…Oh, right," I mumble, embarrassed. "You were there the whole time, huh? How long have you been watching me?"

Tara makes a clicking noise, the smaller version of her on my finger fanning her wings.

"Since the first day you left me in your room, actually," she admits easily. "I, er, hope that doesn't make you too uncomfortable, and I apologize if that is the case. I was terrified you were lying to me about who you were or that you intended to say something about me. Please forgive my lack of trust."

Honestly, that hurts. I understand, but it's not really the best thing for me to hear right after sobbing my eyes out.

"It's fine," I tell her, desperately trying to mean it. "You're trapped on an alien planet, in a different body, given no knowledge or instructions… it's not paranoia when something is clearly out to get you, right?"

Both of Tara's bodies visibly relax. In fact, the tiny one collapses onto its belly and gives my finger a small hug, which is a memory of such unrelenting adorableness that I will smile about it all the way to my grave. I can't help it, I let out an involuntary happy squeaking noise.

"Thank you, Evelyn," Tara says. "You are much more than I deserve."

I give her—the tiny her on my finger, I mean—an affectionate poke.

"I'm just kind of frustrated I didn't spot you sooner," I half-joke. "I'm off my game."

"I'm startled you found me at all!" Tara protests. "Thousands of people look my way and totally ignore me every day."

Thousands, huh? I'm not letting that slide.

"You have more of these spy bodies, don't you?"

She lets out an embarrassed click. Hey, it's kind of nice to put someone else on the social back foot for once. ...Ugh, wait, that's a horrible thing to think. Fuck, now I want to cry again.

"I am trying to learn more about the world at large," Tara meekly confirms. "But I don't wish to be discovered doing so. Hence…"

"Yeah, I get it. It makes sense. The color-changing thing you do is really impressive and cool."

I wish I could do that. Hang out in public places without anyone ever seeing me or trying to talk to me.

"Isn't it?" Tara preens. "That one was particularly challenging to figure out. I'm quite proud of my…"

She trails off, presumably because she's noticed that I have started sobbing. Damnit. I can't even keep composure in the privacy of my own home. It's not enough that social anxiety can make me cry, I have to burst into tears from just thinking about it!

"Evelyn," Tara says softly. "Are you all right? I'm sorry."

"I'm fine," I choke out. "Don't apologize, it's not you."

Her smaller body flies up to my shoulder as her beetle body crawls onto my lap. She sits in silence as I slowly get my sobs back under control. Damnit, why do I have to be like this? I was having a nice conversation with my friend! This is just such a waste of everyone's time.

"I think I may have missed some context," Tara eventually says, once my tears die down a little. "Everything seemed fairly… normal, for humans. But those people hurt you somehow, didn't they?"

"No," I insist, wiping my face. "They didn't do anything wrong. I just had a stupid anxiety attack."

"An attack?" Tara hisses icily. "I'm going to calmly assume that this is a phrase and that that girl didn't actually attack you. Right?"

"Um, yes, that's right, don't… please don't make this the part of those stories where the well-meaning alien friend goes and nearly kills somebody over a social slight because of cultural differences, okay? Really. Honestly, I'm fine."

"What about actually killing somebody?"

"Tara! I'm serious! If you hurt anybody I'll cry way more about that than I have over this!"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" Tara insists, waving a leg at me. "I'm just trying to lighten the mood, sorry. I'm in no hurry to be hurting anyone either, at least if I can help it. Now, tell me about this 'anxiety attack' of yours. Or I can look it up on the Google if you prefer."

"'The Google?' Really? You did that one on purpose."

"Guilty as charged, but let's not be distracted," Tara answers smugly.

I sigh. How do I describe anxiety attacks to an alien? Like, in either the metaphorical or literal sense.

"There's not really much to say," I half-lie, leaning back onto my bedspread. "At least not a lot I think I can explain. My brain just freaks out and reacts to stupid stuff like it's the end of the world. I know it's dumb but I can't change it."

"Hmm. I'm sensing a recurring theme with your problems, Evelyn."

"Yeah?"

"You said this about your other anxieties as well. That you can't change or control it, that it just happens. That you're fully aware it is illogical."

Oh man, here we go. This is about to be one of those conversations, isn't it? Everyone wants to help with my anxiety when they hear about it. 'Have you tried performing X,' 'have you thought about doing Y,' 'consider training yourself to Z every day.' Just a deluge of thoughtless remarks as if I wasn't aware of habit training or exposure therapy or medication or any of the other dozen things people insist would work if I just tried them. I don't want to be rude to Tara, though, so I buckle myself up for another depressing venture.

"Yeah, that's fairly accurate," I concede, waiting for the well-meaning advice to drop and rip me up.

"Well, if hypothetically you could just… snap your fingers, to borrow an expression, and make those problems go away… would you?" Tara asks.

I perch myself up on my elbows, taken aback a little by the question.

"I mean, of course I would? Anxiety is the worst. But of course that's assuming it just magically solves all the problems without side effects."

"What if… what if you knew for certain that it would work, but you don't know anything about the long-term side effects? Let's say a pill, or something."

I hesitate.

"Well, that example is tough because I'm kind of biased against medication. Er, not that there's anything wrong with medication, because medical science is awesome and wonderful and great, I just… don't like it. Putting stuff in my body and then having that stuff fundamentally change how I think is kind of freaky, you know? But then of course obviously anything you put in your body technically changes your internal chemistry and thereby your thought process. You are arguably no more different a person when you are on and off medication than how different a person you are when hungry or not."

I snort, having suddenly come to an amusing conclusion.

"So, I guess in summary I would say no," I continue, "but mostly just because the very anxieties that pill would cure prevent me from taking it."

"Well, that's quite a bitter irony," Tara comments. "But if I ever find a pill like that, should I send it your way in case you change your mind?"

"Hah. Sure, yeah. Thanks."

I lie back down again, letting time pass by in silence as I stare at the ceiling next to my friend. Maybe my best friend now, since I moved away from everyone I knew in high school. Of course, I didn't really have that many friends in high school; I was just the 'weird bug girl' there. Here in the so-called adult world I am still the weird bug girl, but the main difference is that nobody really cares. Now I can just tell people that I'm shooting to be an entomologist and they just go "Oh yeah? That's cool. I'm looking to be a pharmacist." I have even less of an excuse to be afraid of everyone now, yet… here I am.

"You know," Tara chirps up, "I'm reading here on the topic and it says taking a walk is an excellent way to manage anxiety—"

"Oh, here we go," I grumble quietly.

"—and I was hoping to show you something. It's a bit of a long walk, though. At least a few hours, even with your giant human legs."

"Hey! My legs aren't giant!"

"Hmm, I don't know... where I'm sitting I only seem to come up to your ankles. Frankly, you have bigger fingers than I do legs."

"I don't see your point," I protest. "But yeah, that sounds… cool. I don't think I'm up for my last class today anyway."

I pull my laptop out of Tara's claws (where she was indeed, as it turns out, researching social anxiety) and fire off a sick notice to my last professor for the day. Somehow I suspect a lot of people from my canceled period will be calling in 'sick' today, but even if the professors notice I doubt they'll call me out on it. Of course, that confidence does absolutely nothing to stop me from being freaked out, but I manage to do it anyway so that counts as a win.

"So where are we going?" I ask Tara playfully, forcibly shoving those thoughts aside. "Are you taking me to your secret underground lair wherein I'll meet your alien hive queen and learn the forbidden secrets of an ancient and ultra-powerful race from the stars?"

"Yes, actually," Tara confirms.

I blink.

"Oh, uh. Neat. You mind hanging out in my backpack? I can't think of a better place to hide you on the way out."

"That's fine. Just be sure to pack plenty of snacks. Or... hmm. Meals, actually. And a change of clothes."

"A change of—hold on, how far away is this, again?"

Tara scuttles into my backpack instead of answering me, the incorrigible runt. I do as she says anyway and grab a full change of clothes, wrapping the underwear up in the extra shirt and making sure to put it in a different pouch from Tara. Because, you know, who wants to ride along with my underwear? After tossing a few snacks in (along with a few light meals, just in case) I pick up the backpack and nearly break my spine.

"Holy shit Tara you're heavier than my textbooks!" I groan. "Ow, what the heck! You never weighed this much before!"

"You've been feeding me well," she responds. "I appreciate it."

"Yeah, but this is excessive, don't you think? Agh, I didn't know I was making you this fat!"

"It's hyper-dense fat, mind you. I could probably weigh twice as much before I start straining the limits of my exoskeleton. Besides, it has no impact on my circulation or any of the other problems your kind experiences with obesity."

"Yeah, except for the back problems I'll get trying to carry you!" I complain, hiking up the straps and setting out anyway.

Tara leads me into the forest, through the forest, out the other side of the forest and back into civilization (wherein I immediately complain that we could have just taken the bus) and once again into another patch of wilderness on the other side, squirreled away between bits of civilization. It's a particularly large coniferous forest, untamed and unclaimed… or more accurately unsold by whoever owns it to any companies trying to buy the land. I walk for hours, the dense plant matter constantly hampering my ability to move forward, and I almost insist on turning back when I lose cell reception. Tara assures me that we're almost there, though. At least the backpack is considerably lighter, though I decide not to think too much about where all the alien bugs that flew out of it came from.

Instead, I think a lot about where they might possibly be going, and resolve to have a long talk with Tara about that soon.

"Just through here," the alien insists. "This will make the rest of the journey much easier."

"You mean we aren't even there y—"

The words catch in my throat as I push aside some branches and suddenly find myself standing face-to-face with a bear.

A motherfucking bear! A brown one, too, also known as the giant kind that I'm pretty sure eats people. I don't move. I don't even breathe. Panic kicks in, and for once it is very, very justified. If this thing wants to eat me, I'm probably just straight up fucking dead. It's over. This is it. The bear lifts a massive paw off the ground...!

...And waves at me.

"Hello," says the bear.

Oh. I guess I'm already dead. When did this happen? Probably before I met Tara, she's way too cool for real life.

"Evelyn, are you okay?" The bear growls in a deep but surprisingly feminine timbre. "Oh. Right. This is one of the few predators of your kind. Evelyn, it's me, I'm not going to hurt you."

My mouth flaps open and closed a few times before my person-brain finally catches up with my monkey-brain.

"…Tara?" I ask.

"Correct," the bug and bear say in harmony.

"Holy shit Tara," I breathe. "I actually thought I was about to die. Please, please warn me next time."

"I'm sorry," the bear says, giving me a wide grin that does not make me feel better at all. "I thought it would be a fun surprise. I bet you're exhausted, and I'm fairly certain you've never ridden a bear before!"

"Okay, well, that just begs the question: why the fuck are you a bear!?"

"Well, I'm trying to stay hidden, but I don't want to just sit around and hide. So I've been making bodies that look identical to a variety of common, naturally-occurring animals in your environment. I must say, I am a big fan of bears. Very strong, very efficient. Anyway, hop on!"

"So, what," I ask, rallying my courage. "Do you just want me to ride… bearback?"

"I can still maul you, you know."

"…Please don't," I squeak.

Tara—who, again, is a giant fucking grizzly bear holy shit bears are HUGE—lies down to let me onto her back. Her hair is coarse, bristly, and kind of smelly but I'm not about to tell her that. My mind is racing. Oh man, forget zerglings. Imagine an army of hyper-intelligent bears! That's a scary hive mind.

Tara gets up and plods along as I gratefully remove my backpack, out of which Tara steps and finds a spot to nestle in her own fur. Man, she's just super weird in all of the coolest ways. I guess she either really trusts me or she plans to eat and then replace me.

Oh god what if she plans to eat and then replace me. Is that a thing? It looks like she can make copy-bodies. Holy shit I just went into the woods with the super advanced alien and... and so what? She's my friend. I trust her and she's given me no reason to question that trust. I ride the rest of the way in silence, focusing on my aching legs and aching back to distract from similarly toxic thoughts.

"We're here,” Tara announces. The bear Tara specifically, but it doesn't really matter, does it?

Tara leads me to the mouth of an oddly-straight cave, dug diagonally-down into the earth. And I do indeed think it was dug; it's far too smooth and straight to be natural. I dismount my bear-friend, grab my bug-friend, and start heading in.

A large figure shifts as I head inside, a massive armored arthropod almost the size of the bear. It—or her, as it is almost certainly Tara—has six beautiful legs, four thick and heavy ones along with two thinner ones ending in prehensile hand-feet, fingers protruding around her palm with captivating radial symmetry. Her thick shell is a brilliant turquoise, ending in a flexible, tail-like abdomen and starting with a spiny head that reminds me somewhat of a turian from Mass Effect, complete with the vaguely crab-like maxillipeds, but smaller, compact and disproportionate by earthly standards.

"Welcome to what passes for my home, Evelyn," the giant, beautiful, monstrous wonder tells me.

"Is this… is this what you look like on your home planet?"

The cave resonates with Tara's shrill, piercing laugh. From this body it sounds fuller, more complete.

"What makes you guess that?" she asks.

"I dunno," I admit softly, staring in open awe. She just seems… comfortable?

"Well, it's true," Tara admits smugly. "More or less, anyway. I'm glad there's someone here who appreciates it. I was quite the looker back on my planet, you know."

"Yeah," I burble.

That horrible, wonderful laugh echoes through the cave again, causing goosebumps to dance over my skin.

"Anyway, we made it just in time," Tara tells me. "You got those clothes handy? Come this way."

I follow, utterly entranced. The way her legs move when she walks… it isn't like earthly arthropods at all, her odd stepping patterns as the little bug-Tara now explained. Her joints are incredibly multidirectional, like having a bunch of hips instead of knees. But wouldn't that harm stability? Maybe she's able to lock certain directions somehow. I wonder what her long tail is for. Balance, probably? A counterweight when using her forelegs to grasp things? Oh my god, she's so shiny…

The part of the cave Tara leads me through looks a lot rougher than the cleanly-removed opening section, clearly dug by something different than whatever made the initial hole. Inside, I find... eggs. Dozens and dozens and dozens of eggs. Some tiny, piled haphazardly like a stack of marbles. Some large enough to fit me, and a couple nearly large enough to fit a full-grown bear.

"Uh," I observe eloquently, "this is a lot of Taras."

"It's one Tara, but yes," Tara's home body rumbles. "It's a lot of me. This whole thing has taken some getting used to, but I am happy to use whatever legs up I can. Ah, one moment."

There's a crack as a chunk of shell flies out from one of the eggs, a human fist having punched through from the inside. A few more bangs and the whole front section of the shell collapses outwards, sending a massive yolk gunk and an incredibly naked grown woman sprawling onto the cave floor, coughing her lungs empty of fluid.

"Uh." I say again, since it bears repeating.

I stare just long enough to confirm whether or not the body has a copy of my face (it doesn't, thank goodness) and then promptly decide that's all I need to see and that I should look away. I don't, and slowly begin to wonder if it would be better for me to reevaluate my position on the Kinsey scale or just die.

The human Tara body coughs a few more times as it struggles to stand up, skin dripping with fluids and stuck with sparse chunks of eggshell. The big bug Tara speaks.

"Could you give me those clothes now? I'd like to get you back to civilization before we end up out here all night."

"Buh?" I say. "Uh, shouldn't you, um, wash off all the... uh, gunk?"

The naked lady looks herself over and hums in that frustrated Tara-like way I've gotten used to for over a month now. It sounds so eerily like her… because, well, it is her. But not a bug. A human, an alien copy-human, wearing the form of a brown-haired freckled girl and sculpted with an entrancing, fittingly otherworldly beauty.

Considering my words, Tara lifts her arm up and starts licking all the gunk off of it like a dog vacuuming table scraps. The scene is both startling and disgusting enough to act as a splash of cold water, snapping me out of my sexual identity crisis. I still can't look away though, because now it's just gross! She just came out of that egg! No, don't drink what's left at the bottom of the... aaaagh!

"Look, just... just stop! I've got a towel, I brought a towel! Jeez, just wipe yourself off!"

"I'm hungry,” Tara grumbles. "You certainly don't have to watch. Just leave the clothes and I'll meet you out when I'm ready."

"Okay, okay! Sorry! Eat your freaky alien placenta! I'm going to... go barf or something!"

"Outside the cave!" she calls back to me.

I quickly retreat as instructed, sitting down and leaning against the bear. A frightening thought suddenly hits me.

"So like, I assume the human body is because you want to interact with civilization."

"Naturally," Tara answers.

"…You're going to ask to live with me, aren't you?"

Bear-Tara quirks an eyebrow at me, as if my very need to clarify is confusing.

"I'm already living with you," she points out.

My face finds its way into both of my palms. Things are about to start escalating, aren't they?