I almost felt bad for tricking this brat, but she's just so... gullible. I bring her the remains of some random relatively small tuna I caught and massacred, and the next thing I know she's going all monkey climbing on me.

Still, she wasn't necessarily a bad child. And I'm not just saying this because I'm very interested in that telepathy spell of hers, even if that's a big part of it.

"Ms. Snake, do you know where my parents are?" The little girl next to me asked, her thoughts going directly into my head. It still felt unnerving and a bit weird, but not necessarily bad. I mentally rolled my eyes at her question, with this one being the fifth time she asked.

"Dear, I have no idea," I said. My own 'voice' felt weird, quite different from my human voice. I was currently wrapped around myself, looking down at the girl as she frolicked around, babbling about this and that.

Earning her trust had been a little too easy for my liking, and if I'd still been human I might have told her not to trust strangers like this. However, I was a large murder noddle. I don't do morality.

"Yesss, very interesting," I added randomly to her babble to keep the illusion of me listening to her going. She nodded excitedly and kept on talking about how great her daddy was and how he would come to find her.

I didn't know which father she was talking about, but from how she constantly and unintentionally hinted at this being a 'castle' in a 'city', I supposed that, just perhaps, she might either have serious delusions, or someone pulled an abracadabra on her.

Instead of listening to her, I thought over my findings regarding her strange spell. I'd spoken 5 different languages one after the other, but she seemed to understand all of them, just as I could understand her. I could only suppose that the spell bypassed linguistical barriers... Not that any of this made any logical sense.

Finally, after a while, the little mermaid yawned loudly, her big eyes looking up at me tiredly. I tilted my head slightly in question at her gaze.

The connection she'd established had more or less collapsed, and only my rather inexpert use of aura had kept the connection from falling apart.

I was starting to feel as though this whole aura thing was one big magic replacement that didn't actually do magic. How lame.

"I'm tired..." She murmured through our link, and then crawled away from me and into her bed. I allowed the telepathic link to fade away in response, watching as she crawled under the sheets of her bed and fell asleep in a matter of moments.

I watched her for another couple moments, making sure she was fully asleep before slithering my way out of this little cave/prison and into the wider ocean.

I had a lot of suspicions on this whole encounter. Either some bored god staged this to fuck with me, or perhaps some sort of magic formation detected and approved of me, and 'allowed' me to enter. Or perhaps it was just dumb luck. Who knows.

Nonetheless, it was weird having someone to converse with after such a long time. I'd gotten used to being all in my lonesome, and suddenly falling headfirst into conversations with a naive child was... discerning.

It wasn't bad per se, just... Not what I expected it to be like. What a shame. I suppose I truly have changed.

As I swam around the ocean, I would occasionally slam my tail (or end of my body, whichever you wanna call it) on the ground in order to leave a mark. Then, after having eaten a nice little meal consisting of a couple of slugs and a toothless shark, I retraced my 'steps' all the way back to the cave.

After checking in and making sure the princess was still asleep, I wanted to explore the rest of the cave, but found myself at a loss. It was literally just one long hallway to the girl's room, and nothing else.

Still, when I heard a louder-than normal thump coming from the entrance as I silently poked around the mermaid's room, I knew that what I feared would happen... Well, happened.

I sent a quick (and false) prayer to whatever or whoever was listening that this was nothing too strong, and made my way out of the room and towards the entrance.

Thankfully, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Simply a car-sized crab, which was actually pretty small all things considered.

Still, I was out of my element. My Serpent Dance skill would only barely help me here, so it might actually be a bit dangerous.

I didn't bother hiding as I approached the crab, who was heading directly in my direction, a.k.a, the princess' direction.

I immediately noted how, instead of retreating like any normal creature of its size would in front of a titan like me, the damned crab charged me. Its claws were held forward, ready to snap me into my flesh.

Still... It wasn't exactly dangerous. I was quick enough to easily avoid the claws and latch my teeth to it's softer behind while my coils wrapped around its claws and body, blocking and squeezing them hard enough that cracks began to form almost immediately.

The noise seemed to have woken the princess up, judging by the soft thump and following 'oww' coming from her room. I ignored her in favor of focusing on killing this crab, which wouldn't take much longer. It couldn't move, and with my venom pumping into its squishy insides, it would take but a few minutes for it to die.

And indeed, two minutes later, the death message of the crab came into my vision. I ignored it and instead unwrapped myself from the crab, ignoring the wide-eyed princess, who was hiding behind what little remained of her room's door, occasionally peeking at me.

I flicked my tongue out, tasting the air. Yup, she'd die if she so much as touched this crab, my remaining venom would make quick work of her. Best to get rid of it.

... Well, away from her prying eyes. I don't know much about mermaid culture, but I doubt my way of eating would be considered appropriate in her eyes.

I gave her a quick look, but instead of going back to her room like I hoped she'd do, she bounded over to me, eyes sparkling.

"Hrdosf fkwak mulli! Fsaf akak muu!" She excitedly babbled, and only then seemed to realize I couldn't exactly understand her jabbering without her telepathy. Still, her excitement didn't seem to vanish as she reached up to my forehead, which I lowered to her height, and activated her spell.

"Wow! You were so cool, Ms. Snake! That mean crab was like super big, but you killed it so quickly!"

... Well, I suppose that, perhaps, mermaid culture isn't as pure and innocent as I thought it was. That's better for me, I guess.

"... Yesss. Very quickly. But it is not safe here. Others may come, and I may not be around to... help." I said, trying to word it in a nice enough way. I didn't particularly care for this little girl, but it'd be a shame to have my only source of conversation die on me.

"Oh..." She deflated, but then, as if a switch went off on her head, she puffed out her young chest and said, "Don't worry, my dad will come!"

Alright. That's enough delusion for this one. "Dear, your dad won't come."

Her eyes went wide. "What? Why not!"

"... Dear, we're in the bottom of the ocean, in the middle of god knows where. There is no castle, no city. I haven't seen anybody like you around here, and I've been here for long enough to know."

I would have felt bad about saying such a cruel thing to a little girl, but I wasn't able to. Still, the confused and hurt look on her face did make me think over my wording.

Oh well, she'll get over it. I turned away from her and grabbed the crab carcass before bringing it out of her sight, where I quickly swallowed it up. It tasted quite bitter.