It was already night.

Under the bright twinkling stars in the vast void of the sky, Charlie and Evelynn were huddled around the dying embers of their campfire.

Before they turned into bed, Evelynn wanted to determine what they acquired today.

She was sorting through the equipment she had pilfered from the dead bandits and was busy counting her coin in stacks of copper and silver.

Charlie didn't really understand the naked greed shining in Evelynn's gaze, but she was happy for her human nonetheless.

Counting coins was boring no matter how many ways they were stacked.

Living animals were so much more fun!

Charlie was cuddling a quivering brown bunny, and brushing its soft and warm fur on her skin.

The little bunny was so adorable and comfy!

When Charlie caught sight of it while hunting in the woods, she couldn't help herself and had to catch it for play time. It was so precious, she could just eat it up!

Okay, maybe not literally.

Charlie wasn't going to eat it like the other rabbits she just had for dinner.

Clink.

Charlie looked up and saw that Evelynn was pouring the clinking coins back into her pouch.

"Goodnight, Charlie. You should sleep soon."

"Okay. Goodnight, Evy."

Evelynn reached out and ruffled Charlie's hair before lying down on a bed of leaves and moss.

Watching Evelynn go to sleep, Charlie wondered whether she made the right choice.

She pondered whether she should have told Evelynn about the cave of humans she found while out hunting.

The humans were over five miles away from their camp, so even if the humans were mean, Evelynn would be safe here. Sure, the fire gave off light, but it would be unlikely for the humans to see it through the forest's thick vegetation.

If Charlie told Evelynn, her human might have wanted to go after those humans in the cave.

That would be dangerous.

It was only after fighting those eight human men that Charlie became worried for Evelynn.

Charlie never realized how fragile Evelynn was until it clicked that Evelynn was a human.

The same as the human men Charlie had casually massacred earlier that day.

Sure, Evelynn held her own against one of them, but what if there were more? Or what if one of them tried to shoot her with an arrow?

Charlie would never allow that to happen.

After all, Evelynn was her human.

Patting the cuddly bunny on its head, Charlie glanced over at Evelynn who was already sound asleep.

No, her decision was correct.

It was best not to bother that cave full of humans.

After giving the cute bunny a final cuddle, Charlie lowered it to the ground.

The bunny froze for a moment... before bolting into the dark forest.

Charlie smiled and gave a wide yawn.

Today was a good day.

She had a lot of fun with Evelynn, and Evelynn was also happy about the coins!

Lying down on the ground, Charlie curled up in her own bed of green vegetation and fell asleep by the final light of the campfire.

The night was dark with only the moon and stars to provide faint illumination.

Not a single blade of grass moved in the still and silent wind.

Nothing disturbed the slumber of the two figures curled up beside their dead fire of ash and blackened wood.

Charlie twitched.

Her limbs jerked and twisted, fingers splayed then forming claws.

Her body shuddered and thrashed in a silent tableau as her joints contorted at unnatural angles.

Then...

It stopped.

Her limbs relaxed as her wild contortions ceased.

Her muscles loosened.

From her tableau of silent agony, she settled down and fell into a calm repose.

Lying in her bed of moss and leaves, it was as if nothing had happened.

Nothing at all.

Their eyes snapped open, revealing a green luminescence in the darkness of the night.

A small smile traced across their lips as they levered themselves off the ground, black tendrils pouring out of their robe, invisible against the forest floor.

They jerkily stood up and turned their luminescent gaze on the human female lying a short distance away.

They scented sustenance.

They scented opportunity.

However, this human female was not the prey.

Pausing for a second, they twitched, before cocking their head in curiosity, attempting to understand why this human was unique. By all rights, this human should have been like the others.

But it was no matter.

The mystery would have to wait.

They stumbled into the forest on an unsteady gait, following a path laid in imperfect memory.

A susurration of rustling leaves stirred in their wake as a giggle stole into the night.

A mass of finger-width tendrils trailed from their robe and branched out, splitting again and again, forming a thin mesh of threads that spread throughout the forest, and carpeted the ground in a sea of slithering black that stretched for miles in every direction.

Twining around bushes and tree trunks, the threads slid into the smallest crevasse, ferreting out mice and other small creatures no matter where they tried to hide.

They covered their mouth with a trembling hand as they silently laughed with glee.

A few questing threads from over five miles away had crept into a cave.

They had reached in and felt something that was not a sleeping wolf or bear, but the hard wood of table legs and fine ash scattered over the ground.

In under ten minutes, they arrived at the cave entrance.

It was just as they felt.

A cave of barren stone, gently sloping into the earth before a curious bend that hid the rest of the cave from view.

However, they didn't need to see to know that humans lived inside.

After all, tables and fires were a pretty good determinant for human presence.

"Hello, is anyone here?"

They asked politely in the voice of a young girl.

It was important to be well mannered when trying to make friends.

They waited patiently for an answer with a small smile frozen on their face.

Before too long, they made out a flickering light on the cave wall that grew brighter by the second.

A human man turned the corner.

He was holding a torch that illuminated his patchwork coat, grey leggings, and the sword he wore sheathed at his side.

His sword was made of an ordinary metal.

The human man was frozen with bulging eyes, slack mouthed as he took in the normal girl with glowing green eyes and her mundane grey robe that had black tendrils flowing out from underneath, merging into the shadowy night.

"Hi! Our name is Ť̶͓̱̩͋͆̂͋̇͘͜h̵̜̗̣̹̎̑͘͘͜e̸̗͍̲̼̮̪̎̚ ̴͇̆͗̽E̷̗̱̗͛̓́̄͗͑̚͝ṅ̶̜̮̫̮̋̈́d̶͙͙̳̓̆͘͜l̴͖̯̮͖̔̈́͋͌̆̑͑͝e̵̹͖͍͜͝s̸̢̛͕̰̱̜̯̣̈́͊͆̐s̵̛̪̹͒̊̇ ̷̨̟̪̗͈̯̋ͅG̷̟̘̊̄̇͑̒̎ṙ̷͇͍̫̱̞̘̼̀͝a̴̧̛̼͓̩̻̝̱̖̿̃̕s̴̫̍̐p̵̗̔̋̀̈́͒̀i̴͓͛͊ń̸͕̞̼̼͜g̵̡̧̲̲̯͕͙̎̅͂̃͗̚ ̶̭͊͠T̸͓́̿̋̅͂̎ė̸̛͉̠̑͒̄͘ṇ̵̦̈́͌̓͑̀͊d̷͓̫͕̱̮̘̜͊̈́̅͆͗͘r̸͙̮̽̈́̈͆̈́͋͝i̵̮̠̜̠̬͆l̸̦̻̮̅̅s̴̥̟̤͔̎͌̄͂́̓̔͝ͅ ̶̲̮̺́̔̅̃̃̄͑̿! Do you want to be friends?"

They asked cheerfully with the same frozen smile.

The human man shuddered and cringed, grasping his sword's hilt with a trembling hand.

He unsheathed his weapon and pointed it towards them.

"S-stay back you m-monster!"

They convulsed before curiously cocking their head.

"Do you mean you don't want to be friends?"

They said in a hurt tone.

"Help! We're under attack! There's a mon-"

They retracted their tendril and examined the head they had recently acquired.

He was stuck in mid-shout, mouth agape in horror as his spinal cord was slashed, and now his neck was dribbling a steady stream of blood.

They took a bite, and daintily skipped past the headless body that had collapsed with a clatter and coated the cave floor with crimson.

It was fortunate their glowing eyes could see in the dark, since the torch was guttering on the stone floor.

They took a few turns, only to find a large wooden blockade at the end of a long corridor. The dark corridor was over twenty meters long, and the blockade had arrow slits and spears bristling from its gaps.

There were at least a dozen humans on the other side, tense with drawn bowstrings or bracing with their spears.

Their weapons were mundane.

"So, you're all here to play with us?"

They giggled with a trembling hand covering their smile. Swaying a little, they lashed out with their tendrils, sinking them into the surrounding walls to keep upright.

They took a dainty step and-

"Loose! Fill that thing with arrows!"

Over a dozen arrows sank into their body.

They could feel their bones chipping and breaking, and their flesh being shredded. Internal organs were minced as some arrows tore through their body, trailing a stream of gore as the arrows continued down the corridor.

Even their skull was shattered, with arrows carving out a scoop of grey matter or sinking into their eye sockets.

They giggled as they stumbled forwards with a shattered shinbone.

The humans could only watch in horror as the girl's minced body walked in a mockery of life, sporting numerous fatal injuries and gushing a fountain of blood.

The humans stared in disbelief, unable to turn their eyes from this horrifying sight.

Before the arrows had even fully pierced their flesh, they had already begun healing.

However, they had trouble speaking with a pair of punctured lungs, so their threads meshed together to patch the holes and tug on their diaphragm.

"Awww, that hurt. You should play nicer."

Already the tendrils were pushing arrowheads out of their wound and filling the gap with stitched tissue and mended bone.

The arrows fell to the ground with a clatter as their gaping eye sockets filled out and were now lit with a blazing verdant light.

"Our sight is precious. You are mean... for blinding us."

Their cheerful tone had changed, carrying a darker undercurrent.

Tendrils lanced out over the twenty meter gap, piercing through the wooden barricade like tissue, spraying splinters and gory viscera on the surviving humans.

The blockade that stretched from wall to wall and nearly reached the ceiling was cleaved down the middle, leaving jagged wooden planks hanging on the edges.

The humans had all instinctively ducked and shielded their heads from the shrapnel, and now when they tentatively glanced up, they saw two archers convulsing on the ground, with their midsections missing and eye sockets leaking ocular fluid.

The garbled screams of the two archers slowly faded and they lay motionless.

"Do you want to be friends?"

Standing right in front of the demolished barricade, they peered at the dazed humans on the other side.

They were fully healed, and the only signs that they were once injured was the tattered grey robe and shredded garments that were now dyed with red. Even that was temporary, since their clothing was made of normal thread and could be easily repaired.

It was a while before any of the humans found their voice, but there was no need to rush.

They allowed the humans to take their time since it was important to be polite.

They stood there patiently, like a statue with the same frozen smile and luminescent green eyes.

A young human man swallowed and was the first to speak.

"W-will you spare us if we become your... friends?"

They beamed with a smile from cheek to cheek and cheerfully replied.

"Of course!"

Seeing a ray of hope, there was suddenly a clamor as twenty humans dropped their bows and spears with a clatter, and instead started shouting that they wanted to be friends. All these humans were suddenly so enthusiastic!

Laughing gleefully at the number of friends that could be made, they replied.

"This'll be great! Just wait here a moment as we prepare."

They gave a jaunty wave, motioning that they would like to walk down the corridor.

The humans hurried to make way, clearing a passage through the barricade and pulling the two dead archers aside.

They merrily skipped down the hall with the tendrils acting as support.

However, they still trailed some tendrils behind to bar the exit of the cave in case any humans thought of leaving. It would be inconvenient to have to chase them all down.

At the end of the corridor, they found many rooms.

Some of the rooms were filled with beds and food stockpiles.

Other ones were filled with chests of loot and weapon maintenance supplies.

There was even one with coiled rope, shackles chained to the wall, and splotches of brown bloodstains.

They chose the room with the shackles, since it was spacious and mostly empty.

A cloud of black threads broke off from one of their many tendrils, and wove, interlocking to form an intricate pattern.

As the design took shape, they raised their hand, and a needle-thin thread slashed across their palm, releasing a spray of blood.

The pattern woven from fine thread caught the droplets and siphoned the blood that clung to their robe and garments. A streak of red started to appear along each thread, giving the design a crimson sheen.

The threads drifted to the ground and crawled, laying flush against the floor as the misshapen configuration was complete.

To their eyes the design was clear as day, but to any others the threads were already blurring and the stone floor was growing fuzzy.

In just a few moments nobody but them could tell it was there.

They gazed at their misshapen configuration in hope and anticipation before hurrying to greet the captive humans.

They were giggling as they thought about the opportunity.

With twenty humans, maybe this time they would finally find a second friend.

Charlie inched an eye open and groaned as she beheld the glare of the morning sun.

Scrunching her eyes shut, Charlie rolled over and buried her head into her bed of vegetation.

Usually she would be greeting the new day with a smile on her face, and would be bouncing for joy at the thought of novel experiences and getting to spend time with Evelynn.

However, she didn't know why she was a little unhappy today.

Nor why her bottomless stomach felt a little less empty.

Charlie felt someone stroking her hair.

It was very comfortable, but she couldn't stay there forever.

Rolling over, Charlie flopped onto her back, and saw Evelynn was looking at her upside down.

Charlie cracked a smile.

"Good morning, Evy!"