- Shari –

There is not too much inside my room.

My bed, a small stash, and some old toys I haven’t used in a long time.

I have no list of what I should take with me since I couldn’t come up with a concrete plan on how to proceed now.

There is simply no job I could perform in my condition.

Mostly because I cannot show my face.

Nonetheless, some ideas are running through my mind.

In any case, I should travel light.

This body might not tire out, but the stability is a joke.

Maybe I could lift heavier luggage too.

But the weight would apply pressure on me in a way that this shape will become extremely difficult to maintain.

Like this, I will get found out.

So, no big bags, just a pouch.

I have a knife that I would like to take with me.

It’s a personal token from when I started to help mum in the forest.

Also a map I consider as necessary, which I will request later.

Apart from that, I need to realize that most things I just don’t need anymore, as I am now.

Contemplating if I should take a sleeping bag, I look at my bed.

It's a mess.

Completely drenched in slime; it might be better to burn it.

If it even can burn in this state.

Liqu said before that the slime would disappear in nature, but seemingly not on its own accord in a situation like this.

Regarding my liquid body, it would have been wise to keep my distance from the bedsheets.

Yet, I didn’t follow that thought and ended up losing mass, equaling strength, and ruined the fabric I came in contact with.

And so my next problem comes up.

I am still naked.

This is bothering me at great length, even if there is nothing to look at.

I already can see how any piece of cloth I try to wear will end up in the long run.

The cloaks I’ve got should be no problem, as they are specially made and prepared to help against rain.

Like this, they are rather water and hopefully slime repellent.

Still, I should treat them carefully and control myself when I wear them.

I mean controlling this body, to not let anything flow inside.

But I also want to wear normal clothes.

With growing despair, I rifle through my stash to find something that might somehow work out.

Everything thick gets directly sorted out.

I can’t even be cold anymore.

Otherwise, since it's not summer yet, I would have been cold when it was dark, naked like I am.

So, only light wardrobe.

I end up with a white shirt for now and a black shirt for tomorrow, which both have very thin fabric.

I hope these will not soak too much.

For my bottom half, I take brown pants of the roughest fabric I can find.

With this body, comfort is no issue and I hope that the slime won’t pass so easily through it.

Since I obviously will not carry stuff inside me, I use the smallest linen sac I find to handle the luggage.

In the end, I prepare two white shirts, as well as one black and one brown and also one brown and one black pair of pants to take with me when I depart tomorrow as my luggage, next to the knife.

Aside from that I really don’t know what else I should take with me.

Food wouldn’t make sense, as I can literally digest everything.

It’s hard to admit, but if something would be prepared for me it had to be considered a waste.

The reason: I have no sense of taste!

I noticed with the berries, that my body can’t taste them. There is no difference between dissolving them or the wood I trained at.

Not mentioning the boar; never happened!

No; that is not entirely true.

In a weird way, I can somehow identify the things I dissolve.

Things like structure, shape, and components are possible to recognize.

But that is not the same as taste.

So it would be better just to spare the weight and take whatever I get on the way.

No humans!

After I stuffed the clothes away, Liqu comes in.

"What are you doing here? This is my room!" (Shari)

"You said I need to stay inside, but not where." (Liqu)

"And so you decide to intrude my privacy?" (Shari)

"I’ve got lonely. The others won’t talk with me and after I could talk with you I don’t want to stop with it." (Liqu)

Something like that might have been her intention in the beginning.

Just someone to talk to.

Can’t imagine that a slime has many partners for that.

So at any cost, she wanted someone to interact with and her weird mind came up with this idea to enforce it.

But damnit! Why did I need to end up in this state for a reason like that?

"Okay, can’t have you wandering through the house and end up damaging something, if not my parents!" (Shari)

"I wouldn’t if you don’t allow it!" (Liqu)

That answer conveys a concerning lack of aversion against the general idea of killing them.

"Ugh, just sit in the corner there and be quiet!" (Shari)

Good, she does so.

But now she is creepily staring at me.

"Can you stop gazing at me?" (Shari)

"Ehm! Can I ask a favor?" (Liqu)

Really?! After everything she did, she dares to make demands?

"What can you possibly want more from me?" (Shari)

"Just a little thing! Could you make a membrane around your core? I’m getting really worried. Especially after what happened today." (Liqu)

Huh, what is she talking about?

"What do you mean?" (Shari)

"Ehm, you know that you can control the composition of your liquid to a degree?" (Liqu)

No, I didn’t!

Yes, I was aware that my body changed its structure when I got more of the slime from Liqu.

But that was more a general change as I tried to maintain my shape without unreasonable growth.

And in retrospect, when I grabbed things my hands might have been a bit sturdier than usually.

Yet, it does make sense.

The slime she used to restrain me before, was much thicker than her fully extended body.

So it is reasonable that she can do concrete adjustments.

And that means I can as well.

As I thought, she does know more about slimes than I do.

I hate these thoughts, as they force me to admit what I became.

After finishing my thought process I realize I forgot to answer Liqu.

"If you don’t know I can explain it to you. Or we could… link our cores and I show it directly?" (Liqu)

The last part she says slightly embarrassed tipping her finger awkwardly together, which leaves each time a thin strand between them.

"What?" (Shari)

"You know linking our cores, sharing the thought process." (Liqu)

"No I don’t know! What are you implying?" (Shari)

"It is like this, if we combine our bodies, we can directly connect our minds and exchange our thoughts. It is quite intimate, but if you’re okay I would." (Liqu)

"NO! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! That’s all weird enough! I won’t let you intrude in my body! Forget it! Not happening!" (Shari)

"Oh, that’s disappointing! I mean last time we did it, it worked out quite well!" (Liqu)

"WHAT?! What are you referring to? When did we…" (Shari)

No! These strange thoughts I’ve heard before I woke up like this! She was in my mind!!!

Then that means that we were somehow connected.

By combining our bodies!

Sharing the same mass of liquid, together as one…

"Blurgh!"

"Ehm, you shouldn’t waste matter like this!" (Liqu)

The last perpetual situation in mind I give my all to get a hold of me.

I did want to avoid puking again, but this revelation right now was a little traumatic.

"I guess that means you don’t want. But it’s a shame. You had some difficulties with shaping a human body, but I believe I did a good job with modeling the imprint you’re using now. I think I could help you better like this." (Liqu)

So even my human appearance has nothing to do with me but is just based on her ideas on how I had to look.

How frustrating.

"No! Absolutely not! We will not do this connecting thing." (Shari)

"Okay, maybe another time." (Liqu)

Did I ever mention that I hate this "we will become lovers eventually"-attitude of hers?

Even if you don’t consider the general weirdness of a monster proposing to you, I simply don’t want to grant her that victory after her approach.

"Stop it now and just explain this "matter controlling" thing you mentioned! With words!" (Shari)

"Okay! But this will be a little bit more complicated like this!" (Liqu)

"Just tell!" (Shari)

"Okay, it works like this: First, you need to concentrate on the part that you want to change. Then you form an impression of the abilities you want to apply in your mind. When you have a concrete idea of what you want, you activate the thought!" (Liqu)

"Activate?" (Shari)

"That part is a bit tricky to describe. It is the same when you move your body. When you think you want to move your arm in a specific way and then you move it accordingly. The part between the idea and the moving that is the activation." (Liqu)

Yes; that was certainly quite abstract.

I can understand on a mental level that imprinting the necessary thoughts directly is more effective if I reluctantly remember the initial forming of my body.

If I understand it right, it is like using a muscle, yet instead of a muscle, you are using this strange connection to the slime.

And one can do more than just move it.

I try to concentrate on my fingertips and tell them to get denser and less liquid.

After that, I believe that something actually changed.

With my fingers like this, I stroke along the plate of my stash.

There is a difference.

While they still leave a trail behind and are budging in a little, my fingers are not completely collapsing like they normally would with this pressure.

While they are surely not solid, it’s a huge improvement to the former state.

Like this, I assume I can use tools to a marginal degree.

And this could even be the solution to my cloth problem.

If I make my outside denser and control it to stand still, then maybe they won’t get as drenched as without me doing so.

"It seems you’ve got a hang on it. Now you can shape a membrane." (Liqu)

"What do you mean with "membrane"?" (Shari)

"That you put a dense hull around your core, to protect it from damage. Like this, anything that could damage your core must first get through the hardened mass. That is especially helpful if you transport hard things in your body." (Liqu)

So she tells me that until now, I in fact wandered around with my brain exposed to the environment.

If I keep her affection for me in mind, it is obvious that this did bother her.

And now that it got unfolded for me, I should be concerned as well.

With that in mind, I concentrate on my core and try to think about a protective barrier around it.

I let the mass there gather in a dense structure and try to reduce the liquidity as far as possible.

After a short time, I feel a lump around the core and believe it was a success.

However, when I look directly at it there is not much to see.

There might be a slightly more intensive blue color and a distortion of the view around it, but apart from this there is nothing to notice.

"Oh good, it worked! I’m so relieved!" (Liqu)

"Yes, sure!" (Shari)

God, talking with Liqu becomes very quickly exhausting.

Ignoring my troubled mind I dress myself up.

If I want to maintain the minimum of inconspicuousness, the attire is vital.

Also, it might put my parents at ease.

The shirt is getting a bit blueish, but still within limits.

In addition, the pants are a little loose, yet I can do something about that by adjusting the mass on the inside.

"You are wearing clothes?" (Liqu)

"Yes, I cannot bear being naked any longer. Now take those and see if you can wear them without ruining the fabric." (Shari)

I throw at her a set of clothes that I did not consider for myself.

Since I won’t use my other clothes after I leave, it is more beneficial if they serve a purpose, by giving them to Liqu.

She will follow me, so all I can do is ensure that she won’t blow our cover.

"Clothes?" (Liqu)

"Yes clothes! You will wear them or I will not tolerate your presence!" (Shari)

Without talking back she directly starts to put them on.

"What are you doing? Your head does not belong in the pants' leg. And why are you trying at the same time to get your arm through the head opening of the shirt? Are you doing this on purpose?" (Shari)

She even tries to form a head out of her arm, to look from the outside where she ended up.

I know that she has no experience in these matters.

Still, even a child would fare better than her.

I managed fine and it works out somehow.

But she is a disaster!

"Damnit, enough of this!" (Shari)

Having no other choice I engage to put them on directly, ripping them first forcefully away from Liqu’s terribly inept hands.

"You put your arm through this hole!

Not that! That’s for the head!

Now the other side!

Don’t make such a fuss!" (Shari)

By using up all my nerves, I somehow manage to put her in the attire, at the cost of the little rests of my sanity.

"God! That is such a pain. I knew you were infantile, but even toddlers can do better than you!" (Shari)

"I am no infant! I am already ten years old!" (Liqu)

Oh! She really is a child!

Well; I don’t know how adulthood works with slimes, nonetheless this young is surprising.

She has a rather mature body, but I realize now, that this is just something she took elsewhere.

It is just a chosen appearance and no indicator of age.

She herself had never time to mature, nor any possibilities to do so, when I consider her life, as it had to be.

No wonder did she end up as weird as she is.

I am maybe insane myself that I consider her a person.

That’s another victory of hers since I probably do it because otherwise, I would be neglecting my own identity, as I am now.

Yet, I did go too far by now, with calling her by name and so on, to turn back from this.

Because of this, I need to believe, that she as a person is capable of basic logic.

And so she needs to know the basics of right and wrong at least.

But how when no one tells her?

The only person that speaks to her is…

Me!

Oh damnit! How did I get into this?

Oh yes, I know: A stupid slime abducted me in the forest and transformed me into a monster!

Grahh! Okay, I will at least show you where you went wrong you stupid, stupid child! Just wait for it, I’m gonna educate you!