A Love So Deep: Chapter 7 (Patreon)

With the speed of a striking cobra one of the Mistress’ great tentacles darts forward to grab me around the back of the head and pull me in toward her.

“Haaahhh!”  I let out a whimpering submissive moan at the unexpected and powerful grip.  The moan had come unbidden, from instinct, and it was definitely not the sort of sound the situation called for, sounding more like the passionate sigh of a lover than an exclamation of fear.  I blush furiously as she pulls me in very close, so close that my breasts touch hers.  More tentacles wrap around me, one clinching onto each of my limbs while squeezing and pulling firmly.  She could tear me apart as easily as I could a little bug.  “Hmmmmm.”  I bite my lips and try to hold in my inappropriate sounds.  Jesus, how could I feel horny at a time like this!?  What the fuck was wrong with me!?

Mistress’ golden eyes drill into me as in a voice so low that only I and Stheera, who still hovered at her shoulder, could hear she says.  “I am trusting that you are a reasonable woman.  If you harm Ellerie, in anyway, I will make you wish you had died where Haali found you.”

I stare at her, awestruck.  Her strength, her authority, her power, her protective anger, her sheer larger than life presence.  God she was so…beautiful!

Her grip tightens.  “Ohmmm!”  I moan again before I can cut it off.  If anybody here understood what these sounds meant there was no indication of it.

“Do you understand?”  She asks.

I nod quickly.  “Yes Mistress Nwyne.”

The tentacles immediately loosen.  “Good.  I think you will get along here just fine.”  As gentle as a feather she places me back where I had stood and even smooths out my clothes before the tentacles retract.  “Ellerie, Kelrak, see to our guest.”  She says.  “The rest of you stay.”

I could sense the mood shift in the room as this crew’s minds were suddenly sharpened by whatever business they were about to discuss.  They seemed oblivious to my embarrassment, thank goodness for that at least.  The group parts to give me a path to the door.  I look around at each of them one last time as I gather myself. Still flustered I start to walk slowly and awkwardly, pushing against the waters drag.  Frob wobbles around behind me to sniff along at me heels.  I worried it might bite me with it’s huge maw but thankfully the thing seemed well trained.  It was simply curious.

“Is that as fast as she can go?”  An amused Daera asks.  I then push off of the floor and propel myself forward with a dolphin kick which elicits a chuckle from the big woman.  “Ha ha!  She swims like a newborn babe!”

“Getting along better than any of us would in her world.”  Nanea says.  “Leave her be.”

“Yes Mistress.”

At the door Kelrak and Ellerie usher me out into a hallway and close the door behind them.  Ellerie takes my hand as I had hers previously and squeezes it.  “You’ll be okay.  Just be good and everything will be okay.”

I look to her and nod my head.

The crab man scuttles off down the straight hall and through the only other door at the far end.  “I will prepare its room.”

“Thank you.”  Ellerie calls after him.  “Kelrak is the best.  He looks after us.  Cleans, cooks, that sort of thing.  He’s a good one.”

The hall was of the same construction as the last room.  Plain textured stone made up the walls, floor, and ceiling and a single one of those light orbs hovered near the roof.

“A human.  A real live human.”  Ellerie continued to be amazed by me, particularly fascinated by my dark drifting shoulder blade length hair at the moment.  “You are incredible!  I am so lucky to have met you.  I have so many questions…if only you could talk.”

She swims around me, studying me from every angle.  My legs she finds as interesting as my hair.  As she studies me I in turn study her, I hadn’t had a chance to really see her back until now.  From her neck to her waist her body would be hard to differentiate from a human, ignoring the unique shifting coloration of course.  It had an attractive hourglass shape.  She even had a bit of a butt at the point where human met cuttlefish, and nice butt at that.  I give my head a shake.  Here I am living on borrowed time in a magical world I knew could not really exist and I am admiring a cuttlefish’s butt?  What had gotten into me?

Ellerie grins as she continues to not quite believe her luck.  I could imagine how she felt, it would be like me coming home to find an elf or some other mystical creature sitting on my couch.  With a soft tug to my hand she says.  “C’mon.  Let me show you around.”

She walks along the floor, each of her eight tentacles crawling in turn.  I stretch out horizontal and swim along beside her.

“This hallway is not safe at night or when Mistress isn’t in.”  Ellerie informs me.  “For security you understand.  It leads to Mistress’ office and the vault.”  Through the door, which Kelrak had left open for us, we pause at the cusp into the next room.  The floor was ten feet below us as the door opened up halfway up the wall.  Again this room was roughly three stories tall but this one had five walls with one or more doors leading out from each of them at different levels, though no windows.  Light globes floated here and there.  Below us is an area with two large central tables, just off of it is a alcove that looked a heck of a lot like a kitchen.  “This is the commons.  It’s where we eat and such.”  She crawls into the room, her suckers keeping her firmly grounded as she tips over ninety degrees to stand on the wall like a spider.  I look at her curiously, not accustomed to seeing folks standing on walls.  She grins and makes a ridiculously cute series of popping noises with her lips before waving me through.  “C’mon.”

I swim through the door and she closes it behind me.  Swimming out into the center of the space I tread water and look around.  The walls were covered with art.  Portraits, landscapes, murals of events, and abstract pieces.  The scenes and people might have been aquatic in nature yet the overall effect of seeing hanging art was so…normal looking.

Launching off of the wall Ellerie comes up to bob beside me.  “Not bad huh?  There’s a small fortune just in this room alone.”  She points to a portrait of a stern looking merman in pink and green finery.  “That one’s almost a hundred years old.”  She puts her hands on her hips and looks around.  “All of them are stolen of course.  We’re bad guys if you haven’t figured that out yet.”

I just nod.  That hardly came as a shock.

“Not that bad though.  I’m just a pickpurse.  I won’t hurt ya.”  She giggles.  “Anyway, so you already know the door to the office.”  She starts pointing around at the different doors.  “Through there leads to the tavern, you’re not allowed down there obviously as people would see you.  That door is Draevys’ lab and study.  Not allowed there either, not that you could get in.  But leave the door alone, he gets real cranky.  That door goes to more living area.  Library, gym, lounge, that sort of thing.  That door up there leads to our quarters and washrooms.  And that door leads to the Clutch offices and the secret entrance.”  Her face scrunches up and a pulse of yellow flashes across her kaleidoscope skin as she ponders whether she ought to have told me that last bit.  “You’re not allowed there either.”

I nod my understanding.

“Hungry?”

I shake my head no.  Honestly I was still feeling a tad queasy, though not enough to hinder me.

“Okay.  Hey, can you eat fish?”

I nod.

“Oh good!  That’s a start.”  She says.  “Kelp?”

I nod.

“Jellies?”

I pause, then shrug.

“What’s that mean?”

I think about it a moment.  Holding my hands out wide I look to my left and nod yes, I look to my right and shake no, then look to the middle and shrug.

After a few times of this Ellerie's vivid lime green eyes widen as she catches on.  “That means…maybe?  Maybe or I don’t know.  Yeah?”

I nod with a grin.  After a few more gestures and guesses we nail it down to I don’t know.

“Hey!  Our vocabulary expands.” She says.  “Yes.  No.  I don’t know.”  With each word she does corresponding motion and looking darn proud of herself with each one.

I give her a thumbs up which starts a whole new round of questions and answers.  By the time we were done she understood thumbs up and thumbs down as I like it and I don’t like it respectively.  She zips around me in circles from excitement, slowly spinning me in the whirl that she creates.  She helps me to a stop and pats my arm.

Feeling a budding connection to this bubbly young lady I hold a hand to my chest and say aloud.  “Mireya.”

Ellerie titters and quivers as the vibration tickles her.

“Mireya.”  I say again, patting my chest.  I point to her.  “Ellerie.”  I bring my hand back.  “Mireya.”

I hadn’t gone by that name in almost six months now and it felt damn good to say it again and hear it again.  Even with everything else going on, especially with everything else going on, it wasn’t lost on me how naturally I had answered the Mistress as to my womanhood.  Up above things could get complicated.  Down here…I could just be Mireya.

“Mireya.”  I say yet again, pointing back and forth.  “Ellerie.  Mireya.  Ellerie.  Mireya.”

“Stop that!”  She giggles loudly and shivers all over.  The spectacular colors sparkle across her flesh in rapid bursts as she covers her face with her hands and laughs harder.  “I’m ticklish!”  I cannot help but let out a little laugh of my own.  After her giggles she lowers her hands.  “Is…that noise…your name?”  She asks.

I nod yes.

“I don’t understand it.” She says with a sigh.  “I cannot make vibes like that.”  She clacks her teeth and pops her plump lips as if to demonstrate what noises she could make.  “Tomorrow I’ll start teaching you how to speak.  Would that be okay?”

I nod enthusiastically.

“Okay!”  She grins wide.  “This is so incredible.  We’re going to be such good frien…”  Her smile fades, the patterns on her skin slow, and she subtly drifts back from me.  “Um.  I should show you to your room.”

Chapter 8