Planet-Eater 90 (Patreon)

Slowly, the creature inched closer to her. It only took a few seconds for its immense body to fully eclipse the sky. Eyes upon eyes upon eyes shone down at her. She couldn’t read them. Not at all. The mouths held no expression and the tentacles, overlapping like handfuls of worms, were motionless. There was nothing to be read in them at all. 

A few of its eyes moved over to look towards the temple. ‘Do they know?’

‘Know what?’

The eyes turned back to her. Wary. ‘That you’re a Jedi’

Strange question. ‘They do,’ she told it. ‘They’ve known ever since we met.’

The tentacles tensed up. Eyes began to shift a little, here, there, everywhere. Then back to her. ‘Why… Why are you a Jedi?’

‘I was born into it,’ she said, ignoring those years when she wasn’t. ‘Born and raised.’

The tentacles stilled. ‘Then, you’ll never change?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘You’ll always be a Jedi?’

‘If the Force allows, then yes.’

The eyes moved about and the bottommost tentacles writhed uncertainly, like the wringing of hands upon hands upon hands. ‘I… I see. In that case, then…’ It fell silent again. For a moment too long, it seemed to be making up its mind about something. Its eyes shivered, its mouths worked soundlessly, and in the end, it slumped, just a little. ‘You seem tired. I’ll… I’ll carry you, into the… to your f—friends. I brought them somewhere warm and nice. You’ll like it there.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ she said, watching as a tentacle split and split and split and split until it produced a tentacle slim enough to not crush her instantly. It was as thick as her leg, and it reached towards her trembling as though from the cold. At first, it hardly seemed like it wanted to touch her at all. ‘I don’t bite,’ she told it. ‘Not anymore, at least.’ It didn’t seem to help. Nevertheless, in due time, the tentacle worked up the strength to wrap itself around her waist, cradling her body in tentacles thicker than her arms. The environment-suit wouldn’t let her feel whether they were warm or cold, but she could at least enjoy the comfortable tightness of them as they held her, gently, carefully.

Then, they raised her into the air. The ground disappeared beneath her feet, replaced by infinite white snow. Higher and higher she went, almost like a funride. The temple shrunk in her gaze. 

…That isn’t right. 

Turning away from the temple, she found herself being carried closer and closer to the centermost maw of the creature. Hundreds of rows of undulating teeth each the size of a fleet launcher, ringed by eyes that seemed unable to choose whether to look at her or evade her gaze. And within those teeth, as deep as space itself, as complete as a black hole, was an abyss. A pure nothingness that seemed to swallow everything, even what tottery light that remained in the creature’s shadow. 

The tentacle brought her closer, and closer, and closer, until she could practically touch the teeth. The eyes of the creature squeezed themselves shut. 

‘What are you doing?’

Its eyes flared open, all turning to look down at her, the tentacle holding her beginning to tremble fiercely. 

‘I—I—I…’

It looked at her. The eyes shook. And in a single movement, all thousands upon thousands of eyes broke out into flood-like tears as the creature heaved, collapsing on itself again, her whole vision going black as the entire world was blotted out by the creature’s form hunching over her, holding her in a shivering grip. Massive drops of liquid fell onto her, the only thing protecting her from drowning being her environment-suit. 

‘I CAN’T!!’ a voice cried in her head, blubbering. ‘I CAN’T!! OH, GOD, I CAN’T DO IT! FUCK, WHY AM I SO WEAK? YOU’RE AN EVIL SPACE WIZARD!! IF I DON’T KILL YOU YOU’RE GONNA CONTROL MY BRAIN AND MAKE ME KILL TYPHIN AND FERN AND ATTE AND THEN YOU’LL MAKE ME HURT EVERYONE ELSE WHO HELPED ME! AND ALL BECAUSE I’M TOO WEAK TO K—K—KILL YOU! EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE LITERALLY EVIL!!’

A thousand tentacles had wrapped themselves around her, holding her with shivering desperation, and yet, all she could think was, what?

‘I KNOW!! I KNOW I’M A PUSSY! I’VE BEEN TOLD ALL MY LIFE SO I KNOW THAT PERFECTLY WELL!! BUT I THOUGHT—I HOPED THAT IF I JUST DID MY BEST, PUSHED HARD ENOUGH, MAYBE I’D GET PAST IT!’ A weak, quivering laugh pierced her head, broken in every sense of the word. ‘BUT I DIDN’T! AND I NEVER WILL, BECAUSE IF I CAN’T EVEN DO AWAY WITH ONE PERSON WHEN THE LIVES OF EVERYONE I KNOW AND LOVE IS ON THE LINE, THEN HOW WILL I EVER BE OF USE TO THE EMPEROR? I’M SO FUCKING USELESS! FUCK!!’

The creature then proceeded to roll over, tentacles writhing and slamming down seemingly at random, though none of them harming either her or the temple. 

‘I HATE THIS! I HATE MYSELF! I’M THE WORST! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK’

Some tentacles moved with such immense swiftness that the air cracked, their slamming to the ground producing shockwaves that made the earth whimper, split mountains and left craters. For the better part of a minute, the creature thrashed on the ground, cursing itself, cursing its life, cursing everything it did and didn’t do, using words she’d never heard before. Fuck seemed to be a personal favourite. 

It took a total of three minutes for it to calm down. Though, even then, it would not cease its crying. Even the eyes of the tentacles that held her were leaking moisture. She had never been more thankful that environment-suits were waterproof. 

A minute more, and the crying began to slowly die down. 

It rolled back over, rose a little, and brought her down to the ground, where it released her. Actually standing on her own two feet required a few seconds of readjustment, but once she had righted herself, she was given a very good view of how the creature bent down, cried a little more, and then said, very clearly, ‘Okay, hicc, I’m ready now’

For the first time in what felt like hours, she felt capable of responding to what the creature was saying. ‘Ready for what’

I tilted its main part a little. ‘For you to, um, mind-control me into a weapon and use me to kill all my friends? And—and then afterwards maybe kill me too, because I don’t think I’d like to be alive afterwards?’

She squinted at him. A little part in her, the part that also told her that she used to be so powerful and all of this would be much easier if she simply gave in to her passion, told her that this had to be the most easily manipulated space octopus she’d ever seen. She had done nothing to give it this impression of her, and yet, it seemed fully devoted to the odd preposition it had that Jedi were, somehow, evil space wizards capable of bending the wills of people to their whim, making them do whatever they asked of them.

…Which was, of course, not entirely untrue, it’s just that no Jedi would ever do what the creature had described. 

But it didn’t have to know that. She didn’t have to say that. It would have been so easy for her to rear up, put on her best cackling evil villain face, and say, That’s right! I am an evil Jedi and unless you obey my every whim, I will force you to kill your friends! And if you ever doubt it, I will simply make you do it anyways! Mo-hahahaha! 

She glanced up at the whimpering, pathetic creature that stood kneeling before her. 

…Yeah, it would’ve believed every word. If she wanted to really sell it, she could even have thrown in that she had a deep network of hidden Jedi knights squirrled away within every sector of the galaxy, promising that even if the creature killed her, it would not escape the wrath of the Jedi Order. And just like that, she’d have it wrapped around her little finger. All thanks to a generous application of manipulation, fear, and power.

In other words, things that the Jedi disapprove of using wantonly.

—But it was for the good of the galaxy! It would be a great boon to the resistance! Surely, she could be a little evil to a creature that anyways viewed Jedi as evil?

Heavy droplets fell from above, melting the snow below. A thousand thousand eyes glimmered at her with indescribable despair and sorrow.

She sighed. Ptooey. Why had she chosen to become a Jedi again? Oh, yeah, for the good of the Galaxy. Wonderful. She loved having morals. It was the best. Hooray.

‘I’m not going to do that,’ she said, after some time.

The eyes darted back and forth, unwilling to really look away from her yet seemingly afraid that every move she made would be the last it ever saw. ‘Y—you’re lying,’ it replied, childishly. ‘You’re only saying that to get me off my guard so that I’ll be e—easier to control’

‘No I am not,’ she said, and she would have loved to say more, had it not been for a tiny light warning her that her oxygen would run out in two minutes. ‘And I’m going to explain exactly why… As soon as you’ve brought me somewhere safe where I can breathe.’

The creature watched her intently. The tears had stopped fully now. And for just a moment, she realized the existence of a tiny hitch in her plan: would it be opposed to letting her die? It didn’t want to kill her. It couldn’t bear to kill her. But was it really killing her to simply let her die? Could anybody fault it for that? She wouldn’t have. She understood the reasoning perfectly. That was the first step, after all. Be fine with letting someone die and then the rest comes easily. That’s how he got you.

‘Oh. Yeah, of course,’ it said, wrapping her up gently and whisking her over to the temple. ‘I’ll bring you to them, but before we talk I’m going to make like a little uhhh a little body I guess? I can’t imagine talking to me when I look like this is very fun so… yeah. I’ll be there soon okay’

And it put her inside the temple, carrying her softly all the way through the familiar hallways, through a door she had never been allowed to touch, down into the caverns, and through the winding tunnels, until it reached a small pool of lava, where she found Ruckle and Yoric, the latter finally awake and the former resting peacefully, neither of them in their environment-suits. The tentacle deposited her on the soft mossy ground. 

It then slipped away into the darkness, to the tune of a promise of quick return. She watched it, a strange, labelless emotion welling up within her chest. 

“Took your sweet time,” Yoric said. “I didn’t think tentacle monsters were your type, but what do I know?”

Byrea fought the urge to turn to the dark side.