LF Friends, Will Travel

My Eldritch Guardian Angel

The Dunwilians had never known friends among the stars, as they were not... standard. They didn't look like space ferrets, they didn't look like space elves. Even a pile of sentient rocks would have been preferable to the horror that they were as a species. The Dunwilians had been called a great many things: Lovecraftian, horrific, abomination, terrifying. Meaner ones would just call them ugly. However, nobody had ever called them friend.

They stood at a staggering 8 feet tall, a mass of writhing wiggling strings tied and bound together into an egg-like shape, punctuated by eyes of varying sizes, each one burning a deep blood red. Twenty trunk-like appendages spouted from the sides of this mass, the ugly blues and purples mixing together into a slimy viscous skin. Each trunk ended into a gaping maw of teeth and slime, seeming to gnash and bite as it moved around.

They were also a desperately social species, ingrained into their very being that life was best experienced with others. So it was a great tragedy that the Dunwilians found themselves alone, simply due to how they were created. They retreated amongst themselves and avoided the greater galactic community as the centuries passed by: the stars only provided broken promises and hurt.

Until the Terrans arrived. Strange primates that seemed to bond with anything that had a pulse. Who had looked at the Dunwilian's horrific nature, and responded with an outstretched hand of friendship.

A Dunwilian by the name of _̸̯̹͈̌͐̒̓_̷͈̗̝͐̈_̵̛̟̻͔̤̈́͘͘_̷̢̺̫̳̊͒́_̶͍́̈́͂͝ walked along the halls, their massive lumbering frame being almost squeezed into the corridors designed for smaller beings, the walls inset with pictures and glass cases containing various artefacts. They lumbered forwards at the back of the tour group, following behind at a slight distance.

While a few other Terran Alliance species were to be found here, the vast majority of the people at the museum were the native Zassu, a serpentine species; each of them made up of two completely independent sapient heads, always of different colours, the scales from each twisting around each other to create a spiraled main body that both minds controlled and slithered around on. Many of them were wearing two coloured robes over the entirety of their bodies, the frictionless material flowing along as they quite literally talked amongst themselves.

They were also keeping their distance from _̸̯̹͈̌͐̒̓_̷͈̗̝͐̈_̵̛̟̻͔̤̈́͘͘_̷̢̺̫̳̊͒́_̶͍́̈́͂͝, the disturbing pops and cracks, the unseen grinding of cartilage as they walked along on each of their trunks. This was perfectly natural and healthy for a Dunwilian but was disturbing nevertheless.

Apart from one, who walked next to _̸̯̹͈̌͐̒̓_̷͈̗̝͐̈_̵̛̟̻͔̤̈́͘͘_̷̢̺̫̳̊͒́_̶͍́̈́͂͝ without a care in the world, seemingly unworried of the Lovecraftian being. The friend _̸̯̹͈̌͐̒̓_̷͈̗̝͐̈_̵̛̟̻͔̤̈́͘͘_̷̢̺̫̳̊͒́_̶͍́̈́͂͝ had managed to make.

"This is awesome, the idea that these tunnels were built by chipping away the mountain one slither a at time, you can see the indentations of each strike of the tools along the walls still."

The Terran who went by the name "Terry" spoke excitedly as they brushed their fingers along the walls, feeling the ridges caused by the millions of tool strikes required to cave into the near-impenetrable rock.

"̸T̸h̴e̴y̷ ̵s̴a̷y̵ ̷i̷t̴ ̸t̴o̸o̸k̸ ̶t̵h̸o̴u̴s̸a̴n̵d̷s̶ ̴o̶f̶ ̴y̸e̴a̷r̴s̶,̷ ̶h̴u̸n̷d̷r̷e̴d̸s̴ ̴o̷f̶ ̶g̴e̶n̵e̸r̷a̴t̶i̷o̴n̴s̵ ̵t̶o̷ ̴f̶i̵n̸i̷s̷h̴.̷ ̶I̸t̷'̸s̶ ̸o̷l̸d̷e̷r̴ ̷t̶h̸a̴n̴ ̶m̴a̸n̴y̷ ̵s̵p̶e̵c̸i̸e̷s̵.̴"̶

_̸̯̹͈̌͐̒̓_̷͈̗̝͐̈_̵̛̟̻͔̤̈́͘͘_̷̢̺̫̳̊͒́_̶͍́̈́͂͝ responded with a cacophony of grinding noises, causing the rest of the tour group to shudder involuntarily as the Dunwilian spoke. Not that Terry gave any mind to them, having long since gotten used to such things. _̸̯̹͈̌͐̒̓_̷͈̗̝͐̈_̵̛̟̻͔̤̈́͘͘_̷̢̺̫̳̊͒́_̶͍́̈́͂͝ could remember the way they had met Terry, the random Galnet message posted on a space station's message board.