In the morning, the quiet of the house is unnerving, thick and heavy.

A faint light seeps through the curtains and a light rain stains the huge windows.

Midas silently slithers out of her room and paces in the hallway. Her breath shallow, the weight of the night when she barely had any sleep, still pressing on her chest.

“Ugh… my head’s throbbing.”

She had been moving around her room for hours, trying to push away the guilt of what she had almost done that night, the memories flowing back to her like one of her bad dreams where she wakes up before the inevitable happens.

So she needs to prove it to herself, that what had happened was in fact real and not the product of her mind.

The door of the bathroom creaks softly as it opens and there they are, sprawled inside the bathtub. Tentacle-like hair is spread everywhere, their body is twisted with an odd angle, the prosthetic legs dangling out.

Midas leans against the door frame, arms crossed, studying them. There's something odd about that being, even like this.

She didn't expect to find them still there, for some reason she thought, if they were even real, that they could have been suddenly injected with common sense during the night and had then sneaked out.

She had been suppressing the need to know, to see, but now she has given in. Something is calling, urging her towards them.

She had tried to walk past the bathroom, but every time her steps would falter, the pull grew stronger, her curiosity more like morbid fascination.

At that point, she thought, if she were to observe them in their sleep, would she be able to study them better? Without the weight of having a conscious being that she had to elaborate how to interact with, would the information naturally flow to her? Would she manage to make sense of what had happened the night before?

She couldn't help it, it was a call in the way the sea claims a ship, beckoning it closer.

Dubhra, still slumping in the bathtub is to her like the song of a siren, so sweet, impossible to ignore.

And now the song is luring her to the rocks.

No matter how much she tries, it keeps pulling her in. A slow, inevitable drift.

Without that unsettling gaze of theirs, they look tender, hollow. Like something unfinished.

The closer she gets, the harder it is to stop, she can almost hear a faint hum in her chest, it urges her to get closer.

As she reaches the edge of the tub, she leans down slightly.

Dubhra's limbs surely twist in a way that looks painful, but somehow, that doesn't seem to disturb their sleep. Their chest rises and falls in slow breaths. Despite her trying to kill them, despite almost setting her house on fire, they look so vulnerable.

Her gaze traces the sharp line of their jaw, their hollow cheeks, their roman, slightly curved nose, their long and slender neck inked with tattoos.

Her fingers twitch and she stops herself just in time from reaching out to touch their face.

But before she can bring herself to walk away, their mismatched eyes crack open and, though they are still clouded with sleep, she is sure they can see her, their white pupils gaining focus.

Turning, their muscles creak at the awkward position, though they don't complain. Instead they look up at Midas, standing there, barely any distance separating them. Their eyes aren't filled with any sign of sharp clarity, though, they seem abstract, as if they are seeing her through a fog.

Their voice is soft, barely a whisper. "Do you think a ship gets lonely, waiting for a siren to sing them home?"

She suddenly snaps out of the trance she has been in. "A what? I just wanted to check if yesterday night had been just a fever dream of mine, but apparently not." She sizes them up. "You’re not exactly the kind of thing I can easily explain away."

Dubhra sits up, their posture is very casual despite the situation. "All this is not easy to explain to me either, you know?"

She doesn't respond immediately, her gaze searching for something. "I'm not in the habit of trusting things that don't make sense. But you're clearly here, so we're going to deal with it." She raises her hand slightly, touching their nose with her index finger.

"Deal with it? Like you're trapped in a sort of existential loop, trying to find meaning in things that don't make sense? Trying to understand if you're real?" 

They gently massage their thighs, connected to the prosthetics at the knee. "That's one way to put it! I actually feel much better this morning, I have to think about a lot of things when I'm not sleeping. Which I do a lot of. Sleeping, that is."

Midas sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with that information."

The creature gives her a half smile. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Why does she feel like smiling too now? The absolute lack of sense in this being is almost hilarious. "You know, most people would have left."

Dubhra runs a hand through their messy long tentacles, their gaze is distant. "I understand."

She rolls her eyes. "Clearly."

They glance at her, a faint anxious smile curling on their lips. "I guess I'm just waiting to see where the tide takes me."

"The tide?" She repeats flatly. "You're in my bathtub."

Dubhra shrugs. "The water is never still for too long."

It's the kind of answer that feels like it should mean something, but doesn't. Or maybe it does and that's what bothers her the most.

She glances at them, then turns and starts to walk towards the door. "Come downstairs if you want to have breakfast, but don't expect me to know what you eat."

The creature stands, slowly and calmly. "I'll eat what I can find. I'm pretty adaptable."

They wouldn't have to find anything, she thinks. "You know, you should check if you're real. That's a good place to start."

***

Over breakfast, Midas feels on the edge, her movements are sharp and tense, trying to reassert control after losing it the night before. Dubhra looks calm, too still.

"So, what happens now?" She asks abruptly, breaking the silence.

The creature looks up from their almond milk bowl, blinking like she just broke their train of thought or more like an internal monologue. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I need answers, what exactly does it mean that you're my creature?" Her voice rises slightly, frustration bleeding through. "Am I supposed to keep you on a leash or something?"

Dubhra exhales a faint laugh, lifting their prosthetic hand to quickly try and cover the slight blush blooming on their cheeks. "Oh please, how could you think of that? It's not how it works."

Her avocado toast remains untouched on her plate. "You said that like it's supposed to make sense."

"I thought it did."

"Well, it doesn't." Her voice hardens. "You're just... here. Like you have nothing better to do."

Dubhra's smile is faint, almost apologetic. "I really don't."

That answer unsettles her more than she is willing to admit.

"You could have left," she mutters. "You didn't have to stay."

Their gaze locks on hers. "Again with that? I never wanted to leave!"

"But you can't just decide to stay here like it's your choice! This is my house, my life, it's up to me to decide whether or not to keep you here!"

They lazily stir the milk with their claws. "Then just say you'll keep me."

"So you'll simply stick around? Forever?"

Dubhra's eyes light up. "Yes, exactly."

"That's not a plan, you can't just follow me around like a lost puppy. People are going to notice!" She taps with her fingers on the wooden table. "What if I have a partner? Maybe they wouldn’t want to know that I have an eldritch horror sleeping at my place."

Their face twists in an expression of disapproval, looking genuinely offended. Their mouth parts to say something, then closes almost immediately, like they already regret what they're about to say and don't want to risk the crash.

"I am not an eldritch horror," they say at last. “Nor a puppy.”

She rolls her eyes. "That's just... ugh— you're acting like one though."

"Please, quit with the puppies and tides and everything else! You're confusing me."

"So what? It's not like now I have to rearrange my life just to make it less confusing for you," she says coldly.

Dubhra takes a deep breath, like they are trying to fold the emotions back into themselves. "That's not what I meant." Their shoulders drop slightly as they look away. "I don't know how this is supposed to work here, in this world. But you said that no one knows it better than you, right? You said it yourself yesterday, I heard it!" They truly sound desperate. "Anything, just I'm not leaving." They pause, swallowing hard. "I don't want to."

Midas' gaze lingers on them, tracing the way their prosthetic clawed fingers twitch against their mug, like they are bracing for her to push them away.

She should. She knows she should. Having them around, this quiet, awkward presence that doesn't quite fit, is a risk.

But there's something about them that's oddly steady, even in their uncertainty, somehow her brain sees them as an opportunity.

Dubhra's presence that night, inconvenient as it was, felt like something that wouldn't risk slipping through her fingers.

This creature is clearly not good with words, yet why is she so inclined to believe them?

"Fine," her voice is more stern than it needs to be, because if she sounds too willing, it will feel like admitting she wants this, she can't say it out loud.

Dubhra jolts, they look almost scared, like her answer comes unexpected. Then their expression changes, their eyes lighting up again, this time with an intensity that makes Midas' chest tighten.

They lean towards her, almost splaying on the table. "Really?" Their hand stretches as if they want to reach for her, to pull her in.

"Don't act so surprised when you were the one being so insistent."

Their smile appears next, a wide, unrestrained grin that shows their gums, as though joy couldn't be contained by the boundaries of their face. The corners of Dubhra’s elongated eyes crinkle and tether while the whole face softens, becoming almost childishly eager.

It's the kind of smile that has a life of its own, sweeping over them like a wave and Midas finds herself almost mesmerized by it, by how alive and uncontainable it makes them look.

"What was your name, again?" She asks.

"It's Dubhra," a couple drops of almond milk dripping from their sharp, metallic claw.