Yummy Tears [KAIT]

Mynaim liked this island. It had met so many interesting people, learned so many things about them, gone through their thing while they weren’t around, and on several occasions stapled their unmentionables to the wall. The same sorts of things that it normally did, if it was being perfectly honest with itself, but the inhuman status of all the creatures it met made everything feel fresh and new. It hadn’t felt this alive in centuries.

Today, Mynaim decided to visit the lake. So far, it had encouraged ants to invade two picnic baskets, convinced six impressionable children that the lake was haunted, and ensured that one man’s swimming trunks would never be seen again after a fateful dive into the lake. He was a particularly entertaining victim. Even though he clearly wasn’t human (he was some kind of ogre, probably), he shared the humans’ insistence that young children never see other people’s genitalia. He spent a lot of time looing uncomfortable waist-deep in murky water before finally requesting assistance.

It was deciding on its next plan when it began to hear a promising sound. A child was crying! Soon, Mynaim materialized in front of the child, on its knees, grasping his shoulders. The child was terrified; it was too scared to even scream. The child had long, pointed ears. Mynaim did not know what that meant.

“Child,” it said to the child, “I am going to lick your face.” The child did not have much time to process this fact before Mynaim’s long, green-black tongue protruded from its mouth and proceeded to lap up the child’s tears. He was still frozen with fear.

“You are very good at crying.” Mynaim informed the child. “Your tears are of a very high quality. I congratulate you.” Mynaim released the child, who fell over backwards and wriggled away while Mynaim disappeared into thin air. The boy didn’t exactly feel any better, but at least he wasn’t crying any more.

The shadowy creature did not escape Mynaim’s notice. The spirit’s immaterial form floated over the lake, and it could tell that the entity was following it. This was either a very interesting creature, or a very dangerous creature. Which would also be very interesting, now that Mynaim thought about it.

Whatever it was, there was the slightest chance it could kill Mynaim. But caution is for mortals, and Mynaim was convinced that it was far cooler and more attractive than any mortal. It was too cool, and too attractive, to let this other creature intimidate it.

“You are following me.” It said, still incorporeal. “Were you intrigued by my beauty and grace?” That would probably be why the entity would follow it, if this entity was sentient. Mynaim knew that it was very attractive.

“I am not called,” she corrected, “But I come anyway, un-called. My name is My Name.” It hoped its answer would confuse whatever it was speaking to. It had never seen something like this creature before – it might deal with consternation in all sorts of new and delightful ways.

“If you believe that titles are important, you must have one of your own. I was able to deduce this because I am very clever.” Mynaim was very proud of its own cleverness. It used deductive reasoning, just like the fictional mortal Sherlock Holmes, to turn unrelated evidence into useful conclusions. A lesser mind might not have been able to recognize that this entity had a name. Mynaim chalked this up to its overall superiority to any hypothetical lesser minds.

When it was confused, it lost cohesion! What a delightful new way to look confused! By saying something unsettling, Mynaim could actually un-make this ‘shadow.’

The shadow claimed to be good at riddles. “I suppose My Name is a riddle,” Mynaim said. “It even speaks about itself in the third person sometimes. Do you know what else is a riddle?”

After a few moments of silence, Mynaim’s disembodied voice continued. “That flabby man with the spotted skin doesn’t realize how silly and fleeting his existence is most of the time. He has swallowed fourteen spiders so far this week, and one of them wasn’t even my fault. Spiders are full of protein. I don’t think he has enough protein in his diet but that’s not why I did it.”

“Spider queen?” repeated the voice. “That’s weird. You’re weird.” Its voice betrayed only amusement. Nothing about the spiders was actually a riddle, or even related to riddles. Mynaim was just changing the subject to how it liked to spend its spare time. Collecting spiders and sneaking them into his mouth was a game to her.

It was curious about the spider queen now, though. Spiders were useful for all kinds of things, especially if you’re creative like Mynaim. Mynaim prided itself on its creativity. A queen spider could be useful for all sorts of things, if it was real, but it was pretty sure spider queens weren’t real. Mynaim knew a lot of thing about spiders.

Mynaim’s invisible spirit form bobbed up and down, an echo of the waves on the lake below them. “You’re good at making people cry, though. Do you see that one with the frilly black and white swimsuit?” The woman stood out. She was lying down by the edge of the lake, on a towel, bathing in the sun. She could have been doing this on the beach, which would have been a more appropriate place for her to do such a thing in Mynaim’s opinion. “Her name is Karen. She wrote in her diary three days ago that she feels too sad to even cry anymore. I bet you can’t make her cry.”