Cry of Girl-thulhu

Trigger #128: The Bones of Snusnulhu

Object Class: The bones of an ancient Eldritch goddess charged with trans-dimensional, transformational power.

Transformation Type: TG, Gigantification.

Threat Level: N/A: Their power was already spent on the sailor formerly known as Steven Dillian, now known as the Eldritch Demi-Goddess Starsinger, or “Starry”, as her girlfriend Penny Matthews lovingly refers to her. Starry now has the power of a cosmic entity and could potentially destroy any given coastline in an afternoon. Thankfully she is perfectly content to snuggle with her tiny girlfriend, so her personal threat level is Benevolent.

Subjects: Starsinger aka “Starry”, Eldritch Demi-Goddess, F, formerly Steven Dillian, 28? (she was there at the beginning of time and will be there at its end), Human, AMAB, and Penny Matthews, 28, Human, F.

The following is a biographical account of events based on the subject's own testimony and several eyewitness accounts.

Imagine you are an ant.

Your purpose is simple, efficient. Work. Bring food back to the hive. Reproduce. Repeat.

But one day, you find a strange temple, a maze of raised obelisks made of a material you cannot identify, covered in symbols you cannot comprehend. Blissful in your ignorance and finding no food, you turn to leave when suddenly-

You are a human. You are a human writing words on a keyboard. Your purpose is now infinitely more complicated. You have an office job, and a report due on Friday. You have a spouse to support, kids to feed. You suspect your boss is looking for an excuse to fire you, and worse, you worry he might already have one and is just waiting for the ideal moment to pounce. You shudder to think of what would happen to your family should he succeed. You fear falling deep inside the perilous cracks in society. The world is a complex mechanism of geopolitical strife and ecological collapse. And you are but one tiny, replaceable cog in that machine.

You see an ant scuttle by. You know that the ant will bring more ants with it, will spoil your food, bring disease, cause decay. It might even get you fired for failing to keep your desk up to code.

You squash the ant.

But you are the ant.

You were always the ant.

As your fragile exoskeleton is obliterated by a giant roughly sixteen million times your size and unfathomably more intelligent, you suddenly understand your precarious place in this cold, uncaring universe.

You are infinitesimal.

You do not matter, for you are barely made of any matter at all.

You try to scream, but you no longer have the vocal cords or language to do so.

So too it was for Steven Dillian, with one key difference.

Her name was Penny Matthews. And she was pulling away from him; he could tell.

He had hoped that a romantic boat ride on the high seas would save their relationship.

She had always loved the sea. It was where they’d first met.

He hadn’t expected the storm that would dash their boat against the rocks of a strange temple and leave them stranded.

He hadn’t expected to touch the bones of an old goddess lying in wait for a fresh sleeve of skin, sinew, and soul.

He hadn’t expected to expand as he did, not just in body, but in mind.

He became she, but she had always been she, not him, but her.

She was 28 years old.

And then she was 13.8 billion years old.

She was not given the saving grace of abridgement.

She relived those 13.8 billion years in agonizing detail, once for every dimension.

The death of every star. The birth of every world. The stretch of every second. The agony of every year.

She lost herself, found herself, reinvented herself, destroyed herself, rebuilt herself, and reinterpreted herself more times than one could count, more times than one could BE.

All the while, her body was painfully, systematically rearranged. Her skin tore, her bones broke, her meat swelled. Nerve endings elongated, stretched and screamed in pain. Fat boiled like lava. As her mind outgrew this plane, so too did her body. A bloated, writhing mass woven into a mortal idol of fertility. An atom of iron stretched into an ornate blade, then hammered down into a common kitchen knife.

She wasn’t Steven anymore.

She simply WAS.

She was there at the beginning, and knew she would be there at the end.

She was life, death, and everything in between.

She was witness to an endless kaleidoscope of dimensions, each as vast and endless as her own. She could see every reality made manifest, each birthed by the slightest passing thought or the slightest quivering of quarks. Endless suffering. Endless ecstasy. Endless eternity.

She was everyone, everything that would ever live and she was absolutely nothing at all.

A paradox. A void made full. A statement made false. She was the white space on the page between the very words you are reading, and therefore, that outline made her the ink as well.

She knew every thought you would ever think, memorized and harmonized every syllable you would ever say.

Steven was less than a single drop in oceans upon oceans of stars.

And yet, it was still her.

Just more.

Infinitely more.

When her mind finally, mercifully caught up to her body, the first thing she noticed was an ant.

It clung to the tentacle nearest to her face. It was shaking, but it did not waver. It clung to her, not for dear life, but for something even dearer.

She remembered the ant’s name.

It was Penny.

In that moment, the thing that was and wasn’t but was always Steven understood.

Penny, helpless and horrified at the grotesque transformation her loved one had undergone, had never left her side. Had never even considered it.

Penny was there the entire 43.5678 seconds/13.8 billion years ^ π that she had transformed.

Her actions were so simple to interpret, but so intricate in meaning.

I will not leave you.

I am here.

I love you.

In that moment, the entire wingspan of their relationship spread before Steven, beginning and end.

It was pure chance that they had met. Not fate, but something far more precious, far more precarious.

A sheer, statistical, mathematical wonder.

8.142 billion people on the planet Earth, and Steven had just so happened to be born on the right planet, to go to the right beach, on the right coast, in the right continent, on the right year, on the right day, hour, and second to see Penny soaking her feet in the high tide. She wasn’t wearing a bathing suit, she was wearing a blouse and pencil skirt, her heels hanging from her hand. It wasn’t even beach season.

She’d gotten fired that day. An innocent mistake that her boss had accidentally found on a whim that technically violated company policy. A technicality upon a technicality.

He’d bombed a job interview and his tire had blown a flat. So it was safe to say that he’d had a pretty shit day, too.

Something compelled Steven to join her in the water. It didn’t make sense, it was the middle of October, and freezing, and they’d probably both catch pneumonia.

But at least it would be both of them. At least they wouldn’t be suffering alone.

They talked. Commiserated in their misery. Screamed into the uncaring, unlistening ocean. Together. Neither could tell you when they had started holding hands.

Imagine you are an ant. And then, you are a human. But a human who still loves her Queen, a Queen who still loves you.

You know you will outlive the ant. The ant’s life is small, short, and simple.

But you still stoop to see her.

The cosmos at your fingertips, endless upon endless possibilities, and yet, and YET, you choose to narrow your focus.

To zoom in on a person. A moment.

To make those precious seconds count.

We are all ants.

We are all infinitesimal.

Nothing matters, we are barely made of any matter at all.

But when nothing matters, we get to choose what matters.

When nothing matters, everything does.

To love is a choice. A choice to brave the heartbreak, the embarrassment, the perilous unknown, simply for the chance that we won’t have to brave this cold, cruel world alone. For the chance to be held, and to hold.

The thing that replaced Steven, that wasn’t Steven, but had always been Steven, looked upon the tiny, shivering ant that had chosen her, and chose her in return.

“The stars are singing your name.”

With a start, Penny looked up at the colossal woman that was, wasn’t, but had always been, and always would be, her lover. The woman that was now speaking to her.

“...Steven? Is that you?”

“Yes. And no. And always. I am not the one you knew, but I will always be the one you know. The one who knows you. I have not replaced your Steven, rather I am her completion. The product of stellar collisions. I am a symphony of stars now. But I will ALWAYS sing your name…”

Penny nodded, bewildered, not quite understanding, but seeking to at least.

“So… you are my Steven… but you’re also not my Steven… so how about I call you… Starsinger? Or, just my Starry for short?”

Starry’s low, amused giggle sent waves through the sea. She now was, had always been, and would always be, Penny’s Starsinger.

“This name pleases me. But not as much as yours.”

Penny shivered in the cold rain. Starry pressed an ever so gentle palm against her to shield her from the elements. Penny felt warm in this bizarre tent of flesh. Safe.

“I would still have you… if you would still have me…”

Starry looked at Penny longingly, her massive irises an endless sea of swirling nebulae.

With perfect clarity, Starry watched as Penny’s tiny cheeks turned noticeably more red.

“Well… to be completely honest… I didn’t know how to tell you this, but… I might have a bit of a… monster girl kink…” Her embarrassed whispers could not escape Starry’s ears or her soul. “...So, that is to say, I think we can make this work.”

Starry’s laugh shook the very earth. She knew. She had always known. But it pleased her to hear it again anyways. The sheer chance of it. That of all the women in all the seas in all the worlds, she would find the one with a giantess kink. And that she would turn out to be the giantess.

“There is no conceivable reality in which I don’t love you, Penny.”

She didn’t exactly understand it, but Penny’s heart fluttered anyway.

“Aww… I love you too, babe.” Penny pecked Starry on her massive, spongy cheek.

Starry knew it would be brief. Penny would die one day. It would be as if she had blinked, and she’d be gone. Her own form would, unfortunately, endure.

But a firework is not beautiful because it lasts.

And her love would remain, forever etched into the very fabric of reality.

No matter what happens, it happened.

Some day, when even Starsinger ended, as all things do, she would join Penny in the great unknown.

Reunited, in one way, or another.

But in reality, it would be as if she had never even left.

Their love had always been, was, and always would be.

Maybe in this way, some things never end.

From the desk of

Mira Alcott

Head-Mistress of Transformations

(Special thanks to bridgefall for the suggestion, to my Test Readers, to Zoey and VioletVelvet for editing, and to all of my Patrons for your support!)