Cardok3 swam in the Great Crevice, a vast rift in the ocean floor, its bottom an unknown void.  The little medusa thought it might have seen another medusa not long ago, drifting by the edge of the crevice, but it was not in sight now; perhaps it had moved on to a more hospitable location.  Cardok3 now shared its space with only a small group of eggs precariously perched on a ledge, and Creature who had laid them.  At some point ,Cardok3 was sure, this Creature had been in some way, in some part, its mother as well, had cared for it and nourished it to maturity.  But the Creature changed and morphed at will, growing and shrinking, bulging sometimes in some places and sometimes in others, its fins transforming sometimes into eyes, and long ago, Cardok3 felt, whatever part of the Creature had been its mother had been lost.

The Creature regarded Cardok3 with its (currently single) great eye.  The little medusa shrank back from its gaze, and circled around it to the other side.  Not much to see on it otherwise at present, only strange bulgings and amorphous nodules, and great tail opposite the eye.

The tail curled lazily in the dark, at rest.  Cardok3 brushed past it, as if in greeting.  “Are you my mother?” it asked.  It did not know if the tail heard, or if some homunculus within the Creature heard for it.  Certainly the Creature had nothing it could identify as an ear.  Maybe it responded to touch?  The medusa brushed past it again.  “Are you my mother?”

The tail moved, still lethargicly but seemingly with more intention, to encircle Cardok3 as if in a hug, or an offer of protection against the terrifying monsters elsewhere in the ocean, the great Big Grumpers and eels that lurked nearby.  And there must have been a homunculus after all, because clearly in its mind, the little medusa heard, “If you wish, I shall do my part, little one.”

It was enough.