The Clusterous Forest went on for much longer than Lemony could ever have imagined. It was large and dark and it smelled of seawater even if the sea had been gone for years now. He was tired. He wasn't even sure of what he was looking for anymore.
Maybe it was the tiredness, but it felt like the smell was getting stronger now. Stronger as he approached... something. Lemony wasn't sure of what it was. At first, it was a tall and dark shadow, but as he approached it seemed to become shorter but not less dark.
Indeed, when he was close enough, he was almost sure the darkness was a part of the- the creature in front of him. Sure, it was night and the forest was dark, but the creature seemed to have its own darkness around it. Its eyes were dark, darker than any eyes Lemony had seen before. It took deep breaths with its mouth open, showing sharp teeth.
In every other trait, from its shape to its colors to its clothes, it looked disturbingly familiar to Lemony. It was familiar because it looked exactly like Lemony. Looking at it - him? - was like looking at one of the distorted mirrors in Carnival Caligari.
Get scared later.
"This is awkward," Lemony said. It made him think of a girl he didn't like much who once threw a fit because a friend very dear to him was wearing the same clothes as her. That had been awkward.
The creature didn't seem to acknowledge Lemony. The way it (he?) stood made it seem it could be hurt somehow.
Get scared later.
Lemony took slow steps towards the creature. Maybe it needed help.
There are many old legends about beings that take the form of a specific living human. A spirit double. A fetch. A doppelgänger. The stories don't usually end well for the person who met it.
Lemony had been studying some other legends in Stain'd-by-the-sea, some that seemed more relevant to the recent events. He had a guess of what the creature could be.
Carefully, he touched its shoulder. The creature stood up straight, and studied Lemony with its dark eyes. They stopped at the statue Lemony was carrying. He thought of reaching it out to the creature, but it was faster. It grabbed it from Lemony's hand and, with superhuman strength, it crushed it to pieces.
Some less known legends of the region said that the Bombinating Beast could assume the form of any human, and used it to seduce young men and women, in addition to all else. It could even produce children with them, that would be born as some sort of merbaby. Lemony was skeptical of most of it, but now he was sure that the legends were right about the Beast being a shapeshifter. It also showed much more intelligence than one would expect from an animal. And it didn't want to be controlled anymore.