Artan has lived in this neighborhood of the Red for a long, long time, longer than their nation has been fallen. But the Red is not so static a place that they have had the same neighbors this whole time; and when they acquire a child, nobody is around who both has known them long enough and cares to comment on the fact that they have been childless for millennia up to this point. 

Mizell is the most humanoid person she knows, growing up, aside from her parent; she isn't a full Mindflayer like they are, is half Beholder though she's never met her other parent, so she has more tentacles, more eyes than Artan does. There are humans around, she knows, but only the grownups interact with them. There certainly aren't any other humanoid children around; whenever her playmates play a game involving a human or an elf character, she always gets picked on to play them. She doesn't mind; getting kidnapped and tied up and rescued is fun! And so is playing the elven archmage; none of the other children play with magic the way she does, the way she has since the cradle; children who aren't mindflayer at all aren't born with the chirr rune that lets you do magic like mindflayer children are, but some of Mizell's playmates have it anyway. Artan is generous to children, and thinks everyone ought to be able to have magic if they want it. But none of them breathe it like Mizell does. 

When Mizell is five, she picks up a book on humans from her parent's library. 

She knows a little bit about humans already, of course, but the games she plays with the other children aren't very well-researched, and the book captivates her. Strange organisms called plants and buildings made out of a thing called stone that isn't alive at all. She pesters her parent for more information, and Artan shows her a few implements they own made of stone and metal. Mizell thinks they're beautiful. 

She wants more. 

Artan only has a few more books in their library about the Surface and the lands beyond the Pink, but they make it known to various neighbors who tend to trade things more often that they're interested, should any happen to come their way. They make treks to more distant acquaintances and former neighbors who might pick up such things, and make it known that they're willing to be very useful in return. 

Mizell devours every book she comes across. 

She is eight when she announces that when she grows up, she's going to be an explorer and go to all the places in the books. Artan hugs her tight and makes her promise that she'll wait until she's mastered Portal magic before she goes, and visit sometimes. She agrees readily. Nothing in the books she loves indicate that a magical library as extensive as her parent's will be available to her once she reaches the outside world, even if she didn't love them with all the fire every little girl feels for a parent who is good to her. 

Mizell is distracted from both her magical studies and her ambitions to go to the surface when puberty hits her like a truck. Her eyes change shape to hearts and never turn back. Her parent has a Talk with her about her fertility and gives her a sterility rune to keep in her throat pouch, and sets her loose. She throws herself into sexual exploration with those of her friends who have also discovered The Joys Of Sex, and with people she hadn't particularly hung out with before because their interests hadn't particularly overlapped; but now they have the overlapping interest of Sex. She is introduced to the small handfull of humans in the community and has sex with all of them. Most of them don't seem to do much but sex, which is apparently why they don't interact with children. The rune her parent gave her keeps her from having children of her own, but when she goes into heat once a month she dives into the breeding pits and lets them fill her with their own children, in every womb she possesses, which is...a lot. By the time her heat wears off she has to wait to give birth before she crawls out of the pits, because when fully gravid she's too overstuffed to move. 

It takes most of a year for her to get sufficiently used to her new urges for her old interests to start being able to compete with them again. She starts occasionally declining offers of sex in favor of continuing her magical study and planning her exploration of the surface. 

She has a conversation with her parent about why, exactly, she is so absurdly fertile in so many different wombs. Artan is clearly embarrassed by having to admit that she had not, originally, been conceived solely out of desire to raise a child, but Mizell isn't particularly perturbed; they changed their mind when they actually met her, and she has no complaints about the upbringing she actually received. 

She masters portal magic. She...procrastinates leaving for another year, because the outside world is marvelous and exciting, but the prospect of spending a heat not in a tentacle pit ready to fill her with its children is scary. She justifies it by wrapping up her studies in a few less strictly mandatory areas. 

She locks herself in her room for a heat and does not cough up her sterility rune and try to impregnate herself, despite being awfully tempted. 

She hugs her parent goodbye and sets out.