ORIGIN

The jaws came crashing, crushing, crunching down, enormous serrated teeth shearing neatly through fur and flesh and even bone like a steel press equipped with daggers. The beast's momentum carried it onward, a shake of its head tearing Esther's body in two.

Entrails and the front half of their body went in one direction, with a single wing still attached; and their entire hind end and back legs along with the second wing floated in the other direction, all in the frothing wash of the Squallfang's passage. The gory mess was lost to the thick cloud of blood that filled the water. Thankfully, their gemstone would take them swiftly--an emergency attempt to save their life from the abrupt severance of one half of them from the other.

And in the meantime, the Squallfang had turned, swept back, and begun to feast on what had been Esther's hind end: haunches and hocks and paws and tail all tossed upward, then crunched down and swallowed between enormous jaws.

Upon searching for the rest, and finding only a sheet of gemstone and a single drifting wing, it snapped up the wing and nosed about for a moment.

Then it turned and slid slowly back out into the breakers, and submerged, lights blinking again: a lure for more unwary prey.