ORIGIN

It lay quiet in the muck--black-on-black, slick ridges visible just above the surface. Every now and then, an insect would flit down--a water fly, perhaps, or a blackfly--and investigate, tiny feet touching down.

Hunger was unaware of them, bar their faint and whining buzzes. They were not its meal--not its prey. It was lying in wait--as it always did--mindless, silent, thoughtless. It was as though the creature simply lapsed into nonexistence: into a paused state, absent from reality, asleep but undreaming.

Until, that was, something activated it.

The last thing to touch down and send ripples through its black world had been Effluvium: the pile of sentient, walking meat. And Hunger had wanted to eat that one; had tried, then released it upon learning it could speak, at least at first. Effluvium had left its own marks: wounds that even now scarred across Hunger's hide. Slicks of oil had slid over them, covering them from sight, mere textural bumps across its armor-like skin.

Now it had gone back to waiting: inactive, silent, motionless as a dead log. Perhaps something would come to it soon.

The scouts had told him of the creatures here, and only then had he remembered them: the so-called Children of Aquarian, slicked with oil and seeking to survive. Master Vargas didn't know truly if these were Aquarian's creations, but it seemed to him that the spawn of two Masters ought to be very powerful indeed. As far as he knew, Orthoclase was hunting another part of the swamp; he himself now traced the edges of the Heart where he'd seen Dragon and Hunger.

He thought the former would be a better fit--aesthetically, physically--but the creature had seemed distinctly... simplistic. Closer to the Creator in form, certainly; but he would need to test it before choosing to use it as one of his base designs.

His plans, right now, were to make a small first crop: a couple random spawn with existing stones, and then his first custom design. His first true creation, as Master.

He shivered at the thought of it.

He would train them--well, mostly delegate that training to Orthoclase-Alpha, but he'd continue to oversee as he had always done, until Alpha proved itself worthy of Overseer in its own right. For now, he intended to fight Hunger, to test it, and then--if it passed--to use its stone. He had, too, one of the stronger-feeling oil-slicked stones he'd taken from Jupiter's den. Whatever that one was, had died--failed, in a sense; but Jupiter had been a Master, traitor or no, and perhaps her victim deserved another chance. Or, at least, perhaps its design did.

He was idly searching, as he sloshed through the water, and his magicka eventually picked up the faint red form of the half-slumbering beast. Vargas couldn't tell if it was Hunger or one of the others--Dragon, perhaps--but he shifted direction and strode its way, long limbs cutting cleanly through the marsh.

"You," he demanded, as he drew closer to what to the naked eye would have looked like a near-submerged log--"You were one of the Children of Aquarian, yes?"

The steps alerted it--sloshing, a heavy vibration, heavy food-strides crushing toward it. Hunger slipped back in the water, and down, jaw parting briefly to stare with one red eye at the approaching figure.

It recognized it--both its steps, and shape, stirring memories that churned up in its ancient head. "Yessss... Hunger..." The voice was a gurgling mess--air escaping a guttering, wet throat-hole rather than anything so refined as vocal cords. And Hunger lay still at the surface of the lake, then, simply watching, and waiting.

It held little curiosity as to why Vargas should be here, again. It did not care. It simply watched from a slight distance, aware that Vargas was too large to eat, and large enough--should it so choose--to eat Hunger, perhaps, in turn.

Toxic eyes ranged over the black beast, and Vargas grunted. Hunger was maybe seventeen feet long--eighteen or nineteen with the strange feather-like scales pointing back from its tail-tip. It wasn't all that large, but he hoped to influence its form enough to hav some control over that--to make it bigger.

"Hunger, yes. I have been promoted, beast. I am now Master Vargas," and despite his overbearing tone, he felt his eyes slipping toward the Heart. This was, supposedly, one of Aquarian's children: and the last Vargas knew, his own patron Nemean had had a falling out. Striding into Aquarian's territory as another Master, now, and harassing his children or taking his designs, might be seen as... overstepping, perhaps. And though Vargas was certainly not small, he could not, in fact, breathe underwater; and Aquarian could easily drag him in.

He'd have to keep an eye out. And move them away from the water, if he could. "I am considering offering you the great honor of contributing to one of my first designs. But first, I must test you. Come out of the water, and come this way--I will not kill you," he added, glancing back at it.

Hunger lurked, watching with its cracked-open jaw and single eye.

This creature ordered it out of the water. It had no reason to obey. The word 'Master' meant little to it; it simply held no meaning.

Hunger also did not bother to respond. It simply watched Vargas move away, and look back at him. If Vargas wanted to strut and whine on the shore, he could do so; Hunger had little stake in this.

Vargas stared, nonplussed.

Well, it looked like he'd have to do this the hard way, then. In a few short strides he was back at the water's edge, and moving to snag the crocodilian by any part he could get ahold of. He was wary of the jaws, but given its slick and oily body, he wasn't sure where else he could grab it.

He found it to be a struggling, slippery, slick mess, as he fought to get his long arms around and beneath the massive beast, his hind legs sliding and stumbling, kicking out from under him, in the mud. It was not, by any means, a graceful exit from the Heart--instead, a struggling and splashing tangle.

Hunger was half-submerging, half turning away, by the time Vargas reached it--it had felt his approach, seen it, and wanted nothing to do with it. Perhaps it was a trick; perhaps this thing wanted to eat it, instead.

When Vargas grabbed it, Hunger swivelled, its own overly-long arms suddenly becoming visible and apparent as it braced itself. But it was its jaws that it put power behind: a swing of muscled neck and torso, ridged thick tail counter-balancing as he struck like a viper for one of Vargas's upper arms.

The beast had snagged his upper limb in its jaws--which was painful, but more than that it just gave the Master leverage to haul its catch up onto shore. He had no intention of letting it escape, but it apparently had the same ideas for him: once he was farther up on shore he found that he could not pry its strong jaws free. Instead it hung off him like a dead ton of weight, teeth settled in his muscle, eyeless face seeming to stare up at him.

Vargas grimaced, and brought his left, free fist swinging around for its right forelimb, aiming to badly bruise or even break its long leg. He didn't want it to simply retreat into the swamp again, where he could not reach it; he also did not want it to manage to tear his own limb apart.

How embarrassing that would be.

It felt, flinchingly, the strike delivered to its front leg. It was a strong blow, but Hunger's bones were thick, and it did not quite break anything, at least. It still spiked pain through it, but the adrenaline dampened that some.

Instinct drove its next movement. Ridged tail slammed down, its uninjured arm bracing itself: and then Hunger moved to spin, to roll, to drag Vargas down to the ground by throwing its entire weight into the Master's arm. It was that, or his arm could break; Hunger did not care.

A brief spark of interest lit in it: perhaps it could kill, and eat, this thing after all-?

The sudden twist of weight, of immense strength, against his forearm had him grit his teeth and almost cry out in pain. But it was nothing he hadn't endured a dozen times in the Arena before. He went down, deliberately, to avoid having his arm twisted and potentially torn off; the gator-beast was death-rolling and Vargas rolled with it. He used its momentum, attempting to land a kick to the side of its closed jaws, in the hopes of dislodging its iron grip.

Though the fight was a chaotic mess--dark bodies thrashing in mud, spines and eyes briefly dipping in and out of sight--Vargas was well-trained. He hoped that he could get his aim right, in the brawl; he didn't want those teeth to stay fastened in him, with Hunger at the other end.

A strange thought struck him, even mid-combat: It hasn't even got any eyes. I cannot go for the eyes-