ORIGIN

Terror is fast; moved by a kind of unceasing hunger, the kind of thing that never truly goes away, only lurks within their gut, waiting for blood to be spilled another day. Waiting for flesh to be torn into once more.

But the fish are fast, too—faster, with their streamlined forms, fins made for underwater movement while Terror is slowed down somewhat by its canid form. Something, too, moves them; survival. It is flee or be consumed, and even the littlest things have that primal instinct to live.

They are faster... but not by much. Terror is catching up. It can practically taste the fish at its teeth; taste the fins so easily torn by teeth.

Shoulders pushing back, it shoves itself forward; maws opening once more, ready to—

—snap!

A rush of water, bubbles fleeing upward from the beast's many maws, but they only catch upon air. The fish are still fleeing, still just out of reach; gaining distance, even.

A snarl bubbles out of its throats, limbs stroking, tentacles on either side of its neck like a twisted collar unfolding, reaching; grasping for a fish where fangs will not do.

It refuses to give up. Hunger and adrenaline surges through its body in equal measures—it won't let them escape. It won't.

To do so would just be cowardly, after all the time it's spent searching for the damn things...!

That adrenaline keeps it swimming forwards, darting after the little things whose gleaming scales seem to taunt it, now, the promise of flesh so close yet so far—

—a sudden roll to the side, body twisting, as it goes after a fish on its left. Lips pull back to reveal ivory, bloodstained teeth, growls swallowed up by the bay as those tentacles reach and grasp, coiling and curling, cutting off the damn thing's escape—!

One moment, it is envisioning success. Thinking about the sweet deliciousness of blood and flesh; driven by a hunger that can never be satiated, only put to rest temporarily. Driven by adrenaline, frustration, and that ever present feeling as if constantly on the brink of starvation!—

—next, it feels its suckers begin to latch upon the fleeing fish, and it grins.

Its tentacle coils tight and begins to crush; curling over and over again around the little thing's body, and despite its prey's slimy exterior, there is no escape.

One twitch, two—it stops. Another tiny little life, snuffed out just like that.

Terror shoves it unceremoniously down one of its mouths, hardly bothering to chew. The thing is small enough that it barely has to; with the slime and blood in equal parts, it's easy for the fish to slip down into its gut.

Although, maybe it should have chewed first; it winces a little at the taste, reminded quite sharply and suddenly of the reason why it does chew up its fish into chum first. For one, the blood tends to attract other things on occasion; on the other, the blood tends to cover up the taste of the slime.

No matter. The hunt takes a lot of energy, and as an ambush predator it's unused to chasing, but it thinks it's hungry enough for one or two more...

Back to chasing down the remainder. A few moments spent savoring its meal, and then it's back to swimming, the little stub of its furless tail wagging in the water as if attempting to aid it in the chase as it once again darts after the last remnants of what was once a collective school.

A twist of its body, a push of its leg, and—

—something else twists too, and a jolt of pain lances up its thigh. A snarl and a snap, head twisting over its shoulder, eyes flicking to the side as Terror assumes the worst, assumes that something has come to join the feeding frenzy—

—its jaws close on open water. No. Nope. Nothing. Just saltwater and its overworked body, protesting at such a sudden movement.

With a resigned snarl, it watches the last fish disappear into the depths, tentacles twitching in agitation. It's not nearly a full meal for a beast of its size. It could go for many more; it could hunt down an entirely new school and it wouldn't be enough.

But its muscles are beginning to ache with overuse, and the pain in its leg is throbbing subtly, and it begrudgingly thinks that it should at least rest a little.

With a heave of its chest, it begins a slow paddle back to shore.

A dark figure ripples beneath the water. Its cyan stripes are bright in on land, but when viewed from above, the colors break up its silhouette, making it harder to spot.

None of that matters, of course, now that it's not hunting. Its front legs emerge from the waves first, grasping at the sand and pushing it, somewhat clumsily, up and out of the water.

Tired, aching muscles immediately feel the burn of exertion, the water dripping from their form now weighing them down instead of supporting them. They manage about one, two steps into the shore before they just crash, paws tripping over each other and their weight tumbling to the ground.

Ow. Ow.

A hiss is sucked through their teeth as they look around, eyes flicking side-to-side; did anyone see that? Was anyone around to see that?

When no mockery comes, no witnesses to their stumble appear to silence, their head lolls and they relax into the sand with a dull thunk, taking a deep breath and letting it out.

In a few minutes, they'll get up to hack up the unwieldy, irritating bones of fish, and remember why even though they hunt best in the sea they also take breaks to hunt the larger, land creatures; dragging the entrails to the shore to attack the larger, saw-toothed fish, the ones that make better meals than the tinier purple or silver fish.

But for now, they lay upon the sand, orb-light warming their body, hunger satisfied that little bit, and rest.

;exit Terror