ORIGIN

Hungry.

Hungry.

Hungry.

Like its parent—although it would most likely never know that—hunger is often its driving emotion. Perfectly lucid and coldly intelligent most of the time, the pressing ache of hunger in its belly would rip the thoughts from its mind like a riptide. There are no thoughts in the creature's head, not really; only a feral drive akin to a starved Lesser.

The figure of the beast slips into the warm waters of the bay, the saliva dripping from its amalgamate maws dissipating into the water, gills taking over as the creature switches from air to sea.

It sinks low, instinctive shallow breaths reducing the buoying presence of air in its lungs, as it searches. Many eyes flick from side to side. Panoramic vision scans the light waters. Where are the fish?

Where is its food?

Nothing. Its eyes have not adjusted to the water, yet; the bay little more than a blur.

It is so hungry. There is a hole in its stomach. Its mouth is empty. Where is its food? Where is food?

It is so hungry. Head pushed forward, limbs pushing itself gently along the edge of the shore; with a shove of its paws, it directs itself into deeper waters.

Despite the driving hunger embedded in its gut like a fishhook, its movements are slow. Intent. It's hard to tell what part of its deliberate, gentle movements are intelligence, and what part of it is just instinct.

Deeper into the water, now. Away from the shore. Darting eyes search for a glimpse of scales; a glimpse of meat to crunch and tear and devour.

Still nothing.

A glimpse of something not entirely feral breaks through its demeanor; a soft growl, bubbles slipping between its teeth, as impatience gets the better of it. Anger.

It wants—it wants to rip, tear, hurt. It wants the taste of blood in its mouth, tiny fishbones cracking between teeth.

It is so hungry.

Back to the hunt. Paws push against the weight of water, tentacles tucked tight around its neck to reduce its drag. The anger slips away, back into the haze of hunger. No intelligence; no thoughts. Just like its parent.

It would hate being compared to Effluvium, in its right mind. Absolutely despise being compared to the creature that hurt it so badly at birth.

And yet it will most likely never know how similar to its lifegiver it really is.

More swimming. More searching. It drifts through the water in a way akin to the slow prowl of a panther through the jungle, those many eyes flicking and looking and searching, searching for its next meal.

And when it finds it...

Perhaps it's a bad time of day. Perhaps all the fish in this area were simply scared away by an earlier predator. Perhaps, the beast is just unlucky.

Whatever the case, it's not happy about it. Its eyes alight on the sloping shore of one of the rock outcroppings dotting Leo's waters; with a snarl in the back of its throat and a particularly violent stroke, churning up the water around it, it swims towards the outcropping.

Its element is in the water. It can walk on land, yes, but it is slow at best and clumsy at worst. It is not a beast of the land.

But what little thoughts in its head that aren't crowded out by the hunt, by an intense fixation upon its hunger and solving its hunger, think that it might as well give searching from above a try.

But only a little of a try.

It breaches the surface, hacking up a little excess water as it drags itself up into the stone, chest heaving. It hates the surface, sometimes. Hates it, hates it, hates it—it is here to hunt, not to search.

But if it will get it its meal faster... begrudgingly, it puts its front two paws up on the rocky structure, head swiveling this way and that; searching for the familiar silver pinpricks of the most common fish in the bay, looking for a school near the surface.

Despite its best efforts, the water remains devoid of the sight of fish.

Another growl rumbles in its throat; claws scrape against the stone, carving white, thin lines into the outcropping beneath it—frustrated.

Nothing. Of course nothing. Why did it even bother coming up from the water. It can search more easily from the water, anyway. It can smell better in the water, anyway.

Without further ado, it slips back into the bay; welcoming the warmth of the waves for just a single moment, before the tearing, empty sensation in its gut pulls it right back to its goal.

Fish. To eat. Soon.

Otherwise, it might just lose its temper and find something else to hunt.

It smells the school before it sees it; a little collection of silvered fins glinting in the orb-light, like stars beneath the surface of the water... if it had ever seen a 'star'. It rarely leaves Leo; it has not gone as far as Orion or even Polaris.

It is also not the metaphorical type. Smart, cunning, but cold.

And hungry.

The anger, this time, fades away for good. No frustration, no impatience—a sharp spike of excitement, eyes widening at the sight, before fading into a wholly intent anticipation.

Fish. Fish to eat. Fish to snap up and kill. Fish to sustain its hunger.

Good, good, good.

Magic surges as it drifts closer, to camouflage. Hide, so the fish don't know what's coming. So they don't flee before the amalgamation of canine mouths, glued together by flesh, surges forward and snaps them up.

The tentacles around its neck unfold in anticipation.

The dark shadow of the beast drifts ever closer, limbs hardly moving to swim, tucked up tight against it as it swims just a little lower. Just a little deeper, into the darker waters. Underneath the fish, so they don't see it yet. So they don't flee.

Hungry, hungry, hungry. Flesh will tear between the snap of jaws, soon; blood will spill into the water, renting the blue with red. If there were witnesses to the hunt, surely it would become some allegory of fear; the mismatched melding of various parts both animal and not. A monster which hunts for viscera and marrow.

It comes closer. The silvery outlines of fish beneath the water resolve into forms, shapes; a longer, v-shaped tail. Smaller fins on the sides and back that flutter with the current; gulping mouths feeding upon plankton too small to be within the beast's notice.

Its eyes fixate on one. One of the school, right in the middle; the lowest-swimming in the group.

Scales gleam like some great treasure. Unbroken, unparted, whole and healthy.

It lunges.

Peace becomes chaos. The water erupts into bubbling movement, as suddenly!

Jaws open. Water rushes into its mouth. Legs stroke hard, hard against the water, pushing up, fueled by nothing but need, need to catch and rip and tear, to break the body of the comparatively little fish between its maw—

—the fish, feeling the current, flicks its tail in the brief half-second before impact, attempting to flee, but the beast is faster. The beast is intent in every way upon its meal, and it will have it.

And it does.

Crunch. Tiny bones break between its biteforce, breaking through the slime; blood flooding its mouth, flooding the water, flooding everywhere in a cloud of red.

Not enough. Not enough.

It barely stops to swallow. It doesn't stop to swallow; one mouth is full of fish, but the others are baring teeth and eyes are flicking this way and that at all the fish, fish scattering, fleeing for their lives but still well within reach!—

—trailing blood in its wake, it dives for another.

This fish is not so lucky as to be swallowed all in one go. The mouth that bites at it is one of the beast's smaller, side mouths; the angle awkward, its lunge slightly slower than the previous—

—but only slightly.

Teeth catch at the delicate end of a silvered tail and tear, ripping more blood into the water. A one-creature feeding frenzy; the fish flails and twitches, swimming away from the beast with all its survival instinct, but the beast continues to be in hot pursuit. The torn tailfin drifts out of its mouth like a forgotten piece of paper, drifting upwards and towards the surface as the beast opens its mouth once more and snaps at it.

The fish are so small. It needs more. It needs to feast.

The wounded fish disappears down their gullet without so much as a spray of blood. Tilting their head back, they swallow the other one, too; circling around to examine the scattered school.

Ah—they're feeling better, now. More lucid. More able to think, past the haze of hunger in their stomach. Fresh meat is always a pleasure, no matter how much Terror devours... but the silver ones are quite small.

They think they can go for a few more.

It's a decision of a few seconds, but even that's enough time for the school to continue to scatter; turning in the water, with an anticipatory twitch of tentacles, they set their eyes on a few that seem relatively close to each other despite their fleeing and head deeper into the water.

They abandon all semblance of stealth, now. No need to hide when they've already torn up the water; only the pursuit. Only a game of cat and mouse—a game of shark and minnow, with the odds stacked against the prey.

Oh, how they love the hunt.

Paws push powerfully against the water, leaving eddies in the beast's wake as it swims after the fleeing fish.