There's good hunting to be found in Cetus.

The swamp-cave's thick fogs pose little problem for a creature like Stygian, who is much more a beast of sound and scent than of sight in the first place. He can feel the mist whisper gently past his fur as he tilts his head and angles downwards into the deeper leaves of the swamp, chirping in the back of his throat to hear the sounds of the branches around him. Flap-flap, he soars over one and slips past another, descending lower into the canopy, listening for the familiar sounds of shrieking, sobbing birdsong.

The sound of the callers unsettled him, once. But now he is used to it. Now, a little dark part of him that never really left him after his visit to an altar in an empty tunnel revels in it.

But familiarity breeds complacency.

Chirping in the back of his throat again to listen to the shape of the world around him, the high pitch of his echolocation running through the branches, he fails to notice the dark, dripping shape of something hanging off a tree.

He is coming closer to it.

Perhaps, too close.

All at once—

—a sudden crashing weight into his left wing, sending Stygian spinning as something dropped like a falling stalactite directly into him. Something very big, and very oily, and very, very intending to kill and eat him.

He assumes. He assumes, because what the hell else would go after him like that—he assumes, because even in the dark he can catch the glowing gleam of a single, slitted, bright red eye and it is looking at him with a predatory intent.

He's never been hunted before. It's almost novel.

Almost, but adrenaline is surging bright through his body and Stygian barely thinks as he's sent spiraling into the undergrowth, shrieking with surprise and just a touch of fear as liftoff becomes liftdown. His impact with the swamp mud is heralded by a wet splat.

It's hard to aim and even harder to focus on the magic when his heart is pounding, but he does it anyway—flicking a wing up and blindly calling lightning to try and fry whatever—whatever thing had successfully ambushed him. Fuck!

Most animals run the fuck away when they hear the crashing thundercrack of his magic.

This animal does not. This—no, he can't even call it an animal. It's a monster that's leapt out of the dark at him, latching onto his wing with all its strength—at least, it was, before Stygian hit it with a bolt of concentrated lightning.

If it was anything else, that would be it. Most predators know when to give up the chase. Most predators know when the hunt is more energy than it's worth it. Most beasts should know that.

This is no common beast. It is—it is—

What the fuck are you?!

He cannot put the thing's appearance, the single slitted eye, the feathered body dripping with slick oil, to words. He has seen nothing like it in the caves.

He's not going to sit around and fucking ask. Whatever the damn thing is, it's persistent; in the split-second Stygian spends scrambling around in the muck trying to get his wings to rights, its—beak?—is already sharp at his wing again, the point of it piercing his webbing and drawing blood.

Panic pulses at his magic, draws it down to bare instinct as he flaps against it. Get the fuck off me, get the fuck off me!

The magic buzzes around him like a second skin. The beast's claws scratch uselessly against his fur moments before the electricity takes it and flings it into the ground with a wet slap.

Stygian hisses in triumph, fur flaring. Conscious thought and strategy loses him; something dark in his chest is chanting power, power, power, old chaos-instinct rising like bile again. He doesn't think about how he has the chance to flee, now; he doesn't think about anything but the dark shape he hears gurgling in the muck, and how much he wants to kill it.

That red eye would make a pretty, pretty trophy, wouldn't it?

He stumbles to his wings, flapping thickly to gain a bit of an angle; he's little more than a few inches off the ground when he pulls for his lightning again, everything in his mind singing along with the sound of thunder that's soon to come.