Celia hesitated. Squinting at Jonas’ sitting form. "My classification?"
"Yes. Your classification. You should have one by now, and I promise I’m only trying to help." He said, eyes staring up at hers. Pleading.
She sat.
Designation: Newspawn hybrid (Beyondling)
Classification: (lesser) Feastling
Slots open: 2
1: locked, 2: Null tongue, 3: These teeth unending
Modifications available: none
"Feastling."
"Just Feastling? Nothing else?"
She shook her head. "It says lesser."
And Jonas nodded at that, as if it made perfect sense to him. Which it just might if he really had been here for as long as he implied. He certainly looked the part. Weathered, skin marked by scars no normal animal could make, hand hovering near his spear at all times. Eyes holding a look that spoke of too much fear and resolve both.
"So I take it your hungry then?" He offered. Words casual, light. Testing.
Celia almost said yes anyway.
"I’ll pass." She said, sucking down a bit too much saliva. "Last time I ate I, uh, got bigger."
Again, he nodded. "That tends to be the case with Feastlings. Your lot’s driven by hunger, to the point of nearly drowning in it. So, before I end up as the next thing on the menu, please help yourself. You’ll thank yourself for it later."
"Next thing on the menu? I’m- I’m not gonna eat you! Bleh! That’s gross, and what do you mean by 'my lot'?"
"Kid, you’re a Beyondling now. Your natures been changed whether you like it or not, and of all the classes of Beyondlings you had the misfortune of becoming a Feastling, is what I mean. And Feastlings gotta eat. It’s in the nature, it’s what they do and what you’re gonna do one way or another. So eat this food I’m offering you before your stomach decides it’s not enough. Please, for my sake at the least." He said, gesturing to the smoking meat above the fire.
"But, what about my figure?" She muttered before leaning in close to the offered meat. Hesitation immediately fading away to hunger. And before she knew it she had made her move. Tongue shooting out her mouth, jagged rows of teeth erupting out of its surface as it latched around her prize. The heat of the flame below doing nothing more than tickling her. Forgotten the second her grip on the food was secure. Tongue recoiling back into her mouth with the meat in toe.
Celia practically swallowed it. Sighing with audible content, before remembering Jonas’ presence.
"I, uh. I didn’t mean. Please- please never talk about that?"
"Were those Modifications?" He asked, serious, fingers wrapping around his makeshift spear. "Where’d you get ‘em?"
"Why? Are they ba-"
"Where’d you get ‘em? Tell me. Tell me right now."
Celia did. Retelling the tale of her first and only hunt from the very beginning, and not stopping till Jonas seemed to calm down.
"Good." He said, grip on his weapon loosening. "Sorry bout that. It’s just that, well the last feller I met with any modifications got them via… less ethical means."
"Less ethical?"
He shook his head. "Don’t worry bout it. Story for another time. If you ever decide to visit again, that is."
For a moment, Celia eyed him. Daring to wonder.
It was a short lived sort of wondering.
"I’d like that. But, uh, the way I took to get here is kinda blocked."
"It should be clear by now. Trust me, this place don’t work by no rules you might know. And I suggest you get going fast. I’m about to have some… less than respectful company. The kind I should hope you never meet." He said, eyes taking on a vacant look.
It spoke more than his words did.
Celia took that as warning enough, offering him a nod and a thanks as she got to her feet. Barely noticing as he did the same. Almost as if he moved faster than what should’ve been possible. Like a marked. Regardless, she paid it no mind and left the way she came. Eyeing the beach as she went, ignoring the strange heat, and offering the ocean beyond a measure of her attention.
A mistake, she realized a second after something looked back. A vast unknowable and utterly terrifying something.
It was on her mind up till she made it to the tunnel and found that the debris that had trapped her in was indeed gone. As well as the centipede.
She didn’t dwell on that for too long. Instead her thoughts were consumed by horrifying insight. A dawning realization that this place was indeed stranger than she thought, and that her earlier expectations of just finding a way out were hopelessly naive. Worse, she realized that she was probably going to need an actual plan. Something she could act on and move towards in order to forward her 'ideal' of escaping.
And that meant getting somewhat used to wherever here was.
She just hoped she didn’t get as used to here as Jonas clearly had.
That was a terrifying thought. That persisted in the back of her mind all the way back to her little cave. A cave that, upon walking in, she realized wasn’t as isolated as she had initially thought.
There was something looking at her through the water.
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