Succulent sustenance…

Hirudo’s fangs retract and he lets the animal free, watching it suddenly burst with energy as the poison plaguing it had been sucked out of its bloodstream.

If Hirudo could smile, he might have.

They punch through the scales, a paralyzing agent activating as Hirudo begins to suck the blood out of the crocodile. A seeming doom… until…

—

only to his kind.

—

the skull’s teeth, that scrap page existing for this singular purpose.

Hirudo acknowledged her greeting with his own, the saliva-slick, teeth-lined fingers of his hands joining together, almost as if in prayer, and a turquoise mist puffed out of each of his gills.

It meant something, but

—

Frankly, it’d be stranger if there wasn’t a level of unsettling Hirudo didn’t encroach upon for any other species’ sensibilities. Alas, whatever capacity for violence the skeleton’s proud display implied, none would manifest. Instead, he merely returned that sheet of paper to its place among

—

—

him. He fished out a filthied page of parchment from between its teeth, seeming torn out of a medical journal.

“Hirudo medicinalis” was etched under a diagram of a common leech. The creature held it out, using his slimy fingers to block “medicinalis” and presenting his name: Hirudo.

The leech wore the silhouette and demeanor of a deity now that he’d inflated himself, a far cry from the skittish and frail-looking state she witnessed prior in appearance and personality.

Rather than speak a response, he’d insert a hand into the skull at the end of the spine draped around

—

—

skinny form until limp physique emulated knotted muscle and the creature stood multiple feet taller.

Only once entering this state, one where he was even more human in appearance, did the starleech calm down. That eye slit slid shut and he even nodded in understanding.

As she began to explain herself, the creature went to work calming his overclocked hearts from the adrenaline spike. Much like a human, he took in a big breath of air. Unlike a human, he did so through gills on his torso.

As though he were a deflated ballon, the inhalation of air expanded his

—

A vertical slit yawns open in what looks to be the head of the shriveled up humanoid figure, revealing a singular red eye that wordlessly stared back in response.

…

An instant later, the lanky creature flails out of the water, taking a fright-born defensive stance.