HIRUDO

Wandering through a sewer. In search.

…!

Sparring against a humanoid construct made of green smog, mimicking the moves and form of one of Hirudo’s closest allies.

Loudly slurping up tree nectar through his arm, too caught up in his meal to notice the disturbed ninja.

After a few minutes, he retracts the teeth around his wrist, satisfied and full.

Riding through the air on a cloud of gaseous swamp smog.

Wandering between swamps for a rarity, bringing the lessons and songs of one to the next.

The starleech so loathes to be exposed, especially during a chilled time of year.

Succulent sustenance…

Sucking the nectar out of a tree.

Through his arm-mouth.

Silently departing the husks of unappreciative visitors to the marshes, their bodies bisected and pulped as though severed by a water cutter.

In time, these invaders shall nourish the land they refused to understand.

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…

Holding a weak-looking crocodile in his arms. Hirudo’s ‘sleeve’ produces a set of teeth sprouted from the rim while the reptile is inattentive.

—

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

—

* Though, calling them fingers is quite a stretch…

—

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.

Idling contently in murky swamp water.

Sat in meditation amongst the marshy depths of a swamp. He attunes himself to the rhythm of life within.

He, too, assumes Yuli’s demise after time apart.