How does one think fast? That's the thought skittering through my mind right now. I'm surrounded by food I don’t want to eat, but I find the idea of leaving Nadeen here alone intolerable.

Intellectually anyway. Physically I was already quietly digging a hole in the back of the tent I could escape through unnoticed. Hopefully.

Probably should have paid more attention to what was behind this thing when I got here.

Dimly in the back of my mind it occurs to me that whatever fuels my monstrous instincts seems to be taking just enough away from my usual cowardly self to be dangerous. If you’d put me in this situation three days ago I would have almost certainly run screaming at the guards outside the tent - assuming I didn’t just try to eat Nadeen. Now though, even in a hungry furor I had the wherewithal to try and make sure I would survive eating - a trait I was coming to find is not at all a normal thing for my species.

But of course, it was a very dim thought indeed as I dug. Slowly at first, because the dirt was so hard packed beneath the tent - but soon Thing Two stepped in to assist, no doubt unable to understand why we were digging, but instinctually compelled to help me regardless. He was hungry too, but I got the distinct impression he wasn’t quite reaching the limit of his patients the way I was. Actually, looking back on it, Thing Two’s control or rather, situational awareness, was uncommonly high after his evolution or mutation or whatever it’s called here. Inversely pretty much everything set me off post evolution. I felt like an adolescent boy getting an erection every time something caught his interest. I hadn’t liked it then and I didn’t like it now that my metaphorical boner was for cannibalism.

Eventually we dug a hole big enough for me to easy out of, which I did so immediately, leaving a whining Thing Two behind without a thought. It was a testament to his wherewithal that he didn’t just tear out the back of the tent after me, instead opting to drop back and paw dejectedly at the ground outside the tent.

I almost would have felt bad, but I was beyond caring now. Almost beyond rational thought at all now that I was back in the open air where the scintillating scent of flesh and blood could flow past on the breeze.

Looking around I quickly noted that our tent was nearly the farthest one possible from the center of the camp. The tent sat at the very edge of the site, closer to the river flowing furiously nearby than the center of the pseudo village. There was only one tent further away, one my eyes could only barely make out in the orange light of the evening. It sat a noticeable distance from the camp, not anywhere close to the seeming safety of the clustered tents. That tent was in the elbow of the river, where it turned to go back around the village on the other side.

And my predatory little mind immediately latched onto it.

You see I had two problems. One, I wanted to eat. Two, I didn’t want to get caught eating and therefore die in a torrent of arrows and angry men. An isolated tent that no one was likely to check on helped move those concerns along nicely. My addled mind of course, gave no credence to the fact that I was only assuming no one checked on this tent. More than that, it never once occurred to me that I was the first person anyone would suspect if people turned up dead in camp or mysteriously disappeared. But while my instinctual drive to eat had been tempered somewhat by my natural cowardice, that didn’t mean it had suddenly grown into a tactical genius.

I darted across the camp, crouching behind tents and hiding anytime I heard or smelled food nearby. It was nerve racking, but I had to get as close to the other tent as possible before braving the cleared area around the camp to run for it. There was too much chance someone would look up and see me sprinting across the space towards it if I wasn’t careful. It was getting darker with every passing moment, and my self imposed limits began to fray everytime a yawning man passed me by on his way to his bedroll. The temptation to reach out and feed grew until I practically felt I was going to vomit from the tension. But finally I reached my goal. I glanced around, trusting my pitch black coloring to deflect attention from me in the growing darkness of night I squared up, and then ran. The thought of finally, finally having an easy, tasty meal put a spring in my step that would horrify me if I was in my right mind. But I wasn’t. Which was why I didn’t stop to think about what I was going to do when I actually arrived at the tent. I didn’t consider who or what could be in there, or why it was so far off. I especially didn’t take notice of the fallen sword sitting in the dirt in front of the tent.

If I’d managed to add all that up before getting there I probably would have at least attempted to walk around the thing once to gather more information. As it was I practically pushed the tent flaps out of the way with my face as I sprawled forward into the diner.

It was disappointing to say the least.

What I found inside the tent was a single, thick stake made of what looked like bone jutting out of the ground. Circular holes had been bored into it, and ropes were looped through those holes. The ends of the two lengths of rope currently tethered look as though they’d been cut - though I couldn’t tell how recently even if I did have time to sherlock holmes it. Instead my attention immediately went to the back of the tent, where a huge hole had been rent in the fabric, invisible to anyone observing from the camp.

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I stared dumbfounded at the hole. Had my prey known I was coming? Had someone else warned them? Did the camp know I was here? I had to get Nadeen and Thing Two. No sooner do I agree to leave his men alone than I’m founding trying to eat them? Thane would kill us all. Just the thought of the man was a bucket of cold water to the face. I was still hungry, still running on instinct, but now I was definitely falling on the flight side of fight or flight.

“...you sure...”

Until I heard the whispers.

Seeking confirmation of my fears I crept towards the hole in the wall, pressing the side of my head against the edge of the tear while making sure my body was hidden by what remained of the wall.

“Quiet. We need someone who can navigate this wretched devilwood. We don’t know which way the road is let alone the border!” came a hissed response to the half heard whisper. It was a woman’s voice, a fact I filed away to consider later. She sounded… prim would be the word. Like the type of person who was raised to know what all the extra spoons are for in a full course meal. Her breathing was clipped and I could smell the faint tang of blood on the wind.

“We don’t know that they plan to kill us. We should hide nearby and -” the second voice rang out, exasperation clear in the tone. It sounded like an older man, and his voice was smooth and mellow as he spoke. Like he was auditioning for a commercial or something. I almost wished I could talk just so I could ask him to say ‘Autobots transform and roll out’. But he was cut off before he could finish.

“No. We will leave this place at the soonest possible convenience. This is not a debate, it’s an order.” came the first voice. A hint of steal had entered into it, as though she was girding herself for an argument and not looking forward to it.

“This is why your still not married…” muttered the man in lieu of continuing his argument, and there was a delicate snort at that.

My curiosity was piqued but it was warring with my desperate need to feed. The more I listened to these people the more they were people and the less they were food, but the more I fought the urge to leap out at them the more my hunger fought back. Pulsing waves of desire rose up from my stomach, and a darker part of me pointed out that I wouldn’t even get in trouble for eating these people. They were clearly prisoners in the middle of an escape. They were kidnapping one of Thanes men. Why, I might even be commended for stopping them.

But it felt so wrong.

My biology, it seemed, took that moment to take matters into its own hands, in one of the most disturbing ways I could have imagined. The conflicting feelings condensed inside of me, and the ungodly stress induced nausea I had been feeling cranked itself up to an almost mind shattering level before I remembered one very key thing about Thing biology.

I couldn’t vomit. Willfully or otherwise. Which means this acrid sensation of something leaving my stomach is -

Pain rocked me as I struggled to hold my jaw shut, only for it to be forcibly pushed open to the limits of my physical frame. The three eel headed visages of my hydra tongue slithered out into the open air, gazing about the tent like apex predators surveying the killing ground. Their heads tilted too and fro irrespective of each other, weaving back and forth across their shared stump in a silent dance.

Then they turned as one towards the rent in the tent wall, and one of them tilted its head to look me square in the eyes as though scolding an unruly child. As one, their horrendous mouths opened, and instead of the hiss of a snake words came unbidden from them.

“Oi! Whats going on in here? Where are the prisoners?”

What the actual fuck? I couldn’t talk but these fucking things could? How the fuck is this a useful evolutionary trait. Who the hell would ever-

My incredulous and scattered thoughts were stilled when two people charge into the tent, wearing dinged and dirty steel armor that clinked as they moved. The intricate grooves and decorative flourishes on it made it seem as though it was intended more for show than use, but its current circumstances inevitably precluded that.

The man and woman pair skidded to a halt as they entered the tent, their wide eyes taking in the presence of my Hydra Tongue with only a moment's hesitation or fear before they each whirled about to the side, each one lashing out with gleaming swords at one of the heads. They seemed well practiced in fighting against strange creatures, and I watched in growing terror as they neatly deflected the two whip crack fast strikes from my Hydra Tongue with their blades, leaving red tears in the necks of the two creatures when they pulled back.

At once they seemed to track the tongues back to their source. Back to me. The man - an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair cut close to his head and an almost unbelievable number of scars on his exposed face positioned himself to charge me, his blade pulled back in preparation for a lunging stab. The woman slid into position next to him, her arcing blows and graceful swordplay weaving a protective space around the two of them that was surely meant to ward off my tongues while the man prepared his attack. She two looked to be approaching middle age. Her hair was long and brown, and it hung behind her in the kind of ponytail I’d expect on a runner in the park - not on the faintly wrinkled face of this cold woman.

My Hydra Tongue seemed to take in all of this at once, seemingly not expecting anything but the barest token of resistance. Then as one, they began to retract, rushing towards me faster than the armored man could move.

And then, as though my previous pain was merely a taste of what was to come the twined tails of the tongue began to push against me. I could physically feel myself being torn apart. The bones in my skull creating audible crunching noises as the tension from my tendons pulling apart compacting further and further. My mouth was now open so wide I was bleeding from where my jaw barely hung onto my face.

Were these fucking things trying to escape? Realized I was going to die so they might as well make a last ditch effort to bail? My own fucking organs?!

And then there was the voice again. Not my attackers. Not even the faux guard the tongue had previously emulated. No, this sound was considerably more… monstrous. Like the sound of something that was never meant to have a voice.

“bY oATh ANd bLOod” intoned the creature I was no longer sure was actually a part of me.

Tormented by the pain of being literally pulled apart, I felt it important to return to the classics. In that moment, all I could really think was;

‘What fresh fucking hell is this?!’