Ever-Hunger

     Following anonymous tips is a stupid and foolhardy idea, is all Teasel can think as she wanders up a path she increasingly wishes she never set foot on.
It's out of the way, a roughly cobbled beaten-dirt track that one might expect would lead towards a fanciful little human cottage, or some similar attraction that Teasel would usually stay away from. But there's an emptiness in her belly that won't go away, and she was pointed in this direction in a desperate search for something to cure it.
On her back is a little satchel with a harness, filled with anything she could think of to placate the unpredictable denizen to help her with her problem; coins, shiny rocks, some odd-smelling leaves, a box of human-made smoke sticks, a dried cicada shell that's probably crushed by now.
She hopes it's good enough – there were snacks, but she ate them in a moment of weakness long before getting this far.

To her surprise the path does actually lead to what looks like a fanciful human cottage. Tucked under the curtaining branches of a willow tree and bedecked with leafy vines, its wooden walls house circular windows and a heavy door with a pull ring for those without hands to open it. The roof is blue-grey tiled, hanging heavy with lush moss, and odd-colored smoke rises slowly from the chimney.

It looks innocent enough, and yet every part of her body is screaming danger.

She hesitates outside the door longer than she'd care to admit, but curiosity and that insatiable hunger both drive her to desperation. There's not even a chance of hunting the surrounding location for something to soothe her belly's demands; if her instincts are to be believed, nothing alive with a grain of sense would linger around here.

The door's pull ring is heavy between her teeth as she tugs at it, opening without a sound. Beyond the dark frame, too many scents to name rush forth and almost overwhelm her as she steps across the threshold.

It's surprisingly clean inside, if clean meant a paradoxically spotless wasteland of detritus. Items cover every surface, including the floor – there's so much that Teasel is hesitant where she puts her paws for fear of stepping on something sharp and toxic, if the extracted teeth and venom glands scattered on a nearby table are any indication of safety standards.

Everything is in disarray, a chaos of tomes, scrolls, glass jars, and foliage cramming corners and shelves, poorly lit by several dozen candles stuck in partly-melted mountains of wax jammed wherever they would fit. Fruits and vegetables lie partly sliced or gutted on what was probably an expensive human-made tablecloth, along with an unfamiliar selection of meats. The scent of dissected leech flesh wafts in and out of detection from a few of the cuts, but the rest are undiscernible.

Heavy golden ropes string across the ceiling, suspending some softly incandescent blossoms, and occupying the middle of the room is a heavy pewter cauldron containing what Teasel assumes is a potion, bubbling aggressively without any actual heat provided beneath it. The only other light source is from a large arched window so overcluttered with giant leaves it doesn't let much in at all.

And yet, for all of the appearance of whirlwind-scattered things, there's not a speck of dust, and not a single potion spilled besides the overflow of curious glowing fluid from the cauldron.

From a shelf at the back of the room, what appears to be a leech tadpole wriggles uncomfortably inside a jar, its underdeveloped little tail flapping uselessly against the glass as it seems to twist around and peer at her, its mouth opening in a silent scream.

Teasel chitters anxiously.

     “Oh? Oh oh oh?” a voice says, and she startles, the movement jarring several glass bottles on a nearby shelf so that they clink together. The voice is... not a human's, but is somehow still familiar with the way it shapes the sounds.
Teasel's eyes aren't meant for accuracy. She can see colors, shapes – but she most certainly doesn't see the figure standing in the shadows until it melts forward into view, a dusky almost-black character that forms itself into a leech as it steps the dim lighting.

“Ah, what a delectable customer to walk so boldly into my shop! You can call me Jinx, if you ever learn to speak in human-tongue,” the leech says, paw to her chest in a mock-introductory gesture.
Jinx's markings are stark white, empty bones from a carcass lit by the moon. Four beady purple eyes are masked by a skull pattern and crowned by bleached horns that pierce through a large and floppy witch hat. Her tail holds some sort of dangerous-looking violet fluid that swishes back and forth as she moves.

She walks – slinks – with the grace of a wild hunter, perhaps a large cat, even; fluid oil across water, and her footfalls make no sound.
Teasel has the unique and horrified creeping sensation that she's being stalked, even though she can see the predator right here in front of her. There's no knowing when the attack will spring.

Jinx instead hops up onto the table, knocking the candles with the momentum and sloshing molten wax across the tablecloth. Pausing to bat a scattered handful of coins onto the floor, she sits, prim and dainty with a piercing judgmental expression, and when she smiles it's all teeth.
“So, what brings you to my shop this fine sunny day? It's not often that I have such a delightful little snack wander through my door.”

Teasel's petal feelers twitch, betraying her nervousness that has her rooted to the floor, but she manages to let out a somewhat-strangled croak.
Leech-speak does not make for a particularly verbose conversation.

Jinx does not seem perturbed by this, however; she preens for a moment, tucking a selection of herbs into the band of her hat and tying back some of the tentacles that frame her face, before sliding off the table far more gracefully than alighting on it had been.

“An interesting request,” she says, making a slow circling pace around Teasel, looking her up and down. Teasel wasn't aware she'd made a request. Had her sounds come out that strange and misinterpretable? Or did Jinx simply not care? 

“I'll need to take some observations... May I?” Jinx doesn't actually wait for confirmation before moving right in, shuffling back on her haunches to use both her front paws. Teasel is too startled to really object or do anything, other than make a mental note to bite her as hard as she can if she feels any pain.

The potion-maker opens Teasel's mouth, putting her own face almost inside, poking prying digits around her tongue, assessing her teeth. “Yes, yes... increased saliva production, some wear on the dentition from overuse...” Withdrawing her paws, she wipes them on one of Teasel's false petals nonchalantly on her way over to a cluttered table.

There's an amputated tail sitting on it, plump and juicy, red tendrils of meat hanging from it like it was naturally detached – Jinx shoves it off with a wet thump, along with half the books that are on it, pulling a parchment down onto the surface instead and scribbling something on it with what appears to be an ink-dipped talon fixed to a little wrist harness. She glances back over a few times, some sort of smug look squeezing her eyes almost shut, before she snaps the parchment up into a roll again and tosses it on the floor.

“I'll wager you're unusually hungry,” she declares, kicking some tomes out of the way as she returns. “Aaaaall the time.”
The pain in Teasel's stomach twists uncomfortably. It's the reason she's here, of course, but the fact that this leech was able to know that without it being stated is unnerving.

“Yes... yes yes. And your coat pattern, very bold, poor for hunting. A delicate flower that humans delight to look upon. But a strong set of feelers from eating marrow and eggs, and oh! Your poor little paws, so chafed and scratched!” She says it as if it's a great swooning horror, dramatic and airy, but her eyes are sly and sharp and mocking.

“A rough-living pet, aren't you, little morsel?”

Teasel hisses at her, but Jinx laughs merrily as if she's never said anything offensive in her life. “No wonder, with that temper you have! Swapped out for a less difficult companion, no doubt!” She pats the floral leech on the snout. “Not to worry, I have just the thing for you.”
She shuffles over to a basket full of glass containers, but they're too small for Teasel to see what's in them until she's on her way back.

“Here.”

Jinx slides a stoppered bottle with a string handle – really, it's more of a jar than anything – swirling with a viscous, sickly orange-ish liquid. Suspended in the fluid is a tiny little tadpole, its head unusually geometric-looking. It writhes and bares two miniscule fangs, body flicking back and forth within the confines of its glass prison. “Once you're far, far away from my shop,” she explains, putting a lot of emphasis on the far away part, “-you take this. Out of the juice, it turns into a nice little snack. You crunch that up, and let it work its magic.” She thrusts it at Teasel's mouth, looping the string around one of her teeth.

Teasel doesn't know the etiquette of shopkeepers, and Jinx is far more eccentric than the suggested 'simple item for item exchange' she was told buying usually was, but in any case she cranes her neck around to pull the satchel from her shoulders. Jinx holds up a paw, halting her movements.

“Oh, don't you worry, you don't owe me a thing. First time visit for such a tasty little customer, it's my pleasure. Think of it as... an investment on my part.”

Her smile is like a shark's.
Teasel leaves with no great confidence that she hasn't just entered into a deal with the devil. 

    True to Jinx's recommendation, though – and if she's honest, mostly because she personally wants to be as far away from that cursed and unnerving abode as her instincts demand – she heads off into the forest and on into the scrublands. There's very little human movement out here, perhaps one or two every week, and it's too dry in the season for other leeches to be out and about. The open space and cool wind soothes her, caressing her feelers and carrying the scent of dust and grasses with it.

Time to see what this magical cure item was all about.

She inspects it as close as she can, peering with her blurry vision to get a better look at the tadpole. Its tiny teeth bare out at her as it snaps against the glass, disgruntled with its situation. Teasel finds a flat rock and tugs the stopper out with her teeth before spilling the bottle's contents across it.

The tadpole gives one last shuddering twist of its body as, free of the gel keeping it in stasis, it solidifies. Teasel nudges it with her snout. She doesn't know whether to trust Jinx at all; giving her this without telling her what would happen, refusing payment, as if getting rid of this little thing was somehow payment in and of itself... but it does smell delicious. 

In time, she would of course come to hate everything about the ever-hunger that drove her to believe Jinx would help her, that this wasn't some self-serving trick, manipulating her like she was nothing but a dog on the side of the road. 

But right now all she could feel was the emptiness, hear the growl of her stomach driving her to eat the tiny morsel in front of her for something rather than nothing, and the euphoria of crunching into it overwhelms any hesitation she had about the entire situation. The tadpole's body properties have changed into something similar to human-made blood snacks, calcified like a bone with marrow inside, and a flavor unlike anything she's ever eaten before. Licking at her teeth, she strives to get every last little bit of it, to keep the taste on her tongue, holding the memory of it there as if she could experience it a second time just by willing it back into existence.

And yet... something doesn't feel right. She can tell right away, something cold and slippery and dark sinking its claws like barbed hooks into the back of her mind. 

The growl in her stomach becomes a roar.
More. She wants more.
The hunger expands, unfathomable, uncontrollable. It smashes aside her best attempts to mentally push it back down, a tidal wave of unstoppable emptiness that overtakes her instincts. The last conscious, furious thing she thinks of before it swallows her up in a black roiling surge of driven predatory urge, is that if she ever finds Jinx again, she'd-

She's gone, drawn under and drowned inside the ever-hunger that builds and builds, a deadly undertow, and she moves entirely by its will now.


She is a hunter, and she will eat.