#((Curious how that'll mix with Hydre!

[cloudpools]

Coincidences are funny things. Darla had gotten into this mess in the first place because she was hungry too. That and she had no idea how the world worked. Being locked away by her people for almost her whole life would do that. But the last remaining Sun Chosen was now free, much to the chagrin of those who swore to keep her hidden and "safe". She knew their intentions had been good, and because of this, Darla was still able to find much love in her heart for them. The townsfolk were her only family left after all.

But she couldn't quiet the call in her heart that pushed her to want to see the world.

Escaping had been difficult. This hadn't been her first attempt, but it had been her only successful one. She prayed to her god, Solaris, to forgive her for being selfish, and to reassure her people that she would be back once her pilgrimage was complete. What would that god think now, watching her from on high as she's screamed at by a man she'd just unknowingly tried stealing food from? Darla had tried to explain her situation, hands flailing about, temper rising as the fishmonger refused to listen to her story. To even try understanding at all!

The hand of the looming figure shuts them both up.

Darla is easily pushed away, watching with wide, curious eyes as he transforms in front of her. This felt like something out of the many stories she'd been told as a child and the books she read in her tower. All meant to scare her into staying put, but having the exact opposite effect. Bewitched by the spectacle, Darla is in a trance-like state until it's clear what this shapeshifting giant's intentions are. Not thinking, naive, she reaches out, touching him to get his attention. "Wait!"

Turning to face her, brown eyes look up to find Hydre's covered. "Eat him?" She tilts her head, confused. "Don't you think that's going a little too far? I appreciate the help, sir, but this has all been a big misunderstanding. I didn't know you needed money to buy things." Darla had been waited on by many attendants back home, everyone showering her with gifts and food in the hopes that she would pass their regards along to their god. In truth, she had no direct connection with Solaris other than the sun-shaped birthmark behind her ear, and the healing magic that flowed through her veins.

Brown eyes flick to the now-frozen man. Surely he couldn't survive much longer in that state... Darla is tempted to reach out, but healing something like that would likely kill her, so she stays put, trying to keep Hydre's attention. "Isn't there anything else you'd like to eat? You scared him enough that I'm sure he'd give you anything you wanted... And maybe you wouldn't mind sharing?" Smiling brightly, she hopes for her sake that this works. As if to drive the point home, her stomach growls.

@cloudpools

People watching was something Hydre had learned to get used to, over the many thousands of years of his miserably over-purposed life. In order to pass all that time without utterly leveling the whole of the mortal world, he had to...adapt, learn to live with being idle, unmoving, a statuesque addition to the scenery - imagine his surprise that such should become his preferred way of being. So, he sat on a filigreed bench, legs spread wide, head thrown backward over the steel back rest, hands lazily clasped in his lap, black cloth hiding the frigid shallows of his gaze--

Watching, eyes flitting about the form of a seemingly rambunctious (at least, by his standards) girl, flailing her arms about as some hideous fishmonger barked at her, the both of them disgruntled and moody. He didn't care why or how the altercation began, lips pursing, brow lofting - they seemed so small, their problems smaller, but there was a faint urge to lumber nearer, sniff out the troublemakers in this situation, and eat them. His stomach gurgled with a low, rolling growl - he was hungry anyway. Funny that, it was simultaneously real and false, a metaphor made tangible, a dream made flesh. It wasn't supposed to be legitimate, a certain truth niggling at the back of his mind, one he wouldn't always be able to ignore.

He stood slowly, and the evening moonlight sent his shadow long down the blackstone steet, condensation and evaporation taking place within the murk - and he lumbered over, a hand reaching past the girl's head, fingers spread over the man's face. Just as quickly, did he retract, all the surprise, confusion, angry words turned to stutters, cast aside in favor of a simple, easy calming spell. Threads of magic jolting through the fishmonger's face and skull, deep into his brain, through touch alone. He ushered the girl aside with his free hand, wordlessly bade her run lest he swallow her whole next, snake-like in the twists and turns of his body, grin toothy, fangs on clear display- Unmitigated terror in the eyes of a man drenched in fish-stink and sea water, jaws slowly opening wider and wider and wider and wider, near to unhinging--

A tap on his shoulder interrupted him, however, as did the girl's voice, and before he could take the fishmonger's head into his mouth, flesh and bone snapped into a particularly human place. Evidence of a glacial hydric truth erased as quickly as they'd come about. He touched the man again, ice spidering forth from his fingers, frost and chill freezing him to the spot - silent, unmoving, in stasis. A perfectly good meal, frozen, gods above, this couldn't fly.

"Are you going to let me eat him, or do you like getting reamed?"