"Well, Miss Lady, usually, there'll be something hidden in the sands. Small crabs, Krabby and other stuff. Seaweed's good enough for the majority, but others might need a little more... protein... We need to hunt. I'm sure you've done your fair share, no?"Garland understood in an instant, nodding his slender head as a twisted smirk surfaced on his face. The gator was asking him if
he could hunt? It was usurprising really – nobody ever expected the snobby swan. Obviously the bloodstained feathers about his face weren’t as much a giveaway as he’d initially expected.
“Hunt? A delicate flower like me, hunt?” He feigned surprise, smirk betraying his jesting nature. Ruffling his feathers, he dropped the charade with a short chuckle, expression mimicking Jaw’s own serious one.
“Don’t sweat it. I used to hunt for a living – I’ll find something,” It was a promise, the avian looking regal despite a rather sinister air that had engulfed him. He
would find something – something large enough to satisfy both his hunger and his passion for violence. Grinning to himself, his scheming eyes fell onto land.
“Do excuse me a moment,” He nodded his head politely to the hulking reptile as he took off into the air with a few, hard flaps of his broad wings.
Airborne, the swan had set his sights on the nearby island, convinced that a few rodents would have survived the epidemic – they seemed to get through most things. If he were lucky, he was hopeful to be dining on a small avian, a Wingull or Spearow, perhaps. Whilst many had condemned him sick and twisted for consuming fellow birds, his near-cannibalistic nature considered freakish to the normal world, it was at the lower spectrum of Garland’s insults. It was his methods of his disposal, his tendency to play with his food that really set people against him. Fortunately, he was alone now.
Hovering about a small collection of trees, an eerie grace about the bird, Garland whipped up a Hurricane – directing the monstrous winds through the foliage. Although it wasn’t the most subtle hunting technique, it was certainly one of the quickest. In a cacophony of caws and screeches, a collection of birds rose into the air – mainly undead as they shrieked in furious protest. Garland, demeanor unfaltering singled out the only living beings, two children lost to panic. Wasting no time, the Swanna darted through the array of feathers, grasping the small survivors in sharpened claws despite their cries of terror. The undead were keen to pursue him, another few furious beats of his wings ensuring that they were cast far out to sea by a succession of Hurricanes.
Avoiding the panic above, Garland dove elegantly through the ruffled foliage, squirming prey suffocating in his grasp. He landed on the ground with force, the tiny Spearows shrieking as their bones snapped – one of which paralyzed by the shifting of its spine. The swan was deaf to their cries, slinging the motionless creature to one side whilst he turned his attentions to the one still trying to fight him, wriggling feebly whilst babbling frantic cries for mercy.
“It’s nothing personal,” The avian cooed, expression serious with the exception of a small, sinister grin. Diving his hooked beak into the child’s throat was enough to silence its cries, a desperate gasping sound evoked instead. It had been a long time since Garland had indulged in his sadistic streak – Jaws and the others needn’t know how this unfortunate youth had died. Slowly opening his beak to gradually break through the layers of gore about the creature’s neck, the swan’s face remained emotionless as he focused his efforts on the slow, painful decapitation. The Spearow had succumbed to death long before Garland had achieved his goal, chucking the severed ahead aside with a bloodstained foot. He would pluck it later.
Turning his attention to the remaining bird, the Swan casually sauntered over, blood coating his once pristine feathers to give an insight into the creature most knew him as. Smiling apologetically as he met the youngster’s terrified expression, tears cascading down his feathery face – he knew what was coming.
“My apologies, son,” He shrugged, rising into the air with a few beats of his wings to hover above his prey. A well-aimed Air Slash left the child to bleed to death. Content in his hunting skills, Garland held the two birds in his beak whilst making a leisurely return to the cavern. He was unsure of Jaw’s location, not to mention his admirer’s too, and figured that in the time he’d taken to secure a meal, they’d returned to the others.
Gliding down to land just before the cavern’s opening in a quiet splash of water, Garland wasted no time concerning himself with appearances. The blood coating his feet had pooled around his form, cleaning themselves, whilst his gore-stained face was beyond saving. Moving near-silently back into their refuge, Garland nodded his head politely at the duo remaining – Nerissa and the hulking Gyarados, surprised to find his female counterpart missing. Returning to sit on dry land, the Swanna set his kills in front of him, pleased.
“Jaws not back yet?” He asked no-one in particular, slamming a foot onto one of the bodies whilst he proceeded to tear the feathers from its form. Completely oblivious to any sort of reaction from his macabre appearance and behavior, he hummed while he worked.
(( I couldn’t have you thinking Garland was just an innocent joker, could I? ;D ))
