Page 99 of Citrine

We should have stayed in the cave.

When has knowing more done anyone any good? It certainly hasn't done her any good. All she does is talk, want to know, want to seek, want to learn, even if what she learns isn't what she wants.

There's nothing but danger deep in the water and I try to tell her that, but she doesn't listen to me. It's like she feels like now that she can swim underwater, that she is capable of anything.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but it is that thought that propels me forward. I am feeling… excited. It's not the usual excitement I get from hunting, but a different kind, the kind I only get when I'm around her.

The satisfaction that she needs me to protect her.

Then she catches sight of one of the gray-green males I drowned.

I have never told her about them, so I'm not pleased to see one drifting right at us. She swims faster than I've ever seen her swim and scrambles onto the shore.

I follow her.

"What thehellwas that?!" she exclaims, her eyes wide.

"I do not know."

"You've stayed in this lake the longest. Don't tell me you don't know what they are."

"I do not know what they are. All they do is lurk around the lake and I don't like it, so I pull them in and drown them."

"What do you mean, you drown them? What if they're my way out of here?"

Out of where? Is she planning to leave me by using these creatures? What is she talking about? They don't even look anything like her.

"Can you at least bring it back up?"

"No."

I'm not carrying that thing back up with me. They taste terrible. I have no interest in eating them, so I just let them sink.

"Please, Wroahk. I need to see what it is. I can't catch a live one since you'll just kill it."

"… I don't kill them all."

She cocks her head to the side, her eyebrows furrowing as she looks at me.

She doesn't believe me, but she's not the only one I've spared. There are just some of these creatures I cannot bring myself to kill. Instead, I throw the nearest Many Teeth at them and they run away. It takes much less effort to deal with them, but I prefer not dealing with them at all.

"Oh. That's surprising."

She doesn't say anything for a while and just keeps staring into the water where the thing drowned. I don't know if she'll keep convincing me to try to bring it back up for her, but I won't do it.

"Why don't you eat them?" she suddenly asks.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, I've seen you eat the Many Teeth before, even though you don't make it a habit. You eat almost everything inside the water, and you've threatened to eat me before, too. So, why do you not eat these things? Are they native to thisplanet? Do you make it a habit to not eat other intelligent beings?"

She seems to think it's an important question but there's a simple reason I don't eat these creatures or make it a habit to eat the Many Yeeth.

"They are vile, but you are sweet. I have preferences, you know."

"So… what you're saying is I look delicious to predators?"

"It is not only how you look. The way you smell, the taste of your blood and the warmth of your body are all things predators track to you, and it makes you an interesting prey. Most things in this water want to hunt you."

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