The Drowned Wolf
The drowned wolf is not a creature of water but of the zoetic abyss, submerged beneath the currents of the etheric sea, where the howls of forgotten beasts are swallowed by the chthonic tide. It is a being unformed, a shadow caught in the spiral of becoming and unmaking, its body torn between the pull of the lunar undertow and the weight of the ouroboric chains that bind it to the depths of the void. The drowned wolf does not swim; it sinks, endlessly descending into the eidolic waters, where the light of the beast eye stars cannot reach, and all that remains is the cold, suffocating silence of the abyss.
Its fur, if it can be called such, is woven from the mists of the chthonic veil, a substance that clings to its form like the memory of air, always slipping away, dissolving into the waters that churn around it. The drowned wolf does not breathe, for there is no breath in the eidolic depths; its lungs are filled with the whispers of the zoan winds, the voices of beasts long forgotten, their howls reduced to a muffled growl beneath the surface of the ouroboric sea. It moves not with limbs but with the current of the void, pulled and pushed by the tides of the primordial flame, its body a flicker of shadow and light, forever dissolving and reforming in the depths.
The drowned wolf does not hunt, for there is no prey in the depths—only reflections, twisted and broken, scattered across the surface of the lunar pool that lies at the heart of the abyss. These reflections are not of the wolf but of the soul, shattered into a thousand pieces, each one a fragment of the self, drifting through the waters like dust in the wind, always just out of reach. The wolf sees them, but it cannot touch them, for its body is bound by the weight of the ouroboric chains, its claws scraping against the currents of the chthonic river, always reaching but never grasping.
Its eyes glow faintly with the light of the eidolic stars, though this light is not its own—it is borrowed, stolen from the fragments of the moons that sink with it into the abyss, their pale glow reflecting off the surface of the lunar water, casting ripples that stretch into the infinite. These eyes are empty, voids that consume all light, all sound, all thought, leaving only the silence of the depths, where the howl of the wolf is drowned in the pull of the zoetic tide, its voice lost to the void, its presence reduced to a shadow in the water, always sinking, always dissolving.
The drowned wolf does not speak—it gurgles, a soundless cry that bubbles up from the depths of the ouroboric spiral, a growl that reverberates through the waters, shaking the surface of the etheric pool, sending ripples through the eidolic winds. These growls are not heard but felt, a pressure that builds in the chest, a weight that pulls the soul deeper into the waters, where the wolf waits, its form barely visible beneath the surface, its claws reaching but never touching, its body caught in the endless cycle of drowning and rising, but never fully breaking free.
The waters that surround the drowned wolf are thick with the scent of lunar rot, a mist that clings to the soul, seeping into the bones, filling the lungs with the taste of decayed time, where the boundaries of the self are dissolved and scattered into the currents of the chthonic sea. These waters do not flow—they coil and twist, a vortex of unmaking that pulls all things toward the core of the ouroboric heart, where the wolf sinks, its body spiraling downward, forever pulled into the depths but never reaching the bottom.
The light that flickers in the depths is not light, but the reflection of the zoan flame, a cold, distant glow that casts no warmth, only the faintest glimmer on the surface of the water, where the ripples of the wolf's movement are swallowed by the chthonic tide. This light does not guide—it disorients, twisting the pathways of the void, creating loops of becoming and unmaking, where the wolf is always on the verge of surfacing but forever dragged back into the abyss, its howl lost to the waters, its form forever dissolving in the pull of the void.
The drowned wolf does not dream—it drifts, caught in the current of the ouroboric winds, its body dissolving into the waters, its essence scattered like ash in the wind, only to reform in the depths, always sinking, always dissolving, never fully consumed by the void. The wolf is not a creature of life but of death, a being of dissolution, where the boundaries of form are blurred and the self is swallowed by the pull of the abyss, where the howl of the wolf is drowned in the weight of the waters, where the beast is forever sinking, forever bound to the spiral of the chthonic sea.
To encounter the drowned wolf is to feel the pull of the waters, to feel the soul dragged into the depths, where the wolf waits, its eyes glowing faintly beneath the surface, its body coiled in the currents of the zoan stream, forever sinking, forever dissolving, forever lost in the spiral of the ouroboric abyss. It is a creature of the void, a beast caught between worlds, bound to the depths by the pull of the lunar tides, forever drowning, forever devoured by the waters of the chthonic realm.