O Le Maliu o Loʻu Tina

[Attached: A large jaw bone, carved and inscribed with the images of a “Shark-God” devouring a creature whose skin peels away, that clearly distinguishes a woman victim. There are huts, a shoreline and depictions of others hiding in the huts. A lock of black hair braided with small seashells hangs from the jaw. Mastercraft, Superior +1 Performance: storytelling]

For ease of reading, story provided in plain text.
O Le Maliu o Loʻu Tina

There once was a shark that had a friend, like family, one would even say a slew. It learned many of the ways from this person, their tribe and culture. This shark would visit this place, a cycle’s swim around it in size, watching these mammals live in a balance, using things it had never seen before. One day it noticed they looked a lot like the man it had seen, and taken the form of. So this shark thought, maybe “I can try, and look,” it was curious, afterall. Though the shark found the mammals were nervous around it, like they had seen a ghost of someone they knew.

“Maybe, they knew the man I have seen too, but I do not act like him…” Therefore they named the shark in mans skin, “Tagata ese mai le Vai.”

Stranger from the Water.

As with any other outsider, they were wary of the shark, and did not accept it right away into their tribe, and few would visit, so it was hard at first, until the shark met a woman called Olioli. It turned out that the man this shark looked like, had been taken by others and was thought to be dead. She said she was his mother. She saw it as a blessing that her son could return home, even if he didn’t know her….well, remember, according to her.

Blessed by Sea. So, she began to teach the shark many of the smaller things, eventually leading to it being accepted more. Since it was the same but different to them, they named the shark, Sefa and it began to learn the deep intricacies of their lives. Olioli was a skilled craftswoman, and she passed on her love of scrimshaw to Sefa. He learned to dance and fight with them and understand the reasons behind motives. Often returning to the island, because they would sate the curiosity and that Sefa had indeed grown fond of Olioli. He had accepted her as a mother on land, they became close, and he would do what he could to provide her and the tribe with their needs. Olioli grew older and slower, and Sefa began to understand that these mammals, like many other Quick-bloods, lived lives short, fast. He had developed...feelings, emotions, towards these things, for all he knew before, others lived like he did. He had never considered that death would affect him in such a way, or the thought of death for something he cared about in a way Sefa had not for others. Sometimes others fought and died, rage and sorrow when slewmates fell, but the sharks didn’t grow old, and die, neither did the spirits.

While Sefa knew that is the way of things for everything else, it had not come to his understanding that his care did not make Olioli immortal. Thus, he would spend more time assisting in her darkening years. Like a devoted child who had been raised among them since birth. At least his “rebirth” to them.

Slowly, Olioli, seemed to go mad with things, the way she spoke, what she did, slowly sowed chaos into their lives. Sefa could not understand why Olioli began to treat him so differently. This caused him so much confusion, anger and hurt, that he began to feel the effects of this soul-sickness. Driving Sefa deeper into the grips of what he had heard called Harano, until one day, upon seeking advice from another shark, they shared with Sefa, information on the habits of creatures that consumed their victims in a strange way, they became who you loved and cherish, and would slowly tear you and others apart, and that the one you loved is long dead.

Sefa felt the boiling inside him as he entered Kunmind, learning of the vicious way his mother was consumed and then worn.

That night, Sefa did not remember, a blind and red vision came over him.

Stories were told by some that a monster came, killing Olioli with a bloodlust, a shark-god coming in flesh to the people. He hunted Olioli, down, this creature a coward of heart. When her skin peeled away from her body before Sefa, and this creature appeared, Sefa consumed it, or her, or whatever it was. Most had fled at the sight of a god coming from the waters, likely what saved them all in the end. This thing, one of Qyrl’s deepest secrets, tried to drive Sefa to death or to fall to Her grasp. When it could not succeed, it tried to run. They do not like to fight, they are not made for that, but Sefa consumed it before it would escape.

It is true, you cannot do anything to save them once they are gone, and gone they will be, should this Hear Eater be involved, there is nothing left, but kill it before it moves on to its next victim.

Sefa was given no closure of Olioli, except the skin that was left behind.

Ivory Carved Death, of the Karkha
Rokea Dimwater in the Shallows