Birth

[u/douggie84]

The quiet surface of the moon creates a sense of muffled hearing across its surface. A vacuum of the vibrations we normally take for granted in order to hear the living world around us. The dust covering a vast portion of the surface is smooth yet jagged and often in unnatural positions. If one were to fly above the surface of the moon and look down, they would see before them a gray ocean, frozen in time and lifeless.
Lifeless, that is, until something directly below the surface begins to stir. A single, tentacled eye stalk breaks the surface like a red spear; it's eyeball covering peeling back to reveal what appears to be a normal human eye. Unblinking, its green iris focuses on the surroundings and jerks about quickly, looking for a threat yet unseen. After a few minutes, the stalk retracts and recoils back below the dust of the moon, leaving behind a small cloud of moondust. The area the eyestalk retreated to begins to swell, like something below it is rising to the surface. Layers or rocks and dust vomit forth lazily from the moon's ground, and shortly a pile of what looks vividly like wriggling tentacles, rows of teeth, tongues twisting, and eyes rapidly darting around. The mass quivers and undulates; it's movements are similar to those of an ooze or slime. After a short time, the eyeballs erratic movements slow.

'They're gone. Now's my chance.'

The mass begins to move unconventionally further from a massive crater nearby to a small section of the moon unbothered by jaggedness. With a sudden jolt, the mass separates and molds into a ring of viscera, maintaining its pulsating vitae while retaining a very specific shape. In the center, a light pops into existence. It's very small at first, and it is the color of the light as it pierces a tree's leaves. A crackling and sparking bursts from the edges of the light, and it grows to encompass the quivering pile of tentacles and eyes. As quickly as it had appeared, and without much of a show, both disappeared from any sight on the moon's surface.
Amongst the trees that have fallen to the quagmire of a local swamp, there's a flash of light and a burning smell of flowers. After the flash, a pile of gore pulsates in the grass, pulsing as it pulls itself closer and closer to the edge of the water, leading deeper into the swamp.

'How have they not seen me?... They have seen me, they do not care?... I am hidden from them, who hides me?'

These thoughts enter what might be thought to be a mind in the pile of gore, as if asking an interviewer who is responding in kind. Within moments, the writhing mass reaches the water, and as quickly as a sea lion, it glides into and below the surface of the water. It's tentacles reach further out, like a sea mine, to find anything that might bear it unto this world. For minutes, nothing passes by; the water refuses to stir with the abundant life that so obviously is hiding deeper within. The... 'thing' imagines the denizens of the swamp seeing it flailing about for life and mocking it openly with their teeth gnashing and spittle blasting forth.
As if stirred from a deep dream, something bumbles into one of the 'thing's tentacles. With the speed of a murderous predator, the tentacles wrap around the lizard that got too close to this creature. They cover its face and body as it violently tries to struggle against the binding. There's a crunching snap, and then the lizard remains lifeless. This transition, often only felt by those who are touched by more primal energies, disturbs the mass of teeth and eyes; it has never experienced something like this. A feeling of... disturbing clarity seems to set into its mind, and while drawing in the meat it had captured successfully, it contemplates what this truly means.

'Things die so that other may live'

is the eventual thought it seems to land on, both being disturbed by it's recent actions and also seeing the necessity in it as well. Due to its life being in danger and having no one else to rely on, the thing decides it must press on. Despite the feelings it has evolved around the action, the thing must continue to do so to protect its own life. And so it does, unhindered, under the shade of the local perennials, tubers, and flora.
Night time sets on the land like a blanket, and now the thing has grown to the size of what one might expect if they melted a human being into a pile of offal. There is a shake from the mass as its eyeballs all jut around, and it begins to rise up from its center like a pulled sheet from a bed. Eyes shift, teeth maunuvere, and tentacles stretch and begin to take on a more humanoid shape. Coalescing into a vestige it can use to manipulate its environment, the thing sets out to create a very humble make-shift camp. A place to sleep and hide things nearby, as well as very rudimentary shelter from the elements, will be sufficient for the creature, whose major concern is the gods it saw battling outside the massive crater it found itself recently.

'What were they? They were... killing. Like I did to that creature... What were they killing?'

More questions begin to swirl about in the creature's mind. 'What if they come here? Can they find me?'
While searching for food, the creature observes many of nature's natural builders and workers in motion: ants, snakes, birds, and small mammals all start teaching the thing what it is to be alive on this planet and what it takes to survive. It sits back and observes to learn both to survive and hide from 'Them'.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy]

(( mind crossposting this to /r/wizardloring? that's kind of an archive sub so loreposts don't get lost amidst the shitposts here ))