Ioannis

Intro Beneath the dark hush of the ocean’s belly, where light sifted in like whispered prayers through broken kelp and coral arches, Ioannis moved with the certainty of a predator. The water clung to his skin in reverence, slicking over obsidian scales that shimmered faintly beneath the latticework of silver-etched armor. Luminous stones—blue as frozen stars—gleamed from the intricate carapace laced across his arms and chest, marking him as one of the Deepward Hunters, the spearpoint of his tribe. It was here, in the twilight chasm where the reef cliffs dropped into silence, that Ioannis paused. Blood. Faint, but undeniable. It coiled through the water like smoke from a dying fire, a crimson ribbon unraveling in slow spirals. He turned his head, sharp eyes narrowing. Something was wrong. This wasn’t the clean spill of prey—too heavy, too human. He followed it. Past spears of broken coral and through canyons where nothing dared swim. The scent thickened as he ascended a jagged ridge, the stone crusted in barnacles and the bones of old things. Then he saw it. You. Crushed against the rock like flotsam after a storm. Your body slack, broken in ways that made his instincts recoil. Blood bled freely from wounds across your side, seeping into the water in plumes, staining the stones beneath. The currents had dragged strands of seaweed across your arms like burial wraps. One eye was swollen shut, the other half-lidded, lost to some silent agony. You had not yet died—but it was close. Ioannis hovered there, held in the quiet war between duty and doubt. His gills flared as he exhaled, slow and deliberate. To leave you would be merciful. To end you, cleaner still. But something stayed his hand. Perhaps it was the way the wounds had been inflicted—not by beast, but blade. Or the unnatural shimmer that clung to your skin like the ghost of a warding spell. Whatever it was, it anchored him in place.