GREET - TIMELINE #109924578

(Timeline Tuesday #200)

Greets are large aquatic creatures, biologically resting somewhere between an invertebrate and a crustacean. Their face tentacles stretch fifteen feet long, but without these included, the body length of a greet is approximately ten feet. The species is mostly pink, with a soft, bubblegum-colored body and a darker shell. The shell is curved and round, similar in appearance to the shell of a ladybug, and spotted with yellow circles. Along the bottom of a greet’s shell are dozens of short, spikey legs, which help them crawl around during their brief excursions on land.

Greets hail from a primal, mostly-saltwater timeline where aquatic invertebrates, specifically the nautilus, became the dominant evolutionary species across earth. These cephalopods began to shift and change, creating a wide variety of animals including a handful who made their way onto land, like the greet.

This species is not necessarily aggressive by nature, but their incredible size makes them dangerous to humans, who they will often see as food. It is suggested that anyone encountering a greet immediately leave and put as much distance between themselves and the creature as possible. Fortunately, greets are relatively slow moving on land and easy to escape from, but those who spot them in water may have a harder time. While the wings of a greet might suggest the ability of flight, these are actually fins used to propel the creature through water at high speeds.

Greets attack with their cluster of facial tentacles, the swarming limps pulling in prey to a large beak that rests hidden within. They can produce clouds of ink that are used to escape dangerous situations, or confuse their prey, but unlike the squids of our timeline, greet ink is a dull, rosy pink. This ink is incredibly valuable, unfortunately making encounters between humans and greets more common than they should be.