Bound-Sharks

"The most tormented of zee-beasts. Its murderous eyes peep from its caged flesh like convicts begging release."

Bound-Sharks are enormous sharks that have been bound by implanted metallic rods, mechanisms and cages.

Freaks of Nature?

"Someone has bound it savagely with black iron - sunk bands and joined mechanisms deep into its flesh."

Thanks to their bindings, the bound-shark's internal organs have become almost entirely reshaped into an unrecognizable mess, causing the poor shark a great deal of agony - not that this makes these creatures any less dangerous to passing zailors. These bindings are also said to have mysterious secrets and truths engraved on them, though this may just be baseless zee-gossip.

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  A Bound-Shark, viewed from above.
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  A stuffed Bound-Shark.

Perhaps Not

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"He went to Spite? While I'm sure it was edifying for him. Whatever he saw there will be forgotten as soon as he lays eyes on a Bound-shark. No one who has seen one up close – witnessed the way they thrash and strain – could fail to be moved by their suffering. The first time I saw one, it changed everything for me."

The bindings that torment Bound-sharks are not the work of nature, nor are they the creation of any supernatural entity. Rather, these contraptions are man-made, and are manufactured and inserted into the sharks by the New Sequence. The Sequencers capture and bind sharks at the Grand Geode, and also manage a shark-nursery there. Why these people subject the hapless sharks to such torture is unknown, but it may have something to do with invoking a feeling of pathos for the tormented beasts, or maybe reminding a person of their own chains, increasing one's susceptibility to the light of the Dawn Machine.