Sovereign of the crab sandbar. Aggrieved.
A pinkish-mauve crab about the size of a parrot, with one enormous pincer and the other torn off, who sits at the highest point of the rock while ten thousand smaller crabs part around him like water. When he snaps his claws, they all snap in answer.
“Stay away from us, you birds! No food for you here. This is our beach.”
He governs by strict exchange: what do you offer to King Crab in tribute? He accepted a sausage without hesitation once told it was salty, cured and perhaps a little rotten — we love our food that way — and had his subjects dig the buried longboat out of the sand as his side of the bargain.
Then Chubs swooped back down, took one of his children and ate it. “Betrayers! Return my child! I should have known better than to trust birds.”
He now commands artillery — several of his crabs wear rubber bands on their claws — and fired on the flock when they returned for the arm. His parting words were next time, bastards.
He does not know it yet, but six fruit bats have recently learned that crabs can be dropped onto rocks from a height.