The Evolutionary Joke

The council gathered in the deep woods to discuss the freak of nature that was decimating their kind. The spotted assassin sneered at its infancy: "It is an evolutionary joke, crawling pathetically on four limbs when it should be learning to hunt." The great runner mocked its prime: "It hobbles awkwardly on only two." But the scarred elder shivered, his eyes filled with dread: "You haven't seen its final form. In its twilight years, it sprouts a third leg—not made of flesh, but carved from the bones of our forest—and that is when it becomes the monster that kills us all."