Ears back and head down, the creature with too many teeth was placating on the floor.
"I'm not upset," they reassured for the dozenth time. There was all sorts of gruesome across the stone room, most recent their own blood that had yet to become tacky. The soles of their feet were wet with it, chilled thick by the cool of the floor. "Can you please look at me?"
The creature did, though where the speaker’s eyes were just now was a bit of a guess. The creature's eyes were many and mutable, hidden in the dense woods of spines. What had been the speaker’s eyes were just now in the creature's stomach.
Where there had been the speaker’s head was now a sort of living shadow, a flickering flame of dark from the wide curve that matched the creature’s mouth and that was the termination of the speaker’s neck no longer bleeding. The flame grew stronger, darker, as time went on and the person talking from said head of shadow again reassured the creature.
"Look," they crouched, kept relaxed, probably kept their expression the same if any one or thing could read it, "I'm not upset and I promise I won't surprise you again."
They held out a hand that the creature eyed from many and mutable eyes, then tentatively sniffed. When the creature licks their hand there's blood in the drool it leaves behind.
"There we are," they say, relief bleeding into the voice that was coming from a place that couldn't bleed. "Who's a good boy? You are."