my theory for tarkeli's pup is that its this pup (calling it lava pup)
heres why;
- takeli has said that their pup will have or currently has something in common with their pup from last year, which had a similiar growing stage:
the curled tail is the only current relation, but more are likely to come since the pup has stuff dripping out of its mouth that could leak due to an altered smile sort of lineart that it could share with last years pup
- the amount of hints relating to lava is, well, a lot. we know the name for the pup, ahi tipua, which means demon fire, or volcano.
they also said that their pup would choose nature > man-made, which leads me even further into the assumption that tarkeli's pup is something natural in the world.
their pup also has confirmed open eyes, and would blend in better near a volcano than on the ocean floor, of course a black pup with a flame-esque tail would blend in near a volcano.
- their pup also has flames and/or lava that would need to cool down if he went to visit his underwater friends (that could be wrong, the wording was weird on the question), the lava- as ive been calling it- tail on the lava pup is also the closest thing we have to fire out of the entire litter
- as for the reptilian or cat like aspects to this pup, the pup is still growing so it (if im right) will grow some, but so far it seems like the lava pup has different shading than the default growing pup specifically around the legs. though that could be just for design i figured i would point it out
this is a mess ik i just wanted to write everything i had been theorizing about down
edit: i forgot to mention that this might be Bernouli's pet bc of the iconic painted tail that has been a trend in a lot of their previous pets, but i dont have any supporting evidence its just based off previous years