His hands were gentle but she writhed in panic when she realized what just happened. Instead of dropping her he took her body and coiled it around his arm.
"You're a bute, little python. Haven't seen one of your kind in here for over two centuries. How did you get in?"
Why was he asking? It's not like she could say something to reply. It was good to know what kind of snake she was, but she wanted to get away from him. She tried to free herself again but he held fast, stroking along her scales to try and get her to relax. It felt more like an invasion of space than anything else, but seeing as she was already weak from hunger, she allowed him to carry her around to wherever he was taking her. She tasted his arm, tightened her grip until he readjusted, swung her head in mid air to try and smell which way the water was and get back to it eventually if she ever got free. They stopped and he must have sat because her tail tip dragged the stone of the cave floor.
"I've been here for so long I didn't realize new life could get inside, did the maker of the seal let you get through little guy," he inquired and placed her carefully in a crate from the feeling of it. Great. Both abducted and called a male. She thought of something just right then, if he asked a question and she could comprehend, could she answer?
She moved her upper body deliberately from the left to the right and back again, trying very hard to make it look like she was shaking her head 'no'.
"Ah I see, you must be hungry to dance so much. Well I have just the thing," he spoke excitedly, much to her disappointment, and moved away for a moment. He didn't understand what she was doing. When she felt the heat of his form come back out as he quickly got closer, she shifted away just a bit in the crate. A rat, a live rat, was plopped unceremoniously inside with her and before she could think more than 'oh thank goodness' she swept it into a rock hard grip and swallowed it.
"Gods be damned you really were hungry," he muttered in shock. From what she knew about snakes, they usually wouldn't eat immediate prey if they were stressed out from being manhandled, at least not for a while. The fact that she had acted so quickly, and the fact that she visibly nodded her head at him and settled down in contentment, made the man bend his face over the crate in confusion.
"Can you... understand what I'm saying?"
Her head shot up. Wait he had known it was a nod that time? She nodded again, quickly, and for emphasis she started twirling in circles. In utter delight and a bit of skeptical panic he laughed and backed away from her for a moment before she heard the creak of the crate opening as a second of warning before his hand was on her again, but at least this time he set her down just outside of the box.
"Okay listen, I think I'm starting to realize you don't have a snake soul. Are you Ayakashi?"
She shook her head and this time he understood.
"Fairy folk?"
'No.'
"Fae?"
'No?' She tilted her head after she shook it that time. Wasn't that the same thing?
"Ah I get it, you're Yokai."
'What? No!' She whipped around in frustration and climbed back into the crate, exhausted with this conversation. He followed her after and sat next to her quietly while she was coiling about in her anxious mood. When she settled a little while later she moved back to taste him again. He had been awfully quiet, even his breathing had slowed down.
Hoping he was asleep she decided to find her own way out, but when she moved to leave he spoke up again, startling her into ungracefully falling out and slapping her weight on the floor.
"So you're human."
After a long moment, she nodded, and he slowly picked her up.
"Humans are not usually this shape, this isn't normal," he spoke softly, his grip not so gentle anymore. She held still, getting the feeling that if she tried to escape now he might just kill her. Instead he sighed and placed her frame over his shoulders, carrying her like giving a scarf a piggyback ride.
"I don't think it needs to be worried about, strong though. War made a monster out of more than just me, but the rest of my companions in here died almost a decade ago. It's just rats. And now a Great One, imagine that. Must not have known what you were. Ah, well, amateurs shouldn't mess with soul bonding. Many years, maybe it was a kid with a lazy idea to clean up. You're lucky I'm here, kid."
He contiued his rant that she gave up trying to understand as they kept moving deeper into the cavern, you would think there would be less action, but the further he went the more she found she smelled, heard, and felt. They definitely weren't going backwards to where she started, that entrance was almost a cliff of dead things, this exit was covered in what smelled like moss, ferns, bugs, and freedom.
"Someone or something put you in here same as me, right? I've grown too used to this place so I choose to stay here even though I could break the seal if I chose to. For you, little python, I think I'm going to give you the energy to leave and continue exploring the world. What do you say?"
Not quite believing her luck, she slipped from his shoulders as he knelt and she turned back around to touch him all over on the face with her nose and tongue.
"Hey, hey there stop it. That tickles. Are you kissing me? Hey. Look I've already got a gap in the... Are you a girl?"
Well how did he come to that conclusion? She went ahead and nodded and she heard his laugh start low and gradually turn from a chuckle to a raspy cackle. What the heck is so amusing about that? No more happy snake nuzzles for you, buddy...
"Apologies, child, I just never expected my first visitor in so long to be female, and one in your predicament? The stars are smiling tonight. This is quite the strange circumstance," he said and started slipping back into giggles. It took him a bit but he finally recovered his demeanor and started to walk based on the sound of footfall.
"Come with me, I'll breach the seal so that you may leave the caves."
She tried to follow, but before she got too far her way was blocked by a boulder. She'd gotten used to navigating around them once she booped them with her nose but the concern on his face that she obviously missed because she couldn't see was quite deep.
"Do your eyes not work, lass?"
She shook her head and continued to try and follow him, unconcerned at this point with her unfortunate lack of sight, but he had reached down and put a hand on her face.
"That won't do. "
Before she could comprehend what he was doing she felt a searing pain in her eyes and recoiled violently into a stalagmite, wrapping her body around it. As the pain fell away she blinked, at the same moment remembering that snakes don't have eyelids, and was now able to see everything around her just as crisp as if she was a human. Her healer was a troll, green and fanged, horns on his head, very old, and smiling from ear to ear as her mouth fell open.
"How do you like them apples, missy," he chortled as she looked at every detail like a kid in a candy store. This place was not so much a dank cave as a spacious lush cavern, open to the sky, with a river, pond, and life. No wonder he had lived so long in here. Was this really a prison?
It dawned on her to examine her own body for the first time and she was utterly surprised by the gleamingly white scales. She was gorgeous! No wonder the rodents could spot her if she wasn't buried in grasses.
"Well come on then, I thought you wanted out of this place?"
She turned back to look at him again, really taking him in this time. Though his first impression was a kind old man she noticed his limbs were large with bulging muscle, his movements were graceful, and eyes were sharp. He was not one to be underestimated.
She released the stalagmite and slithered after him excitedly and he chuckled again, his ragged but strong voice matching more than she thought it would, and they arrived at the entrance in just a few minutes.
The faintly rainbow seal behind him shimmered at the entrance, showing that there indeed was a seal keeping him inside. She looked up at him expectantly and he moved forward. With a delicate hand he drew strange symbols on the surface of the seal and she watched as a gap stared to form just at the bottom.
"Hurry now, I can't hold this for long," he urged and she raced through. Once he was sure her tail had made it he let the spell go. She turned back around to thank him when the sight before her made her freeze in shock.
She watched his skin shrivel on this arms, then his legs, then his eyes turned white as paper and he sat down hard. She rushed over to him and slammed head first into the seal. The impact sounded like electrified hard plastic.
"Now, now, I hear you trying to get to me. Listen. Hey, stop that and listen!"
She stopped crashing into it and stared at him desperately, dread pooling into her heart, wishing once again that she could cry. They had just met, he fed her and was so animated when he found out she could hear him. All he had wanted was some company and all she did was get frustrated with being handled.
"Alright missy, no fretting over me, you understand? I chose this too just like staying here. You needed sight, you needed freedom. It is my honor to give those to you, to one with such a head start."
When he paused his speaking and turned his head a little, she bonked the seal to let him know she was still there. The smile that sprang to his lips was crooked, missing several teeth, but his delight sounded the same as it had earlier when she couldn't see.
"Thanks, wasn't sure if you could hear me through this."
His movements shook as he sat cross-legged at the exit and fiddled around with his hands.
"Little Missy Python, thank you for making my last moments interesting. If you hadn't come along I would have drifted through the last of my time with nothing but rats for company."
Bonk
"You are a kind one."
Bump
"It's time to go. Live this life, love it, and don't make my mistake of thinking you're invulnerable to wrong choices."
She thumped it a few more times, softer and softer, until she was resting her head against the seal. He stayed just like that, eyes closed, silent. He was gone. He'd done so much for her. The pain she felt in her heart was so much worse than the pain from her new eyes.
A tear escaped then, a tear from a snake, and fell to the ground. The magic in the tear split the rock under her and she watched as a flower grew from the fissure, blooming right then and there, an offering for the dead. That was enough, she lamented. That was all she could give to her savior.