Arsanguir ran.
Without climbing into a tree and without thinking about where he was going Arsangur ran. He ran and ran as fast as he could, the fox behind him merely jogging. Arsanguir's spirit died watching a devilish grin appearing on the fox's face, its scimitar-like teeth peeking through. Just as Arsanguir began to give up and slow down, a deafening roar was heard to his left. Renewed with new hope and an invigorated spirit, Arsanguir changed directions and dashed directly at the epicentre of the roar. Arsanguir's mind buzzed with adrenaline, his last hope being the source of the roar. The Behel fox, ecstatic with malice, was oblivious to Arsanguir's plan.
Closing in on the source of the roar, Arsanguir saw it, the ancient dragon. Sprawled across the floor intricately between the comparatively narrow gaps between the trees lay its colossal body. Many times bigger than the behel fox it lay perfectly still, imitating a hill of metal. Its bright bronze scales reflecting light at any angle could make it impossible to miss, for Arsanguir.
Watching the dragon look up, Arsanguir heard a squelching pierce. Looking back Arsanguir saw a grisly sight, the fox he had just been running away from with no hope of escape was now breathing its final breaths impaled on the bronze dragon's tail. Dropping the dead fox, the dragon began to shrink to a measly 10 meters around the size of a three-year-old hatchling. As the dragon walked towards Arsanguir, inspecting him.
As the dragon began circling him, Arsanguir admired its form. Its shining bronze scales gleamed in the green forest light, each scale as large as his palm. Its forelimbs were toned and rippling with its powerful muscles, hidden but visible under its scaly coat, tipped with talons sharp enough to carve through stone. Its tail curled and waved rhythmically like a slithering snake leaving deep gashes in the earth where it had trailed. The dragon's head was slender yet sturdy, its temples and head adorned with a crown of jutting horned antlers, its eyes a vibrant yellow with neon green pupils. Each action, each step, deliberate and powerful radiating Kucholel into the atmosphere.
As the dragon stopped, Arsanguir locked eyes with the beast. A wave of warmth and kinship enticed him close. As the dragon deaconed him to follow, Arsanguir complied, without a single adverse thought in his head.
The beast stopped at a river and unfurling its wings drank. Arsanguir watched the dragon's wings unfurl examining its details from a distance entranced by the majestic wings of a dragon. Bringing his line of sight back down to the dragon Arsanguir saw the dragon's side for the first time. The dragon's side was torn wide open, a savage gash that cleaved through its scales, leaving them hanging like shattered armour.
The flesh beneath was exposed, raw and glistening, with dark blood clotted around the edges in an uneven chaotic manner, dried blood soaked into and between the surrounding scales. The edges of the wound pulsed with each heaving breath, veins bulging angrily as the dragon struggled against the agony. Deep within the wound, layers of muscle were shredded, and the gleam of bone could be seen. Each twitch of its massive body made the wound stretch wider, like a canyon split open by an earthquake, threatening to swallow the dragon in its own pain.
Rather than being worried for the dragon Arsanguir was astounded by two things. Firstly the dragon's sheer resilience and willpower. Secondly, Arsanguir worried, what kind of all-powerful being possibly inflict a wound like this on a dragon?
While the dragon drinks, Arsanguir further inspects the wound becoming more astounded at the beast's will the closer he looks. In an attempt to comfort the dragon Arsanguir walked up to its head trying his best to console it. After the dragon had finished drinking it had gone back to sleep wrapped around Arsanguir, protecting him from the dangers of the forest. Leaning against his new friend, Arsanguir fell asleep.
That night, for the first time in seven years, Arsanguir had a dream. More accurately, he had a nightmare. The nightmare twisted into existence, from the darkness of his closed eyes. The first to appear was the sky, emanating with a sticky yellow hue. The next to appear was the air, thick and rancid, the poisonous scent of sulphur grated with a stench of foreign decay. The ground came next, a shifting and undulating fleshy mass.
As Arsanguir walked he felt the ground writhing under his bare feet a sensation not unlike stepping into a bucket of slugs barefoot. If he stood still the ground would begin to slither and crawl up his leg threatening to devour him adding his flesh to its collection. Hearing a howling sound, Arsanguir turned around to see a pack of eldritch forms moving about through a mixture of lumbering and slithering. Although awkward and difficult to watch and decipher, Arsnguir understood one thing. They were after him so he did the only thing he could, he ran.
Turning around, Arsanguir ran, fast and agile. Arsanguire darted in and out of the trees to try and lose the perusing... Things. To his utter dismay, he did not manage to lose them. To make matters worse they now had him surrounded near the edge of a cliff. Luckily there was a lake at the bottom. Therefore without a doubt in his mind, Arsanguir jumped. Falling through viscous air that smelled like it did was understandably not a comfortable experience for Arsanguir but what he would soon find out is that neither was swimming in a lake of leeches.
The end of Arsanguir's descent was marked by a sickening squelch rather than a splash. The lake he had jumped into was not water but a writhing, slimy sea of leeches, their bodies glistening and undulating with a grotesque vitality.
The moment he landed, the sensation was immediate and horrifying. The leeches, far more active than any mere water, surged up to meet them, their slippery forms clinging and coiling around him. The feel of their gelatinous bodies was repulsive; each leech seemed to ripple and pulse as it attached itself to any available surface.
Arsanguir's skin was met with a tidal wave of the slimy creatures, their tiny, rasping mouths dragging against his flesh as they latched on. The sensation was both vile and excruciating—like being coated in a layer of living, breathing sludge. The leeches squirmed against his skin, their movements a constant, uncomfortable reminder of their presence, making every inch of his body feel as though it was being gripped by a myriad of tiny, squirming hands.
With each attempt to move, the leeches shifted and slithered, creating a horrifying, ripping mass that seemed to close in tighter. Arsanguir could feel them wriggling beneath every fold of his clothing, creeping into every crevice, and their incessant squirming was a nauseating rhythm that seemed to seep into the very core of their being. Suffocating under the sea of leeches, Arsanguir finally woke up.
Arsanguir woke up with a scream but seeing, what reality had in store for him,
.
.
.
he didn't bother stopping.