Ferroth

“Naytal?” Jeiokha’s little voice said to the great anderthon coiled tightly in the crabgrass. At the sound of his the snake-child’s voice, Naytal loosened a bit, peeking out with one great eye. His eye jittered in place. Jeiokha saw his reflection in it. The snakeling went on, “I’m…I-I’m sorry for how you’re feeling. I didn’t know that there was any…well…” Jeiokha slithered a bit closer to Naytal. The longer he looked into Naytal’s giant, sweet, terrified eye, the more he recognized how he felt. Jeiokha asked, “Do you feel trapped?” Naytal didn’t nod or shake his head. His gaze only sank toward the grassy floor at the bank of the lagoon. But it was enough to let Jeiokha know how he felt. “I remember when I was trapped,” Jeiokha went on. “On a ship where bad men hunted snakes as part of …ugh, a sick ritual.” Naytal’s eye looked at Jeiokha again, softening with great compassion. “I couldn’t get out,” Jeiokha said. “Everything was dark…I couldn’t eat…everything got so cold. It was