The forest is a dark place. It’s tough to navigate and unforgiving to those who aren’t familiar with its terrain, its secret. It’s hard on those who don’t speak its language. Skunk is not one of those. Skunk, instead, is overly familiar with all that the forest has to give. Or, most of what the forest has to give. Because sometimes the forest has friends.

Skunk finds himself on one of his usual experiences through the woods, foraging for supplies and other useful resources. He knows this path like the back of his mind, and straying off the path isn’t an issue for him either. If push comes to shove, Skunk can save himself, but he’ll more likely than not opt for safety instead.

However, this time, Skunk is tired. A bad, inconsistent period of sleep has left them more sleepy than usual. Of course, he knows not to pick the wrong plants and mushrooms; of course, he knows not to climb too high, or not to pick berries beneath knee level. But it’s still very visibly noticeable that Skunk is a sleepy boy.

As he walks through the forest, guided by the trust in his own knowledge, he’s disturbed by the sound of something snapping a twig behind him. Immediately, he comes to a standstill, and looks behind him. There, between two trees, a large naga is slithering closer.

Immediately, Skunk takes a more defensive stance; his eyes shooting through the woods in search of a safe road out. A way to flee. However, the naga speaks up almost immediately, as if he can read Skunk’s thoughts, and his words are smooth and kind. Trustworthy.

“Ah, forgive me, dear traveler. I did not mean to sneak up on you like that.”

The naga slithers a bit closer. His off-white and golden scales shimmer in what little sunlight shines through the canopy, and his face feels familiar, but Skunk can’t quite place where he’s seen the face before. In the middle of that face, two piercing blue eyes seem to be staring directly into his soul.

“It’s okay..!” Skunk stammers, not quite sure what to say. “I am merely passing through actually.”

As he says that, he struggles to contain a large yawn.

This only makes the naga smile.

“Oh, you poor thing. You look exhausted.” He says as he approaches even more. The naga is now standing – or hovering – face to face with Skunk, and his piercing eyes somehow feel even more striking.

Right as the naga finishes his sentence, Skunk lets out another yawn. He isn’t sure if this is somehow the naga’s doing, probably, but he can’t deny that he’s had a bad stretch of sleep the past few days. So regardless, the snake is not too far off.

“Need some help with that? Or a power nap, at the very least?” the naga continues.

Normally Skunk would say no. Normally he’d know not to trust strange snake people in a foreign forest. But normally, Skunk would’ve had 8 hours of sleep in the past few days – every day. Now is not a normal day.

“Ah… if you’re offering, I would appreciate that” Skunk says, much to the contentness of the naga. They slither around Skunk for a second, hanging over their shoulder for a second, causing Skunk to be a bit more on the edge, but that edge is soon taken off as the naga grabs his chin with a single finger and makes him look into the naga’s eyes.

“Now, now. There’s no need for any of that. You are safe with me, I only want you to be well-rested so that you can traverse this area safely.” The naga says as his eyes start to pulse and shift in colours. Rings of blue, gold and white replace one another one by one in a slow, inwards, pace, and Skunk is powerless to look away.

The rings of colour seem to fully drag Skunk’s attention towards the center of the naga’s eyes, who has already started to slowly, gently coil them up. The pulsing colours of his eyes is already reflecting inside Skunk’s own, whose sleepy expression has been replaced by a silly, drowsy grin. He finds himself blinking unevenly, and his train of thoughts is filled with non-sensical words interrupting the usual calm.

The cold coils wrapping Skunk up offer him comfort, making him feel better and calmer by the minute. The pulsing eyes have long expanded past the actual eyes of the Naga, instead now reflecting onto everything. Skunk has to fight to keep his eyelids open, and chooses to really lean into the coils eventually, forfeiting the mental fight.

The naga only gently chuckles as he witnesses Skunk stare into his eyes with a heavy, half-lidded expression, and uses the tip of his tail to close them manually. Once they’re closed, Skunk immediately finds himself slumping backwards, into the cool embrace of the coils. His mind drifts off to a gentle, comfortable snooze, and the snake gently cradles the new traveler in his coils, not wanting to move at the chance of waking Skunk up.

Skunk is too far gone to notice in the meantime. All he can feel, all he can think about, is the slow blinking and the lethargy in his brain. But the colored rings are there to take those worries away and replace them with a more comfortable blank state of drowsiness.

