Everything hurt. Even in places where he had no wounds, he hurt. His long body, corded with layers of sleek, lean muscle, harbored such tension beneath the surface that even breathing caused more exertion than he could bear.<br/><br/>In all, the moon had risen and fallen four times since first K'qalikh had laid eyes on the hunter. At first, the he had simply done his utmost to keep a comfortable distance from the human. Laying low in the tall grass, crouching beneath the branches of wide bushes, anything to conceal the vibrant splash of color making up the lower two-thirds of his body. Snakes generally blended in well with their environment; shades of green for forest-dwellers, hues of brown and orange for those in the desert. K'qalikh came from neither forest nor desert, but rather a tropical climate. The rainbow making up his scales - predominantly reds and splashes of violet - were intended to mimic the vibrant environment into which he had been born. Having wandered so far from the nation's coast, into a heavily wooded area, camouflage was no longer possible. The hunter had seen him, and so had his dogs. And so for four nights, he fled.<br/><br/>Little as K'qalikh knew of humans, or even the concept of trophy hunting, he could not have known that the man pursuing him wanted his scales. Nor could he have possibly known that his scales, vibrant as they were, would fetch a high price at a market and an even higher price if sold to a private collector. He had assumed that after a few hours, the human would tire and give up on the chase. He hadn't. Gauvain had followed him well beyond the glen where K'qalikh had taken up residence, followed him around the base of Mount Pelier, followed him through the dense woods, led by the pair of hounds who had taken his scent. On the first day, K'qalikh had done his best to conceal his tracks, traveling off the beaten path and taking agonizing measures not to leave a trace. No bent branches, no disturbance in the grass. Nothing that would indicate where he had been.<br/><br/>Then the hunter closed the gap. Enough to find high ground and use it to wound him. Well-skilled with a bow, Gauvain had aimed for the naga's chest, intending to injure him where his prized scales would suffer no damage. Dumb luck had prompted K'qalikh to move quickly enough that the arrow hit his shoulder instead, and upon gaining more distance, it was easily removed. But by the third day, with hunter and hunted weary and frustrated, K'qalikh took less and less care to cover his tracks and Gauvain, enraged at the complexity of his prey, took less and less care to leave the scales intact.<br/><br/>By the time the naga reached the edge of a new piece of territory, one far too well-groomed to belong to the wild forest, his trunk harbored no fewer than three patches of broken flesh, all from where the hunter's arrows had struck him. The wound on his shoulder, inflamed and sore, had begun to blacken. More crippling, however, were the two arrows embedded in his lower body: one at the level of his waist where vibrant scales began transitioning into smooth flesh; and one even farther down the length of his tail, greatly inhibiting his ability to move. He had broken the arrow shafts as best he could, but due to the harder, more unyielding nature of his scales, he had not been successful in removing the arrowheads. The resulting blood loss had done a much better job of leading Gauvain's dogs, and K'qalikh suspected that if the human continued his pursuit, he would not last the night.<br/><br/>Exhausted as he was, pained from exertion and infection, he simply had no energy left. What was more, when next he collected himself enough to take in his surroundings, he took note of a grand structure a mere stone's throw away from where he laid hiding, concealed behind shrubs and shadows, and he suspected the residents would not take kindly to his presence. Panting, a shaky hand reaching up to clutch his aching shoulder, he cynically debated a quiet surrender. But before he could make a decision, the all too familiar barking of Gauvain's hounds began to fade, and although he dared not breathe a sigh of relief, he dared to hope that if nothing else, he would have a reprieve.<br/><br/>The hours that followed did so in a blur. The sun waned, bathing the estate in a warm orange glow, and K'qalikh heard nothing of the dogs' howling that had haunted him those four nights. At last he moved, back-length strands of deep crimson falling over his face as he straightened, wincing at the dull throb caused by arrowheads shifting under his scales. If he accomplished nothing else, he knew he had desperate need of fresh water to quench his thirst and clean his wounds. Moving from behind the shrubs, wary emerald eyes peered every which way, checking for any signs of the hunter - or even signs of the estate's residents. So far, no one.<br/><br/>Thus, K'qalikh at last began to move again, winding slowly through the grass. In this brief moment of peace, it occurred to him that he had not eaten properly in days. Between the malnutrition, exhaustion, and the infection spreading from his shoulder, he had a harder time fighting off the sensation of illness pooling in his core. Water first, he told himself. Water, wound care, food. In that order. But by the time he managed to prioritize the three he had, in his dazed fog, unknowingly meandered into the back courtyard of the estate, instinctively drawn by the sound of a marble fountain. Running water. At last.<br/>But for all his efforts, K'qalikh wouldn't make it as far as the fountain. Exhausted as he was, sick as he had become, he reached the very edge of the courtyard but made it no further. Exertion gripped him and his body folded, taking him back down into the grass in an ungraceful heap, and with that went his consciousness.<br/><br/>It was some hours later when a member of the household staff, a young woman, came outside to empty buckets of cleaning water near the line of trees. Devoted to her task, she had seen nothing on her way out, but as she fumbled with the empty buckets on her way back, she bent to adjust her grip and upon looking up, she spotted the naga sprawled out in the grass. In her shock, she didn't see the human-like trunk of his body, only the serpentine lower half that could easily have dwarfed a fully grown man.<br/><br/>After a few breaths, she finally screamed. The buckets fell to her sides, forgotten, as she ran back through the door, shouting and shouting as she went, incoherent at first until she finally found her voice. "Lord Basile!" she cried. "Lord Basile, you must come quickly! I've seen something outside - a<i>monster</i>!"