<span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">With his body still in a state of shock from the pursuit - and its abrupt end - K'qalikh knew not how long he would manage to keep his eyes open. Every base instinct he had told him to recoil, to flee the building in which he found himself, for if a naga was anything at all, it was most certainly <i>not</i> domestic. The carpet felt relatively comfortable beneath his scaled body, the fire warmed his scales nicely, but he was certainly not of a species accustomed to such finery. Instinct told him to get out, particularly since he had no way of determining the human male's intentions. Thus far, he had only helped. But if he had learned anything at all of humans, it was of their propensity for cruelty for cruelty's sake.<br/>
<br/>
Fighting a wave of pain-induced nausea, the naga slowly moved upright. Lean arms pressed his upper body off the carpet, long hair spilled over his shoulder, coils maintaining tension that he might have an easier time balancing when all he wanted was to fall back down and sleep. Not yet. He didn't yet trust his surroundings. "I have seen four moons since I first laid eyes on him," he rasped, clearing his throat soon after. "Though I know not if he followed any earlier."<br/>
<br/>
K'qalikh reached up, clawed digits seeking the ache resonating from his shoulder. He had barely touched the skin around the newly cleaned wound, and it was with a bestial hiss and protruding fangs that he wrenched his hand away. Hunching forward, he pressed both palms against the floor, frustrated at his predicament even through his general sense of gratitude. Helplessness was not something that suited him. He was an apex predator, yet he sat in a human's dwelling rendered utterly useless, unable to so much as defend himself any longer should the need have arisen.<br/>
<br/>
"Who can say?" he queried in response when the man asked of the hunter's intentions. "If ever his intentions were to take me alive, he abandoned them quickly once I had evaded him twice over." Human pride. If one was not a conqueror, then one was the conquered, and there was no greater slight to a man's vanity. Peering down the length of his body, he took stock of his injuries. Each one ached, but it seemed his host had done a good enough job of dressing the wounds that his discomfort, while certainly palpable, was not unbearable.<br/>
<br/>
Slowly, the naga brought his eyes up, seeking the human's. "As I am on territory not my own, I ask that you give me a day or two. Time enough to have the energy to escape, should he find me again."</span>