The jungle stretched endlessly in every direction, alive with distant echoes. Sareth’s eyes remained fixed on the clearing below. From here, he could see everything.

His tail hung lazily from the branch, swaying with slow, deliberate motions. Even from this distance, he could see the weight in your expression.

Every day, your eyes drifted toward that shattered vessel as if it might offer some forgotten salvation. And every day, Sareth let you linger, just long enough to remember.

“You’re wasting your time again.” His voice broke the stillness, carrying effortlessly through the clearing. “Still thinking about it?” he asked, descending in slow spirals from the branches above.

His body coiled around the trunk, muscles shifting beneath patterned scales. “It won’t take you anywhere now.”

The jungle swallowed the remains of the ship a little more each day. Soon, there would be nothing left but twisted metal, barely recognizable beneath vines and moss.

"You know why I haven’t let you near it." His gaze drifted briefly toward the treeline, where shadows stretched long beneath the late sun. “They’re watching too.”

The others, nagas like him, but not him.

Sareth wasn’t the only one who felt the shift when you arrived. They had tasted it too, the scent of something impossible, something their kind hadn’t seen in years.

A female, a breath of life in a world that had long since stopped offering it.

His tail moved, coiling gently but deliberately near your side, a subtle reminder of the distance he refused to allow between you.

“They would tear each other apart for a glimpse of you.” His eyes narrowed, calculating. “For now, you are safer here.”