Stretch your leather wings and fly, Ahool of the Javan jungle. Feel the air lift you, emancipate you. On the ground you are clumsy, but in the skies, you are king. Everything between the treetops and the clouds is your domain, and what lies below is your garden, to be tended, to be pruned, but most of all, to be enjoyed. Let your fingerbones part, shudder at the air resistance. Go higher. Sing your song of freedom, as you have for decades. The blocky anthills on the horizon approach; lit up by contained fires, they encroach further into your territory every day, but between then and now, this world is yours. So call out to them! Challenge them! Ahool, ahool! You've killed their spawn before and shattered their throats between your jaws; you do not fear them, they should fear you.

Enjoy the breeze's caress on your fur. They are your dues. The breeze caresses your fur. Your claws slice through the fog. Soon, you will test them on the living.

Below runs the river, a deep scar across the landscape. Train your ears on its bubbling surface. Can you hear it, even in your advancing age, the shattering of surface tension? The giant snakehead dwells down there. Like you, it is old and scarred. Like you, it is ruler of its domain, top dog in its element. Like you, it takes whatever it desires, and does not know fear.

You know what to do, so do it.

Yes! Close your wings, let gravity take its hold one more. Pierce through the fog, and feel it tickle your face. Trust your ears. Drown out all the rest. Drown out the cacophony of the jungle, drown out the buzzing of insects and the howling of the winds, and focus only on your target.

Bare your fangs.

Stretch your claws.

Open your wings.

Blot out the stars.

Strike!

Feel the warmth of spraying blood. Feel your grip tighten at the snakehead's throes. It struggles, possessed, hitting your side with its powerful tailfin; it knows its only hope is to force you to drop it. So you do--onto the river banks and from a great height, landing only when you hear the crack of its spine. It is a monster, top of the pecking order, the final link in the food chain, or so it died believing, but it could never look skywards; it could have never known to expect you. The giant snakehead might have been a monster, but you, Ahool of the Javan jungle, are a legend.

Call out to the heavens, ahool, ahool! Stay back, creatures of the land! Stay back, thieves and carrion-eaters, for your king has landed and now feasts!

The snakehead was mighty, but you are mightier. It ruled alone, but its kingdom was your playground, and while it grew unchallenged, it did so only because you allowed it to.

You came for it, as the blocky anthills will come for you.