The odd pushing and pulling seemed to drag him under, under something that filled his mouth and tasted foul, swallowing him up and tossing him about. It was a splashing, freezing cold display by something that was violently angry with him, but he had no idea or reason for why. He kicked, agitated by the strange monster that he couldn't seem to touch. He passed in and through it, and no matter how hard he kicked, it wasn't in pain enough to let him go. There would be no surrender, he concluded, and he finally willed himself to calm. Over and over, it pulled him into trickling streams and then dunked him, while he coughed and lost ability to breathe.
The calmer he became, the smoother the strange thing that tried to choke him became, until it settled into a strange reflective pane that pretended to be the forest around it. He blinked, and found the situation odd that such a monster would calm simply because he himself calmed. Perhaps this was a lesson he could use later when meeting another. Perhaps the monster wasn't violently angry so much as annoyed at his own kicking and splashing, the same as he had been toward it.
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