im also a spooky eldritch dragon, it's just that instead of being the terror of the abyss im an embodiment of the vertigo you feel when you look up at a clear sky and realize that the blue firmament isn't something solid, it's a trick of lights and colors, and the void above you just keeps going forever
im really entering my eldritch arc, im just the bright horror of the daytime skies
You spy a shadowed shape in glimpses through impenetrable clouds. An overwhelming presence in a void where few if any presences should be. Could that be the isle you seek? ... no, it's gone, as soon as it appears.
It's bright. Too bright to see. White clouds, blue sky. Where's the ground gone? You can't see it. It's just you, your high altitude hot air balloon, and the howling wind. All drenched in soft light, reflected from the clouds all around you. It hurts to look at.
You've heard tales of the legendary floating isles high above these lands; a place few have visited, but that are glorious in their natural bounty. Few have made the journey. But it shouldn't be that dangerous. The sky isn't the ocean. It doesn't crush you beneath it's weight, and there is air, albeit quite thin.
Any sense of direction you may have had has dissolved completely in the blinding cloudscape. You feel a vague unease, as you listen to the balloon's burner quietly hissing in the wind.
You catch sight of a shape in the clouds once more, a shadow winding through the skyscape. Moving? If it's moving, it's not an island...
You freeze up in fear.
The air around you and your balloon is... charged, somehow. Energized with a strange warmth. The sense of dread you feel only rises further.
The shape emerges out of the cloud bank, rocking your balloon as it passes. You catch glimpses of red and white, burning golden eyes and massive wings. A dragon, wreathed in cloud-mist. It vanishes into another cloud bank, leaving you gasping at the thin air, sitting against the basket wall.
It sure looked like a regular old dragon. You think, at least. But something is off. The air is still charged with warmth. You can feel that golden eye you glimpsed, still trained on you.
You see the shape again, high above your balloon. It circles for a moment, and then...
The clouds begin to bend.
It's unclear what is up or down, and your balloon starts to twist and bend in the air. You swear you catch a glimpse of the glittering blue ocean surface and the sunlit green coastline from which you departed above you, like a ceiling. You hold onto the gyrating basket for dear life, as one of your water bottles falls out, tumbling down down... before rising up again, then spinning off in a bizzare spiral into a cloudbank across.
A gust of wind racks the balloon suddenly, throwing you out of the basket into a freefall. You scream, your life flashing before your eyes as you tumble into the twisting void of clouds...
And then you stop moving. Held in place, at the center of the vortex. The clouds spiral around you, gently. It'd be an incredible sight, if you weren't so busy being uttlerly terrified.
The dragon stares at you, floating in place, it's wings outstretched. Complex patterns of colored light frame it, forming a strange circular seal. Those golden eyes burn into you... filled with a strange intelligence, but little hostility. Observing you. Trying to... understand you.
The items in your balloon's basket are drawn up into the center of the vortex with you, hovering gently. Your supplies, your notebooks, your camera. The dragon seems to be paying as much attention to those items as to you.
It stares at you for what feels like an eternity, before opening it's wings, and launching away with a single, immensely powerful flap.
And then, with a sudden, gut wrenching twist, you find yourself back in the balloon basket, your things scattered about. The skies suddenly clear, blasted away by an invisible wind, revealing the familiar sea and earth far beneath you.
You catch a winged shadow in the distance, leading you towards... a cluster of floating isles, in the distance.
And a single thought, a strange impression in your mind. You are harmless... and should keep it that way.
That's a foreign thought. Not one of your own. But you get the gist of it, and certainly suspect you know where it came from. Right. A guardian. A really fucking creepy one, though.
The island comes into view; covered in beautiful vegetation, including trees blossoming with large white flowers. Babbling brooks fall off the island edge, creating rainbows as the wind blows the waterfalls into vapor.
As you set the balloon down and place your boots onto this floating paradise, you find yourself unconsciously taking light steps.