She had swallowed too much salt water to care. Her wounds stung, and her joints were tired, but she had managed to survive whatever tragedy had become of wherever she was from. Rocks, boulders, silt and ash, everything had rained down from the heavens at once, crushing familiar faces beneath their weight, ending lives with little more than shrill screams and the gurgling of the dead.

Whatever had thrown her to the sea had done her a favor, even if she was more salt than she was flesh and bone. When she had found dry land, she stood for a long while at the edge of the water, opening and closing her mouth while running her tongue across the roof of it, trying to churn the taste of salt and blood from her lips. She didn’t imagine that being tossed to the sea would result in dehydration, but from the parched, pinched feeling in her lips and the dry, crusty way her hair clung to her body, she knew that she had best search out water before she perished.

Hah, a sea monster being devoured by the sea- the thought would have made her chuckle if she wasn’t so thirsty.

The journey inland had not been long, for she was weak and the days she had spent at sea had left her legs tired and caused the earth to heave and roll underneath her. This feeling was unnatural and she wanted to lie down- but doing so would mean her imminent end. As exhaustion started to settle in, her instincts started to scream in the back of her head. Sleep! No, sleep meant death. Sleep! Her eyes started to grow heavy. No, water. Water! She listened to the shrill inner voice that, she imagined, sounded very much so like her own. Water! The soft gurgling of water had started to cut through the air, and she paused. Water? With one last spur of energy, she lashed her feet out against the unsteady ground, charging into the trees and landing ankle deep in water.

Ah, salvation.

So she drank, and she drank. She drank until at first she felt sick, but she continued. She drank until she started to feel the pressure of the water in her belly, likely to slosh about uncomfortably when she walked. She drank until she fell asleep. With heavy splashes and the soft, wet, thud of her body hitting the bottom of the shallow river, she fell asleep.