Falls

He had washed up more than swum onto dry land, an exhausted and limp metal heap speckled with grating gravel, and had lain there for what might have been hours- he'd lost track of time as he'd reached the end of his strength in the water- only realizing he'd slept when he woke up to darkness all around him and the hush of the waves rushing at his hocks. He'd staggered to his feet still worn but far more alert, and clumsily took stock of his situation. He seemed, all in all, whole, which was a pleasant surprise after losing feeling in his limbs in the cold water, and this was good enough news that the near-blackness of a cloudy night didn't seem so daunting. His surroundings were- well, difficult to make out, but he could hear the thin singing of water that wasn't the ocean nearby, and when he approached it he found a narrow river, which he began to follow for lack of better options.

What he was hoping to find, he wasn't sure, but along the way he did find fireflies, which dreamily floated around him without concern, and he felt a few of them land with tiny tickles on his drying coat. He trailed after their winking lights with careful steps in the gloom, and eventually he began to get the impression of an incline, and then the certainty of one, and the vague perception of trees around his little procession, and at last the muted roar of waterfalls. When his hooves clicked on slippery rock rather than damp grass, he stopped, deciding whether it was worth the risk of navigating slick stone at the side of a swift river he couldn't see the other side of to continue exploring, but the clouds spared him a decidedly poor decision by drifting sluggishly out of the way of a bright, swollen moon and illuminating a breathtaking forestscape covered in vibrant moss and draping ferns. Carved through its heart was a far bigger river than the one he'd first followed, tumbling in diaphanous silver streamers from the arteries worn in dark iron boulders.

He shook a cloud of golden curls from his face and tilted back in awe, admiring the refractions of the river painting undulating silver spiderwebs across everything around it, including his own metallic flesh. It was- the dull roar of the water aside- rather eerily quiet here, and while he was rarely one for meditative silences, this one only added to the sensation of standing in a dream, surrounded as he was by glowing emerald insects and his golden body gauzed with pearly veins of moonlight, shadows shifting like living things through the dark trees.

He half expected some fae creature to emerge from them and offer enticing deals in exchange for a paltry sum, like his voice or his firstborn child, but as he shifted on his feathered feet, rock scraping wetly beneath him, the shadows stayed politely behind the treeline, and he found himself a little disappointed.

Oh, well. You couldn't have everything.