Meadow

Darkness; it engulfed his mind with it’s freezing grasp. Clutching him and imprisoning him like the most void filled cell. All Espen could remember was that he was cold. Not that his body drifted with the current of the sea, or how long he had been in it’s embrace. The only thing that could rival that memory, was his exhaustion. It had drug at his tingling limbs like quick sand. Making every movement sluggish until he had ceased it altogether. Why fight the inevitable? He was clearly destined to die.


Only as the sea’s debris along the shoreline began to drag against his body while the tides receded, did the stallion stir. It was quick, like the snapping of a branch that Espen jerked upright. He immediately began to sputter and cough up the water that had dared to enter his nose and mouth. His eyes squeezed closed against the burn that had greeted them when he had dared open them. After he had stopped coughing, Espen drug in the first lung full of air with relief only to let it out on a mangled moan. His voice strange and scratchy from the salt he had swallowed, and his body half numb from the frigid grasp he had endured like eagle talon’s to prey.


When Espen braved opening his eyes, they were very blurry at first, and burned like fire. He blinked them rapidly until they finally began to clear, and he could partly see the land the had washed up to. The trees seemed plenty, and the sounds of birds greeted his ears. Even a distant nicker brought the black rimmed appendages forward, surprised to hear a call from his own kind. It was clear this wasn’t the land he had escaped from. Would it be just as full? It did not bring him pleasure to think it might.


Reaching deep within himself for the strength he would need, Espen tried to stand so that he could escape the water’s grasp and at least make it onto the dry beach. Although he succeeded, it certainly wasn’t graceful. Half stumbling, half falling the entire way; Espen splashed around in the water like a new born foal until he completely collapsed onto his side on the sand. His breath was coming rapidly from the struggle, but he had barely a care. Sprawling out as if he were dead; partly wishing that he was, Espen did not look for danger nor try to move. The sun that rested at the highest point in the sky was doing well to thaw his numb limbs. Hopefully after he had rested and recovered some, he would be able to stand and find fresh water. The salt of the sea had done nothing to quench his thirst while he had halfway drown.