Common

my waves meet your shore, ever and evermore;

An open, neverending expanse of blue spreads before her. Salt and sun and exhaustion are all she has known for the last eternity, dragging endlessly, hopelessly on. Fearne isn’t certain how long she’s been lost at sea; there is no measure of it, out here. And while she tried to count the rising of the sun and setting of the moon, soon everything blurred together. With stinging eyes and burning muscles and an overwhelming urge to give up, she had to focus every ounce of her energy on staying afloat.

She’d been with her family, when they came. Fearne mostly only remembers the fear, running in terror from whoever it was that was chasing them, driving them from the only home she’s ever known. Her little brother at her feet, her aunt and elder sister running alongside, all of them desperate and screaming in terror. The only place to go had been to the ocean, somewhere she’d never been allowed to go before. Her mother had warned her of the danger, the swirling currents and lurking creatures. Now, Fearne understands exactly why she’d been chased away.

When she first entered, the water is shockingly cold and she loses her breath; the slick, smooth black rocks that made up the shore of her home offer no traction and the last thing she saw before her head went under water was her mother, sliding her way along the stones as she screamed out for her children. Fearne wants to close her eyes to block out the image, but there is no escaping her own mind.

At some point, she’d happened upon a massive floating log, flinging herself over the top of it and letting the current carry her where it will.

Apparently where the ocean wills her is to wash up on the sandy shores of a foreign island. Fearne doesn’t think twice, dragging herself on shaking legs up off of the beach. It’s winter here as well, and she shivers under the weak light of the sun. Everything is frosted over, crystals of ice glinting across the sparse grass. She shivers, and takes a few steps forward, legs quaking with every tiny movement. She doesn’t make it far, just off the beach and to grass where she lowers her head to graze. Perhaps...perhaps her family would have washed up here, as well? Just because she didn’t see any of them, couldn’t hear any of them - that doesn’t mean that they didn’t make it, like she did. After she eats, Fearne resolves to check every inch of the beach.