Falls

Something brushed Oberyn’s hooves, feather-light and cool, and then retreated. It returned, and retreated again. Again. Warmth covered the dark, sooty stallion like a blanket, and through his closed eyelids, he could see light beginning to strengthen as the sun rose.

Slowly, he began to wake up. The touch on his hooves was the waves, he came to realize as his ears twitched, flicking sand into the still dawn air. With a groan, Oberyn lifted his head, and blinked. He was still on the beach where he had collapsed the night before. The tide was coming in, tickling at his heels now, inching up the feathers on his forelegs and blackening them. His coat was sunbleached a deep umber gold, dappled and dark, but where the water touched him, he was black as night.

The sooty stallion pulled in his sodden legs, rocked over them, and heaved himself upright. His head was pounding, but he felt… alright. He had been in worse shape. His past on the Mainland still hung over him like a storm cloud, but there was something freeing about being here. Freeing, amongst an additional hurricane of other emotions. Oberyn shook himself, sending damp sand flying every which way, and turned to walk along the shoreline.

It wasn’t long before a shape came into view among the waves. Oberyn paused, watching the familiar silhouette plunge into the ocean, full of energy. His heart beat faster — he really wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but he was feeling something. Hesitantly, he took another step toward the dark stallion in the waves. He could clearly make out the dark dapples in his waterlogged coat, each one a mirror of Oberyn’s own, glistening under the morning sun.

His heart thundered, and he snorted into the cool dawn air, but it wasn’t the same cocktail of fury that used to take hold of him whenever he thought of his twin. There was still anger, but it was… washed out. Not as concentrated as it used to be. He took another uncertain step. Was he ready to face this part of his past?

Would he ever be ready?

Oberyn took a resigned breath. He probably would never be ready, he thought. If that was the case… well, no point in putting it off. He took a final step forward.

“Damascus?”