There is fear. And pain. And panic. There is terror as he realizes there is no stopping this. No saving himself. There is a visceral feeling of claws tearing through flesh, scraping against bone. Of teeth puncturing skin, piercing muscle. There is the way his leg gives way beneath him, sending him thudding heavily to his knees as the cougar's yellow eyes glow triumphantly in the dusky light.

There is the knowledge that death has come for him on four paws.

And then there is nothing.

And then more nothing.

A day and more of nothing.

When he finally woke, it was with the sort of confusion one might ascribe to a newborn, freshly delivered from a cramped womb to the wide-open world. Where once there had been the gentle darkness of oblivion, now there was too much, all at once.

The light hurt his eyes, burrowing through his lashes despite how much he squinted against the glare. His head throbbed in response, each pulse of his heart it's own kind of agony. He tried to swallow, to lick his lips, but he might as well have taken a mouthful of sand for all the relief it allowed him. The movement awakened the pain in his throat and he hissed in a breath, then panted it softly out, all the while squeezing his eyes shut as he fought against the vertigo that came with rolling upright.

From somewhere nearby he could smell water; it wasn't the crisp refreshing pool from which the Badlands was fed, but once he'd noticed it, it was all he could think about, injuries be damned. The overo lead thrust himself drunkenly upright but found one of his hindlegs wholly unable to support his weight. The second the hoof touched the ground, all tension left the limb and he cartwheeled in that direction, grunting as his body impacted the ground in a cloud of dust. Even that small noise made his throat scream in agony, increasing the panic that had come with his disoriented waking.

Raegar tried again, flailing upright before once more tumbling over, his path that of a wobbly top. This time, however, he crashed next to the water he'd so desperately sought and after a long moment spent trembling and sucking in air, he was finally able to ply his lips into the water and take a long drink.

Task accomplished, the overo laid his cheek against the damp sand and wept.

[ Set deep in the rocky no-man's-land between the Badlands and the Desert, at the rear of the canyons Raegar normally inhabited, far from a beaten path. The wounds across his body are indicative of a cougar attack, with puncture marks at his throat and withers, as well as scratches across his entire body. There also appear to be bite marks at his flank, now puffy and inflamed with infection. It is unclear why the cougar did not finish him off, whether it was scared off by someone or something, or simply was too injured itself. Open to interpretation. ]

young stallion - mutt - seal bay overo - 15.1h - rafe x velahrn