EVRAIN

When at last Evrain comes to, his head throbbing and his body aching, he can scarcely recall the details of what led him here. Laying pathetically upon the ground, the pale sand around him stained black, feeling as if a hundred hooves are beating across his skull with each passing second, the metallic smell of blood assaulting his nose. He has a vague awareness that the blood that dries around him is his own, but how it got there he cannot quite remember. Evrain presses his eyes closed, battling against the throbbing in his skull as he attempts to wade through the hazy waters of his memory.

Rhaenys is nowhere to be seen, nothing left of her but a pair of hoofprints in the sand and a lingering scent. An image of her face, contorted with rage and blunt teeth bared, flashes through his hazy mind. He remembers an argument, an exchange of caustic words, and then... had Rhaenys done this to him? he wonders, groaning against the pounding of his skull as he pulls himself upright, eyes blinking against the sun that burns relentlessly above him. Slowly, with all the grace of a newborn foal, he stumbles to his hooves, his head spinning with each movement and his body aching in ways he had never known possible.

Evrain stumbles towards the shoreline, each flex and twitch of his muscles bringing a renewed wave of pain that sears like lightning through his nerves. He cannot not stay here, cannot risk facing Rhaenys' wrath again lest it truly be the end of him. The overo wracks his mind trying to think of where he will go, each possibility discarded for one reason or another until at last he reaches a decision. Zevulun had been a faithful, if distant, ally. The rescue of his daughter all those years ago would surely have incurred a debt that was yet to be repaid by the Prairie King.

Well, Evrain muses bitterly as he finally reaches the shore, the roar of the waves filling his ears, now was his chance to even the score. He plunges himself into the rolling waves, mustering every ounce of his feeble energy to fight against the pulling tides.

When at last he reaches the Prairie he is utterly exhausted, possessing so little strength he cannot even pull himself fully from the sea. Evrain collapses on the shore, the caress of the waves turned painful where the salt bites and licks at his wounds. A weak cry bubbles from the overo's throat, a desperate beckons for aid as he begins to slip into unconsciousness.