Common

Vadim

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stallion | draft x | dunalino pintaloosa | 18hhs

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The ocean was calm. The waves gentle as they lapped against the shore. The sound it made rising and falling from the sandy beach was all that filled Vadim’s ears. Eyes closed, body still, he could feel it swirling around him as he lay just at the edge of the surf. Was it colored red as it was swept away? Or had his body finally given up its last drop? If he dared to move, to look, he knew the pain would return. That it would be all consuming and that blackness would rush over his vision and he would once again collapse as he had done where he lay now.


When he had entered the ocean, it had been calm much like it was now. But as he made his swim, to begin his search for Tyr, the weather had changed and so had the temperament of the salty water. The waves rose, and the force of the current dragged him where he did not wish to go before mercilessly taking him under. As hard as Vadim fought, it was only enough to get his head above water for brief moments to snatch breaths of air before being drug under once more. But drowning was not what caused the pain he was in now. As he had struggled for the nearest shore, he had not seen (too busy being sucked under the dark void of water) the rocks along the shoreline.


Vadim wasn’t sure, amidst all the chaos, how he had managed to reach the Crossing. It was not the island that had nearly taken his life. Only that as the ocean had flung him against the rocks, it had also drug him away again. He’d barely had the strength to stagger his way up onto the beach, the pain across his ripped muscles on his left side from the rocks causing him to fall unconscious upon the sand he was just now waking up on. Vadim had yet to see the awkward way his left hind leg lay tangled in his thick tail, or how ravaged his face was. It was all he could do to blink open his green eyes to see the glaring sun above.