OOM: Raven doesn't sleep, but memory is a tricky thing. Or perhaps it only plays tricks.
Raven is not prone to dreaming, and as he is now he is not prone to sleeping, either.
And yet sleep he does, drifting off gently, body propped up against the rock overlooking the lake.
He wakes to sand, rough and gritty between his toes, bare feet digging in despite the cold and the damp.
He can't see anything, likely because there is nothing to see.
There is no light here, just the ocean, vast and relentless and familiar. So very familiar.
He takes one step, two, pausing to listen for something that--
Isn't there.
A third step is followed by a fourth, and he's been here before, he knows. He remembers. It is an almost novel sensation, like the sand between his toes, and the cool breeze against his face, and the sound of the ocean in his ears, like blood, like breath, like--
Out at sea
Laughter?
The breeze picks up, sending sand into his eyes. He blinks, once, then just keeps putting one foot in front of the other.
the dawn wind
The sand is rough and stinging now, and--
Wrinkles and slides.
pain
There's something sharp under his feet. Still in the dark, sand stinging his eyes, head bent against the rising wind, half-deafened by the rising shriek of the gale, he leans down, scooping up the broken fragments of empty shells.
This--this is new.
I am here
Unexpected.
Unwelcome?
He stands, buffeted by the surge of wind, staggering another step or two before he stumbles, hands stretched, open
no
empty
no
shell fragments falling onto the sand
no
wind whipping them away into the dark
oh my people
laughter rising high and wild and warm around him as
Or there,
he
or elsewhere.
falls
In my beginning.
He opens his eyes to a sky filled with stars.
And yet sleep he does, drifting off gently, body propped up against the rock overlooking the lake.
He wakes to sand, rough and gritty between his toes, bare feet digging in despite the cold and the damp.
He can't see anything, likely because there is nothing to see.
There is no light here, just the ocean, vast and relentless and familiar. So very familiar.
He takes one step, two, pausing to listen for something that--
Isn't there.
A third step is followed by a fourth, and he's been here before, he knows. He remembers. It is an almost novel sensation, like the sand between his toes, and the cool breeze against his face, and the sound of the ocean in his ears, like blood, like breath, like--
Out at sea
Laughter?
The breeze picks up, sending sand into his eyes. He blinks, once, then just keeps putting one foot in front of the other.
the dawn wind
The sand is rough and stinging now, and--
Wrinkles and slides.
pain
There's something sharp under his feet. Still in the dark, sand stinging his eyes, head bent against the rising wind, half-deafened by the rising shriek of the gale, he leans down, scooping up the broken fragments of empty shells.
This--this is new.
I am here
Unexpected.
Unwelcome?
He stands, buffeted by the surge of wind, staggering another step or two before he stumbles, hands stretched, open
no
empty
no
shell fragments falling onto the sand
no
wind whipping them away into the dark
oh my people
laughter rising high and wild and warm around him as
Or there,
he
or elsewhere.
falls
In my beginning.
He opens his eyes to a sky filled with stars.