He lands, roughly, on the shores of Ischia.
The sand sprays around him, the rough granules clinging to his sweat-covered sides. Sabrael welcomes the heat, though. The sun bakes his sloping back but he puts his face into the light anyway, lets his corneas rage against the blinding bright. It is no less than he deserves. It has been a long time since he has been home – too long – and the lost time splinters him. The last thing he remembers is the Forest: lace curling the edges of his blurry vision, the slurred sound of too many voices too close, the rage of red, red. After that, (after he stumbled, blindly, out of the woods with his senses no longer intact) the beast had taken over. After that, he had lost himself for days, weeks, months.
The dragon burned through the last vestige of winter and the entirety of spring.
He wonders, now, if the purple manipulator had known what would happen. If he sensed what lurked beneath the flesh and sinew of a stranger, knew that he’d be powerless against such an insatiable hunger for freedom? He has no answers to his musings, only memories. Those are dark and ghastly pictures that he is similarly powerless to ignore in his mind. He tries to forget the irrational slaughter of so many innocent creatures, tries to blank the coppery taste of blood soaking in-between his teeth. He tries not to remember the fear, the way it had lit in his prey’s eyes – the way the dragon had thrilled at it. He tries not to remember the death, the way it had leeched the light from his prey’s eyes – the assured confidence of each kill.
He tries not to remember, but the nightmares do not let him forget.
Sabrael sinks into the sand just after the tide line until the heat is blistering. Then, with a decisive snap of leathery wings, he moves inland. Each step towards the jungle is painful. He thinks he will see her bones somewhere, splayed and bleached by the sun (fissured and fractured by Him even before her untimely death). But even as he winds deeper through the vines and snaking, curling roots into the heart of the place, he never does. The speckled stallion breathes a sigh of relief when he sees no sign of her.
It is too quiet. You’ve been gone too long, he thinks; the dragon snarls within him. A deep frown creases his dusky lips, leaves a dent in his angular face. He considers leaving Ischia, maps out the path from the Forest to here. He’s seen it from the sky, after all – has scoured all the crannies and nooks and secret places with cold, reptilian precision. But home is here. Home is where Ashley had promised to take Wallace. Home is their oasis of sand tossed like an afterthought above the other lands. He will not leave, because they should be home. He will stay, because the beast wants nothing more than to fly away – and it is time he tamed it.
Sabrael