oh, this my weapon, this my loam. this my blood, this my bone.
Brigade still bleeds as he stands on the beach.
His breath comes back to him slowly, his wings falling back into the white feathers, but the tooth remains lodged in his shoulder and the saltwater dripping down his side does nothing to ease it. It is a constant, agonizing pain and he grits his teeth against it—grits his teeth against the waves of pain that hit him, that rides along his nerves and reminds him constantly of the battle with that monstrous creature of the deep.
Slowly, painfully, the words of the faeries come back to him—his mental fog clearing. Seashells. He is meant to be finding seashells. Dazed, he begins to swing his head back and forth, grey eyes searching the pristine beach shore for something that would resemble the shells that are needed for the quest.
But he sees nothing.
Frustration manifests as a low, steady growl in his chest, something primal that rips through him, and he realizes that he has two choices to continue searching: he can go left to the beach (closer to the water and the creature that lies below the depths) or he can go right to whatever strange structures dot the island.
Perhaps it is cowardice, perhaps it is simply a desire to go inland and explore, but regardless, he turns himself toward the right and begins to make his way toward the structures. Each step is agony as he moves forward—each step forces the tooth against the muscle and tissue—but he does his best to ignore it. He couldn’t give up now, not after already enduring so much. He couldn't just throw in the towel.
So he draws on every last inch of his courage and his grit and he drags himself inward.
To the structures and, hopefully, to the seashells that await.
