[private] there must be something in the tide

[Rhaegor]

It seemed fateful that they would always meet at the river. Not always, perhaps, but too often to discredit the meetings as but coincidences.

Coincidences were hard to come by with Rhae; his visions often precluded any notions thereof.

Earlier that week, as summer increased its grasp upon the very essence of Beqanna itself, he'd had two visions. One of a death so severe and brutal that he'd been sick the moment he'd snapped out of it; and one of his childhood best friend throwing herself into a bay into which a river flowed; a wide river. He knew the one. The sickness he felt thereafter grew inward instead of expelling itself outward.

He found himself almost living at that bend in the river since that day. He had no idea when she would come, or even if she would, or if Cress had died at all. He hoped not. He hoped with all his might that the day his visions predicted would cease to be predictable, that his precognition had come in errant and foolish. Cress and Dawn will be okay, he told himself, over and over again. Cress and Dawn will be okay.

The thunder of her approach on this day proves his hope wayward.

Without knowing how to act and knowing only that he must act, Rhaegor raced to meet his once best friend at the mouth of the bay, too slow in having heard her to beat her there. He feared for the worst as he broke through the sparse trees lining this side of the bay but felt a guilty relief at seeing her but standing, mouth agape in a scream that turned his relief to a different but all too renewed dread.

Cress was dead.

After a brief pause at the water's edge, Rhaegor leapt into the blue of the waters and arced through its depths until he came to her, wound his neck beneath her head to lift it way from the water he'd watched kill her in his vision, and began to cry with her, soft and steady.

I've got you, Dawny, he managed to broadcast into her mind, finding no thoughts there for surely the mare felt more than thought at a time like this. Mourning was often wordless. I've got you, and we're going to get through this together. Here. Here. Lean on me. He beckoned her weight with a toss of his head, a step closer into her familiar form. That's it... Breathe with my Dawny. Breathe now. In.... and Out...

And, drawing silent, Rhaegor began to breathe a slow, steady pace, loud enough so that she could hear it; but beyond that, he pressured her not to calm herself. For now, his silent and composed presence would be fortress enough for her to lean on. Or so he hoped.

.

@[Dawn]