T E R I N
it’s not the devil at your door
its just your shadow on the floor
In the end, he doesn’t even make it to the Mountain.
That is the important part of the story.
Terin had tried though, had thrown himself again and again against the insurmountable, pressing on even as he felt the scales being plucked from his skin, as he felt the water drained from his bones.
At the end, he stands at the base of the Mountain, left with nothing more than a matching pair of painful aches. Two are on his brow, and the others jab at either side of spin, just below his withers. His gaze does not veer from the peak, not for a long while.
Not until the sun has begun to sink beyond the horizon, and the gray dusk of a long spring evening has begun to creep across the land. Only then does he turn away, back toward the water. His mind is racing as he makes his way toward it. Only when he is chest deep does he finally stop thinking, drawn from his thoughts by a hacking fit of coughing as he tries to expel the water he’d breathed in..
What had happened to his gills?!
Breathing beneath the water required as little thought as breathing above, but as Terin’s chest heaves, he is suddenly aware of the lack of them along his neck. He shifts near water - he always has. It was unconscious and immediate, and yet now he stands with water up to his neck, as equine as he’d been on the shore.
The bottom of the River suddenly feels as if it might be slipping out from under him, and he returns to the shore as quickly as his quaking legs will carry him. He shivers as he turns to face the water, feeling the uncomfortable way it drips down his hide. Terin concentrates, but his dragon form does not come.
Doing his best to quell the panic rising in his chest, Terin turns away from the water and heads inland.
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