The Beach

Everything hurt. Tsan felt like she'd been beaten, thrown down a cliff, and then received another beating. Opening her eyes, or trying to, only seemed to make it worse, her head pounding and the darkness as unyielding as it had been a moment prior. Giving up, she let unconsciousness drag her down once more.

The second time she was more successful, the general ache having pulled back some and left her merely feeling as if she'd been beaten and thrown down a cliff. The difference was enough to let her eyes open, and stay open, however **** the elf might have been.

Not that having her eyes open helped a great deal. The beach was dark and the low clouds blocked the moonlight, leaving her with little to work with. Elves generally saw better in the dark than humans, but there still had to be a little light.

What she could do was listen, however aside from the crash of the surf, she couldn't make out anything of note, good or ill. The beach underneath her was smooth worn stones rather than sand, and she struggled to sit up as they shifted under her. Determined to get up, at least above the tide line, she struggled until she found her feet.

She was unfortunately barefoot, and as she wrapped her arms around her in response to the chill, damp wind, she took a quick inventory of what she did have to fend it off. Her pants had seen much better days, the canvas rent and torn through, often revealing cuts or bruises on the skin beneath, luckily none of them seeming to be a major concern. A loose linen shirt draped off her, the white cloth now looking dingy from the prolonged soaking in the sea. Her warmest item was the canvas blazer, but even that was soaking wet and not really made for this climate. The only piece of gear that had come through unscathed and fully functional was the leather belt around her waist.

Unsatisfied with her kit, but unable to do anything about it for the moment, she began stumbling up away from the water. The bluffs, such as they were, were actually a series of shallow, jagged cliffs made from the same grayish stone as the beach. She hadn't seen it in daylight, but she could safely assume that this was a rather dreary country.

She wanted nothing more than to be warm and safe and to curl up and sleep for a century or two. The second she closed her eyes, however, she saw the face of Roblin, screaming for her to come back as she plunged downwards. She wondered if they were alive.

She blinked back unbidden tears. They hadn't always been good to her, but they'd been her traveling companions, and her anchors to the world she knew. Their lives had to have meaning, she resolved. She'd complete the job, and win her freedom.

She knew it was the half-baked logic of her concussed, starving and cold self, but it also seemed the only way to go. If she really was on the shore of the Wolfwood then her only way forward was north, to the keep Vanheim kept past the borders of the Wolfwood. Going south through the Mystfens on foot was suicidal, and as long as she was in Y'Rayne bay she shouldn't have any real problems finding the outlet of the river Scragg had mentioned.

All that remained to her was to wait to morning so she could see which way the mountains were, and if she was on the shore of the bay or further west.

Waiting until morning proved a greater labor than she'd counted on, idleness leaving her with nothing to think about but the cold, her hunger and the pain in her limbs. Sleep was impossible, and she finally made a snap judgement, facing inland and turning right, beginning down the beach, reasoning that she wouldn't get that far, but the terrain at least gave her something else to think about and kept her moving.

Dawn, when it came, proved her instincts right, as the gray, cloudy morning revealed the mountains behind her. The terrain was as dreary as she'd suspected, gray clouds, damp weather, and trees of scrubby pine at the top of the cliffs that didn't look to offer much in the hopes of warm fields beyond. She hobbled along, unable to move inland with the crags on her left, so she was **** to stay on the tricky footing of the rocky beach.

INVENTORY:

• 1 x Loose Linen Shirt
• 1 x Canvas Blazer
• 1 x Canvas Pants (Damaged)
• 1 x Leather Belt