Lost in the Dawn Lands

Pale Sand (Chapter One)

The sand caked about his form and the water of the sea gently nudged Fionnlagh forward. The gentle swells were almost encouraging in their persistence. The time of gasping breath and grasping at life had passed. Now, Fionnlagh opened his sand crusted eyes to see what the dawn had given him. Displaced he was in form and in mind, the last a jumble of sounds, images and smells. It was a terrible night that proceeded this calming almost serene day. Fionnlagh would have called it a very “round” day, one with no sharp edges. It’s just how he saw things. The sky was a muted grey and overcast, the sea sighed quietly, and the deep green forest near the beech seemed mysterious. Fionnlagh was alone, no flotsam or jetsam for companions, nothing to mark the battle last night, if it had just been the last night.

Fionnlagh crept to his feet his silver-white hair pasted to him in wet tangles. Finn took stock of himself, he was an Elf warrior of Caer Sidi a more than capable swordsman and sorcerer and yet he and his fellows had fallen to the might of the Enemy. There had been too many and they had been far too few. The sea-battle had carried them so far to the west and in the mist of these lands his ship had become separated from the fleet and easy prey for the Enemy wolves. The fear the Enemy once had for the Isle that is Caer Sidi seems to have waned, supplanted by their lust for conquest. The Caer’s fleet had led them far to the west to wreck them on the shores of this unknown land and far away from Caer Sidi. But it was Finn’s own ship the Glimmerwind that met the rocks on this far shore. The sails had succumbed to the liquid fire of the Enemy’s like flaming tears. Her gentile keel was no match for the rough hands that were the rocks of this land. Many time had Finn and his people used this same coast as an anvil for their enemies. “All lost.” Finn whispered quietly, because any loud speech would disturb the quiet reverence of the moment.

Fionnlagh’s light heart was in shadow, as if this day and these lands had become a mirror of it.