It's dark when the roll of the ocean waves deposit a great immobile lump upon the sand; the next wave brings with it remnants of flotsam and driftwood, weathered and worn from the water's relentless tides, and more than a few of the boards are scored with the claw-marks of a desperate man. Funny, after all these years, that he should still be so unwilling to face the inevitability of a watery grave. Not yet. He does not fear it in so many words— he has looked death in the face many times, and these days, it brings a wily crinkle to the corner of his eyes.

No, it is not fear that keeps the breath in Calhoun Galloway's lungs.

It is the fact that he's a damned stubborn bastard.

For a long while after the sea recedes from where he has been dumped upon its shore, there is stillness aside from the gentle lapping of water on sand. It is too quiet, too calm, too peaceful for something so morbid as a corpse to wash up, and yet, that is precisely what seems to have happened. Beneath the long shadows of a half moon poised high in the sky, the beast does not move; one could easily mistake him for dead, or for something that never lived at all. An oddly-shaped rock, perhaps.

But all at once, that quiet fractures, and the dragon stirs like some possessed thing, his body convulsing partially upright as a great gasp of breath tries to greedily suck in oxygen. The inhale is cut short by a fit of coughing, a heaving of saltwater onto the pale sand, and then he falls back down on his side, his chest pitching dramatically up and down as he catches his breath. Calhoun isn't certain how long he lays there, trying to feel like a man again, and he isn't certain that it matters anyway.

The burn in his chest settles, but as it does, he becomes dully aware of other aches— to be expected, he supposes, considering the circumstances. Somewhat drunkenly, the pirate heaves his head and shoulder from the ground, managing to prop himself (albeit precariously) onto an elbow to assess the damage. Various scratches and welts add to the myriad of scars already decorating his pelt, blood rising in his mouth prompts him to spit out a dislodged tooth, and he finds that his ankle is bent at most unfortunate and unnatural angle. Well. Could be better, but he's had worse.

What Calhoun doesn't notice is the sticky trail of blood matting in the fur against his skull, or just how weighted his sense of dizziness is. The darkness creeps up on him slowly, and then all at once, sucking him under and sending his head thunking back down into the sand. Oblivion consumes him, and he feels nothing at all.

Rhode