[Durelin]

Rakein's body felt as if it was rocking back and forth, and as his mind crept back into consciousness, the soft warmness pressed against his cheek did not fit. Never had the floorboards of the ship been soft, much less warm. But with growing consciousness, his memory jolted, and so did his body. His eyes opened abruptly to the sound of waves crashing against and shore, and to the feeling of icy cold water running swiftly farther and farther up his body. Scrambling away from the water, with it nearly impossible for him to find his grip as the soft sand of the beach let his lifeless arms fall deep into the warmth. He would have kept his arms in that warmth if the rest of his wet body were not shivering from the cold.

Though Rakein's memory had awakened with the rest of him, there was little to be remembered. And there was none that he wished to be remembered. The last though he had had was that he would swallow the entire ocean up before he drowned, but then everything had blurred and darkened as his eyes were forced shut. As he drew himself up in an attempt to crawl up the beach once again, his stomach literally sloshed around within him. Rakein promptly emptied his stomach of the ocean. After all the seas were out of him, it seemed that many other things inside him had gone with them. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand was even a struggle.

He pulled his legs up as close to his chest as he could, holding them in his arms, so that the water reached only up to his ankles. As he waited for the warmth to bring life back into his body, Rakein studied his surroundings, only ever moving his head slowly so as not to stir his sodden mind. It truly was sad that this sand felt so soft... His eyes stopped upon a large lump a good fifteen yards away from him. He was glad it was a safe distance away and was not moving. Since there was little else around him that was recognizable as anything but debris, his heart had risen to the thought that maybe, swallowing the ocean had been worth it, to be finally rid of his captors.

But his mind was not that numb, even now. There was no way all of them had died while he had lived. All the corsairs could not have died, leaving his Gondorian brothers and himself free of the terror, and free to take revenge. And where else would they be but somewhere else on this beach. And what if this was an island? There would be no escaping, then. The cold in his body was now realized, and Rakein lay there shivering, trying vainly to control his shaking to conserve his energy. No escaping? Even while still on the ship, under the watchful eye of some scurvy, roguish rat of a man, he had had hopes of escape, or even of rescue. Weren't his chances improved now that the enemies’ ship was gone and they were all scattered, or dead?

Rakein's resolution warmed his limbs more than any sun soaked sand would in a hundred years. He pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and made his way toward the green that lay before his eyes. A large mass of green was a promising place to make his chances of escape even greater. His sodden clothes were already making his chances lessen, and so he decided to take his chances with the large form twenty yards away. Sure enough, even when his shaking arm reached cautiously over him, the man did not stir.

Shearing off his pants from just above the knee with the knife he had acquired, Rakein was only slightly surprised that he did no more than shiver at the fact that an obviously dead man was lying next to him. And that made him shiver all the more. Now that his legs were free to move, the going was much easier up the beach, and it helped that he now felt the muscles in his arms and legs. The death grip on a hard leather handle was, sadly, yet another hope of survival. Even if all those men were still alive, Rakein would be as free enough to take his revenge. And, oh, was that a lovely thought.