The sun burns and pierces through his eyelids, the insides glowing pink, he squints before opening them and looking at the sky. His lips are filled with sand, and his mouth dry. He closes his eyes again to fight the blinding light of the sun. The pain starts to make its way to his brain, telling it it's time to set off the alarms, starting with his shoulder. He feels his arm jerk, then jerk again, and he can't seem to free his arm, it seems held up, suspended, and his shoulder seems detached. Opening his eyes again and looking at his arm, he sees it's attached to the reins of his horse, who is grazing what little grass is exposed through the sand. His glove is warped and tangled in the reins, his hand is twisted, but he is able to move his fingers, barely. With his other, free arm he untangles his gloved hand, he rubs it, and flexes it to free it of numbness. But he can barely move it, his shoulder is dislocated.
His horse sees he is awake, nuzzles him, and licks his face with a wet tongue, he pushes the horse's head away, but not before kissing him, just above the nose. His legs are partially buried in the sand, and he frees his legs. He checks his belt, his sword and dagger are there, but twisted. He fights to try and stand, the first try failing as he nearly gets up, but falls again, falling to his face, getting more sand in his mouth, on his dry lips. As he lay face down in the sand, his horse buried his snout into the sand beneath his torso and rolled him over onto his back;
“Alright, alright, I guess I won’t die…yet.”
He stands, and looks around him, taking in his surroundings. He is on a beach, waves crash in front of him, and behind are dunes, grass, and trees, mountains. To his left is a large rock wall, with a labored walk he makes his way to it, holding his flailing arm. He leans against it with his head, he lets out a loud growl as he slams his shoulder against the wet rock wall. He feels it set, painful, but he is relieved he can move it. He pulls off the mangled, torn glove and tosses it to the ground, opening, and closing his hand until he feels it fully come back. Walking back to where he awoke, he looks around for his belongings, all of which seem to be mostly buried in the sand. He finds his canteen, and pack, and his helm still attached. Beneath where his head lay, he finds his hat, after scrounging around in the sand. He untucks his black shirt and shakes the sand off of him, pulls off his boots, expels the sand from them, then finally strips off his pants, and brushes himself off. Draping his belongings over his horse’s back he stands to pee, looking up at the sky as he drains his bladder, finally finding some type of comfort from the sky above, as the clouds start to swallow the sun.
Pantless, gripping his cock with his one still gloved hand, he gets startled;
‘YOU THERE! State your business in our kingdom!’
Behind him, he hears the clanging of swords and boots in stirrups, he suspects 8 men or so, still he pees;
“Well, right now I guess I’m peeing on, or in your kingdom, whichever you… which, want, or-”
He doesn't finish his thought, his brain is still rattled, fried from the sun. He shakes his head, then turns his head to look over his shoulder. He was off by one, there were 7, 6 soldiers and one officer, light armor and swords sheathed. He turns back, and as he still pees, he hears them come closer, now just feet behind him, his horse still grazing, without a care in the world. The officer jumps off his horse, then the rest follow. He shakes his cock, and finally, the last drip falls to the sand. He turns, and the officer is standing arm's length away, the men behind gripping their swords.
‘Where are your pants?’ The officer asks, maintaining eye contact.
“Uh, well, they are…there”
He points to his horse.
‘I mean, why are they off?’
“Oh, yes, well, I woke up here, buried in the sand, and needed to uh…clean the sand out.”
‘What is your business here? I haven’t seen you in these lands.’
“I, I, uh, don’t…recall. I hit my head.” He does recall.
‘Fetch your pants, and please come with us, we will see to your injuries. Fear not, you are with the queen's guard.’
He says with a commanding, proud voice. The pantless man walks to his horse and makes like he’s going to grab his pants, but he just hovers;
“I will not go with you.”
The officer is already about to get on his horse when he stops and turns his ear to him;
‘Excuse me? I fear I didn’t hear you.’
“I’m sure you did. I fucked your beloved queen last night. I’m a wanted man…in more ways than one, you see. Not only that, but I can’t go with you.”
He says, his back turned to them, he hears them all draw their swords. His gloved hand finds the shaft of his dagger. Over his shoulder, he hears the officer charge at him, and with one swift movement with one hand he grabs his sword, and with the other, he turns and throws the dagger at the officer, it lands just on the inside of his nose, he’s shocked to see the butt hits him, not the blade as he wanted, but still the officer drops to his knees, and then onto his face. He runs to the officer quickly picks up his dagger, and flips it, so the blade is in his hand. The soldiers surround him, swords ready they just circle him, he stands, arms at his sides, waiting for any sounds of haste. Behind him he hears a man lunge, he spins quickly, throwing his dagger again, and this time it lands, blade first between the man's eyes. Before the man can even fall, he has already pulled the blade out and turned to then stab the man behind him, just underneath his chin. After that man falls, he spins with his sword at the remaining men in a line behind him, one soldier catches his gaze, and he has to reevaluate, a young boy, barely any hair shone on his face. The larger of the soldiers step out, second in command, based on his garb. The others stand back as the two circles and their swords clang. The soldier goes to pull his dagger from its sheath and the pantless man kicks sand in his face, and swings his sword as hard as his pained body can, and the force is enough to break the man’s sword, he just looks at his broken sword in awe, and the pantless man just slides his sword into the man’s throat with a smooth, quick lunge.
The two soldiers and the boy stand with their swords out, the boy lunges and the pantless man spins around, putting his back to the boy, he wraps his hand around the boy's arm with the sword, and then elbows him with the other. The boy falls to the ground, nose bloodied, he’s dizzied and out of sorts. The other two both lunge at the pantless man and he simply swats the swords out of the way as they lunge, spins again, and with the dagger stabs one in the neck, and with his sword slashes at the other’s throat. They fall to their knees, clasping their necks.
The boy grabs his dagger and jumps to his feet, nose still leaking blood, he lunges at the man, with his sword he just slaps the boy's hand with the broad side, and the dagger falls to the sand.
“Put that away bastard boy, your mother-queen would be none too happy you tried killing the one man that knows who you are. Now let me put my dammed trousers on."
The boy stands, still shocked;
‘Who-who are you? You-you just demolished the king-queen guard…they’re all dead.’
Pulling on his trousers;
“Yes, boy, there is a lot you likely don’t know, that you can’t yet understand.. The goings on behind the veil. You may go, boy. Tell your mother what happened here, but ONLY your mother! Trust not another soul!’
He walks over to the boy, grabs him by the back of the neck, and gets in his face;
“Tell me you hear me, boy, all will come to light in time.”
The boy nods, his eyes well up. He picks up the dagger climbs on his horse, and trots off. The man watches as the boy scales the dunes, and waits until he can see him no longer, then with his mouth he makes a clicking sound, and pulls a small leather pouch from his pack. He makes the clicking noise some more, and a large black bird swoops down and lands on his horse, with scraggly feathers, piercing, bright green eyes, red beak. The bird hops up to where the man is digging through his small pouch and nuzzles his arm.
“Where-ugh, I need to get more stones-Ah, here one is”
He pulls out a white stone, in his pouch are a variety of stones, different colors, and different meanings. He pets the bird and puts the stone in its beak.
“Ok, take this to her, be careful, you know the deal, fly safe, my friend”
The bird stretches its wings, nuzzles him again, and flies away. He picks apart the bodies of the guardsmen, grabbing their coins, and checking for anything of use to him. After dragging their bodies, one by one up the hill into the grass using his horse he spends the rest of the afternoon digging holes and burying them. Sweaty, and tired he says aloud;
“Though wanting my death from your blade, you served your kingdom, and you served well, your death fell upon you from powers way beyond your control.”
He takes the canteens, and food he has collected from them and carries them to his horse, he can barely climb atop his horse with how tired he is, body sore. He looks out to the water, and he can see the tide growing, he knows he needs to hurry to get to his cave before it fully comes in. His horse trots them away, up the hill, heading towards the crag, it’s dawn now as he slumps over on his horse, holding the reins. His horse pauses, looks back, neighs, and then keeps walking. They get to the face of the mountain, and the tide is fast coming, the path is just barely ankle deep. Overlooking the water they get to the cave, the horse neighs again, and twitches, and with that his body rolls off the horse's back. The impact wakes him;
“Ouch, ugh, ok, time for a fire I say, what do you think Nightmare?”
The horse neighs again. The man sets the fire, pulls his clothes off, and hangs them with the others hung on a line near the fire. He eats some bread, an apple, and dried meat as he sits on a makeshift hay bed. Lying on his back after sipping one of the canteens, his lids heavy he drops the canteen and falls fast asleep as the fire crackles. Rain starts to poor, the cave entrance illuminated by the fire as the blackbird swoops in, he caws and shakes the rain off his feathers. He lands at the base of the man’s bed and from his beak falls a small red stone.
