Horizon Ridge methods of rationality [read only]
now known as<br><strong>OBSIDIAN KESUK,</strong><bR>amnesiac
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Ooc — Sophie
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#1
READ ONLY. MORNING OF 3/18/14.

Akhlut had gone through stages of frustration, anger, guilt, and sadness over Pied's departure from Horizon Ridge. Kisu had been a loyal member but had done little else to earn Akhlut's respect; they had been distant, much as Akhlut found he had been distant with everyone. But with Pied he had felt a connection, whatever its nature, and her abandonment planted a bitter seed within him, for she'd sworn fealty to Horizon Ridge that would supercede her love for Kisu, and now she'd turned on that pledge and taken her mate away with her. Akhlut was sure she'd had her reasons, whatever they were, but he couldn't help but feel betrayed and hurt by the absence of the only wolf he'd considered a friend.

These conflicting emotions warred within his chest and occupied his mind; his gaze was laid upon the mist that rolled in off the sea but he didn't really see it. The glow of early dawn light went unnoticed. Beneath his paws, Horizon Ridge was but a cold sliver of stone upon the coast, for once not the least bit comforting or reassuring to the male who called it home. Dampness clung to his fur, and a recent rain had left the lands cool and clammy. The gloom was a match for the male's melancholy mood, and so he let himself become lost in it, the guest of honor at his own pity party.

It was incongruous that the sound of rock splashing into the ocean was the next thing he was aware of. It was bizarre that the waves were so close, the horizon pitched at such an angle, the Ridge no longer beneath him. Instinct had him scrabbling for a hold upon the cliff face--and when had there ever been a cliff face rising up on Horizon Ridge? Except that there wasn't, and he wasn't atop the Ridge anymore, but falling, trying to cling to the rock wall, and failing, and scraping bumping sliding slamming---

Plunging deep into murky green water, narrowly avoiding the rocky shallows to sink so far the light didn't penetrate. His eyes burned. Every scrape and cut caught on fire. He breathed in ocean water and coughed out ocean water and gasped it in again. He kicked towards the distant glimmer that seemed to be beneath him but was in fact above, instinct telling him to just keep moving. A boulder that had crumbled from the cliffside caught him square in the belly and its weight was an anchor, sinking him fast, dragging him away from sun and air and light and life. Then he was free of it, moving again, up and up.

Akhlut surfaced, sputtering and gasping, unable to see for the fog that surrounded him. Falling rocks plunged into the waves alongside him, and he was awake only long enough to register that he was alive, and hadn't died from the fall alone, when something hard collided with the back of his head. Light flashed before him, and he was able to cling to a sea rock and half-haul himself out onto its slippery, algae-carpeted surface, before the darkness of unconsciousness enveloped him...