Redhawk Caldera I'll drown the urge for permanence and certainty

He remembered the smell and the tired sound of waves washing against a rocky shore. Salt and stillness. A subtle calm, thought it stilled him not. Familiar pictures, so distant now, appeared in dreams with unmistakable clarity. Lives lived; fruitless and abandoned. The ghosts of memory had come to haunt again.

He remembered fear. How dark the night had been with moon and stars alike blotted out by an inky black sky. How he'd kept himself silent lest he be spotted by a wayward patrol. It was as real as it had ever been, and it was always the same.

He was running again. Chest heaving with ragged breath and legs screaming for reprieve, Whip knew he would only be safe again with Themiscyra at his back. Only then could he stop and rest.

***

Whip awoke with a jolt and the fresh taste of blood in his mouth. The urge to wretch settled over him like a heavy miasma, yet he swallowed it back as the taste began to fade. It was but a remnant of a memory -- a parting gift of a nightmare lived. 

Emerging from a hastily dug den, Whip pushed pleats of freshly fallen snow aside. He found steady footing and breathed deep before shaking the snow that dusted his back free. There was something about cold air, he thought, something cleansing. With every breath, he could feel his center slowly return.

He was home. The Caldera hadn't changed save for the fallen snow, and as he looked upon its rise with a wistful bewilderment.