Ankyra Sound death-pale regrets

Beneath the waning light of dawn, something stirs against the shoreline. The sea breathes him out like a forgotten secret, foam clinging to fur, salt staining skin that once belonged to the mountain’s cold. A specter reborn upon the sand. The wound along his right flank, long since sealed, glimmers faintly under the sun’s pale caress; a relic of violence past, when fang met flesh and the cougar’s roar faded into silence.
A low, ragged cough tore through his chest, scattering the rhythm of the waves. How long had it been since the darkness took him? Time, in its cruel indifference, left no answer. Disoriented, the wraith lifted his head, water trailing from his muzzle as the brine-heavy wind filled his lungs. The scent of kelp and stone, familiar, hauntingly so, wrapped around him like a memory half-remembered.
Another breath, another cough, and he forced his limbs beneath him. Muscles trembled with protest, yet will alone pushed him upright. With a sharp shake, droplets flew from his coat, glittering like shards of glass in the morning light. He had never been fond of water; it clung too closely, seeped too deep, and spoke in a language he could not trust. The sea might have spared him, but he would not linger to test its mercy twice.
His gaze, pale and cold as polished steel, drifted across the empty horizon. The north stretched before him, bleak, beautiful, and merciless as ever. There would be time to wander its frozen veins, to recall the names buried beneath the snow. Then, perhaps, he would turn south once more. For now, he walked; one ghost returned to a world that had already forgotten him.