Vadar
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse
The feeling of a warm embrace is what eventually rouses Vadar from his blackout. Blinking into the overhead sun, he felt as if his life had become nothing more than a series of hazy, intermittent flashes of light and dark. He knew, without having to hear it from someone else, that his sickness was probably starting to get the better of him. The next time he fell into unconsciousness might be his last.
He sighs.
What he’d prefer to do would be just lying here in the numbness. His legs seemed refreshed by the seawater, (stiff but refreshed) and his body felt stable in the moment. Only his nose tickled from a slight pressure; he sneezed and sand flew away.
It tickled him again.
Lifting his head, Vadar felt the punch of awareness knocking around inside of his skull. Like a raging alcoholic coming around from an all-nighter, his ears rang and his vision blurred. He felt nauseous. It was all he could do to close his eyes and stop the world from spinning, focusing by sheer force on the pressure that had moved from his nose to his knee.
He opened his eyes.
A creature made entirely of sand was poised near his hairless, bent foreleg. It’s two upright hind legs were tiny pillars of beach sand supporting a square, stout torso with two sandy, stumpy arms that rested on Vadar’s skin. It looked up at him with the same blank, hollow expression as the rock monster had; just waiting for something. For what, Vadar couldn’t be sure, but he assumed the small creature would let him know when it was ready.
Shifting a bit to unravel himself, the black stallion grunted and rose up from the shoreline. The poor sand thing wasn’t fast enough and dissolved from the gentle nudge of his legs as they swung out to balance, causing Vadar to mutter, “Oh shit, sorry.”
It didn’t matter though; to his right the sands began to shift and bubble. He turned his face to look, felt the aching throb from his shredded foreleg where it began to bleed fresh, and watched silently as a small bump grew a head, then stumpy forearms, and then finally two more sandy legs. His little creature had woken again and stood patiently waiting. Without sound or gesture it turned away from the red-eyed male and began moving towards the distant structures closer inland.
“Want me to follow, little guy?” Vadar asked pointlessly, because it didn’t turn back to answer. Be it figment of his fever imagination or real, the clown-faced vagabond couldn’t help but chuckle at its steady determination, so he conceded with a sigh and limped ahead as well.
Hopefully right doesn’t make a wrong