It had felt like being rocked within a cradle. Killian murmured indistinctly - something he could not remember upon waking - and felt the soft touch upon his lips as he was laid down. It was warm, and he could hear the sounds of the lapping waves. So clearly could they be heard that he might have very well been back in his childhood bedroom, resting within the crooked little house in Cantelcross. When Killian sucked in a breath to yawn, he choked and winced at the fierce, burning agony in his chest.
Then he threw up.
Rolling over onto his stomach, he wretched for several long minutes; his fingers clenching together so tightly in the course sand that the grains dug painful marks into his flesh. Eventually, the violent expulsions of seawater calmed into intervals of heavy, wracking coughs, until the last drops of brine-laden bile were forced from his system. With shaking arms, Killian willed himself into a sitting position, carelessly wiping the sickness from his mouth with a tattered sleeve. Light of the morning sun combined with salt and sand to render his vision blurry and uncomfortable. Killian's mind was heavy with the lethargy of near-death, and struggled to make any sense of the foreign surroundings.
He was on a beach - that much was clear - though he had little idea of how he wound up there. There had been a storm. He had been running upstairs when the mast had fallen. Then? Darkness, and the phantoms that he could no more discern between wakefulness and sleep than a blind man the difference between colors.
Shifting slightly, he winced. However he had made it to land alive and in one piece, it had obviously been a difficult journey. His shirt was torn through in multiple places, and he was missing a boot; the one boot that remained upon his left foot was of little use, as its exposure to the sea had been too much to keep the sole fully intact. All of his clothes were soaked through. It seemed as if the warmth of the morning sun he had felt upon waking had been, for the most part, an illusion.
Killian pulled his knees to his chest as he shivered, feeling every aching bruise as he did so. Fortunately, it seemed that he had not broken any bones, at least from what he could tell. Cautiously, he rose to his feet. Looking around the strand, he could see a dozen or so splintered boards, broken lines of rope, and other detritus that had been as lucky as he to have been brought ashore from the wreck. Off in the distance, he thought he could see a couple of small islets.
Just past the thin shoreline, the land rose at a gradual incline. A perceptible divide between beach and forest could be seen where patches of hairgrass sprouted up from the coast. This would have to be a fairly larger island along their route, Killian surmised. Most of the formations that sprung out of the sea in the island cluster were hardly more than sizable boulders. Utterly uninhabitable as they were, there were few land masses in-between the Beak and the Tooth that any sane person would hazard a settlement on.
If he had wound up here, Killian wondered where the rest of the longship had been carried to. He thought about whether or not any of the Orcs had made it to this island, or any of the crew, or … his next breath caught in his throat. How could he have forgotten something so important? Stumbling on unsteady legs, he frantically scanned the surrounding beach. His knees buckled twice as he began to trudge along the shore with the gait of a newborn fawn.
Worry turned to panic as he searched as far up as the treeline to no avail. It was after nearly a quarter-mile that Killian came upon a cluster of boulders. He lurched over to them at once to begin his investigation anew. When at last he found the case of his lute - battered and laden with seaweed, though closed and intact - he let out an ecstatic cry of glee. He was so excited that he nearly missed the corpse that lay alongside it.
A yelp of surprise escaped his lips as he reeled backwards in alarm. As his knees buckled for the third time and finally relented, he fell hard onto his back, scurrying still further away from the ghastly sight. Waiting until his frayed nerves had been mended enough to gather courage, Killian cautiously crept back towards the rocks, peering over on all fours. There, beside what was certainly his lute, lay the battered body of an orc. It was splayed over the stones, limbs cocked in haphazard positions, as if it were a broken toy cast away by the hands of a giant.
Greyish-green skin was tinted with just a tinge of blue - evidence of the long exposure to the icy sea. Killian winced as he noticed the right leg bent at a severe sideward angle, and worried that the creature may yet be alive, until he saw its face. Half-opened lids framed milky eyes; parted lips were in the midst of speaking unheard last words before they were quieted. His expression - for the orc had been a young male - was one of sudden surprise. It was not the shock of death; more so the look that would fit on someone who had been told some mildly interesting news.
One of the arms looked as if it was reaching out to grasp the handle of Killian's lute. This was impossible, however, because it no longer possessed a hand. Where the forearm would have connected to the wrist there was instead an abrupt termination, marked with a clean stump caked in dark, dried gore. Swallowing hard, Killian reached a hand into the display and quickly snatched up the object of the corpse's fascination. He removed himself hastily from the discomforting sight.
Tears began to well up in his eyes as he clutched the case to his chest, as if at any moment it would be yanked away from his grasp. He knelt down and tenderly unclasped the latches, holding his breath as he awaited what he would see within. He released that breath a moment later with immense relief. Though there had been a slight amount of water damage to the interior of the case, it appeared that no harm had come to the precious instrument. He quickly resealed the container and slung it over his back, testing the strap's ability after its ordeal.
Verifying its integrity, Killian began to at last assess his newfound and unprecedented circumstances. He was fairly confident that he was still within the Shattered Isles, though which of the varying unnamed landforms he could not say on which he now resided. It was decided that his best course of action should be to identify if anybody else had made it to the island alive. Following the coast from the woodline, where the grass softened his steps, Killian began to navigate in a clockwise fashion. He carried on this way for nearly an hour.
At first, there was so little change in the scenery that it felt as if he were going in circles. However, little by little, there was a noticeable increase in the amount of wreckage present in the natural landscape. Following this was what Killian dreaded, though never discarded as a likelihood. A scattering of remains littered the beach like the aftermath of a decisive battle. Stopping in his tracks, Killian surveyed the open-air cemetery with grim resolution.
An orc lay face down in the tide, the waves gently nudging the body to wake it from its endless sleep. Closer to Killian, a Dwarven sailor was facing the sky, limbs outstretched and face frozen in a final desperation. He was near enough to identify the remains as Rulger before carrying on from the macabre display. Several more bodies were passed with nothing to give in way of signs of life. Surely he had not been the only survivor, he couldn't have been.
Sore, hungry, and chilled to the bone, Killian tried to retain some assurance of his escape, but uncertainties were beginning to creep into his mind despite these efforts. What if he had been the only survivor? What if he was left stranded on an uninhabited island with no means of escape? Worse yet, what if the island wasn't uninhabited? He had lived a long enough life as a Mid-Islander to have heard all sorts of ballads and tales telling of the multitude of unnatural creatures one could find when venturing far enough into the outskirts of civilization.
Thoughts of these shadowy fiends - the idea of them lurking just beyond his line of sight - worked Killian up into a frightened paranoia. He actually squealed when a noise came from within the copse of trees ahead. It sounded like a low groan, and Killian's mind conjured up images of a ferocious furry beast, a dripping maw of teeth like razors ready to pounce. When nothing of the sort happened, he once again had to force his heart to slow. When the noise resounded through the wood once more, Killian took the time to listen.
He was shocked to recognize the sound as human, and at once pushed through the brush and bramble to locate the source, gladdened by the mere possibility of finding another living soul. When he entered the small clearing, he realized that living was something the man may not be doing much of in the hours to come. Propped up against a tree, his eyes were clenched shut in a pained expression; beads of perspiration coating his face. A fresh stain of blood inked through his shirt just above his navel. A trench–like trail indicated that he had dragged himself to where he now rested.
It must have been an immensely painful ordeal to do so, considering the massive wooden splinter that jutted out from the center of the thigh on his left leg. His breathing was ragged and uneven, and it was clear the man had no knowledge that he had been followed. Killian stepped forward resolutely, determined not to be left alone in such an alien place. Upon doing so, he at last got a clear look at the man's face and gasped in shock. This finally alerted the survivor to his presence; with difficulty, he opened his eyes to regard his visitor, and managed a weak smile that cracked his dried lips.
He managed to speak, but through the exhaustion and agony could only manage a single hoarse word before succumbing to his wounds.
"Uncle"