To see him, one might think he was dead. They way he lay silent, still, lifeless, in the shallow waters of a tidepool. His wounds were still fresh, blood trickling slowly into the water, tinging it before dissipating. Salt from sea water burned in the cuts but it seemed a haze; a feeling far off in his mind. What was dream? What was reality? The two merged into a hazy middle ground where the pain of what he knew was far greater than the gash in his side.

Stoneclaw had fallen.

Humans had run them off and looking back, he realized what a fool he had been to think it was a good idea to set up in a human settlement. The creatures had proved to be migratory. He should have known they'd return and by the size of the village he should have known that they would come with numbers far greater than the remnants of the pride. Stoneclaw had fallen and it was his fault. All that work, rising in the ranks from a nobody to a Warrior. A Warrior Chief. A King. For what? To lay injured and possibly dying in a tidepool, the remnants of a once great empire scattered to the wind?

Perhaps he deserved what was coming for him.

Nexys drifted into sleep, seagulls circling overhead, lulled away by ocean waves on soft sand and the warmth of the sun.