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Slow, steady hissing, rising in volume, fading away... rising again, fading back. Taste of salt on his tongue, cold grip of water seeping through his fur and weighing down his body, thousands of little needles digging into his skin beneath... grit of sand between his teeth, solid stone under his body. That didn't seem right. A sharp pain shot through his shoulder, then his upper back, then his hip, and his leg. None of that seemed right. He struggled to open his eyes, to look upon the spinning world beyond, indistinct as though he looked at it through a fogged glass. Taste of salt, and char.

There had been a fire. A strike of lightning from a night sky muddled with thick clouds, or a lantern knocked off its post belowdecks from a sudden jolt of a jutting reef, or - no - it was the fist of a god, of the guardians of the north. There is a reason that these seas remained unmapped. The sails of the ship billowed and tore beneath relentless wind, suddenly shredded like the body of one of the crewmen tossed from the deck at a wave's crest and across the gaping maw of a seamount's peak, so many jagged, stony teeth piercing through the unsteady surface of the sea. Arm-thick ropes twisted, splintered, and snapped under the storm, flailing and swinging about like enraged serpents, dragging other crewmembers out into the black waters below. He saw Norrick thrown overboard, soaked fur suddenly missing where the rope had scalded his body; then went Lorra, scream muted beneath the drumming rain and pounding waves; then Meril and Dorian, claimed by the waves tossing the boat, and Captain Angelus beneath the fallen main mast. Deliberate and meticulous, one at a time. Always one. And then the sky turned its focus on him.

A deafening crack, loud enough to carry a physical force behind it. Maybe it was a second bolt of lightning, maybe it was the sound of the ship splitting in two. If anything, at least it couldn't have been the shock of the back of his skull hitting the brass rope cleat along the rail of the deck - that came a second later, after he felt his feet leave the wood beneath him, and his eyes looked up at that same roiling sky.

_ _

Then, for a moment, he saw nothing.

_ _

Cyrus forced himself to sit upright, though immediately regretted the sudden movement. Every part of the lion's body ached, protesting each little shift in posture or position. The hissing continued, in and out; it took another moment for his dazed head to realize that that had to be the sound of waves, washing up along some unseen shore. In fact, most of what he had in front of him remained unseen: he held his paws in front of his face, turning them back and forth, and could just barely make out the lines of his fingers. For a second his heart leapt into his throat, though he forced it back down. If the storm claimed only his sight instead of his life, he should consider himself lucky.

But - no; light filtered in at the edge of his vision, bright greyish-white looking nearly solid in the darkness. Beyond that mouth the sky stirred, smooth concrete-grey, over a dark ocean. A cave, then: he shielded his eyes against the light with a paw, though managed to see that it looked over a smooth, curving beach, black sand glittering beneath the hidden sun.

Neither dead nor blinded, then, yet stranded; in all his years at sea Cyrus could recall only three beaches he'd visited with black sands, and the closest of those from where his ship had gone down waited a four months' voyage southeast.

The lion swallowed, then regretted it and spat instead. Salt and sand in his mouth, dry throat, taste of blood at his cheek. Looking out at the light ignited a painful thumping at the back of his skull; he turned away. "Maybe," he muttered to himself, "this is a punishment instead of a mercy." He had nobody else to speak to.

Or - so he thought at first. A stirring issued from deeper in the cave, the sound of... something dragging lightly across the stone floor, followed by what could only be a snort and huff of breath. Cyrus swallowed again, regretted it again, squinted into the darkness with a paw shielding his eyes from the light - and then this time felt his heart nearly stop. Yellow eyes, predator's eyes, caught the intruding sunlight and glowed in the shadows; a second puff of breath steamed out. It couldn't have reached him over here, but still, a cold shiver bounced through the lion's body. Those eyes, the silhouette of a vaguely reptilian snout in the darkness, the smooth, curving lines of the body, the thing altogether at least twice the size of a feral horse from back home.

He felt as though he should run through the names of each and every god he'd learned about, but in that moment, nothing came to him. It felt as if his body froze up, shaken loose only when the thing, the giant lizard, tilted its head and leaned in a little closer. No, not a lizard at all. A dragon. Those yellow eyes flicked up and down his body, then settled on his muzzle. An uncomfortable gaze, sharp, heavy.

And then the dragon spoke. In a low yet soft voice, rumbling like the sounds of old ship planks straining against one another on a calm ocean: "You are awake. That is... good."

Cyrus's mouth hung open. Sharp, sharp teeth, yellow-white fangs easily as long as his paw, reflected what little light came that far into the cave, making it look so much brighter; between those teeth flicked a dangerously long tongue, smooth and serpentine in itself. How did it have enough space in its mouth for that?

The waves continued crashing along the shore outside. The dragon tilted its head to the side. "You... can hear? Can speak? Can... understand?"

Ignoring the angered throbbing in his head, Cyrus pulled himself to his feet, steadied himself against the cool cave wall, and left. Hallucinations sometimes came after a blow to the skull like he'd experienced on the ship; sometimes they lingered, sometimes they faded within the day, sometimes they never went away. It felt good to use his legs, at least, felt good to move himself and walk along solid land after being pitched around on the surface of the water for the past two months. The sounds of heavy, clawed footsteps behind him put a bit of extra _motivation_to his step, until he felt those grains of sand beneath his bare footpaws.

What a place to end up stranded. Middle-northern seas, cold but not freezing; he looked across the ocean, deep blue-grey as if it had swallowed the clouds from the storm, then turned - and gasped. Like those rocks that had torn the side of the ship, this island looked to be a jumble of straight, jagged peaks, black rocks slashing up into the sky with little space in between for valleys or much of anything else.

At least Cyrus could feel the sun out here, and he'd made no progress drying off if he just sat around in a shadowed cave. So the lion continued walking, weaving his way along the thin, twisting beach, reaching out to brace himself against the various boulders sticking up from beneath. Again and again the events of the day - had it been a day? How much time had passed since the storm? - whisked through his head, each passing more muddled than the one before. No maps, so he had no idea if this island had been nearby in the first place; as for other survivors, if they'd washed up, he'd have to find them.

And so he continued further. By holding a paw up to the horizon and judging the height of the sun behind the lightly-laced clouds, it took him roughly three hours to cross from one side of the island to the other, carefully watching his step over the endless crags and ridges, stumbling into a small yet startlingly lush patch of forest in the center, then coming back out across more black sands over the other side. Every now and then he put that paw to the side of his maw and called out, shouting for those of his crew that may still be alive, those whose lives he hadn't seen ended himself. Nothing but the crashing of waves responded.

With his body pleading for him to stop and rest, Cyrus decided he would be better off to return to the forested region of the island and stay there for the night, building a fire and meager shelter for himself. Good thing, too: the clouds closed back in over the sky and thickened again, threatening another storm that thankfully never came. Now with the sounds of strange wildlife all around him, he couldn't help but think of the dragon he'd seen in that cave. What had it been doing there? Had it _saved_him? Dragons were supposed to be - well, myths. Sailors' tales told of gigantic beasts seizing the lost and forlorn, dragging them off into the depths or to their...

To their island lairs. The tales all stopped there, leaving the ending to imagination. No, Cyrus resolved to himself, giving his mane a shake. It had almost finished drying out. Just tales. I did hit my head fairly hard. I'll head back in the morning and it'll be gone. Good to have a cave for shelter, and it's far enough away that it should keep me safe from whatever's out here.

Exhaustion gripped him before much longer, and then dreamless sleep yielded him back to the waking world some time before the break of dawn, though after those clouds had started to rain down upon him. Cyrus had spent more than enough time on uninhabited islands in his career across the seas, and as such worked through his various aches to prepare, eventually making his way back over the crags to the other shore with a makeshift rack of firewood slung across his back, some thick leaves under one arm, a sheaf of tree fibers under the other. That resulted in a greater challenge making his way back up the gentle slope towards the cave, and then he might as well have left everything on the shore anyway, since he ended up dropping it as soon as his eyes acclimated to the darkness again.

There were those yellow eyes still, watching him. The dragon had come forward a bit, a good half of its body visible in the wan sunlight. Smooth white scaled underbelly, melding to a deeper blue along the top of its body; it looked streamlined, all soft curves and arcs. A water dragon, then, a hunter of the sea. It tilted its head again, curious and contemplating, though made no move to advance further.

So Cyrus ignored it in turn, settling down to build his fire. That gaze seemed to put a steady weight on his shoulders, though, and the longer he ignored it, the more he _wanted_to return that look. So eventually, base of the fire stacked up and the striking sticks held in his paws, he finally brought himself to turn and look back. The dragon just tilted its head the other way, then flicked that long tongue out across its chops - but it wasn't an intimidating or hungry look. Just... curious.

For another few hours, the lion started to think that he'd imagined the dragon speaking to him. It just continued to watch him, occasionally looking down at the fire or at what he was doing with it; his empty stomach rumbled, yet he remained where he sat. Certainly not the weather to hunt, and he hadn't yet prepared something with which to fish. At some point Cyrus must have drifted off again: between when he closed his eyes and then opened them after what felt like only a minute, he found himself alone in the cave.

Gradually the sky darkened again, time passing a bit quicker once he found a good chunk of flint near the mouth of the cave, and started to whittle down one of the fatter sticks he'd brought. Movement outside the cave brought that makeshift spear swinging into his paws, ready to strike - though the dragon continued padding forward towards him, apparently unconcerned, in no real hurry. It came right up to him, Cyrus shrinking back against the cave wall with the weapon pointed out at its thick chest... and then it tilted its head down, opened its jaws, and dropped a mouthful of whole, intact fish at his feet, some of them still flopping.

Then, it waited until he met its eyes again. "You are hungry," it said, in that same voice as before. That in itself was apparently enough to bring Cyrus's headache back. "You are wounded. Cannot hunt for yourself, so I will."

Still, though, a meal was a meal. The dragon settled back into its place and watched, amusement flickering across its face, as Cyrus skewered the fish and turned them over the fire. This repeated night after night, the lion sometimes waking up to find the fish already there, sometimes feeling a chill shoot up his back when his instincts told him something had come into the cave behind him - and turning to see the dragon with its head lowered and eyes fixed on his muzzle, looking like a giant housepet caught in the act of vomiting on the floor.

As more time passed, though, as more days crossed the sky and Cyrus tracked the moon in its path, he came to... trust the dragon somewhat more. That, or he distrusted it - him; so much time spent loitering in the cave near one another had led to conversations gradually extending in length and depth, introductions, questions, familiarization... his name was Xanthus - progressively less. A sea dragon, he was, "not the kind eternally lurking the black depths" but rather an amphibious sort: one evening Xanthus rolled onto his side and allowed Cyrus to come forward and touch him, feeling the texture of his body and the shape of his feet.

Not so much scales nor skin, but something halfway between; the skin of a snake, almost, and short yet slim legs ending in splayed feet, thin but sturdy webbing between the toes. This close Cyrus could also recognize the dragon's scent, something heavy and dark and wet, the same that he'd just assumed to be the smell of the clinging moss and always-wet rocks in the cavern. At this point a good half-month had passed since the wreck of his ship, and in that time, he had started to feel... lonesome, in a way.

So, even despite himself, he found himself enjoying the contact, the little touches across the much larger dragon's body, the occasional glance up to see those yellow eyes watching him. They'd never been sharp, had never been predatory: now he could look into them and see just that soft curiosity that Xanthus shone his way whenever the lion did something "unusual" to his kind. Between those toes, simmering at the base of his webbings was a notable warmth, against Cyrus's original assumption that the sea dragon would be cold-blooded. Not heat, but rather a slight, subtle warmth, easily palpable in the chill of the cave.

The strangest part was, though, Cyrus soon found himself nearly lost in the contact. Running his fingers along Xanthus's webbings, pressing against the stiffer underside of his feet, tracing up along his legs... the lion's eyes drifted forward and down across his white-tinted belly, smooth scales arcing back and showing first a thin, glistening slit between those hind legs, and past that a small pinkish pucker of flesh. Cyrus swallowed and risked a brush of his fingers there, acting as though he were only reaching to heft the dragon's tail in his arms. That pucker looked only small on the dragon's meaty body: the diameter of it here easily spanned three of the lion's fingers held side by side.

At the end of that week, Xanthus awoke to find himself alone in the cavern again - and this time with a persistent annoyance throbbing between his legs, something he had had neither the motivation nor energy to indulge in since the wreck. Then suddenly there had been the dragon those couple nights ago, that thick, musty scent floating around the lion's nose and head, the feeling of his body beneath his paws, that slit and tailhole... he pulled himself up in the bed of fallen leaves and gathered moss he'd made for himself from outside and slid his trousers down his thighs, just far enough to wrap his paw around his twitching shaft. One stroke turned to many more, seconds stretched into minutes, his jaw fell open and his head bumped against the moist rock wall behind him - and before long he felt the peak, the sharp burst and wave of pleasure rolling over him and forcing him to buck and jerk up into his paw.

_ _

After nearly a month straight of aches, and cold, and hunger, and scrapes, and a general malaise settling over his mind and body both, now there was this immense sweet pleasure shaking through him, pulling on his energy, dragging a heavy moan from between his lips and leaving him spent where he sat, head still resting back against the wall, mouth hanging open and his own load sprayed across his chest. That added another different scent to the cave, soft and subtle yet certainly there.

A noise from near the mouth of the cave shocked him upright, though, and he scrambled to tug his pants back up once he caught sight of Xanthus treading back into the cave. It looked like the dragon hadn't noticed; Cyrus took a few deep breaths, coughed, and rose to his feet to greet him. And he thought nothing more of the event.

Xanthus popped into his thoughts and - imaginings on several further occasions, however, the sleek dragon always sliding his way in, ever more forcefully as the two continued to talk over a fire or lean against one another, or travel the black sands of the beach in the afternoons. One morning when Cyrus had made his way back across the ridges toward the forest to continue working on a fishing raft, the only thing - or things, rather - that stuck in the forefront of his mind while he cut through the underbrush seeking sturdy vines to tie the thing together with, was those two 'little' bits of the dragon's body he'd seen and brushed that one night.

He thought about slipping a thumb into that slit and then another, imagining the flesh inside to have that same gentle warmth as between his webbings; he imagined pulling him gently open, seeing the point of his shaft buried within - what would that look like, actually? Would he be able to coax it out with some nuzzling and licking, or was it always partially out? - and then he thought above moving down, pursing his lips against and around that puckered tailhole, easily working his tongue in and then one, two, three fingers... probably a fourth easily, then he could sink his wrist in as well, deeper and deeper until he could nearly push the dragon's length out from his slit from inside his body-

-and then he unloaded yet again, this time all across the in-progress floor of his raft with one arm leaning against the mast for balance. He'd put so much weight against it that it had tilted a bit, and remained angled after he'd pulled himself up and away. When he returned to the cave later in the afternoon, he forced himself to make eye contact with the dragon despite his embarrassment and temptation to instead look elsewhere. Like usual, though, Xanthus held that same look of faint amusement mixed with curiosity.

That look reached its own peak within the next week, once Cyrus's clothing finally degraded to the point where he could no longer wear it. The lion bustled around that day trying to gather materials to weave his own, from tree fibers and long grasses and various other things, then struggled to cover himself and keep out of view when Xanthus watched him try. "Why do you bother?" the dragon asked, reaching forward to run a talon across the pile of gathered fibers. "You already have a hide and fur. Why make another?"

Of course he wouldn't understand. Cyrus tried to explain it, but found himself stuttering and stumbling over his own words two sentences in; frustrated with himself and not the least bit embarrassed - here he was, naked and close enough to the big feral dragon to touch, which in itself ignited some of that familiar stirring between his legs - he sighed, stood, and started towards the mouth of the cave to cool himself off.

Xanthus didn't let him get far, though. A heavy forefoot clamped down on his shoulder, not pushing him down but certainly firm enough to keep him in place; "Actually," that smooth, low voice rumbled over his shoulder, "this is a good... opportunity. I have been curious about you. Particularly..." Then, warm breath down his back, curling around his bare waist, tickling at the base of his tail - which he felt shoot upright from the shock and embarrassment. For a moment he feared that the dragon might be able to read his mind, too: this had been _precisely_one of his commonly-revisited fantasies over the several weeks that had passed, with that long, thick serpentine tongue pressing up into him from behind...

"...about this..."

But instead of sinking under his tail, that tongue instead came around, the dragon's snout sideways against his hip, and curled around the base of his already half-hard cock. One, two, three coils, firm yet soft, deliciously wet and slick; they gripped and squeezed, then pulled smoothly, sweetly up towards the end, bunching his foreskin up over his head - which the tip of the dragon's tongue then tickled and touched against as it started to wriggle its way beneath that supple skin.

Xanthus gave a good, deep curl underneath there, working his tongue as deep as he could with its two-fingers width: Cyrus's legs nearly buckled beneath him with that feeling, though the feral dragon's shoulder behind him provided something to lean against. That pointed tip found its way back behind the rim of his head, showing a firm, rounded bulge beneath the lion's thick skin there - but then slid free from underneath with a wet pop, the rest uncoiling from around the base as well. Already panting, already quite hard, Cyrus leaned more of his weight against Xanthus's body, his cock twitching with anticipation; he could feel a thick glob of the dragon's saliva rolling down the front of his sack.

"I have noticed..." Xanthus went on, snout still so close. Cyrus swallowed again and reached down to run his paw over his shaft, the thick slickness of that drool giving him another sweet shiver. "...that this brings you great pleasure. Yes? I have one too - you have seen; I know - but yours has..." Again that tongue quested forward, swirling around the revealed front half of Cyrus's head before sliding its way back beneath the rim of his foreskin. The lion released his shaft and draped his arm over the dragon's neck, watching as it bulged its way back towards the rear of his head again, the foreskin soon pulling back against the not-necessarily-unwanted intrusion. "This. Skin. That makes you tremble; I once saw you late at night lick those little fingers of yours and... push into it, like..."

So he'd known?_Cyrus shivered and shook against the dragon's body, arm repeatedly tightening and relaxing along his neck with the attention of his thick tongue, pressing in and pushing against him, digging under his foreskin, rolling it back or drawing it forward, bunching it up, pushing back again. The lion worked his hips with that rhythm, teeth gritted and lips parted - sure, a _couple of times he'd waited until Xanthus had fallen asleep to indulge in his varied fantasies. He'd started drawing inspiration, so to say, from the dragon beside him while he slept - or, while he thought he slept-

It still seemed as though he hadn't caught on, though Cyrus had to turn away before long: the two had started sleeping close enough to one another at night that the lion needed only to turn his head to start drowning in the dragon's scent, like salt and seaweed above cool moss and warm wood.

_ _

One night, though, he caught something else on that scent, something that tickled at his nose when he turned his head to the side towards Xanthus's hind legs, beside where the lion lay back against the dragon's side. A gentle storm rumbled outside the cave, the occasional fat drop of rain smacking against the smooth stone at the mouth nearby; beneath that constant drumming and the ever-present hissing of the waves further back, he took a moment to make sure that the dragon's quiet rumbling snores continued, before turning a little further and lifting his nose to the air. Or, rather, he lowered it down, towards that soft, slick-smooth skin across the dragon's underbelly and lower body.

_ _

A careful placement of his thumb, a small pull... and his ears perked with the wet, sticky 'schlk' that the movement brought from Xanthus's genital slit, showing the pale pinkish-red tip of his cock nestled comfortably within wet folds of flesh. The delicious scent punched him a second later, so strong with his nose so close, and he couldn't resist closing that distance immediately after: down here, inside his slit, warm and gently pulsing, that aroma took on a richer, sharper note to it, stinging ammonia instead of salt, the underside of a fallen log instead of warm wood.

_ _

It stuck to his nose and lips, too, that scent as well as the wet slickness keeping that flesh moist, the gathering of natural musk. Cyrus breathed deeply through his nose and then let out a low, shuddering sigh from parted lips, hot breath puffing back against his face. The dragon stirred and softly rumbled, rolling onto his back a little further; Cyrus took the opportunity to bring his other paw up as well, sliding another thumb in to spread his slit further and bury the front of his muzzle in that flesh, smelling, licking, suckling.

_ _

Gradually, that tapered tip twitched and started to press against his waiting lips, then slid slowly in along his tongue as the dragon continued to grow...

And now Cyrus gritted his teeth a bit more, repeatedly pushing forward into Xanthus's coiled tongue, eyes shut tight beneath the feeling. Three months - three and a half? Four? - now, with nothing to keep him company but the sound of the sea and this huge dragon behind him. Of course they had grown closer together, of course they had become more comfortable with each other's presence... a week or two ago the two had borderline played together, with Cyrus running across the beach while Xanthus chased him down.

Seeing this - he pulled a sharp gasp in between his teeth as that tongue slid up towards the end of his cock, squeezed his foreskin shut at the end of his head, then rolled it smoothly back - he couldn't help but wonder if Xanthus had noticed his 'interest' that day, too. It had come out the strongest when Cyrus turned to see the large sea dragon lumbering along behind him, only to receive a large web-toed forefoot directly in the middle of his chest, pushing him down against the black sand beach. He remembered, and still thought about, the feeling of those strong toes pushing down against his chest, the claws so close to his throat... the soft, supple webbings between when he reached up and touched them, the small shift backwards with Xanthus's self-satisfied huff that resulted in the dragon's heel pushing lightly down between Cyrus's legs, bracing against the erection that hadn't been there a moment earlier.

It had been so, _so_hard not to lean down and run his tongue along those webbings, though fantasies of doing so plagued his wandering mind for at least three nights straight afterward.

The feeling of those talons wrapping around his ankle brought him back to the present, repeated waves of sweet enjoyment shooting through him as the dragon continued stroking him in his tongue. Xanthus had reached forward to grab onto the lion's lower leg, likely for balance; Cyrus continued leaning down against him, the bite of his own musk magnified by the thick, slick saliva oozing down his shaft and sack and seeping into his pubic fur.

Maybe Xanthus did_know; maybe his half-clueless curiosity was only an act. He rolled those toes along Cyrus's ankle as he bobbed his head in rhythm with his tongue, pulling his snout side to side along with the slick coils, steadily tightening and relaxing; sharp talons teased against the lion's skin through his fur, with the smooth-scaled skin feeling oddly damp though he knew it wasn't. The dragon's entire body had that feeling, with the _true_dampness only starting _inside.

Cyrus had made sure not to wash his face after digging his muzzle around inside Xanthus's slit, though soon felt that the way his fur matted together made it too obvious he'd done something.

Rolling toes, squeezing tongue, hot breaths panting out across his twitching, leaking cock... suddenly, though, Xanthus pulled Cyrus aside, turning the lion's body toward him - so he could wriggle the tip of his tongue right into his foreskin again, pulling it up and away before swirling down to the underside of his head. That rolled his skin back again, squeezing out another fat drop of saliva that had gotten caught within, but this time Xanthus rubbed the surface of his tongue along his underside, firm enough to slide his foreskin easily forward and back. The feeling there, though, like sweet little zaps of electricity shooting down his shaft and vibrating along his spine...

Cyrus's body nearly moved on its own. He reached forward with both paws to grip and hold the back of the dragon's head, hips pushing and grinding down against that fat tongue; he just barely managed to open his eyes, catching sight of that sharp yellow gaze watching his muzzle, before another sudden sharp wave of pleasure forced them closed again. With that wave came one buck, a second, a third, each more powerful than the multiple times he'd unloaded in his own paw - and Xanthus was there to catch each spurt, tongue coiling around the head of his cock with its peaked sensitivity, cum spraying out into his waiting maw.

Before long, the lion's paws drifted down to Xanthus's shoulders - haunches? - and gripped there for support, as it felt like he'd nearly lost the use of his legs with that orgasm. Panting, he managed to open his eyes again and saw the so-familiar look of quiet amusement across the sea dragon's face; Xanthus held his gaze for a moment, then curled his tongue slowly, lightly, around the lion's gradually-softening length, cleaning off the last drips of his cum and lapping up the thick layer of his own saliva, before drawing it back into his maw and swallowing it down.

"See?" For a moment his tongue came back out, swirling across his snout. It felt warm in the cave all of a sudden. "That looked like it felt good."

"It..." Cyrus swallowed again, throat feeling dry. "It really did."

Just like with their conversations, and falling asleep on one another, and going out on hunts and fishing together, that first time turned into something of a regular occurrence. The dragon would occasionally surprise the still-naked Cyrus with it, too, sneaking up behind him - the lion had learned to listen for him, though still feigned ignorance - and slipping his tongue into any number of places on him, sometimes forcing him to bend forward on all fours, sometimes causing him to double over Xanthus's head again, always ending in the lion bucking forward and panting, moaning, gasping.

Then one night, the winds around the island cool and stirring with the changing of the seasons, Cyrus returned from touching up his fishing raft to find the sea dragon waiting for him, lounging on his back with a hind leg raised and an arm-sized length of fresh, glistening pink throbbing against the white scales of his lower belly. The heavy scent permeated the cavern, catching Cyrus's nose and almost immediately causing a similar reaction in him before he'd even made it halfway to him.

The wreck of his ship seemed so distant, and quite a while past, the thought of leaving this island had ceased entering his mind.