there's a flaw in my design

Grim hadn't slept in days.

Literal days, so many so that he had long lost count. Though, sleep deprivation wouldn't allow him to remember it anyway. In reality, he had gone just three nights without sleep.. but that included near constant hunting and extra patrols at night on top of his usual rotation during the day. It was clear that he was not handling it well and his appearance had changed beyond the glazed over look and bags under his eyes. He'd dropped weight, since despite the amount of hunting he'd done, it rarely included eating. When he did eat, it wasn't much. He was visibly weak, but it wasn't stopping him. If he stayed awake, the nightmares wouldn't haunt him and he would be fine. Of course he was not fine in the eyes of others if any stopped to actually look at him, but that was likely due not only to the amount of time he was spending outside the armada hunting. He otherwise did fairly well at hiding his mental state from others, but unfortunately hiding his physical body was a greater challenge even with his standoffish behavior naturally.

Returning from an unsuccessful hunt about and hour before dawn, Grimshaw decided to take a small pit stop under a tree to rest. Only to rest his eyes and body of course, because he certainly would not be falling asleep. However, despite his greatest efforts, he quickly succumbed to the sleep his body needed. When the nightmares start, they usually are quick about waking him albeit abruptly. This time however, Grimshaw was stuck due to his body's absolute need for sleep and the nightmare would only continue on for him. It was the same as it was every single time, trapped in the water again reaching for the surface but only feeling weighted or held down. He could always see the surface, a bright light despite the darkness in the world of the memory, and was always out of reach until it began to hurt. That was usually when Grimshaw would wake up, when the nightmare was actually drowning him. Although this time, it must've been having some fun with it's newfound time.

In the land of the awake, Grimshaw paddles and reaches his forelimbs outwards many times, as if he's reaching for something. Whines and cries range from soft to fairly loud in the quiet night, certainly earning him some kind of attention as he laid somewhere along the border of the armada near where it met with ashen.

"Speech."