Ouroboros Spine The air is warm, my heart is cold

A day or so after this thread; set where NWF meets the mountain.

Tryphon fled from the coast once he had rested. While he had slept his mind had filled with thoughts of the sea, and of the suffocating nature of the waves. He was startled awake by the image of a dark face set with harsh yellow eyes juxtaposed to a strange sensation akin to adoration — but upon waking, the feelings and images faded. Whatever had spooked him during his rest was swift to vanish. He descended from the plateau afterwards and headed south-east. First he followed the natural ridge, then he sought the fringes of a dense forest, until the roar of his stomach tempted him out into the open again.

It had been a few hours since he had lost what little had been in his stomach; the pang of need was there, but he did not know the area or what could be found across the exposed field. Tryphon resigned himself to being hungry and idly thought of how pleasant it would be to reunite with his shadow - to hunt together again, dine together. Be together. Perhaps his hunger pangs were also those of lonliness.

His mind was lost to thoughts of Saghani, for a time. And when he was roused from his daydreams by the thick scent of wolf permeated the air, he stopped short. It wasn't so much the thought of encountering another living being that set him on edge — it was the fact that he recognized the scents. The boy's face scrunched into a frown as he tried to piece together names and faces to those scents, and then, they popped in to his mind: Kaskara, Scimitar.

Tryphon felt an instant, acute regret. He thought to turn back for the sea, and his stomach lurched. He looked sullenly for a route to escape, but found that there was a myriad of mountain paths that he did not have the energy to climb. He was rooted to the spot by indecision, and surrounded on all sides by difficult choices. Of course, he could try and sneak his way through the forest despite its heavily marked border, but the thought of seeing one of the many families he'd let down — no, he thought, I do not deserve them.