Tormented Tarns and he was the man for the job; a one-man bombsquad

@Wintersbane

Now that he's no longer a leader, he doesn't have to feel bad about wandering too far. It's freeing in a way he hadn't thought possible for himself anymore; how long has it been since he's been truly free to roam, without guilt? Not that the guilt had ever stopped him anyway.
Still, he feels... better. He barely notices his paws carrying him far from his friends, through the meadow and just barely into the mountain range. He remembers this place; he remembers meeting Sascha somewhere in the watery, maze-like territory, with Lennon and Korei. The first wolf to ever assume him to be leader of anything — it seems ironic now. He pauses along the edge of one of the scant strips of dry land, shivering slightly. Leader, he thinks, is just another title he'd held and discarded; it's gone now, thrown to the same place he's chucked son, brother, lover, and friend over the years. He can't think of anything he hasn't tossed to the fire by now.
His thoughts threaten to spin out of control until a faint ripple in the water catches his eye, and instinctively his gaze traces the source of the disturbance. A flying insect, gone too quickly for him to see — so his attention turns back to the water. Light reflects brilliantly from the small ripples, a little hazy through the thin, frosty mist in the air. He watches until the motion loses momentum and smooths back to relative stillness, exhaling softly through his nose. His eyes close briefly; he tries not to think about the unchanging blackness in his injured eye. In moments like this, everything he blocks from his mind comes creeping back so relentlessly — all he can do is fight it and hope that one day, it all stops.