Altar of Twilight it's strange what desire will make foolish people do

The hour was late, or maybe early. It had become difficult to tell when the sky clouded up and darkness seemed to descend so swiftly. He felt as though he had walked the world once over and back again though admittedly, a large portion of that could have been attributed to the snow cover alone. Yet like a signal beacon the monolithic rise of the flagship that made up Moonspear was hard to erase. Even swallowed by cloud cover and a winter fog, he found familiarity arise in the jagged flares and juts of stone.

Weeks later and he had nothing to show for it but by then, he wasn't surprised at all. A certain neutrality had overcome him though he likened it to resignation. Nyx was indeed truly nowhere to be found that he had bothered to look, he had found nothing of more than minute interest to distract him, and now the weather threatened to impede him past a tolerating point. If survival had not been a winning factor in his thoughts, he would have been entirely loathe to catch himself in the throes of preparation. He would have certainly been loathing the acquiescence riding in with the clouds.

It would snow again (and again) soon and already it tired him; the vale offered little in the way of shelter but gave him plenty of chances to stall himself further. The time sink would only serve to give him composure until the skies lightened and the world stirred itself for the waking hours. And then what? He supposed he would find @Hydra out lurking; he thought he would make her day simply by appearing, assuming she too had not grown sour to his comings and goings, to his advances masked behind wordplay and glances.

Perhaps if he were to relent here, he pondered, then he would be able to indulge. To partake rather than merely offer an variety of gratifying promises. To enable a win on a scorecard that seemed glaringly pockmarked with losses. Why things troubled him more now than they had in the past however was something he found he could not shake—it was the sensation that truly all eyes were upon him once again. These were not strangers whose doorstep he almost loitered. These, at least most of them he anticipated to still know, to remember. He anticipated scrutiny—he would have to play a part and act a scene, over and over again.

But like the bitters of medicine, he swallowed them down. His jaw set evenly as he shook loose snow and foliage from his coat and he deigned to believe that with it he shook the unease from his person as well. It seemed easier then to hold his head proud as he settled in a minor nook to weather the passing squall of snow; morning would come soon, and he would find her.