Stone Circle I'm setting fire to my lungs

Trekking across the taiga took the better part of a week, time that Ephraim spent largely inside his own head. He emerged from his thoughts to hunt at dusk and dawn and to seek shelter for himself, but otherwise the miles seemed to melt under his troubled paws without his notice. Sometimes he looked up and marked the passage of the days, or the change in scenery as he headed further away from the sea. Mostly he noticed when the salt smell, so prevalent in his life thus far, gave way to something colder and more lifeless.

Leaving Elysium without so much as a word wasn't difficult, or at least not as difficult as he thought it would be. Leaving Drageda had been much harder, and even now he seemed to mourn the family on the coast that he couldn't know more than he grieved for the little sanctuary in the mountains. He seemed to have left behind his ability to form lasting attachments to comrades when he left the cliffs. Heading this far inland ensured he was unlikely to see any of them again, anyway, so what was there to care about?

Having been a pack wolf from the day he was born, however, a lone Ephraim wasn't happy for long. The relief that came with leaving the coastline behind was quickly overwhelmed by the fear that came on solitary nights and the loneliness of wandering with no companions at his side. Before long he grew weary of it and found himself seeking company, and not long after that, the thin Eyjolfur found Easthollow's borders. As with everything else from his past, Ephraim's memory of this place was blocked by a haze that thundered and lit up the sky. Maybe he would have kept walking if he remembered it at all.

But he didn't, so instead he tossed his wedged head back and gave a desperate yipped cry.