It was easy to find his way towards the glacier. Easy to fall in to step between the two shadows and lead them towards his home - his once home - and it was strange to deviate from that natural path. He had to avoid the well worn route, and so he headed further north with the Tartok wolves at his flank. Then they made camp, settling among the crags of a foreign cliff face to wait out the night. Njal did not sleep well - he did not sleep at all, actually. The colors of the evening invigorated him; it was like finding the glacier for the first time, and he wasn't even laying eyes upon it. The man was reminded of the first journey. Of Larus being so fickle, and Jokull fighting to be in the forefront. They had all the world before them. As the sky darkened, deepening until night took hold, Njal's memories darkened with them. His mood soured, and he began to pace along the escarpment.
The bluff turned icy, but Njal did not notice. Nor did he notice that the two shadow women were not with him. But the murk of night would keep them well hidden, and if they followed, he would eventually find out. The mountain wasn't the easiest thing to navigate, but as soon as the earth gave way to ice fields and thick pine, he was at-ease. It was just like being home — not Duskfire, but his previous home. Markarth Peak. Njal hadn't thought back to his natal pack in years, but now as he slid from shadow to shadow, crunching through the thickening snow, he was reminded. His heart did not ache as it once did, and this surprised him.
Would the same happen with the glacier? With Tuwawi? Would Njal wake one morning and find his heart no longer empty, no longer hollow and aching for her? The ache he felt for his wife and home, for his children, it was all different. He was not saddened by their absence so much as gutted; and his love for Tuwawi was overshadowed by a strange sort of anger. He worried - passing by a sudden dip in the snow which ebbed in to a cliff face, which he narrowly avoided - he worried, for one day that anger might transmute itself in to hate, and then there would be no way for Njal to live with himself. If her actions caused him to hate, and to that degree, then he would truly be unfit for this world. How would Njal be able to look upon his children if all he saw was her, and if there brewed a great tumult within him?
The beast sighed a heavy breath, halting with a lurch and a crunch upon a great expanse of ice. The trees had fallen away from him as he marched - running, streaking like a silver bullet through the night - and now Njal was left in the open. The night sky was brimming with brilliance. The stars above shone down upon him, while his breath puffed in great bilious clouds; he panted readily, tasting the winter chill that was ever present upon the glacier, and when he turned his head - he saw it. Rising in the distance was Duskfire's crowning peak; he watched the stars, and wondered if maybe his children could see them too.