There was really nothing she could say to ease his fears, or his pain, but Njal was open-minded enough to listen. At her age, Echelon had been through many things - but nothing that compared to his losses, or anything close to the choices he had made. So when she spoke, he mentally braced himself, and was not too surprised to hear the words that came from her lips. Had they met months ago, back when Njal was truly seething, he would have turned upon her and cut her down; however, he returned to the wilds as a changed man. Rather, he liked to think of himself as changed - but the pain was still there, a simmering ember that occasionally licked at old wounds.
Even now you act as though you are alone when you also follow Tonravik.
The shadow commented warily, before bringing Tuwawi back in to the conversation. A part of him did want to lurch forth and give her a good slap across the face for that - but Njal was still. Frozen by a tumult of other thoughts and considerations. He made one quick correction to what Echelon said: Tonravik follows me.
The haste in which he said this made Njal sound hostile, sharp-tongued and snappy, and he was quicker still to move on before Echelon could question his words.
There is only myself to blame. I chose to patrol the glacier's edge, I chose to look outward for threats instead of in. Had I been more attentive, more attuned to my own family and not the land itself, none of this would have happened. But... You are right.
He had spent months blaming himself instead of his wife, himself instead of the others of his pack, always returning to his own faults and failures. If they were to reclaim the glacier then all of this self pity would have to end; or at the very least, be hidden away where it could do no harm. I should not have fled, nor given in to my anger so readily.
Still, one conversation with a stranger was a far cry different from the conversation he would have to have with Tuwawi. If she accepted his presence at all - which again, Njal's emotions told him was unlikely at best. A heavy sigh pushed its way from him again, and then the man was silent - brooding still, but growing distant as his mind wandered towards the distant mountains.