Duskfire Glacier trust yourself

It felt right to have the wind buffering at his coat, the scent of distant salt mingled with the falling ash and the smell of smoke; the ruin that lay behind him meant nothing, the coast that would soon be before him was likewise useless to the man that could not recall an entire life. But he hoped, somewhere deep inside of himself, that the freeing nature of the wind would awaken something more—that the smell of the sea, the sight of it, would connect more dots and give him something upon which to build. He knew only that his name was Larus, although sometimes when he woke he would feel compelled to identify himself with other names: Tryphon, sometimes.Yellowbelly, others. If he ever were to stop and think, there would be only confusion; a painful, dizzying mess to his mind.

So he would run, he would be as free as the wind for as long as he could. Let the confusion strip away from him as he went; feel the pounding of his paws against the earth, the crunch of frost beneath each stride. Soon, though, the cadence of his gait was shifting from one repetitive beat to another—something more chaotic—and when he looked to the oncoming shape, he saw a ruinous grey shadow sweeping close. He did not slow; he ran with a persistence, and found that the shape became something black as his mind locked the stranger in to a role played by someone long dead.

Larus gasped a few breaths from his hinged mouth and called out, Saghani? — but he did not know why the name had come to him, nor why his belly burned as soon as the word fled his lips. The face of the dark woman was there and then it was gone, the shine of her daffodil yellow eyes muddying, becoming something else—and then he realized, no, this wasn't some shadow from his past.