I called your name 'til the fever broke.

Travel thread. Route: [Snowforest Taiga -> Monolith Forest -> Stavanger Bay] Following the coast. 

He climbed down from the mountains and away from the ice without a second thought; not an ounce of him remained there, where his broken heart had frozen shut. There was no point in revisiting the past, so he avoided it entirely. The glacier had been within sight for weeks now - but he did not look upon it. The wanderer chose to keep his back to the icy peak, and only traveled in the darkness, like a thief. He had stolen the lives of so many faithful followers; his family lay ruined, his love abandoned. If the old man was any sort of criminal, he was hardly a thief - more like a murderer, despite not killing any of them outright. But his guilt was not what drove him away this time. This time, Njal only wished for a fresh start.


Perhaps this was the wrong place for such a thing. He had tried to revisit the Seahawk Valley, to return to a quiet life in his own corner of the wilderness there, but it was too difficult. He was too frigid now, more like the glacier every day, and could not function well with others. Njal was a leader. He had been transformed and nothing could strip that pride from him, not even the losses he had faced. To bow to anyone was like giving away the last of his sanity. So he fled from there, too. Seeking nothing but the basics out of life - avoiding everything unless he could consume it, use it in some manner. The wolves of the Seahawk were just as foreign as any other, now. 

And somehow, Njal had returned to the Teekon Wilds. He didn't know why he was drawn back to this place - he felt no love for it, or those within. Maybe it was the onset of summer which caused him to roam; as he used to, back in his prime. So through the nights he would crawl across the earth, refusing himself the warmth of the sun and the brilliance of day, just as easily as he refused the companionship of others. 

When next he woke - after weeks, months of wandering - the light had found a way in. He had only slept for a few hours, and felt a pain in his head, a sting in his eyes, as he opened them and was confronted by the sun. This was the first time he had seen the light since his last foray in to the northlands, back when his home was intact. And almost immediately, Njal was filled with anger. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled away from the light - like some kind of vampire - and burrowed his snout in to his curled tail. But the light was persistent, and the warmth coaxed the anger out of him.

The man uncoiled and got to his feet, blinking, his eyes red-rimmed and body slouching from the exhaustion the nocturnal lifestyle left behind. He peered out at the coast from beneath some giant foreign trees, and watched as the sun gleamed off of the drifting sea beneath the ridge. When a sound cracked in the forest, he turned his head sharply, and was gone - slipping between the trees and vanishing before anything could find him. 

The last thing he wanted was to be greeted by a ghost.