The night is dark and full of terrors; the day, bright and beautiful. To him, there's no difference now. The night reigns eternal.

The cold grows worse, as he continues to travel along the road. He follows the well-worn path, and day by day, it gets a bit chillier. The nip of frost at his toes. The cling of rime to his hair. The sting of winter on his nose. He keeps going. Even if there's nothing for him where he's headed, there's nothing left for him behind.

His home is barred to him by artifice, guile, and a healthy dose of misfortune. Bad timing. Deliberately engineered weakness. Whatever the case, the result is the same. An elf in exile, bound to wander the world until he drops dead. Perhaps even longer, if some necromancer happens to find the corpse - a rotting body left far from the roots of the forests it was meant to nurture. That'd be a real shame. A great irony. A solid wager.

Unless he can redeem himself, of course. Not likely, but something to hope for, if he doesn't die.

He could probably sell his services as a mercenary if he practiced enough. Even half the skill he once had would be worth something. From there, build his reputation by repeatedly putting his life on the line for someone else's fight. Someone else's cause. To bleed and slaughter in the name of something he might not believe in. Until he has gained a new name for himself and become worthy. Then, perhaps, he can go home again.

Small steps. Practicing first.

It's hard - everything is so clumsy, now. It's like learning to walk, only he keeps falling, tripped by the same obstacles over and over again. Things are too close or too far and it doesn't matter which, because he misses by a mile anyway.

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There's something crucial he's missing, and it doesn't help that the further he travels, the less life there is. Trees thin out to grasses dwindle to patchy lichen growths, stubbornly clinging to rock.

Such is the curse of Ilest, Land of Eternal Winter. Nothing natural grows there. The region proper is perpetually blanketed in ice and snow, the native inhabitants long gone. The smart ones, at least. He's heard there are still some who live there, eking out a living through the wretched, laborious work of rock-breaking. Mining, some would call it. In the darkness of winding tunnels, under sturdy mountains, far from what little light even makes it to that desolate wasteland. Willingly entombed.

Ilest has nothing precious left, save what lies deep in the bones of the earth.

He thinks on it quite often, as he slowly treks his way north.

Why bother? There's nothing for him there and there's nothing for him behind, but why not go east? Or west, for that matter. He could bask in the warmth of the sun. That, at least, would be left to him.

There's no one to see or care what he does anymore; the watchers abandoned him leagues ago and what predators would stand in his way that he could not slay?

Why go north?

There are many things to regret, for the Eagle-Eye. For one, the incident that stripped him of his vaunted sight and left him a hollow shell of his former self. For another, the lack of sight that led the incident to happen at all. Now, he has neither.

That's probably a bit harsh of him, if he were being objective, but feelings are what they are. Paranoia thrives in his mind and makes a meal of reason. It's likely for the best, even, that he's alone on this lonely journey to nowhere and nothing. Fitting for an outcast. At least he won't hurt anyone if he lashes out, though it doesn't exactly do wonders for his personality. Or mood.

He's being dramatic, he tells himself, as if it matters, as if he'll listen. He grows less and less rational with each step he takes on this road, with every stride forward away from sun-dappled beaches and woods. Even if they aren't home, they're something, aren't they? But that stubborn knot that chokes his heart and clogs his windpipe throbs, and so, adrift and dangerously unmoored, he walks into the storm.

The temperature continues to drop. The cold settles in his bones.