The bark was rough under Ruaidhri's fingertips. He felt, some days, like he could nearly see: a ghost of a branch, a spectre trunk, figures gliding through his foggy eyes. It wasn't complete darkness he experienced, but shadow enough that he was blind. Perhaps it came from being a husk of a creature, just a shell. Rua rubbed his hand against his thigh and brought it up to his mouth in a fist, blowing into it. His breath felt cold, too. Everything was cold. His sweater kept the worst of his chill away, but he was still cold. He thought with a kind of absent-minded longing to the fire his ...friend? Was that what Anoki and all his transformations was? In any case, Ann with the fire that warmed him. He would rather be burnt than chilled all the time. His half-arm remained useless at his side. Sometimes he thought he could feel his hand, still, but it was just an illusion. He ran his fingertips over the bark again, tracing its disfigurement. That was not accurate, he knew, but when he couldn't see it, it felt like the tree had been marred by some clawed thing. Raked into bits and pieces, scarred by old age. It made him smile, the corner of his mouth tilting up. He had been feeling overwhelmed again on campus, and he had wandered back into the wood, as he would do often. It reminded him of the time he had spent trapped in that godforsaken cave, but... in almost a comforting way. Today, he was particularly glad of the silence in the woods. His pleasant mood, however, was interrupted by what he thought was the whisper of a voice. He followed it, moving in a sort of shuffling way. He had to go slowly, trying to use the shadowy blurs to direct himself. The whisper became louder, progressively, until it he thought that it was almost deafening, a crowd.
Then he tasted the spray in the air as the trees cleared. Rua lifted his hand to his head and covered one ear, raising his shoulder and tilting his hand into it to cover the other. His eyes couldn't make out the location, but the taste of water on the air made him realize he had somehow wandered to the waterfall. He grimaced, about to turn back.
