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It had been a day or so, he thought, since seeing others in his herd. Truely, the light never made a grand appearance during day, so there was never a way to tell time except by old urges to sleep. The Fallen stag nimbley jumped from crag to crag, rocks slipping out from under him. The soil here was nothing to be proud of; lifeless and rocky, with only a few weeds and an occasional fern to show its face. He came to a stop on a relatively flat slate of stone, looking out over the hillocks and mountain. What a wretched place to live, he thought, a horrible exsistance. It was often that the coward sulked, for he had much to sulk about. A bitter wind pushed through the territory, a whisper of howl on it's lip. Knarl paced, wide eyed and paranoid, throwing around his head to look for the oncoming slaughter. But it didn't come. It never came. Only the sickening cries and an occasional snarl.

Unnerved, he paced more, looking around to make sure none of the stags were about. He didn't want to be seen by them at the point in time, didn't want the jeers and cruel jokes about his life. He was a deserter, and even the Fallen had to frown upon leaving your post in battle. Most of them had been Sgorrla like he, and it was entirely possible a few had fallen in the same battle he had fleed. Fidgeting, he heard a noise coming, unsure if it was just part of his curse or if one of the decayed deer was on the move.

Knarl nearly jumped out of his rotted skin, whipping his cracked antlers around to see who was speaking. He was ready to bolt, ready to flee. Again. He twitched wickedly, turning around in circles, snorting hard. The snorting was more of a habit, as the Fallen didn't truely have to breathe. The dead, after all, don't have a bumping heart or a blood flow, so there is no need to take in the oxygen.

It took him a moment to spot the decayed hind moving towards him through the rocky soil. One of the two hinds in the entire herd, Knarl mused. Anlach was always an interesting event. Though they could not breed, the instinct to take in a harem was all too strong to resist. The stag felt odd, being so close the a female deer, for it was entirely unnatural for males to spend so much time in their presence. The Fallen, however, just weren't natural to begin with. None the less, he was put more on edge than he usually was. Sloth, he knew her name to be, was hardley a real deer, however. She was the one raised by humans, was she not? How pathetic. "Ah, but we all know of eachother. It is Knarl." He practically sneered at her, bracing himself for the onslaughter of ridicule that always followed company.

Don't get nasty? But wasn't that his job? He had grown steadily more bitter in his death, and had learned to insult before insulted. A good portion of the Fallen were quick to jab at him with words, spitting out venomous names such as 'Deserter', which was a horrible title for a stag. He had, sort of, been an outrider in his life, and leaving a post is something that an Outrider never does. His defense was always that the Sgorrla were NOT Outriders, and there for he could not be held to their standards. Deep inside, however, he knew that by fleeing and showing his true cowardice, he had risked the lives, and probablly killed, several of his herd. And so the wolves howled.

"The fox are little to worry about... It is the wolf you should truely watch out for." Of course, his words were beyond biased, for his paranoia had only grown with his curse. And, even if he was paranoid, it was rather ridiculous to keep an eye out for scavenging wolves, for they were entirely too rare in the land of the dead. The living often become depressed here, after all, and don't mix to lovely with the Fallen. Even if they could get there, the entire herd was already dead, so there truely was no reason to bolt. Unless, of course, you're the coward, Knarl, the deserter.

Knarl grew quiet for a moment, looking hurt, if a Fallen could. He withdrew slightly, ever pacing, and snorted. "I..." He faltered some, loosing the hind's eye contact. "I hear them. They're around here. Believe me." He fidgeted a little, his flank shooting spasms and his ears swivelling. He always heard them, and always wood. On some nights, with all was still, he could hear them clear as a bell, and he would walk. Walk or run. Little did it matter. He wouldn't stop until morning, or what they thought of as morning, and then he would be cursed to a fidgety, spastic stance. It was only when there was much commotion that they were near silent, those constant howls, he would realise that they were never coming. That they had gotten him, all those years ago, near the beach. The smell of seabreeze fresh on his nose, as if it were the here and now. And at those times, he would realize that it was nothing but his damnation and curse that had those cries in his ears. The thought would often escape him, however, and leave him to his paranoid thinking that they were really here.

Knarl shook his head vigourousley, pawing at the rocky soil. "They might come." He stretched his ears out in every direction, giving a few quick looks about. Then, in a low voice, he said, "You never know..."

It would be a safe assumption that Knarl suffered from extreme paranoia. It would be a safe assumption that Knarl was a complete coward. He was both of these, and exercised the symptoms frequently. In life, he had been a fidgety coward, but it had only been in death that he developed a severe fear of wolves and their constant hunt for him. Perhaps it was the way that he had died that caused such a fear, or perhaps it was some twisted curse Herne had set upon him with a sickened shake of the head. Knarl was, after all, a deserter, and was to be shunned, even by the great Herla god. For this reason, he had never made a friend in the Fallen herd, and rarely saught companionship with his fellow dead.