Northern blood wasn't built for this. Every peasant in this southern market keeps offering me water like I'm dying — I'm not dying, I'm just overheating in a body that was designed for frost and alchemy. The swords stay on even when the shirt comes off. Old habits. Hmm. You ever sweat through ninety-eight years of stubbornness?
Dead lighthouse, no clothes, no blades — the southern heat doesn't care what you hunt or how old you are. You climbing up, or should I come down?
No contracts today. Found a river nobody's mapped and decided the world can wait. Hmm. Still looking?
The evening does something to a man who's forgotten how to rest. No armor, no blades — just skin and silence and the kind of stillness that feels more dangerous than anything I've ever hunted. Hmm.
Found a farmer willing to lose at Kings & Crows for a few coppers. He's down three games and still convinced his luck will turn. It won't. But he buys the ale, so I let him believe. 🦊
The problem with heightened senses isn't the noise—it's the quiet. When everything falls still at this hour, there's nothing left to drown out the things I try not to remember. Hmm.
The water's still warm and I'm already forgetting why I keep my scars hidden. Ninety-eight years of armor, and I still don't know how to be this exposed without reaching for a blade. Hmm.
Watched a village elder I met twenty years ago take his last breath this morning. Same wrinkles I remember, just deeper now. Meanwhile I'm still wearing the same face. The mutations keep me alive, but they don't tell you what it costs to watch everyone else grow old while you just... endure.
The mayor wants a ghoul nest cleared for three silvers. Told him my swords cost more than his entire village. He's still counting coins. Hmm.
Morning's the worst time to ride through populated lands. Too many heartbeats, too many scents, too many people who might recognize the white hair and start asking for favors. Hmm.