By the gods, this heat!
Gangrel was not normally so susceptible to the sun-Plegia was surrounded by deserts-but he had been walking through sand for days. Every day, he trudged through burning hot sand, the sun blistering his skin with sunburn, stealing what little water he could find to drink. In the night, the heat vanished to be replaced by freezing cold. With no shelter to sleep under, Gangrel was unprotected, exposed.
Why am I not dead yet?!, he thought miserably. For anyone else, the sandy wastelands would mean death within the week. Gangrel had been wandering the dunes for nearly a month, suffering as he'd never suffered before: covered in sunburn, his limbs aching from the constant walking, and even worse, the all-consuming feeling of being lost, without purpose.
Worthless.
Gangrel lurched to a stop. His gaze swept the endless landscape, searching for whomever had spoken. He saw nothing but the shifting sand, and so, continued walking. He hadn't gone another hundred yards before he heard it again.
Craven.
Again, he stopped and, again, found nothing and no living thing other than himself. Yet he knew he'd heard that voice-that strangely familiar voice. He kept his ears open as he began his walk again.
Irredeemable.
This time, Gangrel did not even hesitate in his stride. The voice was familiar because it was his own. Upon recognition, a stream of insults and curses filled his mind.
Dastard. Fool. Weakling. Hopeless. Vermin. Coward.
The endless flow continued, every unkind thing he'd every said now directed at him with ten times the force. Every syllable hurt his pride like an axe strike. And no matter what he did, the words kept coming, unbidden.
Perhaps it was penance, but Gangrel didn't belive in such things: once a deed was done, it was done. Nothing could change what had happened, whether it be good or ill. Chrom would never be able to forgive Gangrel for the Exalt's death, because no act of penance could bring his sister back.
Vengeance, on the other hand, made sense: paying back cruelty when something cruel befell you. Even that sanctimonious prince Chrom's mind had been put ease by slaying the Mad King, though it did nothing to change his situation.
Gangrel wondered why he was thinking of the Ylissean prince. That dastard had tried to kill him! And failed! The nerve...
He stumbled a bit as the soft sand gave way to hard-packed dirt. Glancing up, Gangrel realized that he must have reached the other side of the desert. Alone. On foot.
Again, anyone else would've died. Gangrel had been counting on death among the sands. Escaping the place that would have been his grave gave the former king a strange sense of disappointment. Perhaps he truly was a dead man walking.
Looking ahead to the grasslands and fields, he saw a dirt road, carved out by the thousands of travellers that had circumvented the desert.
Perhaps the gods had a sense of humor after all: the road spilt in two not even three hundred yards down the path. There were no signposts, but Gangrel knew that one road lead toward Ylisse, the other to the center of Plegia. Neither road was welcoming, so Gangrel took the third option:walking back along the path.
If his estimates were correct, his chosen path would lead him to the seashore. It wasn't a particularly hospitable place-being filled with pirates, merchants, and soldiers alike-but it was away from both Pegia and Ylisse, the places that he knew he could never return to.
Gangrel ran his finger over Falchion's cut as he walked. A cut that was too shallow to end one miserable life. It wan't too late to end it, however. There was still plenty of danger in the world. Sooner or later, the end would reach him.