Night Haven. He barely remembered it. The buildings looked like ancient ruins held together by threads that threatened to snap at any second. The hinges on doors flapped, rocking eerily through the thick fog that blanketed the street. The signs of businesses etched on planks of wood hung ajar on their posts. Everything seemed topsy turvy, spun around and pulled inside out. It just didn't look the same and Michael wasn't sure if he could attribute this to having not seen it in a month or so, or because something much more devastating had passed through. Maybe madness had surfaced here as well. Maybe the battle waging in his head had somehow manifested itself here in such ugly disarray. The Vampire frowned at the ideas that may have birthed this unsettling image. The careful footing of heavy boots went silently across the ground. He was subconsciously cautious of his steps, as though the faint snap of a twig would ignite the awakening of unwanted beasts. Creatures he wouldn't be able to shake off or avoid. Draugr chain mail moved with the tall man's body as he wandered slowly through the village he once knew.

Through pained eyes, it was as if seeing it all for the first time again; the charred side of the crumbling library where a riot had occurred ten years prior, the rose bushes outside the clothing shop he had helped a mortal create before their untimely 'death'. Between every home, every shop, was a secret -- a history bathed with his presence. He could smell himself against every brick, every piece of wood and metal that belonged to these buildings. He could feel himself in their roots; a lifetime of dealing with their many generations of owners, and longtime buyers for what seemed like a millennium. 

His footing turned from caution to ease as the memories faded through his head and lulled him into a beautiful wave of reminiscing. The past he belonged to, the life he had left behind only awhile ago. He missed it, and in the quiet moments alone he longed to be that simple bartender behind the counter in Thirst again. Thirst. His eyes darted to the left, hastily finding his established business just down the road. As usual, picking up speed towards it as he went, dim flickering candle light could be seen beyond the fogged windows to make it known that those inside never slept in the darkness. Michael's ears perked, twitching at the noticeable sound of chatter coming from within, a sound he had once loved. Now, however, he felt undeserving. The boyish smile on his face from being reunited with his home faded out along his features, turning into a small frown. The Vampire turned his back, imagining how content everyone inside to pub must have been, and how his presence only put a stark damper on that contentment. His brain rationalized that if they knew he was out there, watching and listening, they'd surely snub him. Why would they not after abandoning them? 

Michael's back turned to Thirst, and he carried on through the street. His shoulders slouched as his head hung low. These feelings were awful. And he was feeling them because of Emery. Because of the possibility of losing the only good thing he had ever created to the throws of a blood sport. Yet still, Michael couldn't shake the realization that that was his fault anyway. He had so stubbornly left and joined a cult, and it had amounted to nothing but another ill attempt at finding something to hold onto. When all the while there was Emery to hold on to. His time away could have been spent with his family. With Rose and Emery, enjoying their love and seeing the happiness so widespread across his child's face in the presence of his companion. He could have helped Rose around the house, been fascinated with her magick, or learn about who she really was. Could have built a proper relationship with her. He could have laughed with both of them about adventures he had as a young man going through Europe, or when Babanel had taken him up into the mountains and he was chased by a goat. He could have had that, instead of this. Something far better than this.

And of course, somehow he found himself outside the Frost residence -- the home Michael had had built tailor made for the newly weds. His dull eyes looked up at it in awe, but that was when the guilt really set in for him. Red liquid pooled against his green eyes as he imagined what it would feel like to know for certain his son would never return to this place again. To know that the bed inside would lay one person short of full... The Elder forced those hideous thoughts at bay. He had already felt terrible, no sense in making it worse. Michael knew, just a sliver, the responsibility he played in Emery being at the tournament. Of course, he wasn't entirely at fault, but he played a significant role enough to know that his son's blood would have been on his hands too. And yet... Ugh.

Heavy boots lingered around the entrance, but after a few minutes he found the nerve to venture forth. Vines had grown along the house's edge, and the trees' branches along the short pathway dipped towards the ground. From what he could see there were no lights in any windows, nothing that indicated anyone was home. Good, he thought to himself as his legs took him towards the side of the house. Just as he wandered up along the small flowers in the yard, he stopped. Mid-stride. It smelled... Off. Michael looked around himself, eyeing curiously at thin air.

Where is that coming from? Pale skin wrinkled along the Vampire's nose as he scrunched his face slightly. Shaking his head to rid himself of the bothersome scents -- was it more than one? -- he could only assume they had had guests of all sorts coming by.

Dull colored eyes, like matted and unfocused shades of green pooling against a blackhole, met the light of the blossoming moon as it rested among a sky of sparkling diamonds on ebony silk. The monster's form branched out like a tree, dazzled by the fresh smell of the night that filled his nostrils. A gentle wind passed his features, as if caressing him in a sentimental gesture. A 'good morning' of sorts that seemed to stem from the earth herself. As warm as the welcoming was, it felt out of place against the stoic cheeks of the giant. It had felt far longer than it had been since the universe and he convened in any way that resembled a bond between the two. A valley had been forged, separating one another until they greeted each other as strangers and not the intimate partners they had been in centuries past. The monster's eyes narrowed, a low growl releasing from the pit of his throat as he turned away from the glow of the Moon -- in more ways than one. As the glowing deity watched her child reject her calls, her rays touched his back and shoulders in an effort gone unnoticed to pull him back. She would weep for him in the coming days a mountain of rain that would seem to drench the world.

He did not mirror himself anymore. A stranger in his own skin, the Michael he once was laid like a dormant outsider somewhere inside of him. An alien. Every so often he could feel that part of him pull through, but every time he simply resisted. He resisted everything that had to do with the life he wanted to leave behind, even all the elements he wished he could take. Or rather, had taken with him to begin with.

The creature's body was clad in war gear that would have weighed a lesser man down. Thin sheets of chain mail clung to his otherwise bare torso, leaving more than enough room to move in. Unorthodox armor from another land adorned his legs in the form of thick leathers. The attire was odd, indeed, on a child of the Moon, but the complex of things were strange now, no?  

As he walked along the indented path made within the mangled and overgrown forestry of Hallowed Oaks, "patrolling" for the Draugr Queen, as he called it, he could only harp on the sole thing that seemed to haunt him most now. Though, hadn't the child always haunted him? Seeing his progeny at the tournament, watching him fight for what could have been his last few moments on Earth, shook Michael to his core. It caused him pain, an immense and overwhelming grief that he let out on Calvin when the two were away from all the worry of the Draugr. Even now, as the soldier took stride through the brush far away from the walls of the Draugr Hall, the images preyed upon him. Things between all that surrounded Olia Meadows, felt different about it after that. He no longer looked at the great castle like building with a feeling of pride, or accomplishment. Instead, he looked at it as if it could only be used for whatever gain he had already obtained from it; his haughtiness, his new found god complex. It no longer served its purpose, but the fundamentals behind it... He was torn. Torn, as usual, between right and wrong. The path he longed for seemed muddled all over again. The ever allusive guide he needed, he never seemed to find. Not in Babanel, not in Mother Moon, not in Wisteria, not in Asa. In whom could he entrust himself with anymore? In whom could he find a home? Himself? Ha.

Michael stopped his wandering, falling back against the bark of a tree lining the pathway and slid to the ground. A gentle, somber sound tumbled from his pale lips as he ran anxiety filled fingers through his messy dark hair. He closed his dull eyes and curled his legs til his knees were up to his chest; long arms reached around them, his forehead pressing against them. The weight of whatever armor he wore was no match for the weight of this. This feeling of being lost, of floating in space without something to ground him. In that very moment all Michael wanted to do was see the smile on Emery's face and share even a fraction of a second pulling him close. Anything to smell his scent, to know he was close by. He had left for the Draugr to become a better Maker, a better father, to that boy. And for what? Just for them to put him up on the slaughtering block? That wasn't the point to this. He wasn't turning his back his progeny, but trying to take the time to... just be better. 

Frustrated limbs squeezed around his legs. "Fuck..." His eyes closed tightly, scrunching up his face in pain at the idea. What if he died? What if he had left Emery to do something good, and all he had received was his son in a casket? What then? 

Michael blinked back bloodied tears, hardening up his exterior. He wanted so strongly believe that his actions were done with good intentions, and that he would reap the bounty he longed to sow. He ached to find himself, to get the footing he needed to be who he felt he needed to be -- this unobtainable ideal of "Babanel's son", "Mother Moon's favorite". He just wanted to fill the gaps inside of him, for once. The Elder stood up and began to wander the forest again, in no real direction. For hours he was a vagabond, aimlessly searching through the forest and through his head, taking the time to consider himself and the actions he was taking.