His steps were quick; he didn't trust this part of the forest, as the darkness that had been crawling in towards him for days was starting to press into his chest, shortening his breath and making his heart pound. Well-worn boots disappeared briefly into a flash of murky water, and his brown leather chaps were spattered with water that sprawled into dark spots on contact, but he paid no attention to such things--his eyes were on the trees ahead and his mind was on that disturbing feeling. He grasped subconsciously at the embroidered leather strap that crossed his green tunic at the chest, troubled that he felt so much that he was running from something.<br/><br/>A small gap in the foliage was a godsend for him; he needed to sit, to take in his surroundings, and to figure out what was wrong. As he passed the final tree into the area, which was not so much a clearing as a irregular sparseness in the surrounding trees, he was stunned: the golden sun poured clearly upon him and what had before been a mess of colors and textures became man. His hair, an almost silvery brown, draped haphazardly around the bright gray of his eyes and brushed the soft curve of his cheekbones. He had been in the forest for nearly a week now, gathering herbs and trying to find out what it was that had made the forest's jade greens turn dull and olive.<br/><br/>The lifeless body of a young deer was sprawled a little north of the clearing, and he examined it with a sadness that turned quickly to concern; there were no visible wounds, no signs of disease, no obvious starvation. He looked again and again and each time found nothing. A madness, a chill, climbed up his body from the fingertips that touched the carcass, and he turned back into the small pocket of sun. Sweat, previously absent despite his earlier pace and the miles of hiking off-trail he'd endured, was suddenly making tracks over his temples and down his neck. He could not name the feeling and was almost afraid to identify it.<br/><br/>There was a branch jutting out from a tree in the small space, and he sat upon it, bathed in the sun offered there. He needed to think.