Far away in the frozen, barren Northren reaches of Dragonblight, a lone figure loped at an uneven though harrowing pace through the deep snowdrifts, charging hard against the faceless foe of the harsh elements surrounding him. Lethien's lungs burned as he ran, his crimson eyes flashing wildly in the half disclosing twilight that bound off of the perfectly pale snowdrifts just as it shone from above. His hood and mask were heavy with the frozen moisture of his breath, and his heavy clothing were damp with the deadly moisture that his body turned the snow closest to him into. He had never been in the wilds of Northrend before he happened upon his friends in Dalaran and they invited him into the Gray Tower. Yet, after three days of scarce sleep and long unbroken treks into the viciously frozen farscape before him one thing above all others hung over his tired form with a merciless weight; he was not prepared to weather the harrowing cold that surrounded him as far as the eye could see, and now it was too late to turn back. Lethien lost track of when he had stopped thinking about what he was looking for in this desolate place. He needed to get away from Duroxas, away from Langara and Erohol, away from the pleasant faces and smiles of the Wayfayer's Rest Inn and away from everyone he didn't know for good measure, and that chiefly was what he was doing. It was a despairing thought to be goaded with the notion that there was none that he could go to for help, but he refused to accept it. Now as he drew ragged breath after ragged breath, heading nowhere but straight away from where he knew those he cared for most were, the young elf simply ran because it was the only thing he could do to bring the change to his situation that was needed. The only thing he had left to trust was his willpower, and the only way he knew his mind was his own was to test it - as he did - defying the pain and the cold that threatened to pull him to the ground with invisible icy knives. Yet, beginning his third day exposed and alone in the wilds of Northrend, he was in bad shape and he knew it. The frosty glaes that whipped across the perfectly white snowdrifts burned his young, fair skin and split his lips, just as the heavy clothes he wore afforded him precious little actual protection against the deathly cold that robbed him of his strength in the dim hours before dawn. In the cold twilight Lethien shambled on, heaving in painfully cold breaths, unable to recall if it was sunrise or sunset. Each step shot an icy pain through his feet and up his legs, and felt as if he was pulling a mountain behind him as his body moved slower and slower. The young elf growled hoarsely in effort, a chance at mustering the last of his determination, but he quickly found that he could give no more as his last stepps were dangerously uneven before his ankles wouldn't support him anymore, and he tumbled into the cold pillow of a perfectly smooth snowscape in a blinding whirl. Immediately the young elf planted his hands beneath him but beneath him his legs did not shake or tremble, they simply did not move. The abyssal cold of the snow seared his soaked gloves, his arms slack and frozen, sluggish, though still serving him as he cried out with a surge of panic, fumbling forward as he forced himself to try and stand once more, but he couldn't...he simply couldn't. Hoarsely again the young elf called into the winds of the North, hot tears burning as they flooded his eyes and traced down his face while he supported himself with his arms as best he could. Wordlessly he sobbed through weak sounds that were lost in the pealing frosty gales of Dragonblight, and in the relative dark his arms and back eventually gave in to the cold as well. Lethien curled up as best he could where he fell, though as he struggled to breathe while the slow creep of the cold paralyzed him, he could do no more. ~///~ As the sun climbed higher into the skies of Dragonblight and painted the pristine blanket of fresh frost with its pale golden lustre, there was one less elf to witness the dawning of the day.