The island had left him drained, jumpy at many things. Bears in particular had taken on a more frightening appearance to him. Even after the betrayal bears had made him smile, made him think of the Grizzly who'd been, not who now was. But now? All he could see, all he could smell, all he could feel when bears were brought up was the stench of that monstrosity in the mortis amaranthine that he'd been forced to fight against to return to the land of the living.

His first death had left him withdrawn even more than usual. He'd not shared much of what he'd experienced there, unable to find the words. What had led up to his death often haunted his dreams, giving him night terrors that he woke from more drained than when he slept. He'd woken himself up screaming twice, though he'd luckily been on his own for those incidents. 

Massive cryptids were not something he wanted to deal with again, but knowing his luck? That'd be just what he'd find. That hadn't been the only thing he'd faced down on that trade - there'd been a trio of Cosmic Horrors that he'd fought, and that'd left him haunted as well. His nightmares had become a strange and frightening amalgamation of the centipede creature he'd fought, been trapped under, and crushed beneath when the air strike had come... but it would twist into a true abomination - a mix between the cosmic horrors themselves and the centipede, resulting in a massive hulking  horror with the features and limbs of the cosmic horror, but stretched and warped into a multi-legged monstrosity.

It would be a while before he told anyone anything about what he'd experienced and what was still bothering him. Things had been tense though, with many other horrible things happening and he preferred to push his own problems to the side to sort things for others. No matter what, he'd ensure the others weren't alone, that they didn't feel like he had on so many occasions, when he'd cut himself off from others.

He just prayed that the atrocity in his night terrors stayed there and didn't somehow become something more than bones in his imagination.

Things had been fairly uneventful through most of the month following the last trade he'd been to - but that inactivity had left him with too much time to think, to dwell on the past. And to let the memories of his time between reviving and when he'd died haunt his sleep. He'd not slept well since the events on the island, though it wasn't exactly surprising when you considered what he'd been through just before and the years of baggage he'd been carrying.

Though the closer knit portion of the larger group he now found himself among knew what he'd gone through in vague, somewhat rough details, he'd never given a full account of his early, formative years, or the man who'd become a second father to him. They now knew that he'd been quite literally stabbed in the back by his own adoptive father, and that the man had been extremely fractured... but the major details he'd left out - including what'd led up to it. Drugs they knew, it was hard to miss his hatred of those who sold them, though that too had subsided some.

He knew that he would not rest well at the Greenhouse, though his reasons for going were important - there was something wrong with the land and Snow was going. He wanted to lend his support, but he also wanted to see if any of the Seasons from other areas were there, and if they could connect. He wasn't a people person, but it never hurt to have more contacts one could call on in times of need, and who he would answer in turn in their times of need.

It would also be a good distraction from his inner demons, the beasts that gnawed on his self worth and whispered that others were better off without him had been especially loud the last week or so.

Jaeger hadn't spent as much time between trades as he'd wanted with the others. Weaver had been focused on the truck he'd found - not that Jaeger could blame him - and Silence hadn't been doing well with all the shit they'd faced. Snow and Allie had a lot going on, and a lot more to figure out. Their relationship hadn't bothered him as much as he'd thought it would, once he'd made his peace with Snow.

In fact, he'd started to consider the younger man part of his family, the only ones he opened up to or fully trusted. The others in the Paladins would eventually get there as well, but he'd shied away from spending much time with them - his natural desire for space and solitude surfacing. Much of his time had been spent in the wastes outside of town, hunting again. 

He'd scaled trees repeatedly, spending nights in them, and wandering back into town only when necessity dictated he must. Darkness, the moonless nights especially, had always been a double edged sword for him. He felt more at peace in the night, when he could more easily hide his difference. And yet... it was also the easiest time for one's inner demons to prey on doubt and insecurities. 

Whatever was going on up north on the island needed to be sorted, and soon. There was something very, very wrong with the land there, and if nature was out of sorts, the seasons would be too. That was something he couldn't abide. And yet... there was a lingering dread to the idea of this place, so twisted and removed from the rest of its surroundings.

​If he wasn't careful, his own demons might run wild.

Jaeger wasn't entirely sure how it'd happened, but the trade had left him with more friends than he thought he'd ever have. People had been unkind to him in the past, what with his being a remnant and all that. It was hard to let go of when your particular mutations were so animalistic and visible in nature compared to some. Horns, reptilian eyes, clawed  hands and feet, and a tail reminiscent of a gator - or a croc, it was a mix, honestly - made it hard to hide what he was. Who he was too. His appearance was pretty damn unique.

That'd worked for him in the past when he'd wanted work escorting caravans as a mercenary, or when he'd been hired to assassinate someone in a rival family or what have you. Of course, assassinations for him had to follow a certain set of rules. No children. No innocents. And if the one hiring him harmed any of the aforementioned? He was far more likely to turn on his employer if they'd dared to propose such a deal to him, and thus those who approached him tended to be those who'd had the law fail them, and needed someone to mete out punishment instead.

Now? It'd been long enough that some had suspected the old assassin and marksman dead, and they weren't far off - his knowledge of how his skills should have worked was still all up there, between his ears. but actually executing it? His body had failed him time and again. Had he allowed himself to wallow, that might never have changed, but he'd recovered from devastating wounds twice before - when his mentor and father figure Grizzly had betrayed him and again after the confrontation with Snow. 

He just had to keep moving, whether he was ready or not for whatever events his path happened to cross. He could only hope - and pray - that he was ready. Fighting alongside Snow again had made him feel far more at ease than he had after the trade prior to this one. They'd faced - and nearly died at the hands of - one of the Nemesis, and then an entire team of them. The Rogues Gallery. 

Had it not been for Jimmy he likely would have died there, his first death, which was actually a shocking thing to consider when you thought back on how long he'd lived and how many dangerous situations he'd placed himself in. Jimmy's body had almost been stolen, and if not for the combined efforts of himself, Snow, and a handful of others, he might have sunk. But they'd saved the foolhardy man.

He'd also been able to join the Paladins of the Wastelands, something that he'd been interested in since he'd heard about them from Allie, Snow, Jimmy, and then Silence and Weaver as well. It'd seemed like the perfect way to continue to protect and guide those in the areas they lived and traveled in. 

Now, if he could just get the nagging feeling that everything was going to come crumbling down around them to go away, he'd be golden.

Finding himself face to face with Snow had been jarring, to say the least. ​He'd not been in Mourning Glory long when the call for aid down in the mines had occurred. He'd not had word about Allie yet, and while he didn't know anyone in Mourning Glory (that he'd known of at that point), he felt obligated to help. Despite all that he'd had happen, despite the many times he'd wanted to believe the best of people and had been repaid with a dagger in the back, he couldn't not help when it was asked.

This time though, it'd brought him several surprises of the sort he liked. It'd been some time since he'd seen Charity and Silence, and though the former had been stuck above-ground, the latter had been at his side nearly from the first moment they'd found each other. He'd also found Allie - to his great relief - and had met the man who'd kept her safe when the town had fallen. It was a tragedy, to be sure, but he was extremely grateful that she'd been spared.

Running into Snow hadn't been something he'd been enthused about to start, as their last meeting had left him with multiple scars as a reminder. That said, the man had changed a great deal and was now the sort that Jaeger wanted to watch his back. 

The Delve had been a hell of a ride, with raiders and undead all over the place and there'd been several chances for him and Snow to work together, which had resulted in a grudging sort of truce - more for Allie's sake than anything else. He'd not seen Weaver at all that trade, though Silence had clung to him more than a little. The moron had gotten himself fractured, and as Jaeger was one of his two lovers, it'd been natural for them to spend the evenings together. 

Between that trade and the upcoming one, Jaeger had spend a lot of time just roaming the town, and the areas around it, to really get familiar with the lay of the land. He'd done a lot of hunting to stock up on regular food, and had bribed a few people to get it cooked into something decent. While he could make edible food, to say it was good was a lie. That was something he needed to fix at some point.

Not anytime soon though. Rumor had it that a bunch of Faith Relics had been stolen, and he was determined to meet back up with the others to help out with getting things back however he could. He was still rusty, his injuries still keeping him from his full potential, but slowly and surely he was recovering.

Jaeger had been traveling for some time, several months now really, and aside from the very rare interactions with others who were also traveling, he'd been alone. Unless you counted Raiders (and he didn't) or the various mindless undead roaming around, he'd not seen a soul in well over two weeks. He was still hurting pretty bad from the last tangle he'd had just after retreating from what had once been Tulippe, and he had a noticeable limp that was still dogging him nearly three months later.

Though he wasn't sure who all would be there, he was looking forward to stopping in at Mourning Glory - a place he'd not actually visited yet. He'd heard of it, of course, but he'd not really ever had a reason to go up that way. The Rovers he sometimes traveled with were generally further south, and he'd had Tulippe to go to further north.  Other than that, he really had no reason why he'd never been, and it seemed odd now that he was actually making his way there. Though he didn't know if anyone from Tulippe had survived, Mourning Glory was a logical place to look - and besides that his contacts had indicated there were many there, one of which met the description of Allie. 

He couldn't help but hope, even though hope wasn't something he usually allowed himself. Hope left room for pain when it was inevitably dashed and the reality of things set it. Better to be pragmatic if not outright pessimistic. It had served him better in the long run and left far fewer openings for pain to sneak in and stab him when he least expected it. If he was smart, he'd have closed his heart off to everyone around him. But for all the things he'd suffered at the hands of others, he'd made just as many good memories and couldn't seem to let go.

As he traveled, the remnant kept an eye out for hostiles, knowing he wasn't in any shape to take them on alone. It'd been stupid to travel alone this time, but he'd not wanted to wait Rovers or others to pass by - his impatience to know if anyone yet lived driving him forward, pushing him past his limits. 

Not far now.