Fitz is better inured against November's bitterly cold winds and frigid waters than many other newly arrived Sleepers, due in no small part to many winters spent enduring the cold while carrying out his duties to the Crown on Buckkeep's inhospitable coastal cliffs. Rather like the grey wolf that ambles along at his side, a thick coat and something hot to eat or drink is more than sufficient to help him push any lingering discomfort to the periphery of his senses. Cold is cold. Being cross about it won't make it any less so.

He's a melancholic and solitary presence on the boardwalk most evenings, and seems to derive enjoyment simply from people-watching while seated on a bench, or the end of the boardwalk, or even the sands of the beach. Usually whatever he's eating will be shared without (audible) comment with the wolf at his side--and if he doesn't share quickly enough, well, Nighteyes seems to have no reservations about helping himself to a bite of cinnamon bun while Fitz's dark eyes are turned elsewhere.

That's what happens right now.

He grunts and pulls a face as Nighteyes, well pleased with himself, licks his chops after consuming half of the bun in one bite. Fitz lifts what's left of it to his nose. "This stinks of fish oil now."

A shame. Perhaps you should give the rest to me? This, heard only in Fitz's mind through their Wit bond, though Nighteyes' clear expectation that he will be fed is transparent enough to anyone else walking past their exchange.

Fitz only makes a disgusted noise and chucks it to the boardwalk before the wolf's large front paws. Or he would, if Nighteyes did not deftly snatch the pastry from the air before it could make contact with the weather-worn wood. Fitz scowls down at him affectionately.

"Glutton," he says and drops his hand into the wolf's dense scruff. Nighteyes' tail gives a single, satisfied thump against the ground.

He hasn't slept in days.

This is not the longest stretch of time that Fitz has ever gone without sleep, either while under the influence of carris seeds consumed to give his body more strength and vigour while carrying out his bloody work for his king, or while giving himself over to his Skill addiction. But in both those cases either the drug or his hereditary Farseer magic would be more than enough to keep his mind occupied by his mission, or by that relentless desire to reach, to seek, to know.

This insomnia is nothing like either of those experiences. This is objectively terrifying.

Brother?

Nighteyes' presence in his mind is anxious and pacing like the wolf himself, who has been trying to herd Fitz away from the path that leads into the Trenchwood--easier said than done, given the force of the hallucinations that keep Fitz doggedly committed to traveling in that direction. Sometimes it's the awful, gnawing memory of the Forged ones pursuing him during the Red Ship War, and their unsettling capability to avoid his Wit senses, to catch him or others completely unawares in the dark. Sometimes it is the sound of the Fool's screams, crying out for him as the Pale Woman flayed him alive.

Brother! The wolf bites at his trouser leg to try and bring him to heel. Come back, don't follow this road!

"Fool...?" He staggers to a stop in the middle of the street and shouts out his friend's absurd name--some street, somewhere, he doesn't know where he is--and whips himself around, desperately trying to remember how they became separated, because this isn't Aslevjal, is it? Where are they? "Fool, I can hear you, where are you!"

Nighteyes is an exceptionally intelligent wolf, rendered moreso by the years he and Fitz have been joined together through their Wit bond--but he is still a wolf, and there are times when he has no choice but to concede to the fact that Fitz still, unfortunately, remains more man than wolf himself. And so, dismayed and frightened, Nighteyes takes in his and Fitz's surroundings with all his senses, seeking out someone else who might be able to reach his bond partner where he cannot.