i've waited long enough and now the time has come

For some reason.. leaving the southern continent felt wrong. Why? What was lingering in the back of his mind and bidding him to linger around the familiar territories like some pariah. Had it really been months since he'd left the pack? Yet, the whole time he had clung to its skirts like an anxious toddler. Not once in his life had he ever spent so much time mulling over the decision to travel elsewhere. It wasn't until he was drifting off into another night of fitful sleep under a straggling willow, the meagre pack of his belongings tucked beneath his chin, that the thought finally occurred to him. Half asleep and delirious, the sensation that poked and prodded at his subconscious was finally identifiable. Gods above, was he really lurking around the Hallows over a silly crush? On the waifish navigator he'd met a few times? The heart was a finnicky and incomprehensible bitch, sometimes.

A heavy sigh shuddered through his chest, and the celestial giant rolled over onto his side to fall asleep. This was tomorrow's problem.

With the dawn came a strange tightness in his chest and a sense of resignation as he picked up his bag and trudged towards the borders yet again. This time, he opted to stay a bit further away than usual. Try and parse out the scents from a distance, perhaps pick up a fresh trail from the little slate marked male. If he was ever going to move forward with the decision to live his life the way he wanted, he would need to do something about this whole... feelings situation. Had he ever been such a child? Fretting over butterflies and stolen glances? Definitely not.

Sniffing around the familiar garden that bordered the fields beyond the castle grounds, there was little real hope of encountering Sota. Instead, he told himself that he would only waste one more day on this nonsense. After that, it was a lost cause. He would move north, and forget about this whole silly crush. After all, Deion was a grown man. What kind of marauder would he be if he kept dancing about the whole situation like he had been for the past few weeks? As he continued his check of the garden, he found only old trails from his once pack-mates. There was still plenty of day left ahead, but part of him was already hoping not to find anything. Then, he wouldn't have to make any admissions. That would be much easier to deal with.