Sun Mote Copse If the world was ending you'd come over, right?

He had journeyed north a little ways, but when the ground went from solid and frozen to slushy and streaked with mud, he was turned off of it. Returning the way he came felt disingenuous; Asa did not want to waste his time chasing his tail through the woods. He could have returned to the crossing of the rivers - there, he'd find shelter and some food if his luck held out - but that would still mean travelling against the grain, which he wasn't eager to do. He eventually decided to go east until he couldn't go any further, which was how he managed to hike through the thicket and reach the leaky swamp on the other side. It still wasn't ideal. He spent a little bit more time every day cleaning the mud from his extremities and feeling foolish over his vanity, wasting more time than he wanted.

Without some concrete plan Asa was destined to roam the wilderness endlessly, or so he thought. How could he track down the man he sought if he was distracted by such idiotic things, such as his appearance? He knew he was being foolish, putting off the task he must complete to honor his sister and his mother, and that he was finding any odd thing to keep him distracted. He was healing too, in his own way. Suffering through his sorrow and his loss, finding outlets for his emotion - even if that meant emasculating himself to some degree every day. So yes, foolish.

His trail eventually took him to another section of forest, and this was as common as the last. Asa would have passed on by if he had not detected a familiar scent along the outskirts of the claim; beyond the fact it was a heavy wolf scent, he found the smell of NIamh lingering among some frozen fern fronds and felt the stirrings of lust in the pit of his belly. His interest was piqued, and so he lingered, but out of some weird sense of courtesy he did not call out for her — she had made it clear enough that their encounter had been a once-in-a-lifetime moment, which he would honor.