Much as he thought he had abandoned this place, somehow, Orion had become his home again. But he didn't feel the same sense of belonging here that he had when he'd first emerged. The den he used to occupy was long ago abandoned. The tunnel from which he had emerged with Astraea and Senka had closed. Quintus was here, somewhere, and that offered him some respite but nothing could bring back the normalcy that once gave him comfort. Even Pisces didn't feel like home - it had always felt less so, more like an impromptu refuge. Ever since he had gone away with Astraea he'd felt plagued with anachronism, like he had suddenly been brought back to a time that wasn't his own.
Maybe it was just because this place only ever fed him memories of the worst thing that had happened to him. Hasira's face perpetually stared down at him from the empty throne. The remnants of his ice shackles had long since melted into the rock and dissipated, but he could always remember exactly where they were, and the pain of laying on his broken leg, staring, hoping that someone would lift him from his prison. He remembered Clover as he tried to defend her from the stag. The sound of her voice as he tormented them both. He remembered Clover. She was the only thing he couldn't ever forget, really; even if he'd lost his mind, even if he died and was reborn, he knew that she would persist. Even after she had died.
Aimless wandering no longer kept his thoughts at bay. But he was trying, oh how he was trying to find something to distract himself and keep him occupied. His hunt for various lost gems had, momentarily, been suspended as he began his quest to find his wife's stone. Hers was most important, she had always taken precedence. He felt sickness even thinking that he had put it off for so long. But she deserved to be rescued from whatever crevice she had fallen through and brought out of the darkness, once and for all.
He hadn't expected to find any others here, as Orion of all places had been so still, as if the place still wept for all the evil Hasira had committed. But much to his surprise, as he stalked along the elevated ledge of one of the cliff faces, he caught sight of two forms curled up on the ground. He recognized one of them as the black wolf pup he'd found before, but the other, a tiger, was unknown. Bartos paused. They were asleep, and he really had no interest in waking them, but he knew that they could chase his restlessness if only for a moment. And perhaps, if he stagnated long enough, Senka would find him again. For now he lowered into a crouch, lifting his eyes up to the crumbling streets that stretched beyond, waiting.