This was his last resort before he started searching every inch of Alacritis. His wounds from the challenge were almost entirely healed at this point, the scar tissue still fresh and pink across the back of his skull and his scruff. He was sure the one on his scruff would be mostly hidden once his fur grew back fully there, but the one on his head would probably show forever now. He didn't really mind, or maybe he just didn't think he minded in comparison to the real worries he had been dealing with recently. He was just glad that he was healed enough to make the trip now. He was scraping the bottom of the barrel of ideas at this point, but he had to try. He reached the edge of the edge of Yifir's territory and sighed. As he was laying awake last night he suddenly remembered the brief visit Katja had made to Fiori's borders ages ago, accompanied by Kassander. It seemed so unlikely that Svetlana would have made a trip to see her brother without telling him, but he was willing to take the chance, however slim. He didn't even know if Kassander still lived here or not. The longer he stood here the more he doubted his idea, but he had come this far so he might as well ask. He lifted his head and let out a howl, calling for Katja or Kassander or both... or anyone really that could give him the answer he was looking for. If she wasn't here... he didn't know what he would do next. "Talk" "You" Think

Katja's ears pricked at the call on her border, seeking her or Kassander. Kassander was only recently returned from the east and was undoubtedly away trying to restock his herbal stores so that he could return to his duties, so that left her. She thought she recognized the voice, though she'd never heard his howl - the Adravendi alpha of Fiori. She closed her eyes and sighed briefly before attending to the duty, leaving her pups to entertain themselves. As she approached the border it became clear that her guess was correct, the reddish-and-white form clear. She could hardly be pleased to see him. Their last meeting had been just after his sister's death, and she'd been left thoroughly unimpressed with the whole lot of them. Adravendis, feh. "Is there something I can help you with?" she asked him in a cool tone that held no welcome to it.

Leo sighed as he waited for someone to arrive. He knew he already had his own question answered, but his own stubborn hopefulness wouldn't let himself leave until he got a real response. He couldn't find any trace of her scent here and he was sure this would be the border she would come though if she had been coming from Fiori's direction. He couldn't help but feel like this whole trip was worthless, but he still had called for someone so he kept his paws still and waited for an answer.

Soon enough Katja's dark form appeared from the trees and he could tell she wasn't pleased to see him. He really hadn't expected much else. Every interaction he had with this woman was cold at best. He wasn't entirely sure what he had done to warrant that reaction from her, but that wasn't his concern right now. Despite her short response as she spoke he would still give a small dip of his head in greeting, his manners too deeply ingrained to do otherwise. "Svetlana went missing several days ago. I've looked everywhere near Fiori with no signs of her. This was the only other place I could think to look. Have you seen her? I thought maybe she had left to see her brother..." He trailed off with a shrug of his shoulders.

She heard him out, all the while taking in his appearance, and the scent of young pups on his coat. "Junge, you don't know your Svetlana very well, do you?" she murmured finally. "The things she has done. If you knew her it would not surprise you that she has gone missing. Her loyalty has ever been a fickle creature. She turned her back on her kin many times when they most needed her, why would you be so very different?" She jerked her muzzle in a gesture towards her pack's lands. "Kassander has only just returned from Abaven. If she had chosen to visit him she would have done so then, not taken the journey to a pack she has no wish to see. She has not been here since Yfir settled in this lands." She hesitated, then deliberately softened her manner. She didn't like the boy, didn't like his family, and the idea that Raisa's daughter had taken up with them rankled. He and his were soft, weak, and easily broken... but perhaps he deserved pity because of it. Begrudgingly, she softened her voice to add, "A certain madness seems apt to run in her family. Her mother left the children twice in their childhood, the second time with me to foster them and hold the pack in their names. Perhaps she suffers this same madness." Disgust curdled her tongue, to speak so of Raisa to this child of Alacratia, but his very own mother had been within Ebony when Raisa left so it may not be entirely unknown anyway.

Leo hadn't been expecting much more than a "yes" or "no". What he ended up hearing instead was much more than he wanted to know right now. The longer Katja spoke the more disheartened he became. He kept his expression the same with just a twitch of his ear as a response. He supposed he really didn't know much of Svetlana's past, now that she mentioned it... It hadn't really come up and he hadn't asked. She and spoken of her family quite a bit the first time they met, before she had come to Fiori the first time, but since then a lot of their time together had been taken up with pack problems and then their pups. A frown crossed his muzzle as Katja began to speak of Svetlana's family and her mother's madness. Is that what had happened? He hadn't noticed anything different in her recently. It was like she had suddenly vanished in the middle of the night... If she had wandered off in a fit of madness... Gods he just wanted her to be safe. A sigh passed his lips and he was quiet for a moment, glancing down at his mismatched paws before pulling his gaze back up to Katja's face. He dipped his head again, saying, "Thank you for your time. I appreciate your talking with me. I should be getting back, my children don't like for me to be gone too long." With a new set of worries and disappointments to clutter his thoughts he turned back toward home as long as Katja had nothing else to say. "Talk" "You" Think

She made no effort to stop him walking away, though she probably should have done so. Pups - Svetlana's, she assumed from context. That meant grandchildren of Raisa, being raised to be Adravendi. As uselessly soft and weak as they were. She restrained herself from calling to stop him - there was little point to it, when the childrens' genetics would be so weakened anyway as to likely be not worth the effort of fixing them. Hm. Though perhaps she would speak with Kassander, and meditate on the idea. She turned away, and trotted back into the pack lands a bit to watch him leave.