Faite Ethereal Adravendi It was one of those mornings where sleeping in just wasn't going to happen. She'd tossed and turned as much as she dared without waking up Zell or the children but no matter which side she tried she just couldn't get comfortable. Eventually the realization that she wasn't going back to sleep any time soon hit her and she decided to give it up. The sun hadn't even made it past the horizon and orange was slowly creeping through the sky. It was still early, even for her, but at least she'd get a head start on her day. She spared once last look in the den before heading off towards the valley's border. She'd still been vigilant in her patrols. It seemed the pack drew in all sorts of traffic and multiple meetings had set her on edge. All scents of Ritsy and his incident had been washed away by now so she'd given up on finding his attacker for now, but the scent of the male that did it was ingrained into her memory. Tracking him down was impossible now, but she knew if she ever ran into the wolf that did it then she wouldn't stop until justice had been served. The only thing that bothered her now was that a body hadn't been found. If he'd been washed away he might have ended up on a bank somewhere but investigation of the river on both sides, upstream and down, had turned up nothing. He'd been a weird little creature, a little twisted when she'd first met him, but she liked to think that her influence over him had helped after a while. He'd freaked Kieryn out at first, but some of her own pups had taken to him well enough. She'd hoped that Zuriel could have figured out how to fix what was wrong with his coat, but his disappearance, or death, had put a stop to that. Either way she missed his presence. Then her mind flitted to Zuriel as she patrolled. It'd been some a while since she'd spent some time with her sister. Of course she knew the female was always around, but she felt guilty that she hadn't checked up on her sooner. It was also a good opportunity to check up on her children as well. They were a season younger than her own so she imagined they were at that stage where they wanted to explore more. Thankfully none of her own had broken the rule of going past the border until they were a year. Now that they were it was about time she taught them how to defend themselves before they decided the world needed exploring. She decided to save the rest of her patrol for later and headed off towards Zuriel's den. The sun was slightly higher, peaking over the tree tops now, but doing very little to warm up the area. It hadn't snowed yet, but it was far colder than the previous winter had been and frost still clung to the ground and the grass crunched under her feet. Her breath came out as fog and she couldn't help but wonder how harsh the winter would be. She shoved the thoughts aside as she reached the entrance to Zuriel's den and she peaked inside. "Zuriel?" "Speech" I like to imagine That you smile when you hear my songs

Sleep wasn't something that came easily these past few days. She was curled up with Daelos, protectively laying around her daughter. Her sons disappearing had her more and more worried as days continued to crawl by. The first couple of days after Kane had disappeared she had tried not to worry. Kids wandered off sometimes, right? Adventures and all that? That's what she tried to believe. Then when Miach vanished as well that's when the worry really began to dig in. She had begun to search outside of the pack's boundaries, but she hadn't been able to search too far. Leaving Daelos alone for any length of time made her nervous. Her ears twitched at the sound of her sister's voice and she lifted her head to look in Faite's direction. She glanced down at Daelos to make sure she was still asleep before she carefully untangled herself and got up to go join Faite outside. "You're out early this morning," she commented with a small smile as she settled down onto her haunches a few feet away from the den's entrance. "What brings you out this way?" "Talk" "You" Think

She spotted Zuriel in the slight shadow of the den curled around Daelos. She backed up a few steps to give her sister room as she exited the den. It was easy for her to spot the absence of Kane and Miach, though she'd known for a little while now that Kane had been missing. She hadn't picked up on any signs of the black pup whatsoever so all she could do was hope that he'd return to them soon. Miach's disappearance on the other hand was completely unknown to her - she could only tell that he wasn't in the den. She sat back on her haunches as she offered Zuriel a smile in return. "I came to see how you were doing. I'm sorry we haven't gotten to spend mire time together lately." With winter upon them she assumed Zuriel would at least have plenty of free time to pursue other things. She was sure her own kids would keep her busy, but since herbs wouldn't be growing for some time she had hopes that her own alpha duties wouldn't prevent her from being with her family. She'd already neglected Regulus and the rest of the family in Celestial - she didn't want to neglect Zuriel as well. Walk, "Talk" Think

She responded to Faite's comment with a little shake of her head. "Don't worry about that. You have a whole pack and kids to take care of, I understand." She felt like she was busy all the time with just her own children. She couldn't imagine having a whole pack worth of wolves to look out for on top of it. "I'm doing okay," she commented, trying her best to keep that slight smile on her face, but it felt as fake as it probably looked. She glanced back over her shoulder at the den for a moment and sighed as she turned to look back at her sister. "I haven't seen Kane in quite a while and now Miach has gone missing too. I've been looking for them a little bit, but I'm... I'm just worried something happened to them." There was everything from larger predators to quicksand to other wolves that had dark intentions which was more than enough for a worried mother's overactive imagination. She didn't even want to think about the possibility that Elias might have found one of them and something went wrong. Her ears flicked and she shifted uncertainly in the snow. "I hope they're okay." "Talk" "You" Think

She smiled softly after Zuriel admitted she understood why she hadn't been around a bit more often. It didn't curb Faite's guilt a whole lot, but it helped a lot. Without Fortune around to help her out anymore there was a lot on her shoulders with five pups and a pack to take care of. Of course it seemed as though half the pack was pups, her own brood didn't quite help with that, but they wouldn't be babies forever. Her own were yearlings now, a strange concept for her, and it didn't quite settle right with her. How could they have grown up so fast already? It wouldn't be long before their training really got underway and they took ranks for themselves. Zuriel's children wouldn't be long behind them either. The mood shifted as Zuriel tried to tell her she was okay. Faite might have believed it if it wasn't for how hard she was trying to keep the smile on her face. Something was obviously bothering her, but what was it. Faite didn't have to pry at all though to get her gray coated sibling to admit what was wrong. She hadn't thought much about the missing scents of Kane and Miach, but now that it was brought to her attention it was glaringly obvious that they weren't around. A frown tugged across her face as she thought about it. "Are there any scent trails to follow?" She questioned. Even a little hint would be helpful. "We'll find them, I promise." Walk, "Talk" Think