Hushed Willows The nightmare scenario has happened.

Alright, so she hadn't gotten around to really... Looking around. Pepper had tried, really she did. It bothered her to come up empty-handed on such a routine basis; she didn't know the terrain very well or the surrounding landscape, so she'd done patrols and ventured some ways from the Keep, but always returned before too much time had elapsed. It didn't help that things kept on changing in the pack — they'd taken on another pregnant woman, and she'd had puppies, which was great! Really great. But it made things a little harder.

Pepper was just returning from a failed hunt now, slinking up the cliffside and through the willows with her head cast glum and low, when the scent of Stark crossed her path. It wasn't fresh at all. In fact, she couldn't recall the last time she'd spoken to him, and began to wonder where he'd gone. Maybe he had found one of his missing family members? That was an uplifting concept; she began to lope along with more enthusiasm then, putting her failure out of her mind.