Swiftcurrent Creek This isn't a bad guy. This isn't a villain.

@Ukko

The male was moving in something that could only be called a catatonic state. Stark was moving without purpose, at least a conscious one, but he'd gone back to where he found Octavia. And then he couldn't put anything to words but he continued to shuffle through the Cache until he caught her trail again. Being near the clearing hurt him, but then, all of it made him ache and everything was overrunning him. Stark trembled as he left the clearing, refusing to look at the spot that Octavia had taken her final breaths in, and continued through until he'd found clear land again. 

Eventually he had worked back through her trail - it was something illogical, moving in a pattern that made no sense but then nothing of Octavia's final weeks had made any sense. 

Stark found a Creek and followed it, eventually stopping for a moment to get a drink. The sun was high in the sky and Stark knew he wanted to be back in the Keep before night had fallen. Tambourine would need all the help he could get to make it through everything that had just happened to him. While he had never taken any vows with Octavia, still, it felt like he'd become a single father and widower all in one foul swoop. 

The longer Ukko stayed in the lair, the crazier he felt. Torn between his duty to Asterr (and by proxy, the children she carried) and finding Tavi has left him a mess. He didn't eat much, nor did he sleep, and every bit of it ate at him. She hadn't been in good condition when he found her and her disappearance left a feeling in his stomach he didn't want to face. Asterr hadn't been able to help her. Perhaps she made her a little more comfortable but there was no telling when Tavi hadn't been able to speak to them. 

All his searches turned up empty handed and he knew they would have to come to a stop. Asterr is due any day now and just leaving on these short expeditions were a risk. 

With a heavy sigh, Ukko considers traveling to the Maplewood. He'd found out what happened from Desna some weeks ago but in Tavi's disoriented state, she might return somewhere that is familiar and so his path begins. 

He stops upon a creek once a scent catches his attention and he comes upon another dark furred male. Unrecognizable in both scent and sight, Ukko slowly makes an advance. He chuffs, lowly, only for attention. There isn't any high hope the man can help him but, perhaps, he might be able to point in him the right direction.

Everything that had come to pass Stark was still reeling and overloaded. As he pulled his head back some of the water ran down his chin, and with it, the slightest bits of Octavia's scent were being washed away. It was an irrational thought but Octavia had rested there against him and for a moment he was afraid that when he groomed himself again, or if Banner did, he would lose the last bits of her that he had. It wasn't true, of course, and the memories he had of the woman would have to be enough to carry him through. 

A sound caught him off guard and Stark's head snapped in the direction of the chuff. He hadn't been paying attention. Anyone could have come across him and he wouldn't have been any the wiser. At least this male had the sense to call out, or, perhaps he'd seen just how out of it Stark was. He made a soft woof in return, but for once, he didn't have the words to offer to the male. He was uncharacteristically quiet. 

The smell he has been following is faint and at times he loses it, sometimes picking it up later and sometimes not. All previous attempts at finding his friend have been failures and, just like the rest of them, he expects this one to be the same. The last time he’d run into one of Asterr’s own wolves before leading her home and now he stands a ways away from a man he doesn’t know. 

When he is noticed, however, he snaps to attention and his ears fall back upon his head. Something doesn’t seem right but not knowing the wolf, he can’t even begin to guess the problem.

“Hey,” he says with a swish of his tail, putting himself at ease and friendly so the other may feel invited. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he adds and shifts his weight, keeping himself from closing the distance just in case the other might not have the same intentions. The woof he got in return leaves him to think nothing might come of it but he can’t force himself to leave just yet. “I’m just… trying to find someone.”

Everything felt like it was in a daze. Stark turned to look at the male - who looked so much like himself, perhaps a more true black coat than his partially mottled appearance. Stark swallowed down another quick choke of sound and gives a shake of his pelt. Sometimes the emotions rise up in him and Stark knows he doesn't invite them but occasionally a hiccup of a sob leaves his lips again.

"Oh.." Stark starts of dumbly, ears hearing the words but his overwhelmed brain takes longer to process. "What...where were they? Uh. I've been missing some people too." One less now. "What do they look like?' He's encountered a number of wolves on his journey and he isn't sure if he can really help but maybe he might have seen them, or known something, and it might help the other wolf out some. 

Maybe putting his grief out of the way and focusing on something other than himself and things he can't change might be good. 

Something seemed a little weird when the man replies, as if he’s not all there. Distracted, Ukko thinks, but he manages to engage anyway. His hears fall back on his head as he thinks about his friend and where she might be. In her confused state, she could be anywhere, and Ukko doesn’t even know where to begin. 

“She… she’s mostly grey, different shades, about my size. Green eyes,” he explains, teeth closing to grind together. He doesn’t recognize the male or his scent and Tavi has been in these parts for some time but since the maplewood no longer existed, there is so much he doesn’t know. “Her name is Tavi Vardo,” he says, his voice softening as worry begins to choke him up.

Frequently Stark's thoughts flip to where Octavia might have been, what she had been doing, what that meant. Was she stumbling and struggling the entire time? Did she even know? Stark felt a cold shiver run down his spine and he focused instead on the male was saying. Stark felt his blood run cold, his entire frame seeming to crumble in on itself. 

He wasn't a small man by any stretch of the imagination but right then he felt tiny - it was hard to tell the male when Stark knew the truth. "Octavia," He said softly, he's heard this before - Saena only days before had confirmed it. Octavia had been what he'd always known her as, but Tavi - that was a wolf that everyone else knew. "Tavi," He had to struggle to call her that, it wasn't the name he'd known. "I...shit, I'm sorry...she passed away. Just..it was in the wetlands. I'd just found her, before...." 

Stark's eyes closed for a moment and the male was visibly steeling himself. He'd felt her last breath, known the moment that her heart had stopped, seen the light fade from her eyes. "I'm sorry...I couldn't do anything for her." 

The man something Ukko thinks he hears but isn't sure, ears cupping forward to attention as if he might repeat t again but he's silent for a few seconds. He says it again but it sounds different. Teeth grind together, afraid of what is going to come out of his mouth and somewhere inside, he hopes the other doesn't know who Tavi is. Even as he begins the unsteady words, he doesn't want to hear it. The tone is enough to tell him the rest and his stomach twists, as if he may lose everything inside, and he isn't sure how to work his legs anymore. They feel unsteady but he can't move them, a slight sway of his body coming with the news. 

Ukko opens his mouth to say something, realizes there's nothing, and snaps them back shut. 

The last several days he'd spent with Tavi had been terrible, unsure what to do for her. They'd opted for the safest form of treatment, of supportive care, but nothing helped. She wasn't his best friend. 

The last time they'd been together, she'd been so disappointed in him. 

He never expected a pain such at this to exist in his heart, they anything this bad will surely mean death. His breathing stops and he holds his breath for a longtime, trying to process the very words some stranger tells him. Even if he knew Tavi's time had been running out, he isn't sure if he should believe or not. If he'd been able to keep tabs on her better, perhaps he would know, but left in this new whirlwind leaves him a mess. 

"Where is she?" he asks dumbly, blinking away his stare to refocus his gaze on the stranger.

Watching a man fall apart isn't fun. It's about as much fun as admitting the woman you loved was dead, of telling her son that, of carrying her back to your packlands, of burying her where you met her. It was all terrible. Stark frowned as he watched and the question itself seemed innocent enough but what could he say? His gaze dropped down to the earth, fixed there for a moment as he let himself get swallowed up in his emotions for a moment. 

"In our packlands." Stark explained, finally looking up at the man again. "Where our boy and pack can visit her." Where he could visit her. Where She wouldn't be too far away. 

Ukko stares at the ground for a long moment when he gets the answer. He won’t be able to visit her, like the man in front of her, with their son. All of it hurts at once and he finds a crack somewhere in the back of his throat that lets a whine slip through. He’d lost Tavi months ago, instead of weeks, and having seen her in the last state she’d been in, he knew it isn’t the same. As much as he tried to help, she didn’t know it. All she knew was the coward of a boy back in the tangle before she left him for good and he made a foolish decision to give up.

He doesn’t deserve the chance to visit her whenever he wants.

Uncertain what to say, or do, for it is apparent the other whom he doesn’t know if grieving just as much, Ukko chokes back the catch in his throat. He doesn’t recognize his scent, it hadn’t been on Tavi’s coat the time he’d found her—or if it had, he hadn’t noticed—but it remains unfamiliar. “Can I—” he pauses, uneasy. There isn’t any clue how the other may take the request. “Can I come by... sometime, to say goodbye?” he says, voice quiet and a careful step back. Just in case.

Stark wasn't sure how he felt about the question. It brought a little too much familiarity there - and it's clear that there was familiarity at some point. Octavia never mentioned him though, or if she did, it was in passing and there wasn't another mention of him. He wasn't sure that he would want to just invite a stranger back into his pack, near the only remainders of Octavia he had. "Sometime." He said, giving a slow nod. Eventually, that would be fine, maybe.

Stark wasn't sure what he wanted then - to go home, defeated feeling still, or wander further. "She was staying with you?" Which made him feel a little better - at least she wasn't alone then. And maybe that meant good things, although he wasn't sure how he felt. It should have been him. He should have focused on chasing Octavia don. He should have done better by her, by everyone. 

Ukko can’t blame the other man for not wanting to jump right at the opportunity to say goodbye and he isn’t entirely sure how ready he is. He’ll take what he can get, however, and that’s the chance to say goodbye one final time. He will find the man and his home another time but he knows right now he can’t stay here. Even though he’s asked another question, Ukko struggles to find a way to open his mouth and blurt the words out. It hadn’t been Tavi that he found, guarded, and then lost, but he can’t stop the word from falling out of his mouth anyway:

“Yes.”

It is short and uninformative and he shakes his head, a heavy sigh slipping from his muzzle, “it hadn’t been her. She couldn’t make sense of anything. I’m not even sure she realized who I was.” For all he knew, based on his she reacted, she could have thought he’d been this man who is big in stature and dark in color and perhaps to a troubled mind, he looked similar. Ukko shrugged a little and frowned but his stomach turned a little too fast. “I’m sorry I couldn’t… do anything. I didn’t know where she lived anymore.”

The brute's pain is apparently and Ukko feels himself growing uncomfortable. His own pain doesn't feel right when he'd left things so poorly, wishing he could go back in time and fix all his mistakes. It is there he decides to leave him, mourning, for there is nothing for him to do, but eventually Ukko finds himself heading back toward the lair aimlessly.