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. 

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. 

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. 

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." 

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. 

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.