Lost Creek Hollow Inside the bottom of the deep blue sea.

The last few weeks had been stressful for the lot of them, and after a harrowing excursion outside of the hollow's boundary on the hunt for something tasty, Mink returned looking haggard, empty-jawed, with his belly just as empty as it had been when he'd traipsed away.

The excursion had lasted a few days, with the wolf ranging further and further, but when the lands stopped appearing familiar to him he turned around and headed back to the safety of familiar ground; and it was lucky that he did, what with the trembling of the mountains and the splitting of the earth. The ongoing carnage of the season's ruin did not bode well for anyone. A part of him wanted to flee as soon as he was far off, to let the pack think he had died in one such disaster or another, but Mink was a loyal creature—and a lonely one. He knew he would fare better if he stuck with the Hollow wolves.

As he crossed the threshold that was the invisible scent line, he ducked his head, rolled shoulder-first against the markings he found, to strengthen the pack scent he wore; it had faded a little since his excursion. As he got to his paws again he shook the debris from his ragged coat, and drew in a deep breath which became an even deeper, heavier sigh of defeat. How far would they have to go for food—? How would the pack survive if they could not find even the smallest scrap? The worry played across his face in knots as he began to skulk towards the territory's heart.

Sarah didn't look like a person, who laughed often or at all, but she possessed a dark sense of humour. Which if there was a tone that was darker than black, let's call it abysmal, had got a matching tone now. Things had turned for the worse, everyone were worried or sullen nowadays and she did not even have to pretend to feel normal or - worse - cheerful. She could be grumpy, antisocial and sullen all she wanted, no one would berate her or think her insane. In a group, where she had been a total outsider for almost a year, she finally felt that she fitted in.

Which in the background of the common misery made her a little more cheerful. Odd, how mind works, doesn't it? She happened to cross paths with a tall, haggard looking russet wolf, and rather than scurrying away on the spot, she stopped, waited and observed him. Then made a decision to go and exchange hello-s and have that stuff people called conversation. "Hi," she told him, avoiding the more proper "good morning", because it would sound like mocking. "I don't think we have met."

The conversation did not last long, because Sarah soon discovered that she was in no mood to keep it going for long.