Lone Star Mountain Stick with the plan, we'll find another way in.

Buchanan offered his alpha a sage nod of thanks with a slight twitch of his lips grimly when Stark complimented him on his thought processes and that he was good. Perhaps there was silver linings to be found in what The Officer had forged him into, but not often. In this instance, he might actually be able to help. Maybe. It depended upon so much and the Wilds were large and vast, and inhabited by a lot of packs spread throughout. “Do you think he'd remember the way?” It was good, though. They had some direction to start in, a possible place to begin their search. Of course, there was a possibility he had never made it that far: another pack could have swept him up or...worse, but Buchanan didn't linger upon that thought for too long.

His job wasn't to be a pessimist: it was to help track down the missing Keep members. “Hmm,” Buchanan drew in thought as he tried to make the connection whether the child had taken off because he was scared or angry or perhaps both. It seemed likely that he would flee where he was most comfortable, which as Stark said, was probably his birth territory. “Children seek comfort in what is familiar, it makes sense that he'd try to go back to his birth place. It's a good idea to try to retrace his possible steps.” Buchanan knew that if he hadn't been so utterly terrified of The Officer and what he'd do to him when he caught him he would have tried to run away, but his terror forced him to stay, to accept The Officer's brutality and let him twist and control him until he was barely even an individual. He had needed The Officer's commanding voice in his ear to tell him what to do besides the archaic need to survive. He was working on that. It was a slow process and he couldn't deny that it felt good (relieving even) to have a mission something that he was familiar with. It was even better that it didn't require him to kill anyone.

“Sounds like you've had a rough run of things,” Buchanan murmured in quiet contemplation, when Stark explained that the whole altercation was what had led him to claim the pack. Which only made sense, especially if it's alpha female was missing, too. Someone had needed to step up to the plate, take up the mantle or else the Keep would have likely ceased to exist.