Hushed Willows There's a little gray area in there and that's where you operate.

If Stark might have been able to, he would have blanched at the idea of cutting through the cache to get to stone circle. Logically it made sense, but, he had no desire to go through the muck and mire again. The last time he'd been there he'd literally watched the life drain from Octavia and felt the last breaths of the woman he'd loved. He was still bitter about it. "We could take the pass down from the plains, skirt the mountains." He suggested after a too-long pause, and hoped desperately that his tone hadn't betrayed the truth of the matter. "We can still find cover and be just fine, I think." He followed up to try and smooth out his own reaction to things - and it only made it more evident that both siblings still had a slew of issues and even knowing one another as well as they did sometimes it just happened. Feathers got ruffled. 

Stark nodded to himself and then nudged Banner gently, taking up a slow pace towards the plains. "Hopefully the year has gone well for them." Stark hummed out. "I think she had a guy she fancied, maybe they finally settled down. Or maybe she did overthrow him." That was (mostly) a joke - one he'd mentioned to Valette playfully the last time they'd seen one another. It seemed easier then, and he'd been happy to ignore the trauma of his own life in favor of just pushing on for the sake of the Keep. Without needing to support the pack, and instead only himself and Banner, things were better. "You feeling for anything in particular? I bet there's plenty of turkeys about." And he'd only squabble with her over the wishbone a little bit. He was a gentleman after all.