Jade Fern Grove along the path we lost our way

Nikai hadn't seen her. Another disappointment. He felt his mouth turn with the slightest flinch of a frown, though even this was hardly visible against the perpetual look of aloofness that stole his face. If neither he nor Nikai had seen Keen, then perhaps this trail ran cold. Yet she had been here at one point - and he could yet find her, if he could decipher the twisting path of what traces of her scent remained.

Nikai's query only tested Merrit's already thinned patience, and showed, so clearly, his otherness among them. If Nikai had known Keen, he would have known her absence could only mean one thing, and Merrit withheld a sigh. "Keen isn't one to simply wander," he said, matter-of-fact, and turned away from his brother, though his words carried on, "She left without speaking her intent to anyone, and now her scent grows stale. She is lost." And the words tasted bitter on his tongue. If he hadn't been so absorbed by his own troubles, perhaps things would have been different. He would have noticed Keen absence sooner, and she would have never gone astray.