Lowering his head to sniff at the snow-covered tree root, Serach breathed in deeply. There were wolves in these woods, that was for certain, which meant he was headed in the right direction. He had lost track of how many months it had been since the tiny black wolf had shown up on his borders to announce that she had set up a pack of her own to the south. Serach hadn't been there to greet @Sahalie himself, but Aponi had told him about her visit. The wounds had still been too fresh for him to seek her out, and since then he'd lost track of time. There was no real catalyst that had spurred him south today, but something had clicked and so he had bid his mate goodbye and headed towards the barren woods of Umbra Copse to see how his strong-willed cousin was faring.

But the further south Serach went, the more his apprehension about the meeting grew. The scents of his neighbors were growing stronger, but Sahalie's scent was not as prominent as he would have expected it to be. Had he gone in the wrong direction? It was certainly possible, but his mental map had placed Quaking Vale firmly to their south, and he doubted that the sparsely populated woods - really more of a swamp - could support more than one pack. So when he reached the pack's borders, he took his time to sniff along the scent trails to try and pick out the Tainn girl's scent. Unable to locate anything recent, he finally lifted his head and howled out. He called for Sahalie, but it was clearly a question more than a summons. If the girl herself didn't answer, he hoped that one of the Vale members would.

Serach wasn't left waiting very long, but the woman who approached him was not the one he was expecting. She was black-furred like Sahalie was, but she was of average height and stature, and her pale peach eyes were not the fiery orange ones that was the signature trait of the Tainn family. She approached him with an easy wave of her tail and Serach's pale one flicked behind him a few times in a quiet response. Her words got straight to the point of his visit, but they earned her a furrowed, confused brow.

"I guess I don't know for sure...this is Quaking Vale, isn't it?" Perhaps he hadn't gone to the right pack afterall. And if that was the case - where the hell was he? "I'm Serach Donata, the leader of Oak Tree Bend. Sahalie visited my mate several months ago and told her she had settled and started a pack in The Deep, and I guess I thought this was it."

The nod of her head confirmed that Serach was in the right place, but everything else she said went right over his head. He had no idea who any of these wolves were nor did he really understand how Quaking Vale had come to change leadership between Sahalie and her friend Kino to the woman in front of him now. So with a confused look on his face, he merely nodded his head and quietly said, "I see." As Morganna continued, explaining that Quaking Vale was soon to be no more, he couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart on his cousin's behalf. How would she feel if she returned to find that the wolves she had entrusted her pack to had decided to not only make it their own, but move it all the way across Relic Lore?

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate it. Sahalie is my cousin, you see. If she ended up at the Monadnock, then I'm sure you heard about what happened in the Bend last winter - can't say we parted on the best of terms, but it's been long enough that I wanted to check in on her. Surprised she isn't here...leading a pack of her own had always been a dream of hers."

And then, while they waited for Morganna's fellow leader to arrive, he decided to broach another topic. "You said you were moving the Vale west? Can I ask why?"

Morganna tilted her head back and called for her brother, who would hopefully help to answer Serach's questions. Talker or no, if he had been in Quaking Vale long enough to become its leader, then surely he must know something of its founders. Until then, he was content to get his history lesson from Morganna. Although he could not help but wrinkle his brow at the mention of Spieden. She'd lost her mind and imploded the Bend in the process - to say he did not think of her fondly was an understatement. But he kept his mouth shut and merely nodded his head politely, murming a quiet, "I see."

He was more interested in her response to inquiry as to why they were leaving. Her emphasis on home resonated with him and he found himself nodding along in understanding. "I can appreciate that. I was born in the Bend - never been anywhere else and don't plan on leaving any time in the future. We've got our ghosts too, but I suppose it's different because they're mine ya know," he explained with an easy shrug to her shoulders. "You said you're from the Willows and an Archer - are you Elettra's daughter? Never met her myself, but my mother and uncle knew her from their days at Swift River. Held her in high regard. As for your brother, I do believe he's the partner of my mate Aponi's daughter...suppose that makes us distant family too." He smiled, finishing his words with an easy chuckle and a wag of a tail. He did not seriously consider them to be family, but it was interesting to hear the connections across Relic Lore laid out before them.

There was no response from Morganna's brother, and it seemed that Serach would be denied the complete answers to the questions he had been looking for. He wasn't perturbed, however. He had already gotten more information than he had expected he would, all things considered. Morganna herself was pleasant enough, and they seemed to be kindred spirits when it came to their feelings on home. He chuckled at her remarks that he would just be wasting energy - he could not have agreed more with her assessment.

She confirmed for him that she was, in fact, a daughter of Elettra Archer. He had never met the Willow matriarch, but he did know that the Archer family had spread like wildfire over Relic Lore. He would bet an elk bone that if he ever ventured to all four corners of the forest, he would find an Archer occupying that space. He nodded his head in confirmation, at the question, "Yeah, Kyna is her name. Can't say I've met Greer though."

He was not expecting her to offer him rest, but he was thankful for it. Dipping his head lower, he stepped towards her and ready to follow. "Thank you, I appreciate it," he told her. "And that's alright about Niles, I learned the important thing - that Sahalie isn't here any more." Everything else was just details, and eventually his curiosity about those would fade. Following her into the Vale territory (a strange sensation for someone who had only ever visited his sister's pack before), he shook his head in the negative at her last question. The Bend had recruited many members over the past two years, but none that he could recall that would go by that name. "'Afraid not. If they lived in the Bend at the time, they certainly didn't use that name." He was completely wrong, of course, but Serach had no way to know that particular aspect of his mate's past life.