Admittedly, he hadn't really strayed far from the cub woman. Except for days where she decided to go investigate steep slopes. He had little interest in holding her back on those days. So it should have come at no surprise that he rounded the bank at a limping stroll when she called.

"Sita," He offered back once near enough to be heard. Didn't fancy the idea of hollering to be heard right now.

One mostly grey brow quirked slightly as he stared at her. Expectant, maybe. He was not a man who flapped his lips just to hear his own voice. If there was something to discuss beyond an acknowledgement of each other's existence, he trusted she would get to it.

News had arrived, apparently. How he did not know. Yet clearly it was good. Word of her children to the west. Across a mountain.

He did not have it in him to bounce about as joyously as she did. Walleye was happy for her in the way that any old temperamental man could be. Yet that was it. He was an old tempermental man. Well aware that he'd be lucky to see spring or summer. He could not compete in the ways he once had. Perhaps even a year or two ago he would have been fit for a trip over mountains.

Now he limped along even on his best days. Cloudy eyes (not that he knew they clouded some these days) that did not see as well as they used to.

"That's good news, cubbin'." He hummed with some sort of bittersweet kindness. "Take it your odds are better the sooner you head out. So...when's the day?" Fully prepared to shut off any access to his emotions. He had seen off plenty of wolves, some his own children, but perhaps he'd grown softer in his old age. A little harder to watch faces come and go these days.

Walleye did not think once that she might have wanted him to tag along any further now. What spring chick wanted the old rooster tutting about?

It was a...kind gesture, really. Maybe in his youth he would have jumped on with no hesitation. Eager to devour the land beneath his paws. Except now his joints ached and his paws were calloused from the years.

"Y'know, it'll be the same rules still. I'm a real slowpoke these days." Some humor in his gravely voice, even if he knew there was an expected weight to them. "I'd be happy to come along if you really don't mind, though." It wasn't as if he had much to do here. Mark the same tree a hundred times a day and eat his fill of whatever scraps he found. Quite the life he had decided to live.

"Settled then."

If he had been asked a month or two ago what he planned on doing when he left home, the answer would not have been going on some adventure with a young woman to find her missing children. It sounded like a moral filled story one of his wives would have told to rambunctious children at bed time.

"So, they tell you how far your kids got?" Like how West was West in this vague description? Admittedly he had old man feelings about going too far from the coulee he had claimed for himself. Except he liked Sita so...he was willing to travel at least a little.