Spieden's thick limbs moved at a rolling gait, her heavy paws eating up the ground as she traveled through the snow dusted forest. Everything had been fine within the pack, quiet almost. Perhaps even too quiet. No leads had been found on Nayeli and Ruiko's disappearance, and with it the diminishing hope that the two members would return. The sorrow of it did not hit Spieden fully, as she had hardly known them, but she was sympathetic to the dampened spirits. What firmly shook Spieden though was that it was so uncanny, so odd that once loyal members could just disappear like that. Spieden was convinced that they were dead, and she still couldn't quite shake the thoughts of a conspiracy that gnawed at her mind. What if someone had killed them? It was a dreadful thought, one that made the Coho woman fear for her own life. They had both been high ranking, and perhaps Spieden would be next.

Itching with paranoia and growing irritable as she scrutinized everyone around her, she desperatly needed some space, which was what had brought her out of the territory today. With each step she felt the tension in her shoulders melt away, and each crisp breath of air that filled her lungs also cleared her mind. Her worries soon became a distant buzz in the back of her mind, allowing her to focus on the path ahead.

She was aware she was nearing the bounds of the nearest pack, but something seemed different. As she investigated, she found that the snow was undisturbed here, and the scent that had once warned away intruders had all but vanished. There most certainly had been a pack here, she remembered it, but where had they gone? Spieden still didn't dare cross the threshold, but her fiery amber eyes peered searchingly through the leafless trees as she tried to puzzle together what had happened. Could it be another chapter in the conspiracy?

A noise at her back suddenly pulled Spieden from her thoughts, her grey tipped muzzle pointing back over her shoulder to see someone approaching. At first she was on guard, but the familiarity of their silvered face and cerulean eyes eased her enough to calm the bristling of her hackles. She didn't know Zia particularly well, but she seemed to keep to herself, and more importantly, out of Spieden's hair, so Spieden indifferently accepted her presence as the grey woman stopped at her side.

At Zia's nearly rhetorical question, Spieden simply grunted in confirmation. The wheels of her mind were still spinning, trying to gain traction on some sort of theory that could explain the disappearances of two wolves, plus an entire pack. Perhaps the woman's question was even a test of how much Spieden did know, and she was wary of revealing how much she suspected, in case Spieden already knew too much. Zia had given her no reason to doubt her trustworthiness, but it was impossible for Spieden to be sure she was not also part of the scheme...

Spieden allowed a few more moments of silence to stretch between them, before pointing a question of her own on her packmate, "Do you know what happened to them? This pack, I mean." She asked, almost conversational in tone, but if one listened close enough there was an undercurrent of desperation to it. She wasn't too keen on revealing her ignorance in any facet, but you had to give a little to gain a little. The smoldering spark of her theory needed a little more of the air of knowledge before it could ignite into something more illuminating.