A summer at the seaside had brought Spiderlily some measure of peace. Even if she was farther from home than ever, even if her nose was steadily losing its sense of smell. She spent her birthday lying in the sand, chewing on a coconut and finding she couldn’t crack it no matter how hard she tried. Fish had been her primary food source for much of her sabbatical, and she had come out the other side with shiny, short fur and health flushing her cheeks. The sickly mountainous girl had become a sharp seaside woman, seaspray tangled into her fur.

But remembering what she’d left behind had brought pain into her retreat, and as the world tipped closer and closer to fall, she found herself missing what she had no idea how to find. Maybe she could make her way back, could find the hole she’d fallen through that had spat her at the seaside. That had drove her inland, but her dwindling sense of smell hadn’t helped her much, and she found herself helplessly lost all over again. Lily clicked her tongue, the stonework around her magnificent, but she didn’t care. Instead, she trawled deeper into the odd ruins, mouth open to try and catch anything.

But there was nothing. Maybe the faintest of smoke scent hiding in far away corners, but no wolves. Nothing she could parse. Just her, and the silent stone watching her fruitless journey.

Pennyroyal didn't know the meaning of peaceful, a living ball of stress that probably inflicted his anxiety onto the others around him. He had no particular skills but worrying, and it was by mere chance he caught the scent of his littermate. He and Verbena had been searching for weeks to no avail, and the ginger boy could hardly believe he'd finally stumbled across the trail. He had frozen, tail bushed out straight behind him and ears pinned as if spooked before darting off deeper into the swamp. A single excited bark left him, though whether it was for Spiderlily or Benny was up for debate. Perhaps both!

He galloped haphazardly around the ruins, leaping those he thought short enough and careening closer towards the faint, faint trail of his sister. It was getting stronger! Was this how hunting worked?! He'd never followed a scent trail with success before!! Now that it was growing fresher, he loosed a happy little bay into the air. Was that her dark pelt mottled through the brief snatches of sunlight?

Penny bunched the muscles of his hind legs and sprang over a wall, singing a happy note... and caught a foot on the stony structure, landing face-first into the peaty mud of the swamp right behind his sister.