Bearclaw Valley deep in earth

something in his corvid, something rotblack and hateful and simmering. merrick did not understand it, only that it was a different malevolence than the one they had shared an eternity ago. today he found himself resentful and bitter over the seeds that had blundered from her body, leggy, clumsy little 
— well, merrick supposed they were killers now. or aspired to be. the hardening of his heart against the pair ceased, reverse, and instead the witch scouted off for one of their trails or another.
it was the redgirl's he discovered in the wet earth, and when he came upon avicus, she had backed away from the hole with its insouciant earth-harpy occupant. saying nothing, he came to sit beside his child, glancing to her once with rain beaded on his muzzle.