Bearclaw Valley it's whatever you say it is

Despite having had a comparatively simple life at Walnut Grove, largely free of experimental strangeness and threads of shadow, Ico did have an imagination. Such a skill dwelt at the core of any fair storyteller. And something about the way Merrick's eye twinkled, and Fields muttered ill approval in the spectator stands, made Ico feel that the cyclops could be telling a tale of death. His sister had left him. And his mother had left him... "because she wanted to".

He didn't like this story — it quickly transpired that "like" was far too uncomplicated a word for today — but Ico was enraptured.

Yessir, he breathed. There were a few ways a lost boy could "free" himself from the trap of suffering constant loss.