there was no home with the nightwalkers, only the general protection offered to yearlings without a pack. merrick’s succor had always been astara; where he went, so did the shadow. bonded, unyielding, malleable only to one another.
but even she left him empty as of late, unable to bridge the great chasm that had opened within merrick upon the taste of indra’s blood. he had not slept; he spent his days hunting for what meat could be found, wanting endlessly to be alone in the cold halls of his suffering mind.
there was but one way to regain hope.
the moon was soon to began its ascent, and merrick too had paused between the tall dry stalks to gaze heavenward. in another time, a world that felt so greatly removed from who it was now wore his name, merrick had loved the stars.
copperlight gaze silently identified the constellations taught to him by terance in his youth, and for a single trembling moment, the yearling felt a glissade of hopeful wanting.
it was obscured by the sound of gentle footsteps not far beyond merrick; dark ears swiveled, thrust, and his breathing cadenced as the hunt began again, as he began to press through the meadowgrass in search of what was beyond, a stalk endowing his thinning legs.

moonchased and balefully visible: a slim-hipped vision to slake the melancholy that had too long echoed in merrick’s heart. a voice, and though the boy did not yet see fear writ into the narrow ivoried features, the night was still young. time enough for that.
”hello,” he purled in response, though made no effort to unveil himself before those odd, searching eyes. snow and sorbet; a treat to be devoured, and slowly.
merrick would save the gaze for last.
”do you know where you are?” he hissed suddenly, voice sibilant against the backdrop of aching earth and groaning trees.

”a pity,” merrick rejoined, moreso for the careful contemplation of his target.
how beatific the boy, standing confidently among the tall grasses as he attempted to pinpoint his hunter.
the yearling knew with a blink of lantern-eyes that summarily the blood would run viscous and vibrant against such a backdrop of trembling snow.
”perhaps you know what a homba is,” merrick breathed, body poised, throat dry as wildfire ash. a story told to him by tadec in his childhood, and the only thing about his father that the young coywolf truly recalled.

”i am the homba,” merrick sighed into the growing night, ”and this is my domain.” he surveyed the quarry again; was that a hint of fear lacing the crisp air?
merrick lusted after the thin tendril of it, demanded more. his anathema; his poison. swallowing the strangled whine which had threatened to give him away as mortal stalking beast, merrick smirked in the darkness.
”some say i grant wishes,” the boy went on, tones cooling. ”but i’m really in no mood.” at last he unfurled himself from the shadows, detached and slipping between crackling stalks into the awareness of those odd, compelling eyes. 
here merrick lurked a long moment, not bothering to hide the butcher’s shimmer upon his black pupils and their copperburn hellscape; he smiled in the dying light.
”run.”
energy coursing his bones, mouts pooling with saliva —
not a request, after all.