Bearclaw Valley her perfume and her rum

"bruin-jaw."
merrick stood struck through with the electricity of realization, single pupil dilated to nothingness; he had come at once for his son, his heir — yes, he knew this. 
avicus, merrick's heart twisted over her, for he had never ceased to envision she and her brother at the second helm of ursus.
but it was for the love of their true cunning and merit and lineage that he set his burning focus upon @Aventus now.
"the spirit has spoken to me. seek."
jaws dry, the bearwitch went on.
"the bears have left this place. the rabbits and foolish little foxes; even the birds. they die in the heat. we have not — continued to water this ground."
tonguetip flicked, lizardlike.
"the bear first came to me far from here. i stood in his blood, i —"
overcome! 
"ursus began when i was made the choice of bears. ursus is our name. we must renew it. we must go there. all of us. do you see? we — i — have not given your brother and sister their proper baptism. as you were. as was —"
gaze tightening. "it is not a journey we can lightly take."
travel in dark, beneath the cooler night. veil themselves by day, lest they be delayed upon 
"— our pilgrimage."

Aventus would never understand the forces that drove his father. Not truly. He walked the same path, but his was a farce; he played at wisdom where bears were concerned, but laid bare, Aventus knew precious little. It was a razor’s edge. He balanced on the sharp tip, and it laid precisely against the side of his throat, prepared to cut should the truth ever come out.

The bears did not speak to him. The bears had never spoken to him.

Nevertheless, Aventus listened to Merrick’s babbling — excited and reverent in a way he had never seen his father before — with a mask of full understanding. Even if they did not speak to him, Aventus believed wholly in his father’s mission. Other wolves were less devout. Other wolves might question Merrick, but not Aventus. He followed the bears and his parents despite falling short of the manic blood that fuelled their veins, because Aventus was a cultist through and through, and did not require proof to believe in twisted reality.

Prey is getting hard to find, he agreed, tonguing his teeth halfway through the sentence as if he meant to reconsider his words. But it was true. Hunts were failing more often, not because the wolves were complacent, but because more often than not, there was no prey to chase. The valley was stifling and filling with smoke. Small wonder the prey sought better conditions elsewhere, and knew better than to remain in this deadend place.

And Merrick was right. Blood had not soaked Ursus’ soil in some time. Aventus did not believe his siblings required baptism — Apophis might escape the doomed fate of his family if he remained free of that horror, and he believed that Asperas was already damned from the moment she took her first steps — but he kept his lips sealed on the thought. His opinion aside, blood was their way, and there had not been blood recently.

To where? he wondered in a compliant tone. He was a scout. Wherever they were going, Aventus expected to course ahead and survey the area to ensure Ursus’ success in their journey.

blessed son! blessed boy! merrick was filled with pride anew in aventus, for he saw in the boy that he and the blackbird had created; he saw a billowing promise for ursus.
the scarcety of prey was, by far, the least of why merrick blazed now with such pestilential heat; "over the mountains to our west, and then north. toward the sea. a small mountain. a cave of crystal inside."
he spoke as if wandering through memory, though presently his gaze sharpened. "your mother will find it hard to go." a note of true melancholy then, to think of leaving what they had known, where four children had been born to them, where —
but the raven queen knew the might of the bear. she had always understood on a feral plane that which drove merrick, and would know that he made this choice for the sake of ursus.
silently he bid @Astara still place her trust in him, and straightened. did aventus mean to leave now? "if this is our choice, we must leave the valley in silence." he did not speak of donovan, nor any enemies that might be massed against them.

Aventus tried to paint an image of the sacred mountain in his mind, but he would be unable to conjure up its grandeur until he saw it for himself. He was not a wolf of the mountains. He had never even ventured to the mountains; it would be an arduous journey and a major adjustment for him, he was certain.

She will find it harder to stay, is what Aventus thought. It was difficult to leave home. Even he was resistant to the idea, but he knew better than to tell his sire. Merrick had an idea in his mind and when Merrick had an idea, there was almost no force on earth that could stop him from pursuing it. He would miss the valley, the only home he had ever known and the only home he had ever wanted to, but if it was best for Ursus, then Aventus would adapt. So would Astara and the young ones.

I will go ahead, offered Aventus, to ensure the way is clear. For the safety of Asperas and Apophis. If not for the Bearberries, Ursus would have no need of a scout. They were plenty capable of taking any threat head-on. But for the sake of his younger siblings, it was best to ensure the way was clear. Ursus still had enemies out there. Aventus did not know their number nor their locations, but he was certain they existed.

The only one he did know was Donovan — he and his father were aligned on the need for secrecy, with the Saints lurking in the mountains, neither of them having any way of knowing they had long ago departed the canyon.

once, merrick might have doubted his son, have suspected him in some way of wishing to take the helm of ursus before his father was ready to surrender it. the loss of avicus had struck him harshly; in some ways, merrick had not been the same.
his fault, yes;
"yes," he echoed, feeling no loss of confidence in aventus now. "the bear was wise to choose you for this." to have given the young rogue a true royal mother of night's intrigue; aventus, reared first in her image and then given to the ursine spirits that had deserted the valley.
but they had not left ursus, and merrick saw this clearly as fresh-blooded pathways: they had only motioned to come onward.
"i do not need to tell you to be careful." quick jerk of the ragged lips into some rictus of humour. "i will tell you that hesitating to kill will only end in your death."
a lesson the bruin-jaw had learned once, but merrick would say it again.

No hesitation, Aventus agreed. It wasn't just about him now. He would go for the good of all Ursus wolves, and he could not serve them or the bears if he allowed himself to be killed. Enemies everywhere, but Aventus was a wolf raised to have no morals, and so he would not hesitate. Privately, he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

The first blood spilled by Ursus on this pilgrimage should be that used to bathe their new territory.

When do you plan to depart? he asked, knowing Merrick would need some time to convince Astara, inform the pack, and prepare the cubs. Aventus could leave at any time, doing what he did best: slipping by in the shadows, serving Ursus in his own way from afar rather than at the head as their shepherd. But he would not leave too early. He had to be close enough that, should they need him, he could hear their howls.

Hours before them, perhaps. No more than that.

"within the next hours," merrick promptly rejoined. "if you go now, i will gather the rest, and instruct them that we are leaving. or you may call them," he offered next to the young rogue, though truly he was distracted when it came to the smaller details.
"the bear provides," merrick muttered, standing and looking toward his eldest as though he himself might leave directly. "your sister —" which one? "she was born to this."
offering no clarity, merrick gestured to the boy. "do you have any questions?"

Something ramrod rigid took up residence in Aventus' spine at the mention of his sister. He assumed Merrick was referring to Asperas, but on the off chance he meant Avicus, it was a red-hot tip of a poker in his soul to suggest she deserved anything of Ursus any longer. He would not ask, but pressed his teeth together over the unfurling of his tongue with the question.

Focused instead on the journey ahead, the Bruin-jaw shook his head. I will go now, he said. He would likely swing by his mother's den to see her before leaving. Avoid the Saints at all costs, yes? Not that Aventus knew where they were.

"at all costs."
merrick knew their might, and would not allow aventus to be another crushed soul in that harrowing mouth.
he would watch his son depart, whispering a seethe of prayers to the listening bear before turning back toward home, and the blackbird queen.

Aventus gave a low dip of his head to acknowledge Merrick's command. He had no desire to find the Saints, either. He had no reason to fear those barbarians, but knew he would find it difficult to reign in his control if he encountered the intolerable white bitch after her treatment of his dam and what she had done to him. It was not worth risking all of Ursus for revenge.

To Astara's den he went, and then to the wilds beyond to stretch his legs as a true scout for the first time.