Overture Downs he was eager for the tale to go on

upon the gentle rise of the downs, merrick discovered an ailing coyote. its back leg had been shattered, and the seeping poison that is infection guttered in each laboured breath. the beast was weak, close to its end; thin lips skinned back from its teeth as the coywolf approached.
if merrick had been another creature, another wolf, he might have been driven solely by the edict of the wolf against a smaller canine, to drive out, to purge. as it was, the boy was held by both the shared lineage and a deep interest in watching the death of the creature. 
perhaps an interest in participating when it came to said death.
cold-eyed, glancing 'round for @Nunataq to see if she was near, merrick began to circle, causing the coyote to struggle upright and continue its baleful snarling.

Nunataq - in fact - had been in the vicinity and seen Merrick's familiar form and gait from afar, but before she being able to approach and see, what her favourite sibling was doing, she had some business to do on her own. I won't elaborate much on this, just say that sea-food from the coast did not agree with her.

However, once the spasms of her abdomen had calmed for a bit, she shook her coat, forgot about the digestive upsets and loped towards her brother. Eager to meet him, gnaw on his ears a bit and get into a super special and secret Pepper Squad mission that was eligible for elite members only.

But this brilliant idea was put on hold, when she took notice of Merrick's target. She caught the pungent smell of rotting and infected flesh from afar and there in the middle, still kicking and snarling was the culprit. "Wuff!" she greeted her brother and looked at him with her head tilted slightly, a question in her eyes on, what he was up to?

his sister arrived soon thereafter, gazing at the odd pair with an inquisitive light to her intelligent eyes. merrick smiled briefly in her direction before shifting his attention to the coyote. with two wolves near, even young ones, its posturing had taken on an air of true terror.
somehow this caused pleasure to glisten darkly in merrick; he snapped his jaws upon the air in a test before darting forward to grab the coyote by its scruff. the resultant shriek elicited an answering snarl from the young wolf, and he threw the beast down upon the earth, standing over its cringing form while the scent of blood filled the air. 
glancing to nunataq with lolling tongue, merrick waited to see what her response would be, having made his own intentions clear.

Merrick had found a living toy to kill. Nunataq watched him make the first blow and joined him after that with a cruel glint in her eyes. She inspected the coyote's injury from a safe distance (meaning that it was unable to turn and snap at her), then ventured closer and scrunched her nose at the smell of putrid, infected flesh. I am not going to eat that. The expression of disgust, when she retreated, did not need any further explanations.

It was funny, really, because she was not usually picky about her food and a coyote being a coyote had not deterred her from unearthing a half-rotten corpse of it months earlier. But either because she had hunted and eaten better than that since, or there was something really wrong with this prey, she refused.

However, the coyote sensed it's window of opportunity, while she had been thinking, had gathered all of it's waning strengths and attempted to bolt from the two would-be-killers.

nunataq did not attempt to stop him in his bloodthirsty antics, and merrick tossed her a brazen smirk. he did not intend to eat the coyote, and its pelt was much too ragged to be of interest to the boy. but as the two young wolves hesitated, the wretched beast did not, and sped away with a halting gait that belied its injured leg.
merrick coolly watched the coyote race down the rise, allowing some distance to grow before he roused himself to give chase, ears pinned back against his skull. the creature screamed in warning and fear as the boy drew alongside it, opening its shoulder with a surgical snip of fangs; it stumbled but managed to keep its footing.

Trying to flee was a fatal mistake on coyote's side, because the moment it began to run, Nunataq's inquisitive and purely scientific interest in the animal wanished, giving way to a very primitive instict to chase -> catch -> kill. Merrick was even quicker than her and had already managed to incapacitated the animal by the time the mute girl arrived. She did not play around much, the moment's length their victim had turned to face her brother, was enough for her to close her jaws around it's lean neck and to apply a crushing force on it. The animal squeaked, choked, struggled a little, but soon lost consciousness and became limp. There Nunataq let it go and nudged it few times to find out, whether it was dead for good.

merrick had been faster, but was pleased to stand aside with gleefully lolling tongue as his sister brutalized the coyote until it lay unconscious. he too nosed eagerly around its body, but the wily creature either was truly lost of all senses, or merely pretending to be dead until the young wolves had moved on.
merrick was not so easily dissuaded, and delivered a bone-crushing snap to the coyote's tail to bring it alive with an agonized scream. he lunged for the back of its head then, digging his teeth into the flesh there as his eyes darkened with pleasure.

The coyote was not dead yet, which made Nunataq frown, however, any further ponderings on "why was it so?" were interrupted by the agonized scream of the animal. It scared her, made her jump and eye Merrick disapprovingly. However, instead of the familiar features, she saw a stranger that both scared her (not an easy feat) and repulsed her. She could not pinpoint, what she found wrong, but she was sure she did not like it.

The mute girl would have finished the job this time, were it not for Merrick, who was already at the most convenient place to kill someone. Therefore, frowning she retreated and sat down, observing her brother with a distrustful gaze.

with no way to convey to nunataq the pleasure of the kill, merrick blinked when he saw her eyes upon him, suddenly lit with a wariness he had never wanted to engender in her. and so the boy broke the animal's neck quickly with another squeeze, dropped it upon the ground, and turned to face her with a placating whine.
but within merrick there was a sickening seed he knew unfurled in darkness, and he had no way to tell nunataq that the feel of an animal dying between his jaws brought him a pointed ecstasy that would repulse a normal creature. forgive me, his gaze begged, as the terror that his sister would see him for what he was becoming would make her leave him.

Nunataq remembered the dark demon of sadness that had possessed the inhabitants of Bearclaw valley soon after Lucas's disappearance and had ruined much of her childhood. She recalled, how frustrated and helpless she had felt because of it, and how in a burst of anger she had attacked it's impersonation in Piper.

During the months that had followed, she had pushed all the past negative experiences in a quiet and cob-webbed covered corner of her mind, and immersed herself fully in the life among Lost Creek Hollow wolves. However, the memory had left a strong impression and in a fleeting moment she had caught glimpse of the demon again. This time in her brother Merrick.

It was not the same, a more morbid kind, one that sent a shiver down her spine as she thought of it's ugly face. One that spoke of looming danger. Merrick's apology fell on deaf ears, she took one step away from him, then another and suddenly she snapped around and ran. She was no more ready to face the darkness now than she had been all those months ago.

<3

but she did not forgive him, and merrick was left trembling in her wake, copper eyes wide as nunataq fled.
fled him.
nunataq.
his sister — no, no, not that. he could not call her that. the boy shook in his trail, fury sweeping to choke him until he gagged bile onto the ground next to the dead coyote. she had left him left him left him left him
SHE HAD LEFT HIM
what was that din? that crescendo? was he screaming? merrick knew nothing, only the flailing of the limp body between his jaws as he grabbed it, began to crush it, shrieking, howling, until his voice hoarsened and stopped, until the coyote was unrecognizable, only tufts of bloodied fur clinging to a shattered skeleton, eyes plucked out, muzzle smashed.
merrick screamed; the birds rose from nearby bushes and fled him, and he shouted muted curses at them for doing as nunataq had done, for leaving, for leaving, for leaving —
he would kill her he would fucking kill —
no no no no no no
"nuna!" merrick wailed, collapsing. the last to leave. the only one he had trusted not to depart. she had to live. she had to die. he could not decide how to judge her.
the boy did not go home that night; he lay unseeing as the stars ticked across the darkening sky and blinked at the dawn when it came, when dew beaded on his fur, staring all the while into the dried-blood eyesockets of the coyote.
she
left