Meadowlark Prairie i watch the colored animals across the floor

her recoup in the meadows finished, astara headed homeward through a soft pattering of autumnal snow. @Merrick she trusted would find her scent, as he had oft done before; she did not set a blistering pace, and her tracks were easily followed. 

she wondered where her comrade had gone off to. having seen the horror in his copperburn eyes to learn he was eternally irredeemable, astara understood on some levels the pilgrimage merrick undertook next was his to take alone. 

he would come around, in due time — and together they would continue down their path as two irresolute mongrels, where no lives save their own mattered.

kill again he had.
merrick found himself rife with hunger, wounded, and emptier than before. dried tears clung to his cheeks; he stumbled in the direction of where he had last seen astara.
a trembling whimper of relief broke from his usually-assured self when he lay his one-eyed stare upon her slinking shadowed form; he quickened his pace, shuffling through the snow until he found her, found her —
— he filled his senses with astara, lapped at her cheeks, eyes tight-closed against all the world save for that which she woke in him, and all the while he held back the storm of his tears, the unnamed, enraging things churning and clashing within him until merrick was fair sick.

he came upon her far more dissolute than before; his cheeks rimed with blood, and a clean trail of tears to clear it. astara held his singular gaze for a cold moment, before she broke and gave in; he had left her, but he had returned.

bloodied, and worse for wear -- his ear! gone, just like that eye -- if he kept this up, eventually he would disappear from astara piece by piece. astara sighed deep and ensconced herself in merrick's embrace, before she pulled back and sniffed his frame. there was disapproval lurking in her gaze, but she waited, relieved, that her kill-companion had not gone astray.

"i have been to hell and back," the boy groaned, slumping to earth before he looked to astara again. his nightshade; surely she would look upon him with favor, and drive away the lingering cobwebs of the dark man's death.
he saw something altogether unwelcome there — merrick stared at the girl a long moment, swiftly growing defensive. 
fern; he caught her scent upon himself and scowled toward astara. "what of it?" the boy snapped, haggard, hungry.
"she was a hunt. you ... you have all of it! you've got my heart, you've got my mind."
here he leapt up, pacing in a tightly frenzied semicircle. "you've got my cock too, whenever you'd like. just you," merrick spat, and then was immediately contrite, downcast as he slunk back to beg the shadow's forgiveness. 
"i killed again, while i was out. but it wasn't ... it wasn't the same. i killed him before he killed me," the boy whispered, staring off at nothing.

disapproval lingered in the cold bite of astara's stare, for fern's scent lingered -- lingered, on her merrick.

the blackbird's spine rifled, hackles quill-like across her back.

she made to step over him, but he was soon standing and circling, a panic edging its way into his voice. the blackbird stopped, head revolving as merrick circled round in a macabre shuffle.

she did not want his cock -- well, not now. she wanted his presence as possessively as an abuser might want their victim held close; merrick was not to step out from the little world she had shaped for him -- not without her implicit blessing. her gaze grew hard, ears pressed forward -- he had hunted and killed -- without her!

did he wish to live without her, too?

astara sat primly on her haunches, the jealousy within her heart transmuted to unforgivable bile. that he had nearly died, nearly been lost forever, was only secondary to the breach of trust, for he had gone searching without her -- perhaps he had deserved fate's hinged teeth for that betrayal.

a forbidding growl started in astara's throat, cut short only by a rueful smile. oh, he had let her down -- he had betrayed her -- but astara the merciful would love him anyway.

astara the merciful would forgive. for a time.

she roiled; tarlike, and merrick responded with a low growl even as fear trickled into his being. no shrinking flower, this nightshade of his. a flash of his teeth toward the displeasure that wreathed from her slender frame like a miasma. "it wasn't like that," the boy hissed. "remember when we went back to the cave? the man there? the kid's fuckin' dad? yeah. he caught me."
terror was beginning to barrage merrick; he maintained his cold expression but within, the screaming had started in a dull echo
she is going to leave me
he was too proud to grovel; too scared to do more than stalk toward her with his own hackles abristle. "don't ever interfere with my hunts," merrick warned, single eye roving over her own, "or else i will be very, very angry."
let her leave! ha! she was not —
an image of his teeth round her throat, digging digging cutting slashing cutting
do not leave do not leave please please
a shaking sigh, he turned away and regarded the horizon with a steelflecked countenance.

merrick’s composure within roiled; astara  might not have possessed grasp of the common tongue, yet she was astute. she felt — in a sickening wave — his lashing terror. 

it did not spare him from the menace of her expression. 

astara’s hackles rose, claiming a life of their own along her serrated back. who was he to threaten her! had they not killed together lived together ate slept existed breathed murdered howled hunted together?

merrick’s speech had ended, and now it was astara’s turn. her tail held stiffly behind her, upwards, high as her proud chin — her eyes affixed on that singular, cold orb. 

you dare not. came her silent rebuttal, her skin on edge and a new knife-like gleam in her forbidding stare.

his shadow did not take kindly to the cold of his words. merrick found himself within a standoff he had not anticipated, and his lips skinned back from glistening teeth.
all at once, however, the fight went out of him. he could not lose her, would do nothing to jeopardize the manner of them further. merrick knew such a loss would result in calamity; she had done nothing but stand between he and his anger.
his gaze glowed contrite; merrick crept back to seek the nightshade's favour, desperate to know there remained warmth beneath her stony veneer.

astara had prepared for war.

she had not prepared for this -- the way the light went from her merrick's eyes -- the way the fight seemed to ebb from him.

it left her defenseless, in the height of her defensiveness -- for what cruel lover could strike their other, while they were down? she was cruel -- but not in that way.

she mimicked him, inching closer. savoring the way his breath spilled over him, the titillating warmth of his skin -- remembering, pining, swallowing in that moment the sensations she had nearly lost forever.

she placed her head upon his neck, embracing -- while her eyes glowered in scouring hues.

before her alone could merrick give vent to the tangled roil of emotions in his soul; dark shoulders begin to quiver, bitter salt falling to earth. "i've never been scared like that," he whispered in a dull croak, lifting a tear stained face to his lover.
"i don't want to do this again without you." perhaps that was his punishment: near death at the hands of a kill. lips trembled.
"the man had a son and a daughter. the son is dead. should be," he minced in a monotone. "and the daughter — i want her too."

a thrum stirred in astara’s heart to hear merrick’s admission of fear. she would strike down any that struck terror in her lover — she the black bolt of hatred willing to kill in the name of love. 

she pulled away, a brush of her cheek along merrick’s trembling countenance. her indigo gaze was full of assurance and cunning. so let them find the daughter. let them instill in the daughter’s heart the terror she saw haunting merrick’s soul.

yes; let them let them let them
in astara alone there was redemption, but he needed the crush of blood between his teeth, the slip of severed vein, the gurgling choke of terror,
yes; he nuzzled into her bosom and therein found a sort of peace.