Wapun Meadow soon it will be cold enough to build fires

we can be friends. it never ceased to amaze indra how readily children accepted their peers - she offered a small smile from that screen of tanglewood and brush. despite the age difference, indra liked the idea of merrick making friends -- it would be good for him to see that there was a world outside of bearclaw, an entire world unexplored.

so long as he did not forget -- not even once -- that the world at large was not to be trusted.

she was patient as she waited for the cubs; they played and chatted and at length a gathering dusk had fallen upon them. rather than approach the duo and perhaps scare yakone away, indra howled for her son through the woods; a howl he would know instinctively as merrick, dinnertime!