Bearclaw Valley just have the strength to know you're wrong,

a covenant had been made between them, though darkly indra wondered at what cost as she watched the baleful man's backside slip into obscurity.then i am yours, do not forget it. she would not forget those words, hoarse as they were, they burned with the searing intensity of a brand through her mind.

for a long time - perhaps longer than necessary - the woman stood where she had been left.

she was dissecting, laboriously unwinding and unraveling - her mind going from dark room to dark room, shining a brief and pale light in those scarcely-tread halls, hoping for some pattern, dreading the recognition of that damning pattern if it ever came to be ---

at last she moved, and like the shutter of cards shuffled into place, the redleaf's mind had been made.