Wapun Meadow learning that i’m deserving of love and the peaceful heart

around her, snow fell in muted silence; soon the tracks — her tracks — would be covered as a new whiteness looked favorably upon the world.

she moved to rustling stream, its chilled edges dark. here the snow pared off, white fading into blackened and damp earth.

lowering her head to the scintillating surface indra heard a soft step set towards her. a chill slithered its way down her spine, its presence unwelcome. she was alone — off guard — her hackles rose in thin tufts, shifting the snow that settled along her thin shoulders.

she waited with dread in her heart as the form made itself known; those eyes, dark yet familiar and —

merrick? indra asked into the eerily stilled forest, her voice weighed down by trepidation soon flooded with hope. what was he doing here? the doe she had followed was swift forgotten, for her son!

a quiet cry left her lips, a whimper of despair discarded — how she had searched for him, and now he appeared..

yet he seemed changed, and was not the child she remembered. he was older, but unmistakably still her son. the only thing indra could not reconcile about his reappearance was the maddening way he regarded her; something disturbed seemed to linger behind his gilded stare.

it was as if indra looked upon merrick then for the first time; her mahogany eyes widening, drinking in every minutia with a strange sense of dread. so focused was she, she did not even notice the shadow that lurked behind him. merrick, honey — what’s wrong? her voice carried a terse edge to it, stung by a mother’s guilt on the assumption something awful had befallen her darling boy, and she had not been there to stop it.