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

astara — merrick lay his eyes upon her and was soothed. but when he looked back to indra, the expression there charred his brief happiness into cinders. disapproving; the privilege of a woman who had once called him her son. the shadow was silent; the boy felt her coldness collide with that of his mother in a silent clash of mutual dislike.
"no," he answered for astara. "she doesn't need to speak."
but he was not gazing at his beloved nightshade now; the slow burn of his eyes had fixed themselves to indra again. she was the forge by which he had been formed; she was the anvil and the hammer that had meted out the rot that rose now to choke him.
"mother," and here a thousand miseries came to pass as he stared at her, beginning to tremble with the intensity of feeling that coursed through him, through all of him.
"it's time for me to live." his tone had assumed a pleading he did not intend, but it was there all the same; merrick's lips twitched with a bone-deep relief. surely, surely indra would assure him he deserved the life he wished.
was she not his mother, after all?