Stone Circle I need to find a place where my heart can go to heal.

Merrit glanced at his mother when she briefed her gaze upon him, but his watch remained passive. He had not breached these finer questions before she had arrived, and anyway, he found them mundane. If a wolf was alive, if they were alone, then by logical extension they could hunt and fight enough to keep themselves alive. He was much more interested in the mind and in the heart, for Merrit believed that a weak link could be strengthened through patience and training, but a darkened soul could only bring ruin to their heads.

As it were, Sorin's answers did not surprise the Raven - but the stranger's lapse in composure once again stirred a careful curiosity toward the memories those answers brought to life.

He trained a steady eye on Sorin, and spoke once the dark man had finished. "If my opinion stands before you, mother," he turned his head toward Valette, gaze reluctant to draw away from Sorin, but obliging. Hazel eyes met hazel eyes, and he finished, "I add my voice to vouch for him."

Did he know what he was doing? Not at all, but this man Sorin, who wore a mask as stony as Merrit's own, stood like a mirror in stark and strange refelction. Was there a chance his past would reveal that he was an evil to be purged? Absolutely - but Merrit willed himself to press into the faintest hope that this man would prove himself to be good - that though broken, he would find himself significant; that though hurt, he would find himself healed. Though though a man of mistakes, perhaps, they would find him a man whose past would not dictate a sour future, neither for him or for the family he would become a part of.