Meadowlark Prairie i watch the colored animals across the floor

her recoup in the meadows finished, astara headed homeward through a soft pattering of autumnal snow. @Merrick she trusted would find her scent, as he had oft done before; she did not set a blistering pace, and her tracks were easily followed. 

she wondered where her comrade had gone off to. having seen the horror in his copperburn eyes to learn he was eternally irredeemable, astara understood on some levels the pilgrimage merrick undertook next was his to take alone. 

he would come around, in due time — and together they would continue down their path as two irresolute mongrels, where no lives save their own mattered.