Big Salmon Lake i imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory

for a long series of moments after The Hunter went still, merrick did not move. copperlight eye fixed with singular worry to the unbreathing bulk in the water, the boy began to tremble bodily. the dead would not see the abject transformation of his murderer into something dissociative and poignant with the weight of what he had wrought.
lips quivered; at length he drew a shaking breath and rose up on tremouring legs. the bleeding of his shorn ear had staunched itself and although the pain remained, he would see it always as a mark of his failure.
no triumph in this, though he was somehow urged to stand over the cooling body, lower his muzzle, search for any sign of breath. "fuck you," merrick hissed in answer to the man's last words. there was not even the desire to defile — he stared at the spiraling tendrils of blood in the water before turning and hobbling his aching self away.
away from this cursed place; he had left astara behind, and now he wanted only her, only her, only her
tadec, indra
mother and father-stead, killed
only the sister remained, fierce, silvered
not while the snows threatened, but in his heart merrick now fixed the visage of the dead predator's daughter as he inched toward the home held in astara's embrace.