Firefly Glen an honest man

The ground swam with scents -- many of them, the wolves of Mal -- yet he sought for hers to spring forth like a salt river in a desert waste. He had known her for only a second, but as he had lain in that field (crumbled down, against his own want and will), her scent had swarmed him, and when he had risen, it was like she had become a part of him; the sting of bitter water was a current he would not soon let himself forget.

As he and Hydra moved out and away from Neverwinter, and Mal's scent faded with the release of his claim to neutral ground, he sought for her amongst the trail they followed, as he sought for the others, too -- as he had discovered, there were more who bent their eyes to kill. So he would kill them, too; for they had mounted the blood of the innocent upon their heads, and justice would bring their heavy heads to the ground, and so put to sleep the blood they revelled in.

Yet he found nothing; their trail hid within the vast landscape of the glen, and his frustration mounted in the silence, until Hydra's voice broke his fixatation. Slowly, Merrit drew his nose away from the ground.

"I have always known it," he said simply, and inclined his eyes toward a rustling in the woods -- the leaves swayed, but a moment's pause revealled that it was only the wind. He returned his voice to her question, "But I prefer it to remain lost, both to my tongue and to yours, just as I prefer to let these wild winds sweep the scent of my family clean from my skin. I know what a danger the hooded hag is to anyone who crosses her. I cannot risk my family being caught even further in her crossfire. So I will hunt her, and her curs, and I will lose my name and my place before my mother -- if it so means that my family, and these Wilds, will be safe in the end." Who knew how long he would be? There were more to avenge than Leta now, and his mind turned to his patron stone again. The cries of the lost fell silent to many, but he felt them, heard them, calling, crying, shouting out to him -- and he turned to Hydra then, to watch her face through a shrouded glance, "You may call me what you wish."