Alpine Lake the birth of merlin

Beneath a drab and indifferent sunset -- crisscrossing the long shadowed boughs of murmuring evergreens -- Deviljho moved at a vigilant pace. She appeared partial to rooting out each snow-laden shrub and twiggy hedge she came across, but otherwise seemed uninterested in encountering some sort of crepuscular meal. She was hunting, yet not for prey, and as she squatted to leave her scent in the billowing open, it became clearer that she was on the lookout for company. Leaving traces of herself wherever the wind would beckon.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been full, though this was the first instance in several weeks in which she wasn't starving. It made it easier to dedicate time unto sating her social famine; when the weeks before had been nothing but a strict adherence to the heady desires of her gullet. The pieces of her former self were returning -- bitterly and slow -- and armed with the knowledge that her parents were recently dead, her only brother likely sharing their fate, Deviljho knew that she had to find support elsewhere if she was going to ever have the life she had envisioned for herself.