Bearclaw Valley those lions are coming, oh they're coming.

astara had hoped when the crone had departed weeks prior, that it would be the last they had seen of her. she knew this hope to be vain, but still, she could not help but fan its little tendrils with occasional fire, laboring over the many ends she dreamed the crone might face.

she was bitterly disappointed then, when she returned to their claim and saw a gaunt figure resting against the stone that marked the valley's entrance. this form, cloaked in freshly fallen snow, looked more like a skeleton than any living thing astara had ever seen. she was instantly repulsed by it, and hackles along her back rose instinctively in serrated blades.

the thing looked so wretched, so sick, that astara was tempted then to end her.. yet a scent, forbidding and most alarming, seemed to coil out malignantly from the siren's hide. it was that scent alone, that kept astara's willing teeth at bay.

she sat down, a dark ghoul among the gently rippling snow. unknown to both of them, this terse reception was not so different from a different, faded chapter of merrick's mother's life -- a small irony that would have caused astara to smile wickedly, if she was so aware.