Bearclaw Valley distant stars come in black or red.

the cheep that emerged from the bargaining room of merrick's teeth did nothing but fill him with annoyance. he wanted to —
fuck the entire hippocratic oath 
and its ability to summon evien from wherever he was, a portal to lawful good doctoring. a snort of hot air scoured the madman's son from somewhere within his chest. 
then a flit of bone-pale; she came upon a white horse, this budding apocalypse unfolding under a birth. merrick unfurled in tension. an ally. a witch. come along, hansel. father made a deal.
his blackbird stirred and her new malevolence toward him startled the boy. he started, involuntary clench of his jaw controlled at the last second. such a promise of the hatred to come, the bitterness his rook had recorded; all her loyalty, in his estimation, tipped now to these shrieking little maggots.
was this how indra had felt, giving birth to one live breathing unnatural thing? death had come first. merrick swallowed the spittle that now soaked aventus; the child tasted of a moment his father had not been meant to see.
her voice bore the tones of a corpse half-buried.
merrick's face twisted.
could he be death?
always a decision to be weighed, and merrick the heaviest heart upon that scale by far. the cyclops-stare glimmered with rage, a shearing malice of his own; he lifted aventus from the den and jerked aside to drop the boy upon the ground with a low sweep of his muzzle, spilling his spawn roughly into the springnight air.
expecting her attack and being too near to dissuade or dart aside, the would-be reaper only sounded back a grimtraced threat, a rattler's ticking tail. the choice of blood was not his to make. but if the traitorous nightshade flower in her childbed wanted the little goblin, she would have to claim him herself.
an accord reached on the last humiliation of merrick must be punished.