Bearclaw Valley there is nothing you can do for them,

merrick held her gaze for but a moment (how brief, bittersweet, cruelly short!), but a grin held his features. astara marveled how such an expression could transform his dark and haunting face from cold to sunfire; how like sunlight it seemed to pass.

she glanced to her children, in quick mental inventory: aventus had clambered atop a rock, and curled there like some dark apparition. her daughter was out hazing crickets, though she too seemed to tire of it, and flopped down with pants that gradually stilled.

for a while the only noise between the family was the stir of insects and the buzz of leaves in high summer wind.

astara cherished this moment with a close of her eyes, resting her head against her lion's shoulder.

sleep first claimed her children, but now it came for the rook too. one last look to merrick -- a look full of sleepy love -- and astara's eyes closed.