Fox's Glade It was a perfectly good grand piano

Apologies for taking forever <3 Hope you're still good to keep going!

He listened quietly, and without visible judgment. Inwardly, he reeled. A mate? Stillborn pups? Merrit had not fancied to imagine many things when he had seen the scars on Arlette's face. There were many evils who would think to mar a wolf as kind and beautiful as soul as she. He saw the tears - or more, her violent blink to thrust them away. He blinked, troubled beneath the soft furrow of his brow.

Her tale brought an understanding. Clary had been right. No matter how far he removed himself from Easthollow, different troubles would find his family, even if he spared them from the ones he drew away by his absence. Could he have helped defend this Kaito, if he had been there the day the cougar had struck? Could he have given himself in place of the man, or in place of Nanook? He would have been far less of a loss.

"Arlette..." I am sorry, his silence spoke. Merrit felt the anger reeling from his sister, and he felt that familiar fire stoke through his blood and prickle his chest with a butterfly of heat. But the flames were only as thick as he would let them be; he let the flame flicker into some forlorn corner of his heart -- still there, but contained -- and he folded himself to the ground and reached his muzzle forward. He tapped the ground with the tip of his nose. "Did you name them?" he asked, "The children you buried?"