Bearclaw Valley There is nothing more lonely than an action taken quietly on your own

yes & yes this is great <3

merrick meant to keep evien around.
regardless of whether or not the physician had left them  — merrick had grown even more untethered in the wake of the scarlet death, and had questioned strongly the reality of the corpse — the bearwitch knew the man deserved remembrance. and so he soaked the fur from the decaying head, felt the bloodblack grit beneath his teeth as he helped this along in swatches.
he could not bear the sight of evien's beautiful empty green eyes, and yet they faded the slowest, leaving merrick tortured.
the tread of aventus did not move him.
the bruin-dog stared down down down into the motionless unblinking stare of the physician, which had only begun to dissolve.
"well," merrick whispered, to evien, not to his son. "your body is stored in this valley. you can come back. whenever you want."
a muscle jumping beneath his eye.