Silvertip Mountain cultist

lost.
betrayer.
bear.
merrick chuckled, a low and grating sound that gradually became louder and louder; ah, surely @Aventus and @Arielle could hear it now, spiraling spiraling spiraling;
he stared hard at the rawboned child in front of him. hate showed merrick what was beneath: she wore astara's fur and astara's eyes and astara's feralness but she was not;
"i should have killed you and your brother," the bearwolf ground out. "perhaps if she had not — poured herself — into you she would not have weakened."
merrick's malice had found its mark. in asperas was all that could be. he saw her suddenly, violently, standing at the heading to a path where he could not follow.
the man's mind begged for death;
oh, to lie in the snow against his blackbird's bones and become nothing more. his single eye slid to ingram. but that was all. merrick was not despondent to lose asperas; she was like averna, tethered to transparency. "you will always belong to the bear. it is in your blood."
"but i do not want you to come back."
his words were final. merrick had ceased his time in fatherhood. he led to bloodshed now, earning the peace that would come when he could be reunited with her again;
forgive me, he breathed to her shade; she is our child but she is not mine.
merrick felt his heart might shatter into shards of spirit.
the time for words was over.
he advanced, ready to drive back and out the wayward child who saw now fit to betray ursus and malign the bear.