Mudminnow River it will break my heart to go against your wishes [m]

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evening fell in long shadows.
merrick turned an unseeing eye toward the last fading light. she was with him, sheer, wondrous, fierce, inexorable; his blackbird queen who had been at his side since his skull was borne home. 
heart;
tick tick tick tick ticking;
one two three four five —
the bruinwolf straightened. something burned low in his throat; unmended phalanges and rot stropping slowly through his legs. cowled in a miasma of blood and anger, merrick had grown further and further away, unraveling to putrid shadow which slunk along the borders, inhabited by a soul howling miserably for meat.
for blood;
but he had shed that; merrick had glutted himself, and still it had changed not a single wisp of void within him. he did not know what stung in his gut; arielle would know better than him.
the ragged bear ran tonguetip across teeth-ridge and abruptly began to trot toward the mouth of the valley. the meadow spread around him. merrick moved north. if any followed he would turn savagely upon them until they had dropped from eyesight.
for long hours he moved in the direction of the raided bypass. his spirit cried for the red life, for only in this had he ever been made flesh. he came to a silted river and waded through its shallows, but even the cold did not jar merrick from his questing malevolence.
northmost, and astara shimmering beside him, obsidian and indigo and black feathers.