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

the irony was that merrick no longer knew where he ended and laurel began;
he no longer felt blood nor the weakening of all his veins;
he no longer felt pain.
the cerise pooling around them was a birthflood; he thrust his tongue against the thudding of her jugular and found it just as wanting as his own.
astara;
he had died when she did;
he had not been alive from that day forth;
he had carried her skull to ursus;
but in merrick the living fire had been killed and he had gone forth in numbness and in unreality;
if the blackbird did not live, then neither did he.
relief, again; relief, swallowing, drowning, eating, ending his malevolence.
— laurel's death was the final key to salvation that merrick would carry with him to the underworld.