Redtail Rise the oval portrait

she shakes her head at Mul's question. no. i wah' born far from here—a land calledh Bearclaw Valley, she explains. the walls of the place seem to rise up around her as she speaks, and she feels acutely the shadow they cast. 

maybe one day, she'll take her children to see it. the madness of Merrick runs in their blood, too, after all.

Avicus settles in and tells them more about Astara—her fierceness, her bravery, her savage motherhood. 

if she can be even a tenth of the matriarch the dark woman was. . .she will have done well in this role.