Bearclaw Valley they think of her as heartless, but she wasn't heartless

merrick at least had an excuse for his black and white interpretation of the world. his own damn mother, who had many years of experience on him, still looked at the world that binary way: family, good -- strangers, bad.

she viewed the world and the strangers it housed like malign props as one big black seed; corruptible, unfathomable, unpredictable. time and time again she had been shown the foul nature of her kind - they stole where they could, killed when they wanted, raped as they pleased -- she would never trust a stranger again.

she nodded approvingly, but her gaze was absent as she affirmed: "yes, it keeps the bad guys away." it would do merrick good, she supposed, to learn that the world was just one big fat ball of ugly-minded assholes sooner rather than later. there wasn't anything wrong with being raised cynic, right?