Bearclaw Valley When you come long like an island

Maybe for @Merrick whenever you have time <3 :D

Pandora is curious as to this whole bear culture thing these wolves have going on. She wonders what makes a bear so special to worship. Why not the elk or deer? They give them life by becoming food. Or maybe a vicious Wolverine or some other great animal like a cougar. She has many questions and she would definitely call herself a skeptic, but hey, that’s not to say she’s going to be impossible to convert. She just needs to be convinced. 

So, she would wander around the valley in search of one of the other eldest members of the valley. Someone who is educated in the ways of the bear. Originally seeking Merrick — surely thinking he, of all, would have the answers to her inquiries regarding their religion. 

First she would hunt a rabbit though, an offering to the man of scars and hopefully to appease his recently sour mood. Hell, she’d be sour if she’d gotten eaten up the way he did. So after obtaining a fat winter hare, she find his most recent scent trail and tries her best to find him. Hopefully he wants to be found for surely if he didn’t she wouldn’t be able to.

the foxwolf would find the one-eyed bear sitting sentinel upon the large boulder which oversaw ursus' only entrance. 
the scent of blood drew his gaze away from the snowy meadow. the white was beginning to melt. merrick stared down at pandora and then descended with a catlike flick of his ragged tail. 
he did not ask for the rabbit; he knew it was his.
the single eye roved curiously over their pristine skeptic, now groomed and cleansed of the coyote's blood. 
he did not speak; merrick waited instead for pandora to announce herself in the cunning way she always wore.

His most recent scent leads her to the entrance of the valley. Her jaw aches from holding the rabbit in her mouth, but she sighs when she finally sees him. It seems he sees her as well, for his cyclops gaze meets her form as she trots elegantly towards him, a smile weaving on her lips around her kill.

He moves off the rock, descending with practiced skill. He must sit up there often, she thinks. Her eyes roam his scarred form as he does so, but he does not speak, so Pandora does the honors. 

Trotting up to him and standing right in front, she lies the rabbit down at his paws. Her bloodied red orbs meet his single coppered one as she smiles confidently, proud to give him her measly kill.

“Great Merrick,” She greets, tone as smooth as honey. “I have many questions for you. If you’d entertain me…” She hums with a tilt of her head as she plants her haunches to the ground before him. “I was wondering about your worship of the bears actually. What makes them so special?” She asks finally getting right into it and curling her long, plush tail around her ankles.

merrick snorted. he reached for the rabbit and tore it open, blood staining his jaws, his chest. "the bears chose this place. it is theirs and always was." the bearwolf chewed, swallowed, meticulous, hateful; it did nothing to sate him and everything to whet and to torment.
"in the spring they wake and walk. they are hungry. only the strongest wolves might live among them without fear. and sometimes they choose one of ursus for a sacrifice."
mouth tightening;
merrick was thinking of evien and evien's head and evien's skull.
the rabbit turned to ash in his mouth.
"what if you were chosen, pandora?" his single eye blazed toward her. "would you submit?"

Pandora watches him easily, shamelessly, as he tears into the rabbit. She watches his muzzle get painted in blood. He has a certain dangerous attractiveness to him and Pandora likes dangerous things — they give her a thrill! Perhaps that’s why she is a part of Ursus. She likes the thrill of danger they all possess. 

This statement is even more so seconded by Merrick’s words. He speaks of the bears choosing this place and Ursus merely walks beside them because the bears allow them to. Interesting. It seems the bears may have a mutual respect, or at least she thought so…

When he mentions that the bears take a member of Ursus occasionally her brows move up in curiosity. Pandora’s head tilts and a smile curves her lips upwards at Merrick’s next words.

what if you were chosen, pandora? would you submit?

A soft laugh falls from her pink lips and she hums long in contemplation. “Mmm, perhaps. If it is my time, then it is my time.” Only then she leans in closer to him, a devious look to her attractive face. “Would you want me to submit?” She asks, clearly hinting at something else while still referencing a sacrifice to the bears. Her voice is smooth and sultry, her eyes equally so. Oh, does she love flirting with danger — whether it be bears or Merrick — it doesn’t matter.

pandora's face loomed before him, roseate and pearled with amusement;
yes, she was indeed beautiful, and any man would have had his blood stirred by her a thousand moments ago.
but merrick was no longer a man: he was a shroud, a tattered veil encapsulating lungs that hardly wished to breathe and a heart that hardly wished to thrum.
"yes, pandora."
his face was impassive as her gentle scent wreathed to dispel the untamed cloud of his own.
"i would want you to be the lovely dust through which the bear's purpose is worked."
he straightened and pulled away from her kill; he left it where it lay and set off back into the primeval forest, expecting that pandora would follow the twitch of his ragged shoulders.

Merrick watches her and she watches him closely back. Oh, how handsome he is despite his hardly veiled insanity and wretched scars!

He speaks quickly though, replying to her earlier words with a Yes, Pandora. Smoothly followed by his next words about her sacrificing herself to their mighty bear.  Then, just as easily, he moves up and towards the forest with an expectant aura about him. And she smiles with a huff of a laugh, bouncing up from her spot and playfully bounding towards him, tail swishing high in the air like a cat.

“Then I would be honored to do so, great Merrick.” She purrs easily. “Say…” She begins, but trails off slyly. “Would you ever think of teaching a girl how to fight?”

he lapped the last of preyblood from his lips.
merrick regarded pandora with a seething light.
and then he did not announce. he only snapped for her, silent and lashing and deathly. such was the way of ursus. be prepared or do not be. merrick controlled his jaws, not meaning to truly connect.
come, his eyes commanded pandora, daring her own strike.