Silvertip Mountain thestral

merrick scuttled here and back, his jack-o-lantern gaze seemingly illuminated by the fire of his excitement. a coldness had settled over the cave, but it was not the slow creep of winter that seeped into the flowstone; it was something charged and lightless, waiting there in the clouded corners like an unseen predator. 

astara looked from merrick’s mad pacing to the child. he was small — so impossibly small — would there be much fight to him, once the gibbering suspense turned to something more carnal? 

she remained phlegmatic, the stygian counterpart to merrick’s ramping agitation. internally things were different, but astara remained in clinical control despite the whisperings of merrick’s infectious madness. 

dragomir howled — if it could be called that. astara would have likened it to a truncated mewl; certainly it was not a very impressive call, and it stirred no pity in the dark mutterings of astara’s gurgling heart.