Bearclaw Valley behind your silence and your suffering

the taste of blood for once had clung in ugly smears to his teeth. for once for once for once — he could not look upon himself. the entire night around the birth of his children was recalled only either in loud images or muzzy blurring. merrick could not and dared not recall what he had done, the first time he had never celebrated a killing.
galena. he turned his garbled eye upon her, puffing out a sigh through his lips.
"i have no fuckin' idea how to pray," he joked, switching focus back to the clever, sacred items that his nightshade had laid out. "but these things are special to her. so i want to understand them."
the bone. her regard of it.