Bearclaw Valley goodness is eternally difficult

@Aventus <3

his forays to and fro the den remained infrequent. merrick had busied himself with protection of land and kith, committing to longer patrols and interactions with his packmates. the pursuit of violence most often called him away from home, and like a peter pan prince hitched to a wife he barely saw around the castle, merrick was happy to take up the call.
but today he had returned triumphant with a dead serpent, which he swung quite vigorously.
this time he did not sneak; he came directly to the den and stared around for the small wolves. he had not yet accepted that they belonged to him; he preferred to think of them as a consequence for all his victories. and so merrick was happy to pay the piper, mostly because his life had not changed in many ways — save the most severe of them all.
it was for her he had brought the snake; he wanted to make amends, was desperate for it but only where he would not lose face. a blink; his eye had moved to focus on some spot of movement at the densite, latched to it like a raptor's flared nostril.

A little blot of ink was what Merrick saw, lighter than the shadows contained within, but darker than its female counterpart. Thus far, Aventus' life was an uneventful as they came but for the chaos of his birthday. He would later remember nothing of that event except the imprint of mortal fear on his soul. Forever would his father's scent cause his heart to leap nervously in his chest, for although the memory was inaccessible to his mortal self, a soul never forgot its first trauma.

But Merrick's scent wasn't the cause of Aventus' stirring. A spider had crawled across his foot, tickling the soft pads of a toe as it went, which woke him with a start. His eyesight was the best it could be at his age, that is, he still couldn't see anything that wasn't directly in front of his face, so at first he was disoriented. Eventually, he could make out the pale little spider crawling across the floor as a hazy, moving dot, which he avidly followed with timid steps, oblivious to his father watching him from outside.

enthralled, merrick watched with a near-hungry expression as the child inched toward him. the little round face was downturned; the bearwolf saw a flicker of legged movement before he made a sound low in his throat. so this was the one he had grabbed that night. a better individual might have been horrified at most, in the very least regretful, but merrick's jaws still tasted of blood no matter how much water he had gulped.
he ran his tongue across the ridges of his teeth, leaned closer.
"no hard feelings."
it felt foolish to speak aloud to the trundling little beast, but if only for her, merrick would attempt.

It was the breath.

Aventus, being a newborn, would retain no memory of the event, but he'd been baptized in that breath. Brought to the cold, harsh earth above ground by those rank teeth. Whether he had memories of it or not, Merrick was forever etched into his senses, so when his father breathed unheard words over his body, Aventus went rigid.

It was fear that washed over him—reverent fear, the kind you never mustered the courage to challenge head-on. The little spider that Aventus was tailing took the opportunity to scuttle away, leaving the boy cowering before the frightening visage of his father. A quick turn of his head brought his blurry blue eyes up to Merrick's singular gold one, and a shiver passed through him, devoid of the curiosity an ordinary pup might feel about a new wolf in their vicinity. He didn't need to know anything else about Merrick.

This was his inimitable father, more powerful and frightening than any force Aventus had ever known.

merrick clicked his teeth, a snort of laughter skittering out of his nose. the boy was still now, and the atmosphere was clouded with the purity of a raw, tiny fear.
mollified, merrick withdrew. his fascination remained, his cyclops gaze burning toward the child, but now there was a different sentiment rising in the bearwolf.
he descended a moment later, cupping a paw around aventus' babyfat hindquarters and slowly scooping him closer with a quick flash of a smile. interested. unhurried.

In the coming days his fear might take one of two paths, with the potential to grow into either mortal terror or awe. Merrick's and Astara's actions alone could guide that. Although frightened into utter stillness, Aventus couldn't resist the urge to blink owlishly, trying futilely to clear his fuzzy vision and chase away the tears that the bright light brought to his eyes.

When his eyes opened again, Merrick was further back. His breath eked out of his lungs in a slow exhale, only to hitch once more when the man swept closer again, reaching a dark paw forward. The man's ankle slipped around his backside and he was pulled toward the beast, a dragon eyeing a piece of treasure and assessing its worth, and Aventus could do nothing more than shrink back on himself and urinate.

"eaaaughsh." the trickle of warmth against his wrist was enough to force merrick into jerking away, sliding his wetted limb out from under the boy. a disgusted twist contorted his scar-riddled face, and he glared down at the offending turnip of a child. 
"gross," he gruffed when he had collected himself. whatever the bearwolf had been planning was gone to the wind of indignation; he began to back down the lip, wanting nothing more than to be shut of this den and that grub. but something stayed him; merrick gazed down at aventus with a searching glance, not understanding what kept him rooted.

The frightful spell was broken. Merrick pulled away and Aventus wobbled a little at the abrupt removal of his father's wrist from his backside. The liquid that offended his sire continued to leak out of him until his bladder was fully spent, pooling under him and wetting his bottom. Discomfort begged that he move, but he was held in thrall by the dragon's eyes, similarly to how Merrick was held in place despite wanting to depart.

At length, Aventus flattened himself to the earth, sullying the downy fur on his belly as well as his bum with the urine-soaked dirt, but not caring in the slightest. His tiny muzzle found the ground between his equally tiny forepaws and he pressed himself down into a humble, supplicating pancake. Instinct bid him do this, along with wriggling his tail where it tightly hugged his hindquarters—Merrick was superior.

Merrick was God to Aventus, and God was wrath.

we can have another! <3

the pierce of his eyes flickered, then softened with something like ice beginning to melt beneath a particularly vibrant ray. "hmph," merrick coughed pleasantly, ragged ears flickering forward. the maggot's offense was forgotten, despite the light acid of urine hanging in the air.
his one-eyed gaze scathed over the boy; merrick observed him in silence, slowly approaching once more with a new furtiveness to his movements. the fascination gave way to an unnameable, thudding feeling, but he did not know its name. hanging closer, he blinked, butted the child quite gently with the tip of his nose.
in the next he had withdrawn, unsure of himself, consumed by something altogether uncomfortable and prying. a blink, and he had turned away, disappearing from the denmouth and its inhabitants.

God touched him.

God touched him.

Aventus was too little to really subscribe to any notions of grandeur, but when Merrick reached toward him, he went as still as possible. He expected the pinch of teeth or the hot wash of rancid breath over his face; he wasn't sure why he expected that, only that he'd made the association somewhere in his brain that Merrick was a punisher. Instead, the tip of his sire's nose bumped him lightly, and then the dragon was gone.

Aventus laid there a while, trying his very best—with his limited thinking capabilities—to comprehend the meaning of the gesture, coming eventually to the very simplified conclusion that dragons, while wrathful, were capable of mercy if their subjects behaved in just the right fashion, and he must've done something right.