Duck Lake illusion; diverted

merrick likewise had no idea of the darkening pall beneath his son's young hide, but pride made all blind, and perhaps in some destitute, wordless part of the ragged boy who still hunched within merrick — perhaps he saw in aventus the wine-black welling necessity to draw first blood himself.
indolent to a fault when it came to any self-examination, the serpent unwound its coils behind the bruinking's cyclop's stare, shifting between his most beloved time and again, until he smiled and sighed, looking to the princeling.
"i am going to go with," and here he looked to the blackbird, "as far as the mountains. if you must go over them, i must come back." ursus had many enemies; he would not leave their son behind if donovan should suddenly return full-throated for revenge.
and merrick knew — he had hope — his ravenqueen might understand, though it tormented him to say aloud something against the very grain of his nature.