Bearclaw Valley stay away, away, away

@Merrick please? :3

She had remembered where he had vanished to when the time came.

She had kept that place tucked in her mind and, if anyone had noticed, she had been a vulture in the nearby areas. Granted she never took more than she needed and she dared not step upon the places the one-eyed male had marked upon.

Yet today she drew close, a goal in mind but the quest was only clear to herself. A submissive cower along the bear land's borders.

oooouu <3

soon it would be time to draw apophis and asperas from the den again, take them through ursus, drag them beyond into blood and battle. when they were older. of course.
aventus had become quite the leader in his own right, and merrick, while aware of his own mortality, enjoyed seeing his eldest son flourish so greatly.
their youth kept the bearking most lately upon the borders or perched upon the sentinel stone. he was there now, and when his single eye saw the curved, deferential figure, merrick leapt down and paced forward with a smirk. 
the one who had hunted easthollow with him.

She saw his drop to the earth, his approach —

The prowl of a one-eyed bear.

She would cease any movements. Not wanting to move now. There was no need to. She had found what she had come for. She would need not wait any longer in hopes of luring him out.

She would cower some more. Belly brushing against the ground as she looked to him with thoughtful moon eyes.

What did he think of her appearance?

she was welcomed. merrick hummed toward the moonsilver woman with a low cunning chuff. so she had followed him here.
or had she considered it?
did he need to tell her that this was a place of bears? where you stand is holy ground.
it was not necessary. she exited as did any other fragmented shade, and merrick wet his lips before fanged mouth spread in a glib wolf's-head grin.
had she come to hunt again? the graphite arch of his tail said this too, was well-received.

She wished for something more permanent than one meal shared between moon and earth.

Wordlessly, she wished to convey this. A show of the tender parts of her. A flash of a soft neck, tail pressed against her underside.

Her own vocal chords produced a low, warm sound after her little show. She sought to appease him enough to be allowed entrance into his bear clawed home.

Had she not proven her respect of him at the pillars?

merrick had already been pleased by her very nature in what was left of easthollow. they had swallowed the essence of the dead wolves and their dead land; they had come to and fro and now here she stood.
the bearwolf needed no word. a chuff, his scent of bears and earth and stone and cubs washing over her. he offered his breath and took hers in return, stepping back to invite her beyond the beaten red-dirt path.
into ursus.

They mingled and they accepted each other.

She would need no more to follow him into the territory they now shared.

She debated on if words were needed yet. That she might speak what she could do for him. Would he be interested in the haunting hollow of her words? How she did not speak fully proper and her voice was akin to a landslide?

One way to find out.

Scout.

A pause.

For you.

oh, so she had a voice. it was unused, smoky as the timbre of a fallen oak. merrick cast his eye over her wonderingly. did she also have a name? or should she be given one? "scout," and a gentle nod, tilting his scarred head toward her near conspiratorially.
"see who is closest to us." a task for the raindark woman. in the interim, he would tell aventus of her coming.
"merrick," of himself. "ursus," of the high stretching woodland and its bearpaw valley, how it all seemed hewn from the mettle of the gods itself, from the ageless stone beneath, the forests that had gone on and on until they seemed almost primordial.

This was a task she cherished.

It was so easy to slide like a snake through the lands, to see who laid nearby in wait. In the spring it would not be nearly as easy, protective of the brood within borders. She felt a determination in her heart regardless. A spark of duty and direction that had eluded her since the crumble of Blackfeather.

Jakoul, She murmured. A brief show of her yellowing teeth in a grin. Short lived, almost more of a ghostly vision than any sort of reality.

Ursus. Mumbled back to him as her pale eyes made to sweep over the lands she had been allowed into.

jakoul.
fitting 
she favoured the name of ursus with the same serpent's rasp; the coils shifted behind his single eye; and he drew a little intake of breath, the inhale of a surprised boy — something youthful and unaffected deep within merrick. 
he knew he would never come unraveled for anyone aside from the raven who had given he and they four strong children;
the shifting, then, the affable tighten of his own snake-self near her own.
stepping to flank her side,
something akin to friendship, though any could aptly argue that merrick did not understand how to have friends.