Serpent Lake To my dismay, I have forgotten how to leave

He remained ever alert for three things now: first, always @Kallik. Merrit had not seen his cousin for weeks now, and he felt the absence settle over him like the shadow of his patron stone. Second, @Alduin, who he'd promised his sister he would look for. Third, the trouble of Ursus. If they had left any trail in their dispersal, he had not been able to pick up any leads on where they had travelled or where they had settled next.

He would have felt far more comfortable, he realized, if he knew they still lived in the Valley. Their disappearance rattled him, and he moved as if on edge, for he was. Expectant that they might crawl out from any corner to finally settle their score against his people.

Perhaps these worries were what made him pause at the base of the waterfall. His head swam with so many shadows, that when he'd caught the glimmer of a rainbow in the mist, he wondered how such beauty still found a place within this world.

The waters drowned out the scent of the stranger who descended the falls, but her motion caught in the corner of his eyes. After feeling his heart skip with a fear that the bear-wolves had found him, he settled himself when he realized she was, indeed, entirely strange to him. "I've not seen a rainbow in many weeks," he said, "I often forget their beauty."