Bearclaw Valley a seminar about whether or not deer feel pain or are just sad

Sleep was all she had these days. When nobody came to visit her, that was all Indra could think to do. She was lethargic at the best of times because of this; alert to the sounds of tiny birds in trees she could not see, or the scattering of stones down the scaffold of the rift's edge, but she never once tried to climb out. She waited, patiently, like a good girl. Someday the one-eyed man would come back and take her on more walks. The woman might come to tend to her gnawed wrists. The boy-king, with the rabbits, might even make an appearance.

She was oblivious to the tumult brewing beyond the rift. There were sounds carried from afar, of course - a distant howl, and then a sharp crack in the air that sounded like her name - and so she was alert and watchful of the rift's edge. Indra did not know what to expect.

Except it was abruptly quiet.

The birds had stopped their singing.

As the girl began an internalized battle between her unease and the weak foundation of trust that the cultists had tried to build within her, she heard something else: the stamping of feet, thundering closer by the moment.

The clearest sound above the others: a howl, commanding her by name to run.

This had to be another test! Indra looked fervently to every precipice she could spy, seeking the familiar face of one of the adults. She had done everything else asked of her - honored the bear at the altar, given her blood, listened to the lessons as they were presented to her - and this, this last command, it came from nowhere. It came from a voice she did not know. Was it the bear's voice? Indra had begun to pace; she went around and around, matching her circular thoughts.

There was a shuffling sound as something - or someone - careened for the edge.

Should she go, should she stay? What did the bear want? What did these people want? Oh — she couldn't decide for herself. They'd worked to strip her of that ability. Now as she sought an answer she went to her false altar, where she'd kept the dried flowers for her mother and the stones for her brother; she stared at them a moment and felt her soul split in two.

Mom, where are you?

Behind her loomed a shadow.