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

I think breaking @Æsilfír, @Pandora and @Abel off into a separate thread will work best! For everyone else, this is my last post here, so I think it makes sense for this to become a regular thread with a post order from here on out, which will be @Arielle > @Val > @Stryx > @Indra III. Powerplay in this post was OK'd by Lauren!

Darkness yawned below. Several more levels to go to be on ground level, but he wanted to watch the girl skulk out of the gloom. He wanted to see the horror in her eyes when he descended on her. He wanted to know that his great aunt's blood was ended in fear. Merrick had conquered his fear, but his son still struggled. By striking the greatest of terrors into Indra, he would conquer it as well.

He lingered on that cliff edge a moment too long, and Val came a little too fast. Aventus turned to snarl at the Earthclaw, only for Val to overextend and lurch into him. He clapped his jaws shut, but not to taste fur and blood as he intended. It was shock that muzzled him when he stumbled sideways and his paw met thin air.

Aves could not correct his balance in time. He tumbled over the edge, and though the drop was not so far, he spun just so in the air that his head smacked against an outcropping of stone on the way down and blackness swallowed him. When he hit the bottom of Stillrift mere feet from Indra, it was as a ragdoll. A bright spot of blood bloomed where his scalp had connected with rock.

Breathing, but wholly unable to continue his crusade against the children.