Bearclaw Valley skull aria

@Indra III was kept in stillrift, twenty feet below the surface with only a single narrow path upward. merrick visited her as often as she was able, ensuring she was fed and taken for water.
but the bearwolf was running an experiment.
he limped now to the edge of the place, settling carefully in the middle of the path.
"come out, girl."

Indra had tried to stay awake for as long as possible. She hadn't fought with the scary people when they'd taken her down in to the earth; she hadn't protested against the inspection by the lady with the plants; she had tried to eat what had been brought to her, or drink when she was let out... And through it all, awake. Desperately watching each face, each shadow.
When the man came this time, she was asleep while sitting up. Her chin tucked against her breast-bone, neck arcing.
Come out, girl.
She heard the voice in her dream and was pulled awake, as the dream turned dark and twisting, like the tunnel.
Her body tipped over, and she punched the dirt to stop herself from falling; snorting a breath of the stale air, as Indra came fully alert with terror.

merrick prowled down; and down;
"get up," he growled. "come here."
an order now, a promise in his voice to descend and pluck her from the dirt if need be. this time he wanted to look at this iteration, truly look at her, and see all the ways in which she resembled the first.
merrick hoped to taste her terror.

The man was there in the dark, eyes glowing like before. This dark, damp place within the earth could have been the cave from before - how was Indra to know the difference?
She hoped with each breath that her mother would come out from wherever she was hiding. She had fought him before. He smelled like rotten meat now - she had done that.
Wh-where's my mum? Indra stammered as she hurried to the light. Her mouth was a dry riverbed after, and she could not summon her voice again.

merrick pinned the girl with his single eye as if it were a rusted blade with which he might carve laurel out of her.
there was more than one way to do this however. merrick crossed his forelegs and set his chin upon his bony wrist. his mouth flexed, wet and mobile and mad as the rest of him.
"i don't know what you're talking about, indra."
his chest did not move with a breath; he held it.
"you've never had a mother."

What he said next was baffling.
The way he said it—so certain, so bored with the idea—made it feel worse. Her heart ached; at once Indra thought of her mother's face and tried to take comfort in it.
My mum's Laurel.
She could not stop the matter-of-fact tone of her voice, or the way her lip trembled. Her face pinched in a frown.

"doesn't ring a bell."
merrick frowned for effect, the movement yanking grotesquely at his scar-laden features.
"we found you alone."
no laurel
merrick shrugged his ragged shoulders. "maybe you should lie down."

Alone?
No; her mother had been there with her.
She had fought the man that came!
Indra was confused. Her body was sore, she was so tired; in her dream she had been running and when she'd heard that man's voice again, there had been a scream—someone shouted, No!

No, she whispered. Shaking her head.
Standing, the rest of her shaking too.
She was tired but - No, my mum is coming!
They had run together! If Indra was here then her mother must be on the way - they were never apart, never!

"how can someone come here if they don't exist, indra?"
merrick's lips curved into a jagged smile. "i'm not sure who you're talking about but let me set you straight. no one knows you're here. no one is coming. laurel doesn't exist."
he wanted to kill her, he wanted to kill her right now for her weakness and her wavering and her fear.

His question quelled some part of her.
The doubt came again. She fought against it as best she could, but she was so tired; they had fed her and kept her safe in this hidden place, and through it all the strength of her love for her mother was too strong.
But she was only a girl.
Had she only imagined it? Her? Laurel.
Laurel doesn't exist.
Tears built in her eyes, somehow brightening the pumpkin orange of her iris. The man's silhouette shimmered. His smile looked too big.
B-but... everybody's got a mum. She didn't like how sad the man was making her. Part of it was how exhausted she was and how sore, exacerbated by her age but - how could it be true, any of it?

merrick laughed, a dry and crackling sound. "i don't."
his cyclops'-stare glowed down at the girl about to be tearstained with her own evolution.
"do you want to know what happened to her?"
woe betide indra's third iteration;
ready for the matricide monologue?
he licked his jaws.
"mothers aren't real."

She didn't want to know, not really. Not if it would hurt. It was like being told Santa wasn't real - but worse, because Indra still had strong ties to her mother. She had to trust her own mind, her own experience.

Days of waking up next to the warm plush fur. Learning about snow; all those questions! All that time with her. How could that be a lie?
Mothers aren't real.
Indra shook her head and pulled away from the man. She couldn't go far. His single eye traced in the dark, following her as she curled in to a ball.

She's coming.
Indra repeated this to herself.
She'll be here.
Her eyes were watering; a sniffle came.
The girl had to trust that this was a terrible game being played, and soon Laurel would come - there'd be an end to it. They could go home and be happy again.

"mothers can die too. did you know that, indra?"
merrick's voice was conversational, even warm, as he watched her clutch her figure into a small orb along the dusty floor of stillrift.
"no one is coming."
his tones floated down toward her ears as if it were ash from a burning stake.
"you never knew her."
merrick willing it to be so.

In one breath he claimed,
Mothers do not exist.
In another,
Mothers can die.

Indra did not know death.
Exist, not exist; live, die. It didn't make sense to her. She had been too deeply hidden from those of Rivenwood - too sheltered,
but that was her mother's wish.
You never knew her.

A small sound came then, a splintering.
Indra began to cry. She held each breath close, felt the tremble of her sore body, the wetness spreading in to her tail fur.
Tiny birdsong sounds as he preached his truth for her ears alone.