Athalia had grown comfortable in the presence of @Ameline and @Ancelin. She slept a safe distance from them where warmth from their bodies still reached her, she ate the curdled meat that came from stomach; she spent afternoons skygazing with @Amneris and bickering over twigs and rocks. No pressure to speak, no pressure to do much of anything. She simply was, and she was doted on for it.
Not once had remorse over leaving birthmother and brothers come to her.
Birthmother's love came at a price; birthmother took as she gave, birthmother molded and sculpted and saw through a filter. Brothers — brothers bit, brothers clawed, brothers chewed through bone and supped from marrow. Brothers did not see her. None of them had; not the way the birds did, not the way Amneris did, not the way her new friends did. Not the way the bones did.
Athalia spent the day today with her other new friend. She studies the ridges and marks along the cortex. She imagines stories for them, where they could have come from — and decidedly, now, she had a new favorite bone: the scapula.