Bearclaw Valley can you do the chickenskin swim?

tags can be for ref or for joining, if any of u feel like it <3

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.

some time before he and ameline had gotten here, these kids had picked apart the skeleton of some poor dead wolf and now dragged the bones all through the forest.
it perturbed ancelin, though he had not made himself a disciplinarian over it. he only followed the scent of ancient dirt and old ivory, where he found one of the girls staring at —
"where did you and your sister find these bones?" he asked suddenly, unable to stop himself as he came to stand behind her. his voice was even but the slight tension to his shoulders revealed that ancelin was probably very not cool finding one of the kiddos playing with a piece of a dead wolf. again.

Amneris still carried the shoulder bone with her; if Ancelin was disturbed by it she had hardly noticed. But what she did notice, now, was the way he questioned Athalia over the bones. Amneris trotted past him, carrying her own chosen token, to sit by her sister.

She made no effort to answer the question. Instead she wrinkled her nose at the terrible smell of the bones left to Athalia's care, and scooted back a bit.

While Amneris toted around one scapula, Athalia fixated upon the other. She sometimes plucked it free from the flowering roots and held it, caressed it; but she was always sure to put it back.
The remains were perfect as they were. Remarkably intact. Bleached partially by the sun's rays in places, calcified; beautiful. And now the mottled man Ancelin would like to see them too!
She gives an apprehensive glance to Amneris, a chuff breaking from her nostrils before she, too, steps away from the skeleton. She gestures toward it with a grunt and a swoop of her head. We found it right where it is. Then, her eyes trail to Ancelin; a cool, lopsided smile spreading. Neat, right?

neither of them seemed too keen on giving up the remains. as more of a guardian figure, ancelin certainly was not about to take the bones away, he wasn't their dad or anything.
in a show of good faith, he steeled himself and sniffed over the scapula and the shoulder bone, fighting the instinctive rise of his hackles. 
they were young and didn't know any better. ancelin cleared his throat. "uh, so if these are wolf bones, we should put them back. it's — more respectful, you know. letting the dead sleep peacefully."
were they getting it? were they old enough to understand? his indigo eyes swept between them both.