these hands made of splinters

With a full return behind her, Echelon settled back into the Spine as easily as she could. Though she had been brought back up to speed on all that had come about, her attitude in that particular moment betrayed that there was anything going on. She milled about in the hazy, hot afternoon and stayed low in the basin where the shadows were as long as they were wide. One particular place that she had enjoyed was pukulria, that weird little unquestionable mound of old bones and as she was discovering, new ones too. There was no doubt to her that the others had found it by now, equally no doubt to her that Kroc had also found where she had produced a femur some time ago.

As she dug through the pile a little, Echelon thought fondly of that femur. It had been a fun little toy. As it were, she had discarded it one day to give something else chase, and subsequently forgotten it. Someone else had probably chewed it through. This deep in the territory, she carried no qualms about making racket as she unsteadily climbed the pile; the scattering and shifting of bones beneath her creaked and skittered. They groaned and shuffled about. Some rolled down the pile in her wake. She assumed she would be left alone for a time and perhaps it would be so; no doubt to her everyone was gathering themselves at the borders to keep them safe.

She would join them too, eventually.

Now was the time to associate herself with home once again.

murder by death — a master's in reverse psychology