Wild Berry Meadow for once, we are fine

It was a broad land, a lonely land. Why her siblings had ever left home to strike their bounties here was still beyond her; yet here she was, doing the same. Was she in any place to judge?

Yes, resounding yes! For if they hadn't left, then the thought to leave would never have crossed her mind, and she loathed and loved them that it had. Loathed, because she blamed them for the many days her belly went hungry and the many nights she spent sleeping alone. Loved, because there was something out here that made her nerves quiver with equal fear and giddiness.

That newness, that wonder, that sense that maybe, finally, she knew what it meant to be alive.

Her delicate steps crunched the leaves beneath her toes and having filled herself with berries, she availed herself to a playful bound through the meadow, silent laughter curling her lips into a restrained smile already breaking into something grander than it had been in days.

Here, with the crunch of detritus underpaw, she loved her siblings for what they'd done to her.

Unaware yet of her company nearby.