Stone Circle It's you, it's me, it's us

Tauris.
Her lifeline, through this misery, through this ache that would not cease. Denial. Rage. Despair. Numbness. All of it came to her in a cycle, hourly, at least, that she did not understand; could not process.
Astrid had begun to collapse in on herself without realizing.
She hadn't wept since the day they had buried him; she hadn't spoken, either. Hadn't eaten much of anything in these passing weeks, but now she had begun to pay the price, for her weight had suffered and spiraled. Her siblings whom she used to clobber and hound were now left in an eerie lack of her boisterous presence.
She wonders if she, too, had died with him that day.
Tauris gathers them all in a cluster, and Astrid cannot bring herself to repeat the phrase; they didn't know how it felt. They didn't know how she felt. They couldn't, and they never would;
And she shies away from the touch as if it were the crackle of sunlight upon undead skin, and she cannot look into any eyes that linger upon her. But, after a moment, she reaches her paw out to touch the chestnut wrist of her auntie.
Was it a promise?