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im so sorry this is so late ;o;

she watches the piece be carried toward her with the same wary attention she might have given something alive, ears tipping forward before one slowly folds back. hunger tightens beneath her ribs at the scent, but she does not move for it immediately. instead, pale eyes lift toward yesbaa—sister, technically, though blood has made them kin more thoroughly than familiarity ever has.

she knows the girl mostly in pieces. a scent among saatsine. a younger shape passing through camp, pale as snow with the face of black rock. another healthy body built without fault.

envy comes uglier than she would like, but she swallows it down bitterly and forces a face of neutrality. hello, girl.

fa’liya’s gaze drops to the meat between her paws, then returns to the cub with something quieter than annoyance. yesc’ebaa. she stores the fuller name carefully, though yesbaa seems easier upon a tongue that has never had much practice speaking to her.

yesbaa, then. the correction is accepted without argument. the girl comes nearer, bright and fearless, and fa’liya resists the small instinct to retreat. instead she looks down at her properly. there is cen in her somewhere. enough that fa’liya can see it in the black of her face and the blue of her eyes.

big sister, however—something in her tightens. not anger, precisely, but discomfort with the easy claim of it. yesbaa says the words as though they have shared dens, meals, mothers—fa’liya cannot make herself believe so easily—and yet there is an innocence to the declaration that makes resentment difficult to sustain properly. perhaps children are fortunate that way.

she lowers her muzzle toward the offering and noses it once, testing its scent before taking a small edge delicately between her teeth. hunger urges greed; experience insists otherwise. you may call me fa’liya. pale eyes flick toward yesbaa again. did your mama tell you to bring this?

fa’liya stills, the morsel caught delicately between her teeth before she relinquishes it. the correction is innocent enough, but it finds something tender regardless. iglux̂ is not her mother. morwenna is, and fa’liya cannot imagine surrendering even that small distinction for the sake of politeness. no, yesbaa. your mama, she corrects softly. mine is morwenna. she is gone from this place.

perhaps the girl does not know. there are so many children now, so many different mothers, that fa’liya supposes the distinctions must seem unimportant to those who have never needed to make them.

her attention returns to the meat. hunger has become an almost painful thing beneath her ribs, but the prospect of eating before an audience is considerably less appealing. especially one so young, so curious.

it smells very good, a kindness, though no less truthful for being one. but i cannot. the spirits require that i take my meals at certain hours. a convenient falsehood. the dead have never expressed much interest in her eating habits.

she nudges the offering back toward yesbaa, a faint tenderness tempering her otherwise solemn expression. you can have it.