She would have laughed if she had known; a shrill, girlish laugh of bliss. Would her mother tell her? Would her mother tell her just how close she might have come to having ended the child long before she had a chance? Perhaps she would not have blamed her. Perhaps she might have agreed that yes, she ought to have been put out of a life of loneliness and misery before it could have begun. Yet, she was too young to know, too young to say such things and even too young to know it. To her, she had merely entered a world of coldness and hardness, the ground beneath her vastly different to the floating world she had come from. she hated it. right from the start, she hated it all.

she screamed at first, unwilling to let her mother escape that wretched feeling of betrayal. she had been dumped, after all, into a world so unkind. she had not even the chance to feast before her mother had been taken away by the desire of her brother's, their ceaseless want to be in this world seemingly enough to drive her mother back and away from her. it was then that she had fallen silent, clambering forward with determination until she found her mother once more. did her mother believe she could escape in such a fashion? that she would merely forget about the warmth and food she offered? that she'd just accept the dirt and grime and be done with it?

if anything, the squeal she ushered in as she reached her mother once more would let them know that it would not be like that. she wanted to eat and so, she would get it; she wanted her brother's warmth and so, she would get it. there was even a moment of satisfaction when her brother's had been removed, her tiny body crawling towards the best position to feed to remind them of who was boss. it didn't matter if they recognized that fact, because at the end of the day, it was still a fact. facts seldom changed, after all.