The Strange Bird: A Borne Story (Borne, #1.5)

by Jeff VanderMeer

If she could not have control, then she would reach out and take comfort in everything that existed beyond the borders of her self.

Human beings had such strange ideas about gratitude. When it should be given. When it should be withheld. Should she be grateful for being imprisoned? What should she feel now? She sang out the question that was its own answer.

But from above, even dying, the companion defiant, urging the last on, and blessing the bird that had caught her, for it was only acting as to its nature and there was no cruelty in that.