Mulberry and Owl
Novelette 7,942 words Recommended by 5 award/anthology sources
"Thuỷ stood in her cabin in The Goby in the Well, her bots arrayed on her shoulders and clinging to her wrists, and watched the heart of the nebula. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it: the Great Mulberry Nebula was large, sparsely dotted with nascent stars, and so remote that getting there, even via deep spaces, had required a three month journey."
Content warnings 4
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Uncanny, where the author gets the click.