I feel bad for Maple, like some others who have read your story. She obviously loved you. She was starving and could've eaten you. But, she didn't. She felt pains of hunger instead. Because she cared about you.

The nature of whatever Maple was, her requirements for food, to me seem no different than how a dog or other animal would do things for survival that to us seem wrong or unthinkable. It isn't human, so you can't expect it to act human. But, it showed love for you. You can't forget that.