This whole month had been difficult for Dia. The beginning of the month showed promise; she had gotten adopted by Heulwen, finally, at the age of six. Everyone knew that a future founded in a family not biologically her own would come to fruition. She was still a Stump, and with big gleaming eyes of childish glee how could anyone cast a glance away? For someone sprouted from a system of unforgiving punishment, she was otherwise unhardened by a world seemingly unknown. And for someone who sprouted from an egg within the confines of rot and filth, an endemic sickness plaguing her life there on with a special kind of cruelty, she could only find herself focusing on the now. No worry of the future, no memory of the past. And now, she had gained a family. She couldn't have expected that for herself, nor could she imagine herself curled beside the warmth of siblings. The comfort and safety permeating off of the tufted fur of Heulwen, the surprise softness where her siblings had none, was