Noctisardor Bypass is your mom single

while the four-pronged freak wormed his way into a dirt-blanket on the ground, ava stared. she did not see heda had woken, and now watched the pair.

ava wanted to reach for the pancake and flip it over - to lay gideon flat on his scaly shell, and reveal how many squirming legs he had folded under his rounded plastron.

she did not -- though the urge remained as his quiet gurgles filled the den. ignoring the muted thrum in her head, ava fell to her usual contemplative silence.

once, she had seen her reflection in the stillwaters and had been badly startled by the ugly brand of red on her face. it marked her as other, and communicated to the world there was a part of her assembled wrong. an ugly deformation that could never be rinsed from her dark pelt.

and now, she had a baby brother -- and like her, his deformations were there for the entire world to see.