Firefly Glen I shiver

Meerkat listened. That was exactly what Toad needed as she told the story of Kukutux that attempted to outline all of the reasons why she herself was just not what she wanted to be. She was not an adequate fit for the Fireflies. Everyone seemed to be comfortable with her presence and Osiris was more than happy to take advantage of her skillset, but this was a pack of young people. She wasn't one of them.

Meerkat attempted at first to comfort that she was young and pretty. In Toad's mind, she was neither. She held back making a face, and instead stiffened her body. She was not a pretty woman. She hadn't even been a pretty puppy, hence why her mother had given her a perhaps unintentionally cruel name.

Toad was young enough to bear children, but she knew that men sought women who were younger than her. Most of the people she had met in the Wilds were either already paired off, too young to have children, or had no interest in her. Of course, she was missing the key component that one has to actually try to be paired most of the time. She'd never seen the courting process before apart from the way young men chased young women. Toad had never been one of those young women.

Toad answered her friend, though she felt rather foolish doing so. It's.. she started, and failed. It was something she wanted but had never been able to voice to someone that she wanted since she was a child. It's something I want, yeah, Toad said slowly. But I don't think.. Nobody is going to want that with.. you know, me, she said, twinging one side of her face in uncertainty. The brown huntress was not the type of person people fell in love with. She wasn't the kind of person anyone wanted to have children with. She had always been destined to be the helper. Surely, Meerkat could see that.