The heat of the midday sun was cruel to anyone caught out in it, but especially with those who pelt was dark as a raven's wing. Shiya tried to keep her panting soft and discreet as she watched her golden sibs moving about with their pads and banus, trying to smother the jealousy in her heart.
It wasn't that she didn't love her family dearly. Their father had been stern but fair, their mother loving. Yet Shiya had always felt outside, a changeling in the golden hued family. No one had ever said anything of course, but surely it had to have been thought by someone that she didn't belong, didn't fit in.
Shaking her head to clear her depression thoughts, Shiya got to her feet to retreat back to the safe darkness of her father's den only to stumble dizzy as the heat got to her. Ruby eyes rolled back in her head as she slumped in a dead faint.