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It had not been a good day for Madeleine Taylor, butterfly girl extra-ordinaire.

Sure, it had started out great; Christmas had come and gone, and with it had come a lot of awesome presents (that, thankfully, had not gone but stayed around), and Maddy had made plans the night before to play with her new toys. She'd gotten a doll much like the one her friend Dalal had, only this one had seen less wear and tear, and some Legos and a bunch of other stuff.

Frankly, she'd gotten so many toys she'd had to set up a mental scheme for when she'd play with what.

And today had been the gorgeous new doll's day. So she'd gotten up, fed Turtle and Pirate and then introduced the two to her gleaming new Barbie.

It'd been a blast.

And then her mom had stuck her head into her room and said, with the meekest voice Maddy had ever heard: "Madeleine, we need to talk for a bit."

That was where things had started to go wrong.

She'd gone out into the kitchen, where, sure enough, her mom sat at the table and looked pensive. Things had just gone downhill from there.

Her mom had talked about a lot of things, mostly to stall the time, but eventually she'd gotten around to things like 'loneliness', 'friends', 'siblings' and then the dread thing: 'cabbage'.

She was planning to take on another of Dr. Akari's children, the doctor that had created Maddy. Sure, she said it was because she wanted Maddy to have a friend, one that'd always be there, but like hell that was what she really thought - obviously she didn't love Maddy anymore and had decided to replace her with some stupid, idiotic kid that was 'better' than she was.

And so in a fit of tears, she'd ran from the apartment to find some place where her mom wasn't a b***h, and when that failed, had settled on the children's section at the local library where she was currently sobbing her brains out.

Dogs? Die? Maddy opened her eyes and spotted the funny-looking kid near her who was staring at her curiously.

Her inner politeness kicked in. "N-no," she sniffled quietly, "I don't have a dog. I have a turtle and a hermit crab, though." She couldn't resist adding the last bit - bragging about her awesome pets was second nature by now.

She paused for a second, replaying his words in her mind. Oh. He meant a book? "I haven't read a book about a dog before." This only seemed to make her even sadder than she already was.

She nodded, a bit more composed now that it seemed she had company determined to stick around.

"I like water, but I.. I can't swim in it." She grimaced and pointed to her wings, giving them a flutter: "They're too delicate and getting them wet hurts." It made taking a shower quite complicated, involving specially made plastic bags and some creative maneouvering.

"But I like having my feet in water. That's really nice." Maddy added, trying to be a bit less depressing for the poor boy.

"It is." It was one of the many problems with having butterfly wings; when the dust on her wings got displaced, as it tended to do in water, they started hurting like hell. Honestly, at this point Maddy was sure there were more disadvantages to having wings than there were advantages.

"I can't fly either." She shrugged, attempting a watery smile for the sake of Rook. "I'd like to, though - that'd be kinda cool. Who's Bishop?"

"Oh." She paused, taking in the strange boy's words. Older sister? Cabbage? That all sounded frightfully familiar. What was this, some sort of cosmic conspiracy?

"I came from a cabbage, too." Might as well play along, right? He probably didn't even know. She hesitated again, before giving in to temptation: "Your parents like you both, right? And your sister.. she likes you too?"

"Really?" She didn't know who Andrea was but assumed she was another sister or something of the like. "My mom wants to get me a sister or a brother, but I don't know."

Well.. that did make sense. A lot of sense, actually.

"I guess so." Her feelers twitched, feeling a bit awkward for some reason. "What's your name, anyway?"

Maddy brightened considerably. "Yes! I know Kaimi, and I think I've.. seen Christian around a few times." If he was that scary, large guy that she kept getting assured wasn't that scary. But Kaimi was her friend, her first real one, and the mention of the flower-girl perked her up.

"I'm Madeleine, but that's really awful to pronounce so everyone calls me Maddy." She smiled, rolling her eyes a bit when she talked about how awful her name was.