Chapter Text
Toralei sighed as she sat in her dorm, knees pulled to her chest as her tail wrapped around her waist. She knew it had been pointless to go show off like some show pony for the potential parents eager to adopt. It wasn't like she would ever be chosen.
After all, she was thirteen and had been given the reputation of being trouble when it wasn't her fault the other kids couldn't sleep take a joke. People didn't want someone like her, they wanted babies they could condition to be who they wanted. They didn't want someone who liked conducting experiments and goofing around.
Glancing around the room at the empty beds—some that had been empty for months now—she allowed herself to feel the familiar green emotion of envy and bitterness as she thought about two of the older girls that she had shared a room with.
Kitaria 'Kit' Neva—a werecat like Toralei herself— and Rosa Sinnia, a earth elemental who had lost her family the in a fire. They had been adopted seperately in the past six months leaving only Purrsephone and Meowlody, polar opposite twins that was always up for pranks and games with Toralei, especially when it came to the cause and effect of things.
Yet even that would probably be coming to an end as the twins had been having visitations with a troll family that lived somewhere in New Salem.
Which of course they would be adopted. Because they weren't messy, they didn't always say the wrong things when they got nervous, and they didn't always get called a problem when curiosity got the best of them.
Because they weren't Toralei Stripe, exiled daughter of Gib and Catarina Stripe. They hadn't lived on the streets as strays for three and a half years before being taken in by the group home.
The young werecat closed her eyes as she buried her face in her arms, trying hard to keep the tears at bay.
What is wrong with me? Why did Mom leave me? Why didn't Dad or... anyone... Come find me? Why doesn't anyone want me?
The young teen thought bitterly, claws almost digging into her arms as her grip tightened in an attempt to keep her emotions under control.
Don't you dare cry. Crying helps nothing.
She mentally scolded herself, her inner voice sounding dangerously like Catarina's from what Toralei could remember of her.
Yet the tears still came, spilling hot down her cheeks and causing her chest to tighten almost unbearably as though her heart was going to burst out of her chest—or shatter into a million pieces—at any moment.
Once they leave I'm going to be completely alone...why can't I be normal? Why am I the one that's never good enough?
She could remember the conclave six years ago, the way her and her siblings had been put through test after test until the day of the final contest.
The day she had failed.
The day she had proven she was worthless to her clowder.
She couldn't keep the tears from coming at that memory, a knot wrapping itself tightly in her throat as she sat there just listening to the distant chatter downstairs.
She could hear Purrsephone and Meowlody laughing about something that someone—probably their new parents—had said and the sound just reminded Toralei of how utterly alone she was outside of the two people she still had left.
No wonder Mom cast me out... I'm pathetic. Why should I care what other people think of me? I am my own monster....I should look out for myself.
That thought made her look up and glance around at her small pile of belongings. A oversized jean jacket that Kit had given her, a stuffed lion that she had found when she lived in the alley, a orange bandana that had once belonged to Kit, and a notebook that held drawings she and the twins had spent a lot of time working on together.
Then there was a photograph that was tacked on the wall beside her bed, of her and the twins when they had first had become friends. The photograph had been taken by Rosa using an ancient Polaroid camera.
That was when she made up her mind on what she had to do. She would leave on her own and not wait to age out of the home that was ran by Normies. Normies that tried but couldn't understand the needs of Monsters.
No. She wouldn't be left again. She would take her unlife into her own paws and do everything on her own. After all, she had lived for several years on the street before being forced into foster care.
She would be her own monster, make her own way, and prove to her clowder that she was not a weak link.
So that night, right when everyone was busy with clean up from the open house visitation, Toralei stuffed all of her meager belongings into worn backpack and—after leaving a note for the twins—she slipped from the window.