Chapter 1: Mother Of 64

While many have told her that she should count herself lucky that an orphanage took her in, she disagreed. She knew they were just raising her in hopes or marrying her off as a child bride. They would probably succeed, too, because of her pretty face and soft voice.

She had long considered disfiguring herself, but knew it would only lead to her abandonment and likely death or enslavement. Besides, life in The Orchard wasn't too terrible.

Yeah, the classes were tedious and annoying, but she was given 3 warm meals each day and a roof and a bed, which is a lot more than what other parent-less girls her age could say.

But she also knew that she was pushing her luck… but not on purpose! It wasn't her fault that these stupid eggs keep appearing. She always had to be alert because one can magically appear in the middle of the air next to her, and if she didn't catch it, the creature inside of it could die. That is, if the thing inside was living to begin with.

The eggs were like a pull of the draw. A lottery system, perhaps. It was thanks to this that she hadn't been kicked out yet. If the thing that hatched from the egg was alive, she had to register it with the Head Mistress. If it wasn't alive, she had to give it up to The Orchard for inspection. There, they would decide if they wanted to keep the item. If they didn't, they would sell it. If nobody bought it, they returned it.

She was kinda bitter.

There were some very valuable things she had surrendered to her charges, and knew this despite her limited knowledge of the item market. Afterall, the Flower Girls weren't allowed to leave the orchard.

Turning to the wall opposite her bed, she sighed. One giant tank full of fuzzy lime green caterpillars that wouldn't turn into a butterfly no matter how long she waited, and a long wire cage of tiny, light brown colored dogs. They had short fur and white tipped ears, and all they do it shrilly bark all day long, fall over due to their heads being twice the size of their bodies, and drool. Then there was the cage of tiny pink birds hanging from her ceiling. She disliked these ones even more because they would sleep during the day but create a cacophony of noise during the night, leaving her with throbbing headaches and very little sleep.

She groaned heavily and rolled over to see her small circle of bunnies. Just like the annoying dogs, the soft white creatures were in a wire cage, but this time just without a top or bottom. She liked the bunnies. They were quiet, soft, and pretty. They snuggled with her at night and one of them, her favorite one with small black dots on its ears, would even cover her ears with its own to block out the racket made by the birds, which worked surprisingly well.

She smiled at the thought of her favorite baby and got up, plodding her way over to the circular contraption and opened the gate, letting the 3 bunnies out to roam around.

She watched them contentedly hop around and sighed, lamenting that despite all the eggs she's gotten, she only hatched 3 bunnies.

She turned her head around and looked at the dogs, watching as 3 of the stupid things fell over at the exact same time in disgust. "Why couldn't you guys be cute too?" She muttered and looked back to her precious babies.

She walked over to her left-hand wall and unlocked a few more cages. These ones held creatures that she didn't have more then 2 of, including a small blue chicken, a slimy purple gecko, and an aged yellow butterfly. There was also a dark violet caterpillar that she left in its enclosure. She originally decided to keep it with the other green caterpillars, but upon discovering that the number of her green babies was dwindling every day, she quickly requested another enclosure for it.

She didn't like to look at it very often— she was quite scared of it, and had dreamt of it escaping and eating all her babies more than once.

She watched as her small crowd of children interacted with eachother. She used to let them out to stretch their legs separately, but that took hours and she wasn't willing to do that everyday. She quickly discovered that none of her pets would hurt eachother— except for the scary caterpillar— so she wasn't too scared of anything happening to them.

After half and hour, she clapped her hands twice and declared "everybody, back to your homes," and all the creatures obediently skittered back to their enclosures.

One by one, she locked the cages. Strutting up to the dog cage she begrudgingly swing it open. The dogs all stopped everything at one and stood stark still.

She walked over to her bed and reached under it, pulling out a bucket of leashes. "Single file, come on." She said as she reached for one.

One dog, the one with the biggest head, let out a delighted yip and pranced toward her, only falling over twice in the process.

She grabbed a leash from the clear bin and attached it to his collar and yelled out "Gracie!"

A bird from the cage in the ceiling trilled and flew out between the bars. The cage was more used as a boundary line than a way to keep them locked up. Cages with smaller gaps were far too out of their price range, and she want worried about them running away, so she picked that one.

She just wanted a cage so that the birds had somewhere to perch.

Also so it looked less messy in her room.

She was quickly pulled out of her thoughts when they pink bird chirped at her, irritated. "Geez, don't get your tail feathers in a knot, Gracie. Here you go." She handed the leash to the bird, and the pair left.

"Next! Alex and Paxton." A dog thundered out of the cage and a bird quickly responded. Hooking the clasp to the collar, she passed over the handle and sent them way.

This continued 12 more times.

"Okay pack, let's go." She said and the remaining 5 birds flew over and landed on her. 2 on her head, 2 on her left shoulder, and 1 on her right.

She opened the door and let them all go before her, passing through the short corridor in a practiced but still clumsy fashion— mainly because the dogs could only go a dozen or so steps before falling over.

She dazedly watched as they made their way out the backdoor through the opening she carved in the exit. The dogs would go through first, then they would bite the edge of the metal plate, holding it open for their bird to fly through.

When she requested it, she said she wanted a way for her pets to escape if there was an emergency. Truthfully, she just got tired of holding the door open for them all the time. It took forever and it made her small arms hurt.

Waiting for the last pair to bumble their way outside, she walked over and pushed the door open and walked out.

The yard was small but quaint. Her own little personal haven.

Most of the kids in The Orchard didn't get this, even if they were a Flower. She received it not only because of her pets needing a place to go, but also because of her high scores in nearly all of her classes. Well, that and because everybody was afraid of the creatures, thinking they might just go wild one day.

She glanced down at the stupid dogs and within 7 seconds, 12 had fallen down like dominos, blown over by a particularly strong gust of wind. She looked at the 2 dogs that still stood and took a mental note of them, filing away images of their smaller physiques and wider limbs.

She walked over to her last pet and gave him a big hug as she got on her knees. The dark grey donkey closed its eyes and laid its head on her shoulder, crying out quietly.

"Aww my poor baby, I'm so sorry Pumpkin. I know it hurts; you're so strong, baby. I'm so proud of you." She told him, and the creature happily sighed at her words.

One thing that separated her babies from all the other creatures in the world was the fact that she could talk to them, and that they could talk to her.

There's just one issue with their communication…

"Mother…" the creature replied in pain.

While they understood everything she said, the creatures themselves could only say one word.

"Mother…" it said aggrievedly, and Evelynn slowly rubbed its back.

It drove her nuts!

Ding!

She wanted to cry.

Quickly shooting her hands out, she caught a small silver egg.

"Either an item or another dumb caterpillar…" she sighed to herself.

Holding it in her hands she stood back up again. "I'll change your bandages in the morning. They haven't given me new ones for you yet, I'm sorry, otherwise I'd do it now."

The creature just looked at her and nodded, knowing that it had been pushing its injured donkey status a little too far buy calling her mother twice, as she had long explained how much she hated it.

After all, what 5 year old wants to be a mom?!