Mother's Mercy. You don't know how to describe this feeling of wanting to hug her and whisper sweet encouragements, seeing a smile on that pale face might become an ambition.

Seyraphal straightens her spine and concentrates on her needlework; the weight that kept her hunched and scared isn't so oppressive anymore.

''My mother was a seamstress.'' She says after a stretch of comfortable silence. ''I can still hear the clicks of needles, the buzzing of rolling bobby pins, I think the fabrics she used had a scent too...but maybe it's my mind playing a trick on me.'' Click. Click. Click. The needles work with expert hands, using the silk of her own body. Seyraphal seems to be working on a little...patch maybe? It's not a big piece. ''My grandmother was a spider, my mother was her third child and came out as a moth; that's the kind of things that happen with Corruption and even more so with bugs like us.''

''Did you want to enter your mother's trade?'' Your mother taught you how to walk the forest, stalk and kill game, skin and butcher them. It's not your passion (you've yet to find that), but you did entertain the idea of fully following in her footsteps.

''I'm not sure. I have a talent for this, and I think I could do it in a better community, but I've always liked knitting as a hobby if I make it my living... I'm scared I could get sick of it.'' Despite the topic, her hands are moving much more confidently. Afraid of poisoning the only connection she has left to her mother. I think Seyraphal might be a deeply fearful and hesitant person.

Monstrous families in the Allied Kingdoms rarely stay whole. Bad conditions, diseases, and abuses make plenty of orphans. Fully grown daughters are far too often separated from their parents to go work in some other place with the mercy of local overseers as sole judges of this ignominy.

''Done.'' Seyraphal intones and rises to her feet, her antennas making noses close to birds chirping. Alas, you have to let go of the heavenly blanket of wing-silk you've been holding onto.