Perfidy thought her mother was plenty deserving, but she didn’t point that out. Because her mother was innocent. She had to be. Perfidy knew this with as much conviction as she knew the sun would rise at dawn on the morrow. Void, if she even tried to think of a future in which her mother wasn’t with her all she saw was the darkest of black, an infinite night with no end and no beginning.

“Anyway, this magic cardinal saw the poor lil jay strugglin’ to flap her wings an’ fly from her nest, so—”

Perfidy knew interrupting was rude, but she also knew where this was going and she didn’t want to wait for her mother to mosey her way to the end. “So the red cardinal adopted that baby jay an’ raised it as her own. She was mocked mercilessly by the other cardinals, but she always claimed that she couldn’t tell the jay was blue an’ not red. An’ she taught that jay to fly until she was the best flier in the whole wood.”

“Well, that’s a mighty big imagination ye have there, Perfidy Tress. But no, I’m afraid that’s not whut happened at all.”

Perfidy blinked. “It’s not, Ma?”

“Nope. Yer thinkin’ of a world where everyone is good, an’ ever’one wants to help each other out. But this story is about our world. Our world is a place of balance. Fer every good deed, there’s a bad one. Fer every smile, a sneer. If someone hugs their loved one, then someone else must be punchin’ their enemy somewhere else. That’s jest the way it is. So no, that’s not whut happened. That grievin’ mama cardinal took one look at the hideously ugly blue feathers that jay wore an’ kept flyin’ right on by.”

Despite herself, Perfidy found herself leaning in. “But then whut happened to the baby jay? She couldn’t fly so she couldn’t hunt fer food. She had no way of survivin’.”

“That’s what she thought too, of course, so fer a while she cried, grievin’ fer her mother an’ generally feelin’ sorry fer herself. Eventually, she fell asleep, but when she woke up, ye know whut?”

Perfidy shook her head, growing impatient. “Tell me!”

Her mother smiled, and this time it was genuine. “She closed her eyes, flapped her wings, an’ leaped from the nest.”

“An’ she flew?”

Her mother laughed. “In a fashion, but it was the ugliest, most awkward piece of flyin’ ye ever saw. She twisted an’ flipped an’ went right through a plume of leafy branches that slowed her down, but then her wings caught an’ she opened her eyes an’—”

“She flew?!” Perfidy practically shrieked.

“More like crashed gracefully,” her mother said with a chuckle. “Right into a pile of leaves. A pile of leaves hidin’ the most delicious variety of grubs an’ worms fer her to fill her belly.”