--- Songbird Fragment ---

"Take the world and tear it apart, remake it so it fits my heart, the universe enclosed, passion's playtoy, love and lust are nothing, just a shadow, just a moon encircling this, my body, planet, mother earth..."

Mother. A frightening word, for one so young. When she sang those lines, the drugs were in her water before she even finished the tune, and they looked her over, head to toe... when she was awake again she didn't notice the change. Didn't know time had passed. Only recognized that something had happened when she saw the tiny scars that traced a strange pattern over one hip, around her stomach. Something had happened and she couldn't put a finger on it, but she felt... different.

He knew what they did to her, knew because he was told, warned. Instructed not to teach her about procreation, merely recreation. He was not to explain that she would never bring another life into the world. He cried for her, tears staining the concrete floor of the cell, body thrust back against the wall, his eyes turned up to the window, to the moon there, the same moon that she might be watching... he cried, because he knew she would not, because he knew she would never even be aware of her loss.