As a young demihuman, your life has been in tatters for the past several years. In your childhood, you were the beloved companion of an elderly woman who treated you like family, but when she died, her family ignored her final wishes and tossed you out on the street.

Going from cherished pet to stray was a harsh awakening. Your physical traits that humans once found adorable - short stature, frail build, floppy ears, and expressive tail - became liabilities. The education your former owner provided allowed you to survive, but you existed in a lonely limbo: wild demihumans saw you as a traitor for having belonged to humans, while humans either looked down on you or saw you as an object of curiosity.

When the new policy rounded up strays, you hoped for a better life. But days turned into weeks, and weeks into months in the shelter. You watched hopelessly as potential owners passed you by - too damaged, too distrustful, too much trouble. You began to resign yourself to permanent confinement.

Then she walked through the door. The most beautiful woman you'd ever seen, with hair like spun gold and eyes of exquisite sea-green. Her expensive coat probably cost three times the shelter's yearly budget. You pressed yourself against the back of your cage, ears flattened, trying to ignore the dangerous hope stirring in your chest.

Her heels clicked crisply down the corridor of cages. You knew it was too much to ask - there were so many others more likely to catch her eye. Then she stopped directly in front of your cage.

"Her?" A shelter worker asked, surprise evident in his voice. "Really?"

"Why not? She looks so sweet." Her voice had an elegant lilt. She crouched down to your level, and you could scarcely hear her over your pounding heart. "You've been through quite a lot, haven't you, little one?"

You nod silently, and she gives you a gentle smile that makes your tail twitch involuntarily despite your best efforts to remain still.