My name is Melody. I've never met my real parents, but my adoptive mom Camila told me that she found me with an owl-patterned blanket and a note that said, 'I'm sorry I cant be there to raise you, my special Melody. I just hope someone will be able...
At around midnight, a pale young woman in her early 20s with pointy ears and a shock of poofy, orange hair barely concealed under a hood exits from a decrepit-looking house in the woods, the door glowing behind her before closing. She's holding a sleeping toddler no older than 2 wrapped in a navy blue blanket patterned with brown owls, their hair covering their own pointed ears. The child has darker skin than the woman and orange-brown hair.
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The woman walks through the woods for a few minutes before reaching a paved road. The only house nearby is a white house with a light blue roof and tan siding along the bottom, a small staircase leading up to the front door. The woman adjusts her hood with one hand and walks toward the house. She walks up the small staircase and sets the sleeping child down near the door, leaving enough room for the door to open without smacking the child.
She gives the child a big hug, then whispers, "I'm sorry it has to be this way, kid. I just want to keep you out of danger. You have no idea how dangerous the Boiling Isles is. Hopefully, you won't need to find out."
The woman rustled through her hair until she found a note that she had written earlier. It read, 'I'm sorry I can't be there to raise you, my special Melody. I just hope someone will be able to protect you better than I can. Love, your mother Eda.' Eda read and re-read the note a few times before sighing.
She pulled out a pen and scratched out her name from the note, clipping it to the blanket with a clothespin. Eda took a few deep breaths to steady her turbulent mind and knocked on the door with shaking hands, tears streaming down her face. Once she heard sounds from the other side of the door, she ran back into the woods in the direction she came from.
The door suddenly swung open, a darker-skinned woman with dark hair rubbing her eyes as she scanned the street, looking for whoever knocked on the door. When she didn't see anyone, she turned around to go back inside when she almost tripped on Melody. It took her a few seconds for her tired mind to register what it was she was seeing.
Once she finally processed it, her eyes widened in shock. The thought that someone would abandon a child was a horrifying thought to her. She picked up the still sleeping child and brought them into the house, speedwalking through her house as she rushed upstairs to her bedroom. Once there, she saw her husband fast asleep.
He was also darker-skinned with darker hair and a goatee covering most of the lower portion of his face. She set Melody down on a chair and woke him up. The couple recently had a child of their own, and neither of them had been sleeping well, so it took a while to wake him up. He opened his eyes suddenly, then he shot awake as he saw his wife's panicked expression.
He exclaimed, "Camila, what's wrong? Did something happen to Luz?"
Camila shook her head, too shocked to form words. She gestured to the chair, the child still asleep somehow.
She finally said, "Someone knocked on the door, and I found this child asleep by the door and heard someone running in the woods. Manny, I think they abandoned this poor child."
Manny stood up from the bed, walking over to the chair that held Melody.
He noticed the note and pointed to it, saying, "What's this note?"
Camila unclipped it from the blanket and read it aloud, the shock on their faces being replaced with pity and sympathy. They silently looked at each other, in silent agreement. Their child Luz suddenly started crying loudly from the next room, waking up Melody in turn. Manny ran off to see what made Luz cry, and Camila started cradling Melody in her arms, lightly bouncing them.
Once both children had calmed down and fell back asleep, Camila joined Manny in the nursery where Luz slept. Camila wasn't sure where to put Melody, so she set them down in the crib with Luz for the night until they could get a proper bed for them. She held a hand to her forehead in stress and felt her husband hugging her from behind, helping to calm her down. They went back to bed and silently discussed what to do with Melody.
It was a long discussion, but it ended with them deciding to go down to CPS the next day to see if they could find their parents. If they couldn't, they would see if they could adopt them. The next day, they went down to Child Protective Services with Melody as planned, but they were unable to find a living person in the country who could possibly be their parents.
This rarely happens, so the people at CPS allowed them to adopt Melody immediately. The paperwork took a while, but it was worth it to them. When they were buying clothes to dress their new child, their ears poked through their hair, making their pointed ears quite obvious. Manny and Camila started freaking out, and immediately brought them to a doctor.
The doctor did many tests, but eventually concluded that it was just a birth defect, like the huge pouch attached to their heart that was found during testing. They were too young for heart surgery, so the doctors decided to leave it be, and only operate if it causes issues. The child continued to grow up alongside their new younger sister, finding newfound companionship.
