Thyssa lived with the perfect woman, and got to know her. Her name was Lili, and she was as kind as she’d seemed the first time. She never lost her temper or said the wrong thing. All her words were rational and beautiful. Thyssa couldn’t have asked for a better mentor to teach her humanity.

“Enjoying your apple cake?” asked Lili.

Thyssa nodded. Then, remembering her (freshly-taught) manners, she added “Yes, thank you.”

Her human voice was deep and husky, which Lili said ‘was to be expected.’ Thyssa liked it. But Lili said it was sometimes frightening and aggressive, especially when she was excited. So she taught her Thyssa speak more gently.

“That’s good. I really want you to feel comfortable here.”

Thyssa chewed the spiced cake slowly. “What do you get out of all this?”

Lili nodded, like she was expecting this question. “You must have noticed I live alone, far from other humans. They think my ideas are frightening, dangerous, mad.”

Deliberately vague. Thyssa decided to bite. “What ideas?”

“My colleagues think malforms are too dangerous to interact with. That’s why you’ve been left in the Land of Monsters.”

“Left to suffer and die.”

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Lili sighed. “Yes. Poor thing. It’s…not right, is it?”

“No.”

“That’s why some of us wanted to find more humane solutions. One of us even wanted to euthanize your kind.”

“Euthanize?”

“A pretty word for murder.”

“That’s not humane.”

“No. It’s not. Even my other colleagues were horrified by that idea. They cast him out of the Walled Garden, too. Not before he stole one of our treasures.” She shook her head. “He was once one of my teachers. He was a good man then. What is it that makes people betray everything they stand for?”

Thyssa looked down. “Why do people always want to hurt us?”

“They think you can’t be fixed. That there’s no cure for your aggressive, antisocial tendencies. That empathy is something you either have or don’t have, and if you don’t have it you can never get it.” Lili looked intense. “But I think we can give you empathy.” She stroked Thyssa’s hair. “All you need is a little tender loving care.”

Thyssa looked up. “You made me human so you could care for me.”

Lili nodded. “And so you could feel that care, and grow from it.”

Thyssa swallowed. “So all this was…just to prove yourself right?”

“To test whether I am right. I am, after all, a scientist. No duty but to truth.” Her face was stoic. Then a warm smile played across her lips “That said. I do find myself getting attached to you. Normally, a scientist shouldn’t let her feelings sway her. But I think here it helps the project.”

“So you let yourself love me.”

Lili hugged Thyssa. “And why shouldn’t I? We both want to make you into something better. To prove to everyone you can be more than what they say you are.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Talk to us. To win the people’s hearts, I need someone to talk to them. It can’t be me, they don’t believe me. And it can’t be a malform, or they’ll just panic. I need a voice who can speak from experience, with a face they won’t run from.” Lili crouched down to look at Thyssa at eye level. “Do you think that’s you?”

“I think I could try to be that.”

Lili smiled. “That’s all I ask.”