A little bird is born on a spring day, the sun shining. Its chirps fall through the crisp air, a small sound easily beautiful, easily forgotten. Small drops of dew fall from bright green leaves, drips in a pool rippling throughout the surface. The bird is rather cold, its lack of feathers and light breezes cooling it down a bit more than it'd like. But it is quickly warmed up by its parents, their wings covering its tiny body and sheltering it from all harm. It chirps happily, its parents patting it gently on the head and feeding it food that it can eat. Its small beak opens and closes as fast as it can possibly go, greedily devouring the food that it was given. It takes the food for granted, for this short amount of time. Eventually, its siblings are born, and they all fight for food it once thought belonged to only itself, and it begins to learn of hard times. The days quickly grow longer, more merciless. It learns that its good days have passed, and that now it will only work each day, all day. Throughout the weeks, it learns to eat harder foods, that it won't just eat things like soft centipedes every day. Although it likes their sweet flavor, now it is just a delicacy, like how humans can only eat strawberries and cream once a week. By now, it is used to eating pumpkin seeds and dry carbs every day. It doesn't like it much, but it has to do what it must to survive. The days are getting colder, and less forgiving. Other animals are taking its food. Everything is getting more scarce. It has to go to another forest, far far away, in order to feed itself. It runs into a cat, and the cat pounces on it. Its wing is injured. It can't fly. It doesn't know when another predator will come, smelling its blood as it bleeds helplessly, on the floor like this. Fear begins to creep into its heart, and it doesn't know whether it should be grateful the cat was taken away by its owners, or to be sad that it's still alive with this fear building, building, building. It's lost. Confused. Wishing as hard as it can to be far away from the ground, as if the harder it hopes, the more likely it is to come true. An hour later, someone picks it up. It's hungry. Scared. It chirps, hoping that maybe it'll be left alone. Even though it wants help. Needs help. Its brought to the human's home, where it is given food and a small piece of cloth as a blanket. It's not used to this kind of kindness, not since it was a small child. When the human ties bandages along its wing, and warmth creeps into its heart, it softens. And two weeks later, it is freed, its heart confident once again, that there was, indeed, goodness between the hard times.