That's a sobering thought. Alex had spent close to a year locked up in a metal cage barely big enough for her to stretch out in, fed only when someone bothered to remember, with nothing but a thin blanket between her and the cold. She would have given anything for a habitat like one of these: regular meals, heating, enough space to run around in. In the wild, at least she'd had her freedom, but it had been miserably cold and lonely, and survival often came down to sheer luck.

"There are worse ways to live," she mutters. True, what he's describing sounds nicer, but this place seems nice enough. There were definitely worse things. "The butterflies probably don't even notice," she added in a lighter tone, trying not to dwell on it.