It was a frigid evening in the beginning of winter. There was a mild blizzard raging outside, blowing the branches of leafless trees and freezing the outside world.

Luckily for a certain family living in a small house on the outskirts of a forest, the fireplace was alive with flames licking at the chopped logs the humans fed it to keep it alive, warming the entire house. This family consisted of a mother, a father, and a newborn son, as well as two pet guinea pigs and a Maine Coon queen.

This night was especially lucky, for the female guinea pig was expecting her very first litter of pups, and she was about to have them at any minute!

"Oh, dear! Oh, goodness! Ohhh!" she whined as she laid on her side in a soft bed made out of shredded newspaper.

"Don't worry, Honeysuckle," the male guinea pig tried to assure his mate as he waddled over to her side and nuzzle her soft golden-brown fur gently. "The pain will be over before you know it. And once it's over we'll have a brand-new family."

"It's easy for you to say, Cosmos!" Honeysuckle snapped as a fresh wave of pain suddenly shot throughout her body. "You're not the one giving birth!"

"Calm down, you'll be just fine, I promise. Just keep calm and take deep breaths. If our female owner could do it, and if Carat could do it with two litters, then surely you can as well."

"I'm sorry, it just hurts..." Honeysuckle began to take deep, shaky breaths as she tried to endure the pain, but she yelped as another wave of pain shook her entire body. "It's coming, it's coming! The first one's coming!"

"Then push! Push as hard as you can!" Cosmos informed as he grabbed his mate's forepaw. She squeezed it tightly as she pushed as hard as she could, and soon a small amniotic sac slips out and lands with a soft plop in the newspaper bed next to her.

The female guinea pig quickly sits up to nip the sac open and lick her newly born pup until it woke up and began squeaking, indicating it was alive and healthy. This process repeated itself until a total of five pups were born.

"Honeysuckle, you did it!" Cosmos squeaked happily as he nuzzled her mate's muzzle. "I knew you could do it!"

"Th-Thanks, dearie," Honeysuckle panted. She smiled softly as her pups squeaked and made their way over to her belly where they began to suckle her for milk.

"You're free to name them anything you want," the father invited.

"In that case... I think I'll name the boy Orchid, the little girl here can be Poppy, this sweetie will be Jasmine, and the last girl will be Petunia."

"Such beautiful flower-based names," a new female voice purred. The guinea pigs turned to see a beautiful orange and white Maine Coon queen leap up on the table where the guinea pig cage stood.

"Thank you, Carat," Honeysuckle smiled tiredly. She turned back to her pups and licked each one in turn, giggling as they squeaked in protest before returning to their suckling.

"They're all so lovely. But... what about that one over there?" Carat meowed, gesturing to a tiny guinea pig pup, smaller than the rest of the litter, wandering around and trying to find its mother.

"Oh, no!" Honeysuckle squealed as her eyes widened. "Cosmos, look! It's just what I feared! It's a runt!"

"Oh, dear, this will not do at all!" Cosmos whimpered as he waddled over to the tiny pup, who squeaked and stumbled clumsily and slowly over to him.

"What, pray tell, is so wrong about a runt of the litter?" the Maine Coon queen asked, tilting her head to the side questioningly.

"You've never had any runts, but my mother has! She says they're the absolute worst! They never grow properly, they drink all the milk from the rest of the litter, and they're just a waste of space!" the mother guinea pig explained. "My little brother was a runt and our mother had to do away with him."

"What? That's not right at all! They may be smaller than the rest of the litter, but they're still living breathing creatures, not to mention your pup!" Carat exclaimed.

"But it'll never grow properly! It'll be teased and bullied by its brother and sisters! Its life will be a living nightmare!"

"So what do you plan on doing with it?"

"The only thing we can do," Cosmos answered for his mate. "We have to do away with it."

"You can't kill your own flesh and blood, that's just not right!" the Maine Coon queen hissed.

"Who said anything about killing it?" the chocolate-brown father retorted. "Once it grows a bit older to fend for itself - as much fending for itself as it can anyway - we're going to take it into the forest. Hopefully a family of wild animals like rabbits or mice will take it in as their own."

"And if no one finds it? You'll just be leaving it for dead! What kind of parents are you?"

"The parents who care for their pups enough to make a sacrifice for the well being of the stronger ones," Honeysuckle responded coolly.

"You two are just awful. I would never abandon any of my kittens if they were runts. The only thing your doing is leaving an innocent, defenseless little guinea pig to die in the harsh cold. We may be friends, yes, but if you choose to abandon this pup, I will never forgive you two for it." Carat drew back her ears and glared at them angrily before leaping off the table.

"Who cares if she doesn't forgive us?" Honeysuckle grunted. "These are our pups, not hers. We as their parents can do whatever we want with them. Cosmos, in a week you'll have to sneak out to place the pup deep in the forest. Try to find a den if you can and hope that it isn't abandoned. We don't want it to die, but if it does end up freezing to death or being eaten by a predator, it won't be our faults; it'd just be the result of fate."

A week passed since Honeysuckle's and Cosmos' pups were born. Orchid, Jasmine, Poppy, and Petunia were healthy and full of life, scampering around on the floor with their parents and Carat there to watch over them. However, the runt in which the parents still have refused to name since this was the day it was to be taken and left in the forest, was as still as ever, barely having any strength to waddle a few inches. At least they did have the heart to check what gender the pup was, and it was a female.

"Have you decided where in the forest to take it?" Honeysuckle asked Cosmos. The night before she had asked him to scour the woods with Carat in search of a suitable place to deposit the runt.

"Yes," Cosmos replied. "Carat managed to find a nearby den that was still being used. Luckily, it's not a home to predators."

"As if I were going to let you two abandon her to become an easy appetizer to a fox or badger," Carat growled as her tail swished around, still obviously unhappy with the guinea pigs. "I should have said no and forced you to keep the runt!"

"And why didn't you?"

"Because that would have to involve clawing some sense into you two, and our owners would immediately throw me out into the cold. And by the end of that, you two would still get rid of your pup!"

"Speaking of which, I don't think our owners are nearby, and it's starting to get dark," Cosmos spoke up to Honeysuckle, ignoring Carat's last comment altogether. "I still have to take the runt out to the den before they put us back in our cage. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Okay, be safe, dear," Honeysuckle purred as she nuzzled her mate's ear. He nuzzled her back and went to waddle over to the runt, who was now being nipped at all over the place by her siblings.

"Stop it!" Cosmos spat at the pups, and they all yelped and fled. The runt tried to flee from her father's booming voice, but she wasn't quick enough, for the male guinea pig quickly scooped her up by the scruff and began to waddle towards the cat flap on the door.

He crawled through it and began his trek into the forest. It was barely snowing now, but it was still absolutely freezing, and he had to fluff up his short fur as much as he could to protect his warmed flesh underneath from the cold.

The runt, on the other hand, was crying out loudly and squirming against the cold, squealing whenever she was dipped into the snow every few seconds to be kept quiet. Eventually, she fell silent, too cold and scared to make any noises.

Finally, Cosmos made his way to the den he and Carat had found the night before, and he found a patch of snow in front of it under a bed of wilted wild violets to place the pup in. He looked down at the wailing pup and felt he had to at least nuzzle her muzzle before making his way back home.

He couldn't deny himself this fact anymore: his heart broke into a million pieces for abandoning his own pup, especially like this. But he knew that if he didn't do it, Honeysuckle would, and he wanted to protect her from any source of harm to the best of his abilities.

"Good-bye, sweet daughter of mine..." Cosmos sighed as he waddled away from his crying pup, a tear sliding down his fluffy brown cheek. "You won't remember us, but just know that no matter what, even if your mother doesn't love you, I still do. I'm so sorry it had to be this way. Please forgive me."

It had been hours now, but it felt like years. The guinea pig pup was crying for food and warmth. But mostly, she was crying for her mother. She missed her mother so much, and she felt completely lost without her. Without her mother, she felt as though she were the only one in the entire universe, forever cold, hungry, lonely, and worse of all: unloved.

Eventually, all the crying had made her weaker and more exhausted than she could have ever felt possible, and she felt herself freezing over from the cold all around her. Her vision was beginning to fade away as she felt herself grow sleepier and sleepier.

She was about to close her eyes and fall asleep, never to wake back up, when suddenly she heard a noise. She opened her eyes back up a bit, hoping that the noise had belonged to her mother, and she let out a squeak to get her "mother's" attention.

All felt silent and, with fear striking through her, she let out a louder, more desperate squeak. She then heard the sound of snow crunching as someone walked closer to her, and she looked up weakly, hoping to see the face of her mother.

But instead of seeing her mother, she saw a different animal, one she had never seen before. It was small and orange with brown spiky things growing out of its head and back, and it had bright green eyes. She flinched as the animal squealed, and soon an animal of the same species - this one being red with dark red spikes and purple eyes - popped into view.

It reached down to her and grabbed her by the scruff, and it carried her into a den. As soon as they entered, warmth flooded over her body for the first time in what felt like forever, almost instantly defrosting her fur.

She was placed down next to a yellow animal with yellow spikes and green eyes, and there was also another young orange animal with brown spikes and green eyes, only it was a lighter shade than the first and a bit larger as well.

A warm, milky scent wafted into the pup's nostrils, and instantly she recognized it to be a scent belonging to a mother - her mother! The pup quickly waddled over to her "mother" and found where she needed to suckle for milk. The taste of warm, delicious milk filled her mouth and made her taste buds sing with bliss, something she hadn't felt in a long time. Completely overjoyed, she began to purr.

She felt the two younger animals press up against either side, warming her up even more, and she just purred louder as she was happy her "brothers" were finally here to comfort and protect her. Her "father" had rescued her from freezing in the cold, and now her life was back to normal.

While this whole event was going on, though, she couldn't quite understand but a few words her "family" was saying to each other and to her, but she did recognize one word: it was a name for her. They had finally given her a name, and she loved it so very much.

And that name was Violet.