Adeleine had a fairly unremarkable childhood. She made her friends young and stuck with them, somehow managing to avoid the drama and relationship issues that tend to come with attending high school. Her grades weren't perfect, but she was definitely well-liked by her teachers, and she studied hard for most of her classes. She had never been able to convince her parents to buy her a pet, though. No dogs, no cats, no hamsters- not even fish. Apparently they were "too expensive" and "too much responsibility when she should be focusing on her classes." Privately, Adeleine thought that the things her parents preferred to spend their money on were pointless, but she wasn't one to argue.

All of this, of course, is ignoring the fact that her sister went missing when she was four years old. Adeleine doesn't remember her much, though whenever she can pry information out of her family, she's told that they were very close. She's told that they would spend hours in the garden, looking under rocks and collecting all of the creepy crawlies they found. That they would dress up in ridiculous costumes and pretend to be fairies taking care of the flowers. Julianna was eight, at the time. Twice Adeleine's age, and yet it was her that disappeared. For a while, Adeleine thought that the vague details and side-stepped questions were just to hide her from the ugly truth of a kidnapping or a murder. Then, she found out that it's because they don't even know what happened. No one does.

So. Adeleine never really let go of her love of animals, even if she can't really tell which of her memories are real and which are pure fiction, the work of her imagination interwoven with snippets of stories she has been told. She took that interest, the only thing she knows for sure that she shared with her sister, and turned it into a degree- or, she is turning it into a degree. Hopefully. And if she can find the time in between classes and exams to search for her... Well, that's a bonus, isn't it?