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“More mail, your majesty,” Princess Luna’s butler came
in dumping another 7-10 guild invites on Luna’s bed.
“More of them? Sheesh, I had no idea telling
one person at a party that I wanted to join a guild would lead to 50 invites!”
Luna said shuffling through the envelopes.
“Well, everybody wants a princess in their guild.
After all, you receive invites from only the most elite guilds,” her butler
said, walking out of the room.
Luna sighed, and looked at the names of the
guilds: Royal Neopians, Elite Leaders of Neopia, Patrons to the Arts of Neopia.
Luna threw all the letters into the trash, she was sick of getting invites from
private guilds that only wanted the rich and powerful in their guilds. She wanted
a guild with more variety, with people from all levels of society.
“Do you mind if I dust your room now, your majesty?”
a small Kacheek in a maid’s uniform walked in holding a duster.
“Of course not, Rita. Are you going somewhere
this evening?” Luna said sitting up and patting her Cybunny hair, which was
now sticking out everywhere.
“Well yes, to a guild meeting,” Rita started
dusting the cupboard.
“Oh you're in a guild? What’s it about?”
“Well it’s a new guild called ‘The Silk Sisters’.
It’s a group of us who used to work in a silk factory a long time ago that got
shut down, and so to keep the friendship between us lasting forever, me and
one of my good friends decided to make a guild.”
“Oh that’s nice, do you mind if I could go with
you today, and see it?” Luna asked eagerly.
“Oh sure! You don’t necessarily have had to been
in the old Silk Factory to join the guild, and we really need more members,”
Rita said happily as she dusted the lampshades.
“Cool, I’ve been looking for a guild. I keep
getting invites from all these snooty types of guilds,” Luna said surveying
the piles of invites lying in her trashcan.
“Well, my guild’s not quite what you are used
to,” Rita said blushing slightly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s just that... well, never mind. I’ll
see you in the evening then,” Rita left the room.
***
Later that evening, Rita and Luna set off in a carriage to the guild, which
happened to be in the Endless Plains. They passed rows of guilds, big ones,
small ones, crowded ones, and so on. Finally Rita stopped the carriage outside
a huge guild that was colored in gold paint.
“Wow, this is amazing,” Luna stared in awe at
the guild.
“Well that isn’t my guild,” Rita said blushing,
“it’s down this street. I stopped the carriage because the road’s too narrow,
we’ll have to walk down.”
They walked down the road, and Luna noticed
that every few steps they took, the guilds would get smaller and less grand,
and the road would get less unpaved. Soon they were trudging along a dusty pathway,
with guilds that seemed nothing more than yard shacks.
“Well here we are,” Rita stopped in front of
a guild.
“Oh, how nice,” Luna lied; to call it a guild
seemed like calling a castle a hen house.
There it stood with a wooden sign dangling on
one nail, which read “The Silk Sisters”. The guild seemed like it would fall
to the ground any moment, it was made of wood planks crudely put together. And
someone had tried very hard to make it look more desirable by putting a small
patch of flowers in the front, which were dying. And to top it all off, the
guild was painted an ugly shade of lime.
“Eh, we don’t have the Neopoints right now to
add much to it,” Rita said blushing noticing Luna’s expression. “We’re collecting
donations but we only have ten members.”
“Yes, well, let’s go in,” Luna said reaching
for the door.
“Oh no!” Rita dashed in front of her quickly,
“It’s not a real door, just a wall with a door painted on it with a knob attached,
we use it for aesthetic appeal and well because we can’t afford a door at the
moment. We use this hole we carved out in the back to get in.”
“I see,” Luna said slowly. They couldn’t even
afford a door?
They went around the back, where indeed there was a small hole carved out
and a cloth put behind it as a cover. Luna had to crouch to fit it, and got
her first look at the inside. The inside was not much better than the outside,
except there wasn’t an old dirt path, or a fake door to make it look so pathetic.
It still was painted lime on the inside, had a single room with a few chairs,
and a blackboard in the front.
“Hi, Rita! Brought a friend along,” a smiling,
orange Gelert walked up to them holding out her paw.
“Hello Trina! This is Princess Luna, from the
castle where I work. She’s looking for a guild to join, so I invited her to
come to one of our meetings,” Rita turned to Luna. “This is Trina, the leader
of the guild.”
“Hello,” Luna shook hands with Trina.
“Hello! Never expected a princess to come to
our guild, but you know as they, it’s a small world!” Trina said ecstatically.
“Yes, it is!” Luna said giving a fake smile.
“Well, let’s begin!” Trina walked up to the front
by the chalkboard, where there stood a small podium, and banged a gavel a few
times.
Immediately all the members sat down in creaky,
wooden chairs. Trina took role call, and started scribbling some things on the
chalkboard. And then they began discussing ideas to earn Neopoints, and new
improvements that could be made with the Neopoints such as getting a real door,
repainting the walls, and helping out the community. The meeting ended in an
hour with milk and cookies for everyone.
“Well, what do you think, your highness?” Rita
asked eagerly. “I know it doesn’t seem such on the outside, and well I know
it doesn’t seem much on the inside either, but after you come to a meeting or
two, you see it isn’t so bad.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Luna said putting on her
coat. Did she really want to join this guild? It was the last place where’d
you expect a princess to be, but it really needed members, and after all it
wasn’t only full of rich people. Not only that, Luna could help with Neopoints
problems, “Sure I’ll join.”
“That’s wonderful!” Trina walked up and shook
Luna’s hand. “Next meeting’s in a week, same time, same place!”
***
The next morning, mush to Luna’s disappointment, she found out she would have
to go shopping with a few of the other princesses from the neighboring royal
families. It was somewhat of a social interaction between other royal families,
in order to maintain healthy relationships between each other. Luna hated going,
all the other princesses talked about was Neopoints, and what to do with their
Neopoints. And of course they bragged about all the expensive items they had,
and how big their houses were.
Luna was bored to death sitting in the carriage,
listening to the four other girls gossiping about rumors that were totally fake,
and talking about what they were going to buy at the stores. It was even more
boring at the stores, where the other girls spent a couple hours just “browsing
around”. What seemed like ages, they went on their way home.
“So Luna, I heard you’re looking for a guild,
right?” Nilany, a purple Yurble, asked on the carriage heading home.
“Um, well actually…” Luna began.
“You should join the Royal Neopians, they have
wonderful member benefits!” exclaimed Tara, a pink Ixi.
“Or you can join mine,” Nilany said giving a
smirk.
“Since when do you have your own guild?” Tara
asked quizzically.
“Daddy said he’d give one for my birthday, and
you all know my birthday’s coming up in one month. Already a couple hundred
people have told me, they’d love to join my guild,” Nilany answered proudly.
“Here, I’ll show you the location.”
Nilany yelled something to the driver, and the
carriage made a quick turn to the left, and stopped.
“Well the road’s too narrow for the carriage
to go down there, but you can see it from here. It’s the only space left here
for a guild,” Nilany pointed at a patch of land a coupe yards away.
“Nilany, that’s too small for guild! Besides
look at the other guild nearby, they look like outhouses!” Tara exclaimed.
“I know, I know, daddy plans to buy out the neighboring
guilds, so there can be more space. The first to go, has to that ugly green
shack,” Nilany pointed out the window.
Could it be? Luna leaned forward to get a better
look, and sure enough an orange Gelert walked out of the “green shack”. Nilany
was going to buy out the Silk Sisters!
“When are you going to buy it out? Why this place,
surely there must be other areas to build a guild?” Luna asked eagerly.
“Sheesh, what’s with you?” Nilany raised an eyebrow.
“Daddy plans on building my guild next week. And this is the closest area; I
don’t want a guild miles and miles away. I wonder why you care so much, just
a bunch of shacks. You’re not a member of one of them, are you?”
“Of course not!” Luna said, she didn’t want to
admit the guild she belonged to in a carriage full of snobs, “It’s just that,
what if one of the people didn’t want to sell their guild to your dad.”
“Well daddy knows some people who sell the land
to Neopets who want to build a guild, and I’m sure one of those people would
be able to force those who don’t want to cooperate, to cooperate,” Nilany said
giving a malicious smile.
***
“I can’t believe it!” Trina said sobbing after Luna broke the news to her later
that evening.
“I worked so hard to set up a guild, mind you,
it’s no easy business. And now they’re going to wreck it down for some girl’s
playhouse!” Trina blew her nose rather loudly in a tissue. “I wanted a place
without special requirements for someone to join, without prejudice or discrimination,
a place where everybody could get along with each other, and this it what happens!”
“Well, who knows? Maybe they won’t build a guild,
and maybe you won’t be forced to be evicted out of the guild,” Luna said giving
a gentle pat on the back.
Things didn’t improve. Trina soon got a letter,
which said she would have to sell the guild, or be forced out. And soon enough
an emergency meeting was called.
“What can we do?” Rita asked the guild members,
as someone knocked on the fake door outside.
“Oh no, it’s the people who want to buy us out!”
Trina said peering out a window. “It’s that little bratty girl who they want
to build the guild for, the land lords who want to force me out if I don’t sell
the guild. He must be the king’s friend, I guess.”
Luna peered out the window too, and saw Nilany,
her father, King Malone, and the landlords and the “friend” who turned out to
be Luna’s dad, King Vermin.
“That’s my dad,” Luna said in awe as she pointed
to her father.
“Then you might be able to help us!” Trina said
excitedly.
“I hope so.”
All the members clambered outside the back door,
and went up to the front. Where many gasps followed as the visitors saw Luna.
“This is your guild?” Nilany asked in awe.
“Yes, it is!” Luna said, she was too angry to
act embarrassed now. “How can you tear down this guild! The land has been bought
fair and square, and if they don’t want to sell it, well then that’s too bad!
I can’t believe how you can do this!”
Luna gave the landlords ugly faces. How could
they let Malone do this? They sold the land to Trina, and to Trina it belongs.
Who cares if they’ve been long time friends with Malone?
“Now Luna, calm down,” Vermin pleaded with his
daughter. “No need to get all worked up about, we, um, didn’t know that you
were in this guild.”
“So if I wasn’t, you’d still tear down this guild!”
Luna was about to explode, “I can’t believe the ways the rich and powerful take!
That’s why I didn’t join those upper-class guilds! I wanted a place where everybody
from all classes could be together, and I find that one guild, only to have
it torn down by the upper-class!”
“Calm down, Luna!” Vermin yelled. “We are not
going to tear it down.”
“We’re not?!” Nilany said shooting a glance at
her father.
“What do you mean Vermin?” Malone said raising
an eyebrow at his friend.
“We’re not,” Vermin whispered. “Luna’s right,
we can’t force someone out of their land when it’s rightfully theirs. Let’s
just let it be.”
“Oh fine, we’ll won't tear it down,” Malone said
tiredly.
“What! But I want my guild!” Nilany roared.
“Well, then you’ll just have to use the empty
land then,” Luna smirked.
“Forget it!” Nilany stomped to the carriage.
“You just wait, Luna, I’ll tell everyone the guild you’re in!”
“Go ahead,” Luna said smiling.
***
Well Nilany, stuck to her word, and told everyone the “shack of a guild” Luna
was in. But instead of everyone making fun of Luna, as Nilany had hoped for,
everyone became curious and joined The Silk Sisters. And many of them liked
it, and stayed, and donated. With all the donations, the guild was able to add
another floor, repaint the walls, buy new furniture, and more important of all,
buy a real door.
The End
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