The Renegade Faerie

by Wildcatwoman (Kit Jace)

Once upon a time all faeries were exactly alike. Absolutely their only interests were casting spells, blessing pets and sending them on quests, flitting around Neopia, and doing Powerful Magic. But not anymore. Oh, no. The Fire Faerie, the youngest of all the sisters in the great Sisterhood of All Faeries of Neopia (most of the time called just The Sisterhood, to shorten it),did not like that kind of thing. She did not have a particular reason for not liking Regular Faerie Things, it was just that, well, she did not like them. They held absolutely no interest for her.

In fact, they bored her half to death!!! And for a faerie, that is very, very, VERY, VERY BOORINGGG!!! The reason that there are all those VERYs is that you can not get rid of a faerie. They never die. They reincarnate, which proves the theories of many religions, and they are rather like a Phoenix. But I'm getting sidetracked. What she wanted was to play Gormball, gamble with Bingo and Neopoker and Scorchy Slots, fight in the Battledome, raise NeoPets, get married, and do something with her life. NeoPets themselves could have all of those things. Why couldn't she??? She was one level up from a Neo- Pet, no matter how sophisticated they were. She wanted to live her life as un-artificially and magic free as was possible for a Littlest Faerie of the Great Sisterhood. Fire Faerie had just a few problems. One was that she didn't have any kind of a name excepting Fire Faerie, and there could be thousands of millions, nay, DECATILLIONS AND DECATILLIONS of faeries with the same name. And if she was breaking away from the Sisterhood, she would need a name. The second problem that the Entity Formerly Known As Fire Faerie would encounter was that she really had no visible source of income, the way all other NeoPet Owners did. The Great Sisterhood had always fed, sheltered, took care of, even pampered its own. Out here on her own she would no longer be cosseted like a baby, she would have to take care of herself instead. And she did not really know how to do that, even at the age of sixteen.

And the last, but almost biggest problem that She (The Entity Formerly Known As Fire Faerie) would encounter out in the Great Wide World (Great Wide Worlds???) of Neopia was that she did not know what to do with herself or her life. I mean, what good helpful things, one thing for the pets, and one for the Faeries to make up for braking Sisterhood. And she had no money to do it with!!!! So, changing her name to Sheah, she disguised herself and set off for the Gormball Fields of Neopia. Maybe she would find some Neopoints along the way....

She had no such luck in finding Neopoints. In fact, after two days in the Outside World of Neopia Central, it seemed to Sheah as though she had no luck at all, not any kind, unless you count bad luck. Oh, she had plenty of that. It seemed as if she was doomed to wander forever alone among the bushes and shrubs of the rural parts of Neopia, eating roots and berries identified by her little Nature Guide Book. She was lost, hungry, dirty, cold, poor, and really, really alone, more alone than she had ever been in all of her sixteen years. But something happened, well , actually , two things happened very soon to change all of that. One bitterly cold evening, as she lay down near the roots of a big tree for what little rest she could get from it, a Flame-colored Poogle wandered over, keening in a high shrill voice. "Whhhhhhhhh.....whaaa..whazzat?" she said haltingly, lips numb from the savage cold.

"Meeee!" cried the Poogle.

"Whhhhh...whatryou????"

"Poogle, you Grundo!!!"

"Nnnn...nefferseenaflamecolrrrrrdpppoogle beforrrrrrr........"

"I know. I am a kind of a test."

"Whhhhhhh......what kinda tessst?"

Sheah's lips warmed up from all the talking. "Color test, to see how this design works on a Poogle!"said the Poogle speaking carefully, as if Sheah were backwards or slightly deaf. Then, with a touch of irritability and an underlying edge of bitterness, she said, "Ohhhhh, don't you be a crazy Grundo**!!!!!"

"Gggg.....grundo? What's that?"

"Oh you.......you......level 1 Kau!!! It is a little stupid creature from outer space, as an exclamation used to mean dumb, i.e., dumb as a Grundo."

That careful, slow tone was back in the Poogle's voice, even leaving out contractions such as it's, and Sheah began to feel that she knew nothing about this strange, new place that she had never really known as much about as she had thought.

"All right, little Poogle, did your owner abandon you?"

Sheah put her arms around the little creature, so obviously a wanderer like herself. At first the little streetwise thing resisted her gentle touch, but eventually it grew to be too much for it. The Poogle began to cry softly, with no loud, racking sobs, no artificiality, just tears, falling out of the poor creature's eyes as if the rest of its body had nothing to do with them.

"Yes," said the Poogle quietly. "Yes, my Owner abandoned me. Who would want a color experiment??"

"I do," Sheah replied equally as quietly.

"I want you." Her plain orange-yellow gown was wet with their mingled tears."What's your name?"

"I do not have one," replied the Poogle. "No one bothered naming me."

"Then I will call you Faerie_Flames."

"Good name," replied the Poogle. And the two went to sleep under the tree.

On the fifth day of wandering, a traveling NeoDoctor agreed to give a checkup to Faerie_Flames for a grass basket of Medicinal Berries. He proclaimed her Flames to be healthy enough, but under fed. On the eighth day, a kindly shopkeeper heading to play Gormball for merchandise pointed her in the direction of the field, gave her 2 loaves of bread, and went on his way. On the eleventh day, while traveling to the Gormball field, Sheah and Faerie_Flames were caught in a torrential downpour. They had run out of food, eating half a loaf of bread each per day, they were cold and wet, it was a long time since either of them had bathed and even the rain did not do a very good job of cleaning them up because of the mud, they were exhausted, once again lost, and they still had no money. On the twelfth day they were stranded in a sheltered ditch when they heard footsteps. It was a young man and his 3 pets, probably getting out of the rain. Now, there was nothing really special about this guy, he wasn't exceptionally good looking, and Sheah thought he would never be anything to her. She was eating a small amount of root that she had dug up right around the ditch, and she did not really see him until he was almost upon her. In fact, it was also very dark, and neither one saw each other until he tripped over her. They both just about jumped out of their skins at that, but he got up and said, "Whoops, sorry, I couldn't see you."

"Hold on," said Sheah, "and I will light a fire." She did so, and the not-very-special young man said, "My name's Gregg003. Yours?"

"Sheah. And this is my Poogle Faerie_Flames."

"This is my Poogle Pickles2, my Kau Milkshake, and my Chia Chiaquita. You know, like the brand of bananas?" He agreed to take her to the Gormball fields, and by her thirtieth day out, they were there. Gregg003 was there to bet, but Sheah, formerly known as Fire Faerie, was there to PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sheah, to some extent, liked Gregg003 because of his sense of humor, and his kindness and helpfulness. Maybe even loved him. Maybe. She somehow needed to have a kind of a crush on him, because even with an advance of one hundred Neopoints, a Gormball player's life is a hard one.

Actually, I wouldn't call it a crush. It was definitely not exaggerated or romanticized. It was real love, she just wasn't sure if it was returned. She knew him very well because of the long trip to the Gormball fields, but they weren't romantically involved or anything. Then one afternoon, after winning the major Gormball championships against Thyassa the Chia, a ragged blue Shoyru came running over with a jar which contained something that glowed and glinted in the sun. Sheah gasped. It was a Light Faerie!

"Can't get it out...can't get the lid off," the Shoyru was muttering. At that moment, her two purposes became clear. 1.) Free as many faeries as possible, and 2.) Do whatever possible to help poor pets.

Suddenly the entire world was as clear and golden as the field full of afternoon sunlight. She was no longer a lone renegade faerie. She was Sheah, a real live person who had a name and a place in the world.

Epilogue: Sheah continued with her purposes, and also continued seeing Gregg003. When they were twenty, Gregg003 proposed to her at the same time that Pickles2 proposed to Faerie_Flames. She and her first and most loyal pet had their weddings together. Sheah continued as a champion Gormball player, and also fought in the Battledome. She is 25 and Faerie_Flames is 9. Flames recently had her first litter of Pooglepups, and Sheah is expecting her own first child. Sheah and Flames and Gregg and his pets, and Sheah's two new pets, Skye (a Gelert) and Wanderer (an abandoned Cybunny) are all very happy. They all have real lives now.

The End