Years Ago

     ***

     ~Karen.~

     It must be years ago, now. Two? Three? I can't remember. Time just seems to slip past, now.

     But anyway. A long time ago, back when I was fairly new on neopets, many of my friends had accounts too. Active, well used, loved accounts. With beautiful, though not expensively painted or customised, well loved pets. One of these friends was called Amy.

     Amy was my best friend, since forever. She had always had an annoying thing about suddenly changing neopets – her taste in species darted randomly here and there all the time, causing her to abandon many spur-of-the-moment created pets and remake new ones. I disapproved, but never said anything. After a while she found out about the Pound, and began adopting rather than creating. This, I guess was better, but not by much.

     Only one pet was never gone; her first, a large well humoured red Kougra. Eventually he was painted camouflage. She really loved him.

     It didn't really come as a surprise then, as she came to me one day to show a proud new pet she had just brought into existence; a pretty yellow Kougra named Millisata. Amy always had been good with names, which stood out well against my clumsily lengthened ones. But then again, I had always stuck with my first attempts.

     I can't remember, now, what she had abandoned to get Millisata... But I do remember being shocked by it. Was is that Tonu? Or maybe the Kiko... She had brilliant luck finding good pets in the Pound, did Amy. I thought Millisata would be one that she kept, but I guess I was wrong.

     ***

     ~Millisata~

     Oh. Hello. So I'm doing that memory thing that girl suggested... Right.

     My first memory was of blinking open my large bright eyes, and seeing a girl smiling down at me. My owner. She introduced herself as Jojo, or Amy, whichever, and that her username was completely random just ignore it. I liked her immediately; she was friendly, happy and she did her best to earn neopoints and bought us nice wearables and toys with that money.

     My siblings all seemed very pleased to see me. A tall Grarrl called Kalo, a cloudy Lenny named Kesa, and the oldest, Treckers. I've shortened all of their names, though. There's no point in looking for them. I don't even know if Jojo still has them. I don't even know if Jojo remembers me.

     There was always another owner and her pets hanging around with us, Amy's friend. Karen, I think. She's the one who asked me to write this. She was nice enough; they seemed close, and she played games with us, earned neopoints with us, wandered Neopia doing her dailies with us. Amy and Karen, near enough inseparable. All they talked about was neopets. She even saved for paintbrushes with us, by buying large amounts from our shop, because she told us she 'had everything she wanted and accumulated NP too fast'. I think that was true though – she was very good at games and when I asked her Tyrannian Kougra Cell about it she just smirked and told me Karen had cheap dreamies. I found out 'dreamies' meant dream pets, and wondered what Jojo's were. I never got round to asking.

     ***

     ~Karen~

     I always enjoyed giving largish amounts of NP to my friends, I don't know why. There's just something about having anything that I considered 'too much' that I had to lose some, and while I had absolutely nothing I wanted to buy everyone else seemed to all need stuff. So I helped them get it, in return for nothing except gratitude. I don't regret it.

     So Treckers was painted camouflage, which I loved – a while before I had bought a camouflage paintbrush myself, and debated whether to paint my own Kougra, but went with my Wocky instead.

     And then, I made a suggestion to Amy – a paintbrush for Millisata? After all, it looked like she was going to keep the Kougra now, and all her others were painted except Kalo, who I knew she kept as basically a rubbish eater. Grarrls are good like that.

     She told me she'd think about it, and so the next day we spent at the Rainbow Pool, checking out colours. Colours that were affordable, because although I had enough NP to give away it wasn't nearly enough for any major brushes. There were many that caught our eyes, but were turned away. Plushie was oh-so-cute, but cost a king's ransom. Jelly was nice, but lab only. Eventually Amy settled on Cookie, a decision that I agreed whole heartedly with and was amazed to find it going for just 40,000 NP. Hardly anything!

     And then she was beautiful.

     And then, later, just a few weeks later, what did Amy do.

     ***

     ~Millisata~

     I just stood there, numb with shock. Numb with shock. An expression I had heard before, but hadn't realised could be real. My entire body just froze in position, my eyes staring at nothing, my mouth ever so slightly open. Heavy ragged breathing drifted from me, as I heard the people go past. As a Kougra I could hear them so clearly, but now...

     She had pounded me. Amy, Jojo, my beloved owner, had pounded me. For no fault of mine, for reasons that she could have entirely avoided. Of course, a cookie Kougra would get adopted straight away.

     But if I was still that I wouldn't be here.

     Someone said something to me but I didn't listen. Someone gave me a hesitant prod in the side, but I ignored them. My large, brown side.

     Because Amy had asked me to drink it, she said it would make me better than I was. Then she left me.

     She morphed me into a brown Moehog, one of the commonest and least liked of pets, and then abandoned me.

     I slumped to my new fat hooves and cried.

     ***

     ~Karen~

     "You WHAT???"

     We were talking our usual neopets talk the next day, and I couldn't believe it. She had just slipped it in there, as if it wasn't important. "Oh yeah, and I morphed Millisata into a brown Moehog, but I didn't like it so I pounded her." I could not believe I had just heard that, that she had just said that.

     "Why?!?"

     She shrugged, and I was horrified. "I just wanted to see if it looked cool. And it didn't."

     "You could have checked what it looked like at the Rainbow Pool first!!" another thought, that I didn't voice, was 'And 30,000 of that had been my neopoints'. 30,000 wasn't a lot, but it still hurt that she would throw it away like that. I remembered Frogamy, one of her original four pets, that this had happened with too. She had been painted glowing less than a week before she was pounded.

     She shrugged again, and weakly attempted to justify it with, "But I adopted this awesome Lenny, she's painted split and I can't remember what her name is, but it's good."

     I sighed, and moved on. I knew I couldn't make her understand why I didn't like it. It's just a shame she didn't discover pet trading while on neopets – she would have been excellent at it.

     Millisata was the last pet Amy abandoned. A couple of months later, she started coming on here less and less. And less. Until she just stopped. They all did; all my friends, who had spent a year or so of their time raising and looking after and loving their pets, just dropped off. One by one. I never did, and I grew lonely. Even my sister, younger than me, was not on much. But I stuck on, and after a while I forgot about Millisata, the poor Kougra who was so harshly ditched by my friend.

     ***

     ~Millisata~

     And so I sat in the pound, watching the other pets flowing in and out with new or old owners. At first I hoped Amy would come back, that someone would persuade her to adopt me again, but as the months passed I grew less and less hopeful. Even a different owner would be okay... But no-one wanted a plain, sad brown Moehog and they made this clear. I don't think I really cast a good image – I didn't talk, didn't look at people, didn't listen to or answer their questions and enquiries. So they left me alone, to rot deeper and deeper in the shelves of the Pound.

     *** *** ***

     ~Karen~

     ~Years later~

     It didn't feel like years. I stayed on Neopets for all, through everything, just because I enjoyed it. And then, just a few months ago, I suddenly had a thought.

     What was the name of that pet Amy abandoned? Years ago? Did she ever find a home, is she still a brown Moehog?

     So I went to the searchbar lady, the Zafara, and asked for a load of names that I half remembered. Milistar? Millesatta? I stumbled upon it after about half a dozen tries, and was upset to find that she was still a Moehog, still in the Pound. I decided to myself that I would check up on her every now and again, and I would neomail whoever did eventually adopt her and tell them her story.

     Weeks passed. She had been in there for years now, I knew. Silently I made a promise, to myself and to her. I will get you out of there, Millisata, if it takes me forever to do it.

     I put a small plea to the world on my lookup, a simple, 'There's a small, unhappy brown Moehog in the Pound by the name of Millisata. I'm sure it would make her very happy if you adopted her :)'.

     No-one did. At least, not immediately. Then, one day, I went to check her and found...

     She was a green Kyrii.

     This surprised me. Quite a bit. So I went to the new owner's lookup, happy that they had finally adopted Millisata. It turned out they were only a few months old, and unable to get neomails. Perhaps this was for the best, I mused.

     No. I drifted over to see her a while later, tell if the new owner was looking after her well...

     Bam. She was back in the Pound, having had her petpet taken off her and now even less likely to be adopted than a brown Moehog. I was incredibly angry, but I couldn't remember the username! Frustration frustration FRUSTRATION. I changed the note on my lookup slightly and went to go and find some way, some way that I could get her out of the Pound. I don't know if it's because I felt slightly guilty, or just because I didn't think she deserves to be in there, but I needed to write this. She needs to be free.

     ***

     ~Millisata~

     I don't know what I feel. It has been so long since I was a Kougra, I can hardly even remember what I looked like. How it felt to bounce around on paws the size of my ears. And then I had almost accepted being a lumpy, slow Moehog when I became a Kyrii. I... guess this is better. I can hear more, and I can move more freely. But I know even less people want a green Kyrii than a brown Moehog. Perhaps I shall never get out of here; perhaps I will just age until I fade away, become just a name in the registers.

     The newer pets brought news. They talked of something called the 'Altador Cup', just like they did last year and the year before. I cannot remember it. They talk of new paintbrushes, of beauty that I would never see. Sometimes I remembered my petpet, my only companion through my time here. And now he too is gone.

     And then, a familiar face entered to see me. Two familiar faces. But who were they...? I cursed my memory, addled from species change.

     The owner leaned to my cage and murmured, "Millisata? Do you remember me? Karen?"

     I gasped quietly. Of course! And that was Cell. But why...? I just nodded.

     "I remembered you. And I thought, you really need out. So I've decided to write a Neopian Times entry for you, to let people know you are here, and what you've been through."

     Neopian Times? Another unknown subject I had heard of, but didn't know anything about. "What do you mean?"

     She pulled a newspaper out of a pocket. "Look. People send their stuff in, and other people read it. It's probably the only way to get you out. With an owner, one who'll take care of you, hopefully for ever."

     I stared up at her. "You'd do that...?"

     She answered without hesitation. "Of course."

     ***

     So there you go, I guess. You don't have to adopt me. You don't have to care. But you should know... I don't hate Amy. I can't. She was my owner, first.

     But then again...

     That was years ago.

The End