About Me /
Likes & Dislikes /
Background /
Soot EnthusiastsBah, what are you doing here? Did Lyf let you in?
I told her I was in the middle of recalibrating my telescope...
...
What? Are you still here? Do you not have better things
to do with your time than watch a small mammal star gaze?
No?
Pathetic.
The Facts
Name: Chylireee
Note the extra "e"s! They're important!
Nick Name: Chi
Is Chylireee really so difficult to say? Lazy!
Gender: Female
Age: Oldest
Did you catch that? Read it again. OLDEST. Not baby.
Species: Gelert
Skin: Yellow
Eyes: Teal
Extras: Satin Purse
Great. So now you can pick me out of a line up.
I bet you feel special or something. So glad that I could make your day.
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Likes and Dislikes
Star Gazing
Communication with the Spirits
Soot
Interpreting Dreams
Being Vague
Noise
Sacora
Being treated like a baby
Ignorance
Clouds, fog and light pollution
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My BackgroundAny luck Your Ladyship? I is ever so happy to see your smilen' face back 'ere again.
The gate keeper gave me a toothless smile. I didn't respond. It was a call for attention
and I just prayed that if I ignored him he would stop taunting me.
The good people not your cup-'o-tea miss? I 'ad some nice lads in 'ere with ther
monsters looking for a labbie…" Desperate attempt for attention? I think not.
He knew where to strike and his aim was quite accurate.
My strategy was not working.
Oh, are we shopping around for each other now? Well, I just heard that they
just invented a new coffin, and it made me think of you, because it only
goes over the head. It's for people who are dead from the neck up.
He gave me a blank look, and then another empty grin. I sighed internally.
No doubt he had stopped listening after the first sentence.
Oh you miss, you 'ery funny. But you know, da people no like the nasty ones,
no, they like the cute ones. Perhaps if you showed dem a nice smile…
I brushed past him, with as much dignity as I could. No matter how
intellectually greater I was than him, he would always get the final word.
My life had just offered so much more in the way of blows against me
that any sort of wit was ineffective.
His loud guffaw followed me all the way up into my room.
I threw myself down onto my bed, no caring that the force of blow caused it
to scratch against the floor. The rooms weren't lavish by any means
and one more scrape wouldn't be noticeably. The Helping Hands Shelter
had been constructed for two purposes: get pets off the streets and into
new homes as quickly as possible. The rooms had been designed with
this goal in mind. Objective and bare, it was assumed that pets wouldn't
spend much time at the shelter and therefore wouldn't mind the painfully
barren building. But you know what they say about assuming things… well,
maybe you don't but needless to say it sets you up for problems later.
Problems like me.
Now, it's not that I'm unlovable. Gelerts are the 9th most popular pets.
We're sleek and well-proportioned, an ascetically pleasing combo. My name
wasn't terrible; I wasn't ashamed to use it like some of the other pets in
the shelter. "Chylireee" is at least pronounceable, unlike "ru6ffhthj". And I was
painted. Nothing fancy of course, or I wouldn't be in this situation, but brown
is a fairly respectable color. Unfortunately, in the world of adoptions
fairly respectable" directly translates as "only worth the efforts of n00bs".
And it seemed like I was. I could paraphrase every single application in
one sentence: OMG I WANT IT! THENEOPET THAT U HVE UFA.
I FEED MY PETZ EVRYDAY AND I AM A GUD OWNER.
I CAN ADOPT TODAY K TNX!
No. They should have known better. With people setting themselves up
like that? They were waiting for someone to knock them down. And I did. Frequently.
It became routine almost. The shelter would set me up with a potential adopter
and I would dutifully head out to their home for a trail run. "Just be yourself
and I know they'll like you" was always their well-wish.
And I followed their advice. I acted like myself. And every time, I was sent back
from an unhappy owner, complaining about how I used "stupid" words or how I had
insulted their other pets. And I would sit quietly, the picture of perfection until the
owner was calmed down and led to another, younger pet.
I'm an old fart. There. I said it. I don't go for new slang, I don't even enjoy new
fashion trends. I'm old, and I enjoy things that are older than I am; it makes me feel
young. My age made me incompatible with most new owners, who were looking for
a young pet to shape and mold into character.
The consistent failure didn't make me depressed. I was glad I wasn't adopted by those simpletons. THEN I would have been depressed. But still, no matter how grateful I am
for not being forced to live with someone I didn't get along with, I was still alone.
And no one wants to be alone, not really.
A loud thump broke my musing, and I glanced up in time to see a dazed and
confused blue Zafara shuffle into my room. I could tell she wasn't a shelter pet; it was
the way she walked, under neither the staggering, the assured footing of someone who
knows that someone would care if they went missing. When you know this, you
can walk with confidence. No matter where you go, someone will find you if
you get lost.
I envied her, but that didn't mean I wanted to get to know her and her life story.
Instead, I pretended to ignore her entrance, hoping that she was looking
for another room.
That thought, and my chest, were crushed as she crouched down suddenly
and pounced onto the bed.
I froze. I'd been in enough shelter fights to know that trying to shove them off would
just end with me getting kicked or punched. I did, however, crack open an eye
and send one of my famous glares in her direction.
She caught my look and a look of despair crossed her face briefly. "Oh my god,
I'm so sorry! I thought you were dead, or not breathing at least, or something. You were
so quiet, and your eyes were closed…
She trailed off, her expression of concern turning into one of interest.
So, what are you doing?
I started at her. She stared back. We started at each other.
Oh. I see," she said.
I didn't think her did, but I wasn't about to argue the point. "Alright, so now you know.
Is that all you needed?
She looked confused again, as she had when she walked through the door. "Oh,
yeah, um, no. That's not it, actually…
She started at me. I stared back. We started at each other. Again.
So…" I began, but she cut me off abruptly.
Chylireee?
I glanced at her suspiciously. I wasn't due to have another owner visit
for two days. "Maybe.
She grinned, apparently taking my vague answer as an affirmative. She held her
paw out in a friendly greeting. "I'm Sacora.
I responded to her goofy grin and outstretched hand with a dead-panned glare.
She didn't miss a beat, retracting her paw and crossing her arms companionably.
Chylireee. Chylire. Chylireeeeeeee. Why the three e's? What, did people not hold
it out long enough?" She gives that look of innocent questioning. The kind that
annoyed me most. I already wanted to be rid of this annoyance and we hadn't even
had a home trial run.
No, it's a family name. Extra e's for each generation." That was a lie. I had no
idea where my name came from. I had no idea where I came from.
Oh.
She used that word a lot. It was by far the shortest sentence I'd heard her utter. Some
sort of family trait perhaps? Here I was, completely alone and there she was
someone's happy well-fed pet and she dared to come to me with a stupid
happy family trait.
After few more minutes of intense silence, she picked herself up off the bed
and strolled out of room.
Okay. Fine with me. Pushing the odd encounter out of my mind I got up, fixed
my bed so that it was no longer askew with the wall and buried myself underneath
the flimsy covers. My favorite place to be.
The staff of the shelter believed I had a wonderful gift of sleep. As far as they
knew, I was asleep as soon as I hit the bed and could stay asleep well into the morning,
no matter how rambunctious the other pets were being.
I closed my eyes, and forced myself to relax into a shallower breather pattern.
My mind drifted off, going over the owner meeting today, and for a brief time, the
encounter with Sacora. The fact that I had remembered her name surprised me, but
I didn't dwell on the strange meeting too long. In a place like this, you got used
to unusual events.
I was only barely aware of the shelter's nighttime regiment, the staff checking
each room to be sure all pets were accounted for, running to get last minutes cups
of water. The footsteps that stopped outside my room faded away quickly;
I had never missed a nighttime roll call and eventually they just stopped
checking my room.
After a few minutes of trampling and stomping, the shelter went quiet and I got up.
Making my way out of my room and to the only sizable window in the common
area wasn't difficult, even in the darkness of night. The rooms were so sparsely
furnished that there wasn't much to watch out for. I reached the window and
carefully nudged up the rusted lock, throwing open the panels and taking in
the night air. The stars sparkled magnificently in the sky; they were what I had
come to see, what I came every night to see. This is where I spent my nights,
gazing at the stars.
I stuck my paw up in the air, tracing an imaginary line connecting the stars of the
Canis Major constellation. This was my favorite, and not because the picture it formed resembled myself. I loved Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in night sky. Even if
you didn't know Sirius by name, you could still look up and find that one bright star.
This popularity amongst obscurity was what drew me to the constellation.
I lazily traced out the other visible constellations; Canis Minor, Orion, Lepus…
Then I turned back towards the dark room. Digging underneath the old sofa, I pulled
out a stack of yellowing papers. As a shelter pet, I couldn't afford books but the
shopkeeper of Magical Bookshop had given me an old copy of 'Constellation
Spotting' that had been set to be destroyed. It was my bible, my holy grail, and from it
I studied the stars each night.
It was that book that made me interested in astrology. I want to say that it was
the only hobby I could afford, or that it was the only book the shopkeeper could give
me, but it was something else, something I can't explain that drew me in and I
am eternally grateful to that something. Star gazing takes my mind of my problems,
because under the huge depths of the universe my issues seem minimal.
I was so engrossed in my studies that I didn't hear the pattering of paws coming
down the hall until the owner of said paws dropped down beside me.
Sacora grinned, and leaned forward out the -blocked- "That's the big dipper," she
declared, obviously quite proud of herself for located the correct constellation
amongst the multitude of stars.
Yeah," I replied, not giving her the praise that she so obviously thought she deserved.
Right below Draco and to the north-west of Leo." I turned back to my book.
We sat in silence, although I could almost feel the restless energy radiating off of her. I wondered why someone who so obviously disliked staying in one place was
restraining herself to sit with me.
I don't live here," she blurted out suddenly, looking relieved to have broken the
silence. I regarded her for a moment, and turned back towards the sky.
Yes, I figured that out.
When I didn't offer any more answer, she turned away from me again. After a
moment or two, she started to fidget again.
This time I took the bait. Her discomfort was making me antsy. "Is there something
you wanted to tell me?
She grinned, that huge smile that stretched across her whole face no matter
how mundane of a reason there was for her to be happy about.
We're applying for you, um, well, to adopt you I mean. My mom and I." She
stopped awkwardly when I didn't make any gesture to continue, but then
trudged on anyway. "Her name is Lyf, and she's the best owner ever. I'm her first pet
and I was complaining about how lonely I was being the only one and she agreed
that it was quite lonely but there were lonely-er pets out there with no owners and
we should go see about adding one of them to our family so…
She gazed at me again, still hoping for some reaction. I didn't give her one.
Her mouth shaped into a determined line. "And, see, I liked your name, because
of the three e's in it. There are a lot of pets with really awesome names and
amazing colors, but my full name is Sacora212neo and I'm only painted blue. I mean
I know I'm as good at any of those other pets, but it would be nice to have someone
who wasn't so obviously better than me and…
This time she didn't wait for my response. "And, well, I think you're perfect.
This threw me off, so much that I snapped around to stare at her. Her logic was
so simple, so naive, and yet I was completely taken in by her kind words.
Oh," I said unthinkingly. Sacora was rubbing off on me already.
She flashed me with another smile. "Lyf created me, so I didn't really know what
being in a shelter was like, so I decided to stay here for a few days while Lyf
is on vacation. I wanted to get to know you before she comes back… she's pretty
active and I wasn't sure we'd have time to bond with her running us around
everywhere. But she's coming back early, tomorrow actually, so I figured
I just let you know now…
Realization dawned on me. "Our trial meeting isn't for another two days".
Her smile faltered a bit, then sprang back to life. "Well, if you want, we can come
back then, but I just wanted to offer an earlier meeting…
It was obvious that my apparent refusal had hurt her. Despite having only known
her for a few hours, I already felt like I valued her brightness.
Ah, no, tomorrow is fine.
She sent me another big smile, a maniacal habit that I would grow
to tolerate and even enjoy.
Not that you'll ever hear me to tell her that.
Society for Soot EnthusiastsIn between star gazing and keeping Sacora in line, I'm also the head of the
Society for Soot Enthusiasts
.
We're a small group of pets who are fascinated with the look and
personality of soot and the adorable little spirits who live in the soot.
We're huge fans of the movie "Spirited Away" and its soot spirit characters.
If YOU are also a Soot Enthusiast, neomail Lyf and let her know so we can
get together and talk soot.
You can also take one of these nifty little buttons on your way out to show
off your soot enthusiasm!
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