Stains

White.

The first thing I could ever remember was white. The snow, the trees- everything. It was quiet and peaceful.
Then the red came.

Some time ago a baby boy was born to a happy couple living in the mountains. They were a budding family, their small home resting just on the outskirts of a close knit mountain village they have moved to. It snowed all season long in the mountains, and since the day he was born the little boy only knew white. Pure and untainted as the snow, the little infant grew into a toddler and then into a young child, happy and blissfully unaware of any evils that lurked outside the walls of the town. So it's no surprise that his first experience with misfortune would bring with it a strange new color that he would come to fear and love- and that color was red.

He had been playing out in the streets with several other boys his age when he saw a man carrying a letter approach his home. He ran over as his mother read the letter, and by the time she finished she began to cry. He couldn't understand what the words scribbled on the note said or why it would bring her so much distress, but he wrapped his arms around her legs comfortingly anyway. He didn't want her to be sad. He told her that when dad got home he would make it better, but that only seemed to make her cry harder.

They went on a short trip then, to a dark building that he had been told to avoid by his peers. Apparently, when people went into this building, they never came back out. He was therefore reluctant to enter- but despite his protests his mother plucked him off the ground and carried him inside anyway. They were lead through dark halls and past many rooms, and the air was thick with a foreign scent that clawed its way into his lungs and sunk into his stomach. It was so strong it nearly made him sick. They finally stopped in front of one room and he was set down, his mother telling him to sit quietly and wait for her here while she went inside. As she closed the door behind her the child began to fidget, and when he heard his mother begin to cry again his curiosity got the best of him and he opened the door. There, on a cold metal table, lay his father. He wasn't moving, and he was covered in red.

He never saw his father again after that. He wasn't allowed to go outside and play anymore either. No one was, not even the adults. At night, if you stayed awake long enough and listened, you could hear growling outside on the streets. Lots of growling. He wanted to get up and see what it was, but all the windows had been boarded up so he couldn't see even if he tried. After a long while the adults didn't want to stay locked up in their homes anymore. They wanted to make the growling leave, so they all got together with their sharp sticks and went to search for it. Most of them didn't come back, and the ones who did were covered in red, and they weren't around for much longer. His mother decided she couldn't take being locked inside anymore and decided to take her son and leave. She packed what she could carry and pulled the child along behind her, leaving the village behind.

There was always snow on the streets, but outside the village there was too much snow. He could hardly move through the thick sheets of white, and his mother couldn't carry him when she already had her arms full. He complained of being tired and hungry, but she didn't stop. She didn't stop until they heard the growling following them, and even then she kept going. She finally stopped at a tall tree that stood near the mountain peak, but by then the growling was much closer. So close, in fact, that they could see shadows in the distance through the falling snow. His mother rested against the trunk for a moment before lifting her son into the branches, smiling tiredly at him and urging him to climb while she tucked the bundle of food she brought with her into another branch. He climbed up a ways and waited, expecting his mother to follow him, but cried out when she turned and hurried away. He saw the source of the growling then, a pack of giant cats covered in red, and watched as they chased after his mother. He never saw her again either.

A few days passed and by then he had gone through most of the bundle his mother left behind. He was tired, but feared trying to sleep for he knew he would fall. He could try to climb to the thicker lower branches, but then the giant cats might find him. Quaking in his thick coat, covered in ice and snow, he wondered if his mother was going to come back for him. He wanted someone to find him, whether it was his mother, a friend from the village, or even one of the older kids who would pick on him and his friends. He didn't want to sit in the tree anymore, he wanted to go home! He listened everyday in the silence, praying to hear something, anything, that could take him away from what was happening, but when he finally heard a sound his heart sank. It wasn't the sound that inspired the hope of rescue. No, the growling had returned.

The cats prowled around the tree, sticking their noses into the air trying to find the source of the scent they were tracking. The little boy tried to stay quiet, but his chattering teeth gave him away, and when the cats spotted him he began to cry. They began to claw their way up the tree, but the combined weight of the eager cats grew too much for the brittle truck and it snapped, sending them all plummeting into the snow below. Too weak to move, the boy waited as the cats surrounded him, growling and snarling in their hunger. He closed his eyes, too afraid to watch, when a flash of light flew above him and the cats cried out in pain, quickly fleeing the scene. The next thing he knew, he was being bundled up by two large jackets, and a pair of soft voices were soothing him. Someone had finally come to his rescue- a pair of traveling zafaras that happened to be in the right place at the right time.

They took him to a place so unlike the mountains called a 'forest'. There was color there, all kinds of colors, but mostly green and blue. And in the middle of the forest was a lovely little house that the strangers lived in. They called themselves Rena and Zeke, and offered to be the little boys new mom and dad. When he agreed they took him into their home and gave him a new name- Edward.

Apple Adoptables

Replace the word COLOR with the color you want!

Current Colors:
---, Blue, Brown, Camo, ---, ---, Cloud, Darigan, ---, ---, Electric, Faerie, Fire, Ghost, Glow, Gold, Green, Grey, ---, ---, Invisible, ---, Jelly, ---, ---, ---, Orange, Pink, ---, ---, Purple, Rainbow, Red, ---, ---, ---, Shadow, Silver, Sketch, Skunk, Snow, Speckled, Split, Spotted, Starry, Strawberry, Striped, ---, White, Yellow, Zombie.

<a href="http://www.neopets.com/~Edward_226"><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y4/Rena5000r/AppleZafaraCOLOR.png" border="0"></a>

Commissions

If you have an art trade with Tedi, this is where you can pick it up. c:

Art Requests/Trades: Friends and Guildmates only.

To do:
Cofazon

In progress:

None.

Completed:

Worth a Thousand Words

Art by Tedi

Fanart

Nope.

A Piece to Take With You

My Patch
<a href="http://home.neopets.com/templates/homepage.phtml?pet_name=Edward_226"><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y4/Rena5000r/EdwardPatch.gif" border="0"></a>

My 88x31 Link
<a href="http://home.neopets.com/templates/homepage.phtml?pet_name=Edward_226"><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y4/Rena5000r/Edward88x31Link.gif" border="0"></a>

My Favorite Quilt

The Clock Strikes Twelve

The clock hanging on the wall chimes and you realize you've stayed here a lot longer than you meant to. Edward looks a bit dissapointed, but smiles nonetheless and waves good bye as you leave his room.

Come back soon, okay?

Art (c) Me
Layout (c) Me and Karen
Zafaras (c) Neopets