~Welcome~

Hyyyy-eeee! Oh, sorry there, guest, I got a bit carried away. ^^; My name is Sharpclaw_of_Terra2, but please, call me Duo. I suppose you're here to know my story. Am I right? Well then, don't say you didn't agree to come!

Oh, and lookie below my pretty scrolly box for some shortcuts. ;)

And about my three stripes... um... *turns around backwards to show them to you* They're just something weird that happened when I was morphed... don't know how it happened, but... I'm glad! I stand out from the crowd, ya know? ^^

~Story~

*reappears* I'll beat Mom with my wet noodle as many times as it takes to get her to upload it! Anyway, the gist of it is... I was created as a yellow Eyrie. Not any yellow Eyrie, either; I was a ruffless Eyrie. And I had a twin named Sharpclaw_of_Terra (and still do!). Mom wanted one female yellow Eyrie named Sharpclaw_of_Terra, but she messed up on her first application, marking male, and not realizing that she had turned it in, she tried to fill out another form. Both the names said Sharpclaw_of_Terra, so the nursery attendants had to add a "2" to my name to keep us separated. Mom came back to pick up her new Neopet and boy, was she surprised that there were two! She didn't want to break us up and she didn't want to leave a poor pet in the pound, so she kept both of us. Because our names are so similar, though, I soon got the nickname of Duo: from the root word for "two" and where the word "double" comes from.

But wait! There's more. I wasn't very happy in those days because people were forever ignoring me, assuming I was a carbon copy of my brother. All that changed when Mom brought home a Magical Purple Poogle Toy that she had won from Poogle Solitaire. She tried to keep it hidden from us because she didn't want any of us to change (by that time I had a slightly younger sister, Mari_of_Earth), but I found it and pulled it out. I was determined to become different. You can guess what happened next... I pulled the toy out of the box, and soon, I began to change into the purple Poogle you see today.

Well, I guess it wasn't exactly the same as today... back then, purple Poogles were different.

It was three hungry months of that... since our Neohome hadn't been finished, and was too drafty to stay in, we ended up living near the Soup Kitchen, wherever we could find a place to sleep. It was a hard life, but we wouldn't starve. The Soup Faerie made sure of that. I think Sharpclaw and Mari had lost hope of ever seeing Mom again. But I didn't. I know it sounds sappy, but around every corner, she could be waiting. I didn't feel a shadow pass that I didn't look up hopefully at, wishing that it would be Mom... that one human that meant anything to me anymore.

*sniff* Look, I'm crying, even telling it to you... *unintelligible sound* Really, it's true, Mom! Honestly... um, anyway... one day, as we were leaving the Soup Kitchen and facing another day of boredom and homelessness, I heard a tiny sound. I couldn't be sure, but it sounded familiar... so I dragged Sharpclaw and Mari in that direction. They didn't believe me... I can still remember their protests. "You're jumping at shadows again, Du," Sharpclaw said. "I don't hear anything, Duo," argued Mari, trying to remind me of her acute Zafara hearing. I ignored them except to urge them on behind me, in the direction of the voice.

This corner, I rounded, and I knew before I could see her that she was there... Mom. Luckily, she turned and saw me as I leaped into her arms, otherwise she probably would have been so surprised she might have dropped me. As it was, she almost did... but soon Sharpclaw and Mari were there, a little wary at first. "I missed you so much," she told us, her voice breaking. "I lost the key to the house and couldn't get to my spare... I'm so sorry for leaving you so long." She squeezed me in her arms, then put me down so she could kneel and talk to my siblings. "What say we go home, huh? I finally got a replacement key." She smiled, and from then on, I knew everything was going to turn out okay.

~Friends~