Wings of Fire: Part Two by frostcrystal |  |
It had been almost two months since CryztalFury had come
to live with me. He was a loner, hardly or never talking to anybody. He was almost
full-grown now, almost as big as me, and rather larger and stronger than most
Eyries were at his age. The fire markings on his body that made him stand out
from the other Eyries were indications of his current mood and temper, dancing
and flickering large or small according to his thoughts, and rushing up to fill
his wings and tail with reddish-orange flames when he was angry. He had never
told me where he had come from, or who his parents were. For all I knew, he didn't
know himself. Although he allowed me to call him Cryz for short, he was fiercely
aggressive to others who tried to call him or treat him in a more familiar way.
Known among the other Eyries for his habitual silence and, if provoked or teased,
aggressiveness, he'd made no friends, and, to be honest, he didn't want any. I
had gotten him a petpet, Talen (pronounced Talon) the Horus, who was the only
one (well, almost) he ever talked to. One day, however, I decided to at least
try to find out what had happened to him - and his opinion on a certain other
idea as well.
I knocked on CryztalFury's door before entering.
It wouldn't do to antagonize him this time. He sat on his bed, reading, pausing
to look solemnly at me as I came into his room. I took a deep breath and began.
"Cryz, you've been staying with me for almost
two months now. I've noticed you never talk or try to be friends with anybody.
Why is that?"
"Why should I be friends with them? I like being
alone," he answered.
"But Cryz, most Eyries your age are out there,
playing and talking. Why shouldn't you want to join them?"
He shrugged. "I just don't want to." Before
I could say anything, he added, "I understand, Crystal. You want me to fit in
with the rest, to fit in with the group. But I'm happy as I am, and I don't
want to be friends with the other Eyries. I have Talen, and he's all the company
I need."
"Is it something that happened to you? Something
before I met you?" He gave me an amused look.
"So, is this what this is about?"
It was my turn to shrug. Very well, if he didn't
want to speak about his past, it was none of my business. "Partly. But I also
wanted to ask your opinion on something."
"Fire away."
"This is a pretty big house, and we have room
to spare. How would you feel about a brother or sister?"
~ * ~
The next day, we were standing outside the pound. Cryz and I had decided
on a sister - probably, I thought privately, so that I'd have someone else
to fuss about. We were admitted by the pleasant red Uni sitting at the counter
and showed into the main room.
Rows of caged, hopeless-looking pets lined the
enormous square room. Hope died in their eyes as we passed by their particular
cage.
Right at the back of the room was a red Peophin's
cage. Although she had a nice name, and was actually quite pretty in a Peophinal
kind of way, she had never been adopted. Other owners who had come had simply
passed over her, as if she didn't even exist at all. She had changed cage partners
four times, each of them going to a new home, but had never complained, waiting
patiently as if she knew instinctively that the right person would surely come,
sooner or later.
And the right person did, eventually.
I passed by the cages at the back of the room.
No pet had yet caught my attention, except for a quiet, young red Peophin sitting
patiently in her cage. Her calm patience impressed me - most other pets had
been jumping up and down, trying to attract my attention, but only caused me
to noticed those who didn't. And she was the only one. So far.
Fifteen minutes later, I knelt down by her cage.
"What's your name?" I asked her.
"Sylmarien," she answered, looking up at me
with a hopeful gleam in her eyes.
"That's a nice name," I said approvingly, checking
the metal plate attached to the cage bars for her likes and dislikes. I wanted
to be sure I didn't bring home a bully, for all her sweet, shy manner. "Hmm,
85 Neopoints, likes Reading & Learning, Smiles Sweetly when greeting others…
Uh huh, pretty good."
"You gonna adopt me?" she asked hopefully. I
glanced at Cryz, who nodded.
"Yup, I am," I answered, unlatching the door
of her cage.
Sylmarien followed me out to the front desk,
attracting the envious glances of others all the way. I filled in my credentials
on the form, and Sylmarien walked out the pound doors with me, never to set
foot, or, in her case, tail, in it again.
~ * ~
My new pet looked awed when we reached our NeoHome. "Marble? It's beautiful.
You must be rich." I laughed.
"Not that rich, Sylmarien -- can I call you
Syll? That name of yours is a rather large mouthful." She shrugged her shoulders.
"Anything. I like my full name, though - Sylll-ma-ri-en.
Long 'l', and trill the 'r'. Has a kinda nice ring to it. What's your name,
anyway?"
"Crystal," I answered. "Well… actually Frost
Crystal, but it's too long. People tend to just call me Crystal for short."
"How about him?" she asked, pointing at Cryz,
who hadn't said a word since we left the pound.
"CryztalFury. Or Cryz."
"What happened to your wings? Why do they have
flames on them?"
"I don't know."
"He doesn't talk much," I explained as Syll
looked a little confused at his short, almost curt answers. "He's too busy saving
his words for something else more important… like maybe his girlfriend, if he
ever finds one - I'm sure there's a nice Eyriess somewhere in Neopia who can
stand talking to a blank wall," I added, eyeing my closed-mouthed, loner pet
mischievously. "But then again, maybe not." Cryz blinked, then grinned at me.
"Anyway," I continued, "My NeoHome isn't really
that great. True, it's got a marble living room, but almost everything else
is made of either jelly or chocolate." I unlocked the door. "Here. I'll show
you your room."
~ * ~
Sylmarien soon settled down, and made herself at home. On her second day as
my pet, she had watched me make a few butter-fingered attempts to 'rustle something
up' - which approximately meant that we would be eating out that night - and
politely pointed out that you were supposed to break the eggs before putting
them in. Shaking her head, she'd dumped the contents of the pot in the sink,
muttering to herself all the while about humans and their marginal cooking abilities
before firmly turning me out of the kitchen. It was now her personal domain,
and she'd told me - quite tartly - that she was going to look after the
house from then on. I didn't mind. Less housework meant more time spent with
my beloved books, and I most certainly had no complaints about that.
Sylmarien had few friends, as she rarely came
out of the house, but at least she knew most of the people in our street by
sight, if not by name. Cryz didn't talk to her that much, but then, he never
did talk much anyway, and I could sense a fierce protectiveness toward her coming
from him. Only a week or so later, that sense of protectiveness became reality.
~ * ~
It was a bright, sunny day. Cryz was outside, talking to Talen, his Horus
and Syll was upstairs in her room, probably reading. She had shown an astonishing
aptitude for books, and had taken to them like a Peophin to water. Her intelligence
stat had already been brilliant when I had adopted her, evidence that her previous
owner had placed a high value on reading. I trotted downstairs and rummaged
in the refrigerator hungrily. Taking out a Tchea Fruit, I absently noted that
we were running out of food. Throwing the core into the wastepaper basket, I
called upstairs. "Syl-l-l! D'you wanna go shopping?" I heard her reply in the
affirmative, so I proceeded out to the garden to ask Cryz. Surprisingly, he
agreed, and fifteen minutes later, we were on our way to Neopia Central.
It was hot in Neopia Central, and I thanked
the faeries that I didn't live there. We made a tour of the main shops, and
then I left Cryz to look around the Battle Magic shop, while I took Syll to
the book shop. Leaving her happily browsing through the fiction section, I wandered
round to the back. Suddenly, my eye fell on a book - History of the Ancient
Eyries. Hmm. I pulled it down from the shelf and glanced at the price. Not bad.
Perhaps I'd give it to Cryz. Book in hand, I walked back to Syll, who had several
books clutched in her hooves as if they were Fish Neggs. After paying for the
purchases, we went back to the Battle Magic shop to find Cryz gazing longingly
at a gleaming golden Ancient Eyrie Longsword. "Could you? Crystal? Pleassse?"
I glanced at the price. "6 000 Neopoints? Certainly not. You've got a perfectly
good Fire Sword already."
"You won it from the Wheel of Excitement."
"The answer's still no."
Cryz sighed, giving up. I rarely refused any
of my pets anything, but he knew that if I said no, I meant it.
~ * ~
It happened in an alley much like the one where I had
found Cryz almost two months ago. I'd long since discovered
that if you were careful and knew the way well enough, there
was a very handy shortcut through the back alleyways that
would take you to Faerieland quite fast, cutting off a long
loop of the main road. Halfway through this, we were accosted
by a gang of street pets with nothing else to do but bully
others, and out-of-the-way back alleys were their favorite
haunts.
"Hey there, girlie," one of them, a green Wocky,
said to Syll.
"Not so fast, now. Where ya runnin' to; a sweet
lil' gal like ya?" Syll shrank back, and I placed my arm around her.
"Leave us alone," I told the offending member
of the gang defiantly.
We had seen this gang before, but usually they
didn't attack us, because I suppose we weren't worth it. Before, it had been
only me and Cryz, and he could take care of both of us easily. But now, there
was Syll as well, and I was certain Cryz couldn't defend all three of us. Both
Syll and I were unarmed and unversed in fighting and would be easy targets.
I'm sure Cryz realized that too. Baring his teeth, he jumped in front of the
insolent Wocky.
"Don't touch my sister," he snarled. The bully
sneered at him. "You ain't in any way to tell us what to do, glow-worm. There's
five of us, against just you. I'm sure those two can't fight for nuts."
CryztalFury's eyes turned a dark, deep red,
and they actually glowed with anger. The flame designs on his wings flared and
almost seemed to burn with real fire. Snarling ferociously, he jumped on the
bully and with a swipe of his paw, knocked him unconscious.
To be continued…
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