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Neopia's Fill in the Blank News Source | 13th day of Awakening, Yr 27
The Neopian Times Week 118 > Continuing Series > Dropped from the Skies: Part Two

Dropped from the Skies: Part Two

by furbyfun

"Okay, when I said we'd need a boat, I didn't think I'd be rowing," complained Starilya, a grumpy look on her speckled face, as she worked one of the orange inflatable boat's oars.

     "Quit complaining, it'll increase your strength level," answered StarSkyFire as he paddled with the other oar. The two Shoyrus, along with their sisters Shaylily and Aerolani and their owner Furbyfun, sat in the mid-sized inflatable orange rowboat as they rowed towards the tiny island just off the shore of Mystery Island.

     It appeared that the islet was further away than it looked, for immediately after a wave had swept the broken-winged Air Faerie (who needed them to look for her Shoyru on the island) out to sea they'd rushed to the boat and started rowing towards what looked like a tiny clump of trees just off shore. But they'd been paddling all afternoon, rotating pets- except for Aerolani, who was terribly seasick and appeared to be green instead of white- and were still only three-quarters of the way.

     "How much longer is this going to take?" groaned Shaylily as she leaned on the side, trailing her disco fingers in the cool water.

     "Probably about fifteen minutes more. We're almost there," called Furbyfun, acting as the lookout from her position near the front.

     "Finally," groaned the white Shoyru weakly as she leaned back into the boat. "Remind me never to go on a rowboat with you guys again."

     Sure enough, they reached the tiny atoll in less than fifteen minutes. While Furbyfun and Shaylily threw boxes and bags over their shoulders and out of the boat, Aerolani kept her brother and sister from running off.

     "We did that once, and we're not doing it again," she reminded commandingly.

     "Awww, Aero! Furb and Shaylily are occupied, we could sneak off!" protested the speckled Shoyru.

     "No way."

     That settled, their owner and disco sister walked over to the rest of the group. "Well, I say we split up," puffed Furbyfun, rubbing her sore hands together. "Shaylily and StarSkyFire, and Aerolani and Starilya. Oh, and I don't want to hear music from the trees!" she added as the two pairs headed in different directions.

     After searching for what seemed like hours, but may have been only minutes, Shaylily and StarSkyFire came upon a striped Shoyru in a small clearing. She looked a bit unusual, for instead of crystal blue her eyes were a bright silver, but the strangest thing about her was her wings. Instead of the blue wings most Shoyrus of her color had, hers were feathered and white, although greyed by dirt and a bit crumpled from the fall.

     "Who are you?" asked the Shoyru, seeming a bit shaken as she came to her feet.

     "Shaylily, Shaylily Starlight to be exact -- princess of Larishi -- and StarSkyFire," said Shaylily as she pointed first to herself and then to her shadow brother.

     "Larishi's a planet, near Neopia, where Neopets live. My mom's the queen there."

     "Oh! Is it a secret, like Jelly World?"

     "No, Jelly World doesn't exist, although I wonder where Furbyfun's jelly collection came from if it doesn't exist. Larishi isn't a secret at all, just little-known."

     "Oh. I'm Jadecrystal, but you can call me JC, since Jadecrystal's a bit of a mouthful," replied the Shoyru. She tried to fly, but fell on her rear end when she leaped into the air.

     "Something's wrong with my wings," she complained.

     "They're just a bit crumpled, you can have our owner straighten them out when we get home," explained StarSkyFire.

     JC shook her head. "Only the Faeries, or a return to Faerieland, can straighten them out. They're not broken, but I can't fly like this."

     The siblings led the Shoyru back to the edge of the forest, where Shaylily somehow knew the rest of their family was waiting for them. The two Shoyrus, white Aerolani and speckled Starilya, waiting patiently with their owner, proved her right. The sun was setting, and it was time to go home.

     "You found that Shoyru?" asked Starilya in disbelief. "We searched all day and couldn't find her!"

     "She was in a clearing, not far from the edge of the forest. Her name's Jadecrystal, but she prefers to be called JC because it's easier." The Shoyru spoke up then.

     "Only my Faerie called me Jadecrystal, and none of you are my Faerie. Where is my Faerie, anyway? I need to get back to her before she becomes a Grey Faerie!"

     "But that's impossible! There's only one Grey Faerie in Neopia!" exclaimed Furbyfun.

     "No, there are many. Whenever an Uber Faerie is replaced, she falls- or is pushed, or sometimes even jumps -- off Faerieland with the pet she is bonded to. The Faerie's wings often break, causing her to lose her power, and she becomes a Grey Faerie. The pet usually loses most of their magic and abilities, including flight."

     "Hey, where's the boat?" asked StarSkyFire. Furbyfun scrambled for the place she'd pulled it up to- and gasped.

     The boat was gone, and the water was up even higher than the spot it had rested. "Oh, no! It was low tide... and I only pulled it up a bit... and now it's high tide..." mumbled the owner with her head in her hands.

     "Hey, at least we took everything out. Maybe it'll eventually float back here," said the speckled Shoyru, arm around her owner.

     We pried and pried as night fell, but she would not reveal more. To break the silence largely brought on by the striped Shoyru's determination not to reveal Faerie secrets, Furbyfun brought out a Tent in a Box and announced, "Since we obviously won't be able to go home tonight, I thought we could camp! C'mon, help me set up the Tent in a Box."

     "Your owner brought a tent? Does she have some kind of magic that lets her see the future?" asked JC in astonishment.

     "No, she just brings supplies we'll probably never need everywhere, but she's only been Ms. Always Be Prepared lately," replied the shadow Shoyru as he tried to start a fire by rubbing two bamboo sticks together.

     "StarSkyFire, that'll never work! Here, I have some matches," said Furbyfun, passing him a matchbox, as she finished unrolling something large, navy blue, and flat from the box part of Tent in a Box, its poles in a blue drawstring bag beside it.

     "How'd you get these? There are no matches in Neopia!" exclaimed the shadow Shoyru, nearly invisible in the night, as he pulled one out and struck it on a rock. A small flame started, and he touched it gently to the pile of brush surrounded by rocks in front of him. A fire, small but growing, started and everyone crowded around it.

     "Careful with that fire, StarSkyFire. You could wind up burning down half the forest, " warned Shaylily, "and I for one don't want to be explaining to the Chia Police why there was a massive fire on the islet off Mystery Island. Furbyfun, how in Neopia did you get those matches here?"

     "I snuck it through Neopian Customs by stuffing it in my shoe. They don't really check shoes, just your pockets, and even that's only if you make the Earth item detector beep. I kept it from beeping by stuffing my shoe with bits of Tchea Fruit, just enough to camouflage the matchbox."

     "Furbyfun! You shouldn't have done that!" scolded Aerolani. Her disco sister just sighed and shook her head. Why did her sister have to try to be mature all the time?

     Quite abruptly, JC announced, "You know what? I've been cursed. I have a curse on my memory." Everyone looked at her strangely, the firelight making shadows on her striped face. "It's true," she insisted, "I can't remember anything. I can remember your names, sort of, for example, but I can't match up which name goes with which person." She pointed at Aerolani, "You're StarSkyFire, right?"

     The white Shoyru looked offended, saying "No, JC, that's StarSkyFire" as she pointed at her deeply annoyed brother. The striped Shoyru apologized, rapidly yet sincerely. The others could tell JC was ashamed of her mistake; they could see it in her shining silver eyes.

     "So, anyone got some spooky stories to tell?" asked Furbyfun awkwardly over the crackling of the fire. The Shoyrus shook their heads, not wanting to frighten anyone else with a too-scary story in an already slightly scary environment.

     "Let's get some rest, we'll be glad in the morning," suggested Aerolani with a yawn. Everyone agreed and yawned, glaring at the owner with looks that clearly said You should have set the tent up hours ago... Furbyfun grabbed the instruction booklet and started trying to figure out the complicated diagrams and nonsensical words. "Now, cackle A to B and B to C as illustrated in Figure 3, but be sure to use the Angelpuss poles (not the Mynci poles), or Tent in a Box will clutter..."

     It turned out that she was trying to translate the Petpet-language version on the back, and the only Petpet she knew was "kastlaéa", which meant "help", from the short time she had spent as an Angelpuss back at the FallingBlues' castle. "Why would a Petpet use a tent anyway?" asked Shaylily.

     "Who knows? Here's the English version!"

     Levitating a ball of light magic to keep a bright enough light on the page to read it, Shaylily read out the directions while her owner assembled the tent. It was quite ugly, but it served its purpose well as the five Shoyrus and Furbyfun slept inside it that night.

     What they didn't see was three shadowy figures in the trees, whispering among themselves. Only JC knew what their presence meant; they were the reason she had fallen.

To be continued...

Previous Episodes

Dropped from the Skies: Part One

Dropped from the Skies: Part Three

Dropped from the Skies: Part Four

Dropped from the Skies: Part Five

Dropped from the Skies: Part Six

Dropped from the Skies: Part Seven

Week 118 Related Links

The Lost Queen: Part Six
“It seems that the situation had gone from bad to worse… possibly beyond worse...”

by laurensama



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