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Author’s Note: This is a prequel to the “Needed”
series. You don’t have to read either story in order to understand the other,
but you may enjoy them both more if you have.
“Goodbye, Capitan. I’ll miss you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Those were the last words he said.
They were the same words that Sam had said every
evening, his freckled face and sandy-colored hair framed in the doorway of their
Neohome, overshadowed by the brilliant reds and purples cast into the sky by
the setting of the Neopian sun behind him. Every evening, he would smile and
say those words, pat his Skeith on the head, and then walk out the door.
But something had been different this time. Something
must have been different. Because every morning, he returned. And three days
ago, he had not.
Capitan stayed by the door, waiting. And thinking.
He went over and over that night four days before when Sam had said his usual
goodbye, his toothy smile giving nothing away. There had to have been something
different, though. There had to have been some warning that Capitan would wake
up the next morning and find that while the rest of the world went on spinning,
unaware, one small thing had changed and his life had been shattered. It couldn’t
be that the day before was just another day and now no day ever would be again.
The green Skeith was old enough, and knew enough
of the world, to know that these things happened from time to time. Humans left
their Neopets… and simply never came back. But for Capitan, it had always been
a distant idea — only a tragedy that happened to others, that he shook his head
at before continuing on his way. He had never imagined it could happen to him.
For three days now, the Skeith had waited to wake
up from this dream, this nightmare. As the fourth day arrived, it was as if
some final piece snapped into place in his mind and the reality slowly settled
over him that this was not a dream and Sam was not coming back. And as he finally
allowed this thought to become real, to spread its icy fingers across all his
visions of the future, a hole seemed to gape within his heart. He was sure that
it would never close, and that without his heart he could do nothing.
But somehow, his stomach disagreed.
And so, on that day, Capitan’s claws fumbled with
the doorknob for the first time, the door swung open and he walked out into
the glaring light of the afternoon, alone. There was food in the kitchen, he
knew, but he couldn’t stomach the thought of it. Every piece would remind him
of Sam — Sam had picked it out, Sam had bought it, Sam would have cooked it
and eaten it….
***
Being a Skeith, and therefore able to eat anything, had its advantages. Capitan
did not want for food, and though he found that life on the streets had its
other hardships that he could never have foreseen in his previous, contented
life, he survived. But that was really all that he could say of himself in those
weeks following his owner’s disappearance — he survived, but he did not live.
The hole in his heart refused to narrow or to heal; it only seemed to ache and
gnaw, wanting to swallow him up entirely.
From time to time, he returned to his Neohome, looking
for some sign of Sam, some sign that it had all been a mistake. He could never
bring himself to go inside again, but it was plain enough from the unkempt lawn
and growing pile of newspapers on the porch that his owner had never come back.
And with each visit, Capitan’s small struggling flame of hope grew a little
weaker, a cold wind blowing across it, carrying the realization that Sam would
never come back.
The Skeith was trudging through the city one evening
after another of these hapless visits, head hung low as if weighed down by the
disappointment that he had allowed himself to feel anew. But he was distracted
suddenly by a cacophony of trash cans being knocked to the ground, mingled with
jeering shouts. His curiosity piqued, he shuffled forward quietly and peered
around the corner of the alleyway from which the sounds were emanating.
As his ears had already given him to expect, Cap
first noticed several garbage cans that had been thrown to the ground, spilling
their sour-smelling contents across the already greasy pavement. It appeared,
though, that the cans had not been targeted, but were simply unwitting bystanders
that had gotten in the way of the real goal of their assailants. A young blue
Eyrie stood defiantly, heels pressed against the back wall of the alley, hackles
raised, and a pitiful looking chicken leg clutched in his beak. His eyes darted
back and forth between the creatures that surrounded him — a tough-looking red
Nimmo, muscular yellow buzz, and scruffy yellow Kyrii.
“Come on, hand it over,” the Nimmo demanded. The
Eyrie just shook his head and growled. Sighing, the Nimmo snapped his fingers,
and while the Eyrie’s attention was focused momentarily on this action, the
Kyrii dove at his side and sunk her teeth into the Eyrie’s front leg.
The Eyrie cried out in pain, dropping the piece of
chicken, but in the next moment, he shook the Kyrii off of his leg, sending
her flying into the wall of the alley, and then he swung his head back around
to hover defensively over his meal. The buzz dove down at him, trying to draw
his attention away again, and though the young Eyrie cried out each time that
the creature pulled at his fur or rammed into his side, he kept his gaze doggedly
fixed on the Nimmo, the obvious ringleader. “This is my food!” the Eyrie shouted
angrily. “Get your own!”
The Nimmo chuckled coldly. “We don’t have to, kid.”
“You do now.”
The Nimmo spun around in surprise to find Capitan
standing behind him. The Skeith puffed himself up to look as big as possible
and held his head high. “Leave him alone,” he commanded.
The Nimmo seemed to size him up for a moment, an
uncertain look flickering across his face before his bravado returned. He sneered,
waving the Skeith away dismissively and beginning to turn back toward his prey.
“Go on, get outta here, Pop. This ain’t none of your business.”
“Well, I’m making it my business,” Capitan said,
refusing to be ignored, and the Nimmo turned back to him again, folding his
arms across his chest. The Skeith continued. “So I’m thinking that you’d best
make it your business to find your dinner elsewhere…. unless you really
were wanting a fight, that is?”
The Nimmo’s eyes narrowed, but the uncertainty returned
to his posture, and Cap could see that he had successfully called the bully’s
bluff. The young Eyrie was spirited, but weak and alone — stealing his food
might have meant a few bruises and scratches for the Nimmo’s two companions
and an easy meal for him. But adding Cap to the mix made things a little too
fair and therefore not quite worth the measly prize. Cap could almost see the
Nimmo’s pride warring with this conclusion, but eventually practicality won
out. “Come on, guys,” the Nimmo said, still trying to stare Cap down even as
he walked past him and out of the alley, “this ain’t worth our time.” The Kyrii
and buzz looked a little unhappy with this decision, but eventually they followed
after their leader, grumbling and rubbing ruefully at their wounds.
“Are you all right?” Capitan asked.
The Eyrie looked a bit dazed as he swung his attention
from his retreating aggressors to the Skeith before him. Then his eyes narrowed.
With his beak, he snatched the half-eaten piece of chicken from the ground and
took a step or two backwards, hackles rising again. “Back off, this is my food,”
he growled.
Capitan’s eyes widened for a moment, and then they
filled with sadness for this young creature. “Hey now,” he said, holding up
a placating claw, “I don’t want to take your food.”
Some of the tension eased from the Eyrie’s stance,
but he continued to stare suspiciously at the Skeith for a moment. Finally,
somehow reassured, he let the hardness in his eyes fall away as well, leaving
only the gaze of a young one, hungry and sad. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“That’s all right,” Capitan said carefully. “You
go ahead and eat now.”
Needing no more bidding, the Eyrie quickly set in
to the meager nourishment, tearing ravenously at the bone with his beak and
swallowing hastily. As he ate, Capitan stood back and watched him. It was no
wonder that he was so defensive of the food, little as it was. He was muscular
and near full grown — already taller than the adult Skeith, as Eyries usually
were — but painfully thin. His blue fur and feathers were dull and dirty.
But Capitan’s eyes fell longest on the Eyrie’s wings.
There had been something vaguely awkward in the way that he carried them folded
against his sides before, but it was only now, in the dim light cast by the
street lamps outside the alley that Capitan saw the truth. The large pinion
feathers were bent and torn beyond repair.
“I can’t fly.”
Capitan, caught staring, looked up sheepishly only
to find the young Eyrie gazing back at him warily, as if he expected the Skeith
to reproach him. He was caught off guard in more ways than one then, and found
himself saying, “And why should that matter?”
The Eyrie looked toward the ground. “It mattered
to my owner.”
Capitan frowned at that, but he wasn’t prepared to
get into a discussion about owners with his new acquaintance. Not now. His words
carefully stepped around the issue. “Well, I can’t fly either, you know.”
The Eyrie looked up again, a tiny spark of curiosity
lighting his eyes. “You can’t?”
“Of course not,” the Skeith chuckled then. “Do you
think these tiny things—” he pointed to his wings—“could ever lift this
off the ground?” He patted his large stomach with one claw.
The edges of the Eyrie’s beak curled in a small smile
then, and Capitan realized that up until that point it had not only been the
creature’s broken wings that made him seem odd. He was so serious, so troubled…
so hurt… for one so young. He should be smiling all the time, Capitan thought.
But the Eyrie’s faint smile vanished again, like
a wisp of smoke brushed away by the wind. “I wish I’d never been able to fly,
like you,” he said, his voice laced with bitterness. “Then it wouldn’t hurt
so much.”
The edges of Capitan’s empty heart ached, and he
realized that for the first time in weeks, it was for someone other than himself.
“Now, you don’t mean that.” The Eyrie frowned at him, but he continued. “You’ve
done something -- you’ve had something -- that others only dream of.
Even if it’s only a memory now, even if you’ll never have it again, you should
cherish it, not regret it. Never regret your good memories. Hold onto them…
as tightly as you can.”
The Eyrie bowed his head for a few moments, staring
at the ground in thought. He made no comment on the Skeith’s speech once he
did look up again. Instead, he simply said, “My name’s Feruli.”
“Feruli. I’m Cap—” The Skeith stopped himself, somehow
unable to say the name that Sam had given him, the name that his owner had called
him by lovingly so many times, the name that he would never hear that dear voice
say again. “Cap,” he said. “You can call me Cap.”
After this introduction, the two stood silently,
awkwardness stretching between them as both struggled with what to say or do
next. It was Cap who finally spoke again. “Well, I suppose I’ll be going on
my way now, Feruli,” he said, turning around and beginning to walk out toward
the empty street. “You try to stay out of trouble.”
He had reached the sidewalk by the time Feruli called
out to him, “Cap?”
“Yes?”
“Where are you going?”
“Hmm. Nowhere in particular.”
“Huh. Me too.”
Cap smiled at the uncertain and unspoken question
in the Eyrie’s voice. “Well then,” he said over his shoulder, “why don’t you
come along with me, and we can go there together?”
Without another word, Feruli trotted the few yards
that separated them and the two left the alley side by side. A new, stronger
smile graced the young Eyrie’s face. Cap smiled back. He didn’t know what he
was getting himself into, but for now, he knew at least that it felt right,
if for no other reason than that smile.
***
Not much was said between the two creatures, either about staying together
or about going their separate ways. When Cap woke up in whatever anonymous alleyway
that they had made their bed for the night, Feruli would simply get up also
and follow him out into the bustling streets of the city. Neither of them questioned
it, though neither really spoke of any long term plans either; it was just that,
for that day, they would continue to be together, and tomorrow they would see
what came.
There was a part of Cap that always planned for them
to part ways eventually, but there was another part that never seemed to find
the right time to follow through on this plan. Sometimes, as he sat munching
on an empty tin can, standing guard so that Feruli could eat unhindered, the
thought occurred to Cap that he could be doing something else right now, besides
watching out for this young Eyrie. But then he’d always realize that he didn’t
really have anything else to do, other than wander the streets alone, feeling
sorry for himself.
The two wandered throughout Neopia Central. Neither
belonged anywhere in particular any more, so they went wherever the bustling
crowds seemed to push them. Cap had lost count of the days, but he would have
estimated that he and Feruli had been together for a couple of weeks when their
scavenging brought them to a part of the city that they hadn’t yet explored
together. He headed toward a promising-looking alley, only to realize that Feruli
was no longer following along beside him. He could not have predicted the worry
that suddenly filled him in the moment before he spun around and spotted his
companion again.
Feruli had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk,
oblivious to the people and pets who brushed past him with disapproving frowns
as he stared up at a building across the street. Cap proceeded to his side and
followed his line of vision to find himself looking at a large building with
double doors, over which was a sign carrying the words, “Create-A-Pet.”
“I think… I think I remember this place,” Feruli
said. As he spoke, one of the building’s doors swung open and a girl emerged,
smiling and snuggling a yellow Gelert pup in her arms. From across the street,
they could not understand her words, but they heard her murmur lovingly to the
new Neopet and saw her place a kiss on his furry head. Feruli’s brow creased
as if he was witnessing something completely foreign to him.
“You… didn’t have much of a cubhood, did you, Feruli?”
Cap suddenly found himself saying.
The Eyrie swung his gaze down toward the Skeith,
still frowning in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when you’re young, your owner’s supposed
to… play games with you, and buy you treats, and tell you stories at night.”
“Stories?” Feruli said this as if testing a strange,
new word in his mouth for the first time. He shook his head. “No, my owner never
told me stories.”
Silence fell over the pair again, then, as they both
turned their eyes back toward the building across the street. After a moment,
Cap finally forced himself to speak and ask the question that he’d been dreading
stirring up; finally, once and for all, he had to know. “Feruli… what happened?
To your wings, I mean.”
The Eyrie swallowed hard and looked at the ground.
After a few moments, Cap thought that he wasn’t going to respond and began to
apologize for violating the comfortable truce that they had silently established
not to look into each others’ pasts. But it was then that Feruli opened his
beak, his words forced and quiet at first. “It was a Krawk—a big Krawk—in the
Battledome. I was a good fighter. I am a good fighter!” he said adamantly,
defensively, as if he expected Cap to object. “I fought dozens of times before
that. That’s what I did. Instead of games and treats and… stories. I battled.
That’s what my owner wanted from me. That — that’s what made him care about
me.”
Feruli blinked. A tear fell suddenly to the unforgiving
cement below. “I tried so hard, Cap. I wanted him to be proud of me, and the
Battledome was all he cared about, so that’s what I cared about, too. But it
wasn’t enough. This Krawk… he was just too strong for me. And by the time the
fight was over, my wings….” His voice trailed off, strangled with the effort
to keep any more tears from falling.
“But… the Pharmacy, or even the Healing Springs—”
“I failed him,” Feruli interrupted, suddenly looking
at Cap, eyes burning and voice rising from sorrow to pained anger. “Losers don’t
deserve to be healed. I wasn’t worth his effort any more.” His eyes and voice
softened again. “I wasn’t worth his love. So he just… abandoned me.”
“Feruli,” Cap said, searching for eloquent words
to take away his friend’s pain, but finding only, “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Feruli said, shaking away his
hurt and replacing it with bitterness. He stared with a hardened expression
at the human and Gelert who still lingered on the steps of the Create-A-Pet
building, smiling and laughing. “The same thing will happen to him one day.
He’ll find out. All humans are the same — they don’t really care.”
Sam flew instantly into Cap’s mind, and in spite
of everything, he responded almost immediately, “That’s not fair, Feruli.”
“Not fair?” Indignation tinted the young Eyrie’s
words. “What makes you think so?”
Cap sighed. He was not ready to talk about Sam yet,
and even if he had been, what could he say? He had been abandoned, too. He tried
another tack. “Those three pets who were bothering you, that night that you
and I met — they were pretty bad, weren’t they?”
Feruli looked at him warily, wondering where this
was going, but he answered, “Yes.”
“Well then, I suppose all Neopets must be bad, eh?”
Feruli stared in silence for a moment, then slowly
shook his head at himself and sighed. “All right. Point taken.”
“Good.” Cap smiled at him. “Now, let’s get some din--”
He was interrupted by a drop of water that landed
with an unceremonious plop on the end of his bulbous nose. He watched
as another fell onto one of Feruli’s claws, then another onto the sidewalk between
them, and another, and another. The Skeith looked up. Storm clouds bruised the
Neopian sky, crying forth a growing volume of raindrops onto the creatures below.
He and Feruli looked around to see that the city street that had been filled
with busily moving people and pets just moments before was now quickly emptying
as they all scattered for the cover and warmth of their own homes.
“Perhaps dinner will have to wait for now,” Cap said.
“We need to find shelter.” Feruli just nodded, blinking away the rain that was
running down his forehead and into his eyes. Cap turned and trotted down the
street with the Eyrie close on his heels, wondering where they could go.
The two pets tried ducking into a few shops where
other Neopia Central citizens had dashed for a temporary respite from the rain,
but their bedraggled appearance and lack of any owner always got them chased
back out within a few minutes. Feruli’s fur was nearly soaked through and Cap
was close to giving up hope when they neared the edge of the marketplace and
through the sheet of rain before their eyes, they made out the silhouette of
a strangely-shaped building.
It felt like an age ago, and Cap had been very young,
but there had been a time when Sam was still inexperienced and poor enough that
he had relied on the Soup Kitchen to keep his Skeith fed. Vague memories of
the place began to materialize slowly in Cap’s mind as he and Feruli approached
the cauldron-shaped little cottage and he reached up a claw to scratch at the
wooden door.
It swung open a moment later and Cap and Feruli looked
up at the Faerie who stood framed in the doorway, warm light from inside spilling
out around her. She was not like other faeries—breathtaking, mysterious creatures
who kept their distance from the affairs of Neopets and humans. She wore simple
clothes, covered by a stained apron, and her simple brown hair was held back
with a red bandana. Her wings would, perhaps, have been the only thing that
gave away that she even was a faerie, except that there seemed to be a certain
light and warmth that radiated out from her that was even more inviting than
that from inside the cottage.
Cap opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to
it. “Oh, come in, come in!” she cried, stepping aside quickly.
They followed her direction all too happily. As she
closed the door behind them, Cap looked around at the cozy interior of the Soup
Faerie’s home and immediately felt better. Feruli followed his first instinct,
which was to vigorously shake off all of the icy water that clung to his fur,
sending droplets flying everywhere. “Feruli!” Cap scolded in surprise. The Eyrie
instantly looked chagrined.
But the Soup Faerie just laughed. “It’s all right.
I’d shake too, if I were you.” She winked at Feruli and he offered one of his
rare smiles in return. “Here,” she said, plucking a blanket from her bed, “let’s
get you dried off.” She knelt down and began rubbing the blanket over the Eyrie’s
still wet fur, and his smile grew even more. Cap looked on in awe. He had not
seen Feruli so at ease with anyone since they had met. Then again, he too could
feel the instant sense of comfort and safety that came over one in this faerie’s
presence. He was surprised that he didn’t remember her from when he and Sam
had come here together years ago, but he supposed that he had simply been too
young and focused on getting what he needed and nothing else to notice her quiet
beauty.
***
Feruli, now dry and warm beneath a pile of blankets and full from the soup
that he had gulped down, was sleeping quietly by the fire. From across the room,
Cap and the Soup Faerie watched him. The faerie was ensconced in a worn yellow
armchair. Cap sat beside her on the floor, his rough voice soft and sad as he
told her about Feruli — about rescuing him in the alley all those weeks ago,
about their aimless travels through the city in search of the next meal and
spot to sleep for the night, and also about the story that the young Eyrie had
told him earlier that evening. But the Skeith said nothing of his own story.
Cap was surprised, as his voice trailed off, to realize
that the Soup Faerie was gently stroking his head. He wondered how long she
had been doing this without him even noticing. He also wondered why he did not
ask her to stop — he would have balked at the thought of anyone petting him
the way that Sam had on their lazy, rainy days together. And yet, she was, and
he could not bring himself to put an end to the achingly familiar sensation.
After a few moments, he spoke again. “Perhaps… I
could leave him here with you? I’m sure you could find him a new owner—”
“He doesn’t want an owner, Cap,” the faerie chided
him. “You know that. He wants to be with you.”
Cap chortled doubtfully. “What is an old Skeith like
me going to do with a young Eyrie in tow?”
The faerie only smiled. “I think you need him as
much as he needs you.” Cap gave no answer to that. “Everything happens for a
reason, Cap.”
For the first time that night, he felt something
like anger flare up, and he shot back, “Even my owner leaving me? There was
a reason for that?”
The Soup Faerie only stared back at him, the sadness
in her eyes reflecting that which he knew was quickly replacing the anger in
his. “Yes.” She nodded slowly. “Even that, Cap. It gave you a chance to find
someone who needs you to care for him.”
“What do I know about caring for someone?”
“You know everything about that — Sam taught you.”
Cap inhaled sharply at the sound of the once-loved
name that he had heard only within in his head for weeks now. “H-how did you
know that?”
“I am a faerie,” she answered back simply. “Not as
powerful as my sisters who reside in the clouds… but I do have some magic.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in thoughts
that seemed to stew in the drowsy warmth of the room. Finally, the Soup Faerie
spoke again. “Cap?”
“Yes?”
“Loving someone… it’s a lot like flying, you know.”
Cap sighed, smiling at her words in spite of himself. “Never regret your good
memories. Hold onto them as tightly as you can…. And if you have a chance to
share them, to give someone else those same memories—to teach them how to fly
the way that you once did—don’t let it pass you by. You and Feruli were meant
to find each other. You’ll care for him, and teach him, and show him how to
do the same for others…. And someday, you’ll leave him, too.”
Cap’s head snapped up. “I wouldn’t do that to him!”
he said vehemently, but the faerie simply brushed a hand soothingly over his
brow and shook her head gently at him.
“We don’t always have a choice, Cap.”
These words, and an intangible sort of understanding,
seemed to seep slowly into Cap’s mind and heart. After a moment, he nodded slowly,
then lowered his head to the ground, suddenly realizing how tired he was, in
so many ways. But before he would let himself drift away, he thought of one
more thing that he needed to ask. “Where will we go?” his leaden voice spoke,
seeming to come from somewhere else.
“I know a place,” the Soup Faerie said, brushing
her hand along his head again. “It’s not much, but it will be safe.” And with
that promise, Cap allowed himself to fall into the welcome peace of sleep.
***
Cap lay down in the shelter of the tiny hollow that he had managed to eat
away in the side of a pile of junk. Feruli squeezed in and lay down beside him.
It was a tight fit, but it would do for now. Tomorrow he could continue to enlarge
it into a proper cave. For tonight, the Skeith settled in and gazed drowsily
out at their new home as another storm moved in, casting everything into shades
of grey.
Cap and Feruli had followed the Soup Faerie’s directions
that morning to the western edge of the city. What they had found was, as she
had said, a humble haven, but a safe one — the junkyard had been abandoned for
many years, so no human was likely to bother them within its fences. They had
wound their way through the maze-like, mountainous piles of all that Neopia
had deemed unworthy and discarded in years gone by, and at the center of the
junkyard they had found the clearing that Cap now surveyed.
“Cap?” a sleepy voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Yes, Feruli?”
“I believe you, I guess….” Feruli murmured. “If you
say not all humans are bad, I believe you.”
Cap smiled.
“But I- I don’t want another human — even so. Not
yet, at least.”
“No. That’s all right. You can stay here with me.
For now.”
“Cap?”
Cap looked over at the young Eyrie, whose eyelids
were drooping heavily. “Yes, Feruli?”
“Would you… tell me a story, Cap?”
Cap turned his eyes back toward the world outside
as the first raindrops began to fall. He could recall any number of faerie tales
and adventure stories that Sam had read to him as a young Skeith. But something
told him that the story that he needed to share, the one that Feruli needed
to hear, was one that was written not in any book, but on his heart. It was
the story that he had lived, a memory that he clung to now and one that he wanted
his friend to have someday.
“Somewhere,” he began, his tired voice soft and gravelly,
“there is a home, a real home, waiting for you. A warm hearth waits for you,
with beautiful flames blazing in the fireplace and beautiful smells wafting
in from the kitchen as you lie in your favorite, worn spot on the floor...”
Feruli smiled and fell asleep. And Cap felt the hole
in his heart become just a little smaller.
The End
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