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The Pteri sat underneath the dimmed streetlight, preening
her lime green feathers fixatedly. Her scrawny figure was just a small addition
to the run-down area of Neopia she and her older brother, a red Lupe named Elysy,
inhabited.
A zephyr breeze tumbled throughout the atmosphere,
and the Neopet titled her head slightly back to enjoy to cool air. Her carefully
cleaned feather flapped – making the endless hours of work she had spent grooming
them worthless – but she did not care. For that distinct moment, the homeless
Pteri felt so peaceful… so calm… so happy.
But as with any moment, this one had to eventually
come to an end. It did so when Elysy tapped her on the shoulder – his frost
encased, bony paw sending a chill up her spine.
“What do you want?” she asked in a rather quiet
tone as she swiveled around to look at him.
“I’ve been wondering something, Karaunnie,”
he replied in a gentle voice. Kara frowned – she hated being addressed as Karaunnie
instead of simply Kara. Her full name sounded so formal, and upper class, which
indeed she was not. But Kara did not approach the matter, and simply said, “Wondering
what?”
“If we’ll ever get a home… I mean, I used to
have a home for quite a while. But blimey, we both got abandoned the day you
were born. You’ve barely ever had a home.” He did not say it as if it were Kara’s
fault that the pair were abandoned in a deserted part of Neopia Central, but
she knew that he was thinking that – he just did not have the guts to say it
aloud.
“I don’t care if we ever get a home.” Kara swallowed
the lump that grew in her throat; she wasn’t good at lying… especially to her
much beloved older brother. The truth of the matter was that she did want a
home, but there were too many dire results that could take place if she did
perform the actions that would give her one.
“Oh c’mon Kara, we’d be so much happier. And
the main part of Neopia central is only a few miles that way.” Elysy gestured
towards the right.
Kara turned away; she didn’t want Elysy to see
the tears welling in her beady black eyes. “No,” she simply muttered.
“Please sis… haven’t we lived on the streets
long enough? It’d be a change… a good change.”
“But what if we’re adopted by some cruel owner?
O-or some bad person who never takes care of me?” Her voice was trembling, and
the Lupe could tell she was weeping. But he did not care.
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.” He lightly
set his paw on her shoulder, but she immediately pushed it off.
“No, Elysy! We’ll be separated for sure and
I might not like my new siblings and I might starve to death and my owner could
hate me, and what if I don’t get adopted at all?” Kara was panting now, completely
out of breath by her run-on remark.
“Can you please do this, Kara? For me?” Elysy
shot a pleading glance at his sister.
Kara’s mind bubbled with an assortment of thoughts,
and her head was pounding.
Finally, though, defeated by her brother’s begging,
she gave in. “We can go,” the Pteri whispered.
Elysy’s face now wore a smile, and he wrapped
his paws around his younger sister. “Thank you, Kara! Oh thank you! Now let’s
go!”
He bolted off, and Kara (nervously) followed.
********************************
Dr_Death was an old, crippled Techo who carried a saddened expression on his
face. He seemed appalled by the way the pets had been living on the streets,
and couldn’t even begin to think of why a cruel owner would abandon them in
such a horrible manner. But he did not treat the much differently than any of
the other pets abandoned at the pound; just a tad bit more of sympathy was shown
when he locked them into side-by-side cages.
*********************************
Kara stuck her beak through the iron bars, straining her eyes to the see the
pet across from her. She was bored, and that was all there was to do.
The pet happened to be a muscular Kougra with
red fur. The stone-hard look in his hazel eyes seemed to say that the Neopet
was tough, fearsome and unafraid of any troubles that may befall him. From first
glances, Kara did not like the Kougra; he seemed as if he would’ve been one
of the pets teasing Elysy and her when they still lived on the streets.
But somebody apparently did like the creature.
Because only a matter of minutes after she had come to a conclusion about it,
a young boy took it out of the cage, and cradling the Kougra in his arms, carried
it away.
The paper pasted on the upper-part of the bars
flapped slightly, and Kara could read the words: Elmwood4115, Male, Level 1,
Strength 5, Defense 8, Likes Bullying Others, When meeting friends Elmwood4115
would Insult from Afar.
“Not very nice, Elmwood,” muttered Kara. “Not
very nice at –”
Her remark was cut short when a teenage girl
with curly blonde hair approached her cage.
“Hi,” the girl said, getting down on one knee
and staring into the Pteri’s eyes. “I’m Alexandra.”
“K-Kara,” Kara stuttered the reply in a perturbed
voice. She had never been good with talking to humans.
“That’s pretty.” Alexandra chuckled nervously,
and forced a weak grin.
“Thank-you,” the Pteri replied, ignoring the
teenager’s grin/chuckle.
“I’m sorry if I’m making you kind of worried…
I’ve never been good at introducing myself to pets in the pound. Blimey, I almost
gave up looking for one in here. I seem only to be good at creating pets – I
have three.” The teenager sighed, and looked guiltily down and the floor below
her. Her hair was dangling loosely in the air, and she was fidgeting with the
belt that was fastened around her dark blue jeans.
“You seem kind of like… me,” Kara stated. The
Pteri was stating the truth. Alexandra perked up. “Really?” She asked.
Kara nodded her head, and smiled slightly. She
actually liked the person on the other end of the bars.
All of a sudden, a young boy stormed throughout
the pound corridor and abruptly stopped at Kara’s cage. “I’ll take her!” he
yelled, not even taking the time to socialize with the Neopet.
“No! I already am!” Alexandra yelped.
The boy scrunched up his face, but then rushed
off to the cage next to her and yelled that he was adopting the pet in it instead.
Kara sighed in relief, but then she remembered what Alexandra had just said.
“A-are you serious?” she asked, her eyes growing
wide. Her heart was feeling funny – half of it was filled with pure excitement,
but the other half was pumping with nervousness.
Alexandra shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Unless,
I mean, you don’t want me to adopt you.”
The excitement won her over, and Kara’s eyes
lit up and she smiled the biggest smile in her life. “Oh I’d love it!”
“Well then, welcome to our family Kara.”
******************************
A few minutes later, with adoption papers completed, Alexandra started towards
the door leading out of the pound, Kara cradled snugly in her arms. And as they
stepped out into the darkened night, the Pteri yelled, “Wait!!!”
“What?” The startled owner jumped a few inches
into the air.
“My brother!” Kara exclaimed. “My brother is
still in there! You have to adopt him! You have to!”
“I-I already have four pets now – including
you I mean,” Alexandra stammered.
All the joy suddenly drained from Kaylyn’s body,
and she started breathing heavily. “What will happen to him?” she asked in a
weak voice.
And just then, her question was answered. Walking
swiftly past Kara and Alexandra was the boy who had been yelling for different
pets. And grasped in his sweaty fingers was the scruff of a Lupe – the scruff
of a Lupe named Elysy.
Kaylyn screamed bloody murder, and tears flowed
down her face at such a rapid pace they formed a small river. She flapped her
wings intensely, trying to chase after her brother, but Alexandra held her back.
“Calm down, Kara!” she ordered, but the Pteri
was in such a state of hysteria already that she was not even thinking about
doing so.
Owners clicked their tongues in disgust at Alexandra,
as if she were abusing her poor pet, and they told their own Gelerts, Acaras,
Pteris etc. to stay as far away as possible from her.
But soon, a crowd of disobedient pets gathered
around Kara and simply stared.
Elysy was long gone now, but his sister did
not notice. Her tantrum continued, and Alexandra was growing tired of the struggle.
Finally, out of exhaustion, she let go of the Pteri.
Kara had not expected to be let free, and she
was not ready to fly. She plummeted to the dusty ground and landed with a loud
thud. Then, after a few moments of bewilderment, stopped sobbing.
The crowd of pets scampered off, and it was
just the Pteri and her owner.
“Oh Alexandra…” Kara moaned. “I’m so sorry…
I’m so sorry.”
The Pteri was expecting her newly found owner
to march right back into the pound and abandon her, and she was beyond glad
when she said:
“It’s okay. I understand Kaylyn... j-just please
don’t do that again. Now wanna go see home?” Alexandra then scooped the Pteri
delicately into her arms.
Kara nodded slowly, and Alexandra started toward
her Neohome. Soon, the area outside of the pound where the breakdown had been
was normal again, and barely anybody remembered it at all.
************************
Elysy sat on the flimsy cardboard floor of his new owner, Jarmoo’s, one-room
home. His new siblings – a yellow Gelert named Jonah, and a red Mynci named
Tal – sat beside him. None of them dared speak to one another.
Jarmoo was sitting on the other end of the room
on a haystack couch, slurping down a can of Diet Neocola. His wild red hair
was covered with a baseball-cap, and he was dressed in a stained white T-shirt
and torn blue jeans. Elysy did not like him at all.
Suddenly, the teenager tossed the can off to
the side, rose to his feet and walked briskly out the door.
Elysy already had a gut feeling that he’d never
come back. And the Lupe was right.
***************************
As Alexandra pushed open the front door of her humongous Neohome, Kaylyn gasped
in awe. Spotless marble flooring, white pillars, luxurious furniture, and just
about everything else sat in the front room.
“Larrissy! Sophia! Markell! Come down and meet
your new sister!” Alexandra called.
A few moments later, three different Neopets
rushed into the room.
The first one was a beautiful Faerie Acara.
Her yellow fur was neatly combed, her blue eyes sparkled like the morning sun,
and to top it off, frilly lavender bows were tied around her ears. She presented
herself as the one-and-only Sophia – the eldest, as well as most beautiful child
of the family. Kara could immediately tell she did not lack self-confidence.
The second was a fire Poogle. He was chomping
on a Chocolate Techo Cookie and sipping a Banana Milkshake. He said his name
was Markell, but he liked to be called simply Mark. Kara decided that he was
on of those ‘cool’ Neopets, and she accepted that.
Lastly, there was Larrissy. She was a Strawberry
Gelert, and coincidentally was eating a Strawberry Jelly JubJub. She didn’t
seem to have any definite personality yet – she didn’t seem to be cool, nor
did she seem to be geeky. She also seemed not to be look-obsessed, but surely
she wasn’t a slob. Kara decided to get to know her better before making any
decision.
After the three of them introduced themselves,
it was at last Kara’s turn.
“I’m Karaunnie… well, Kara for short,” she said
in a quiet voice. “I’m your new sister, and I hope I’m not too much of a pain.
I used to be homeless—”
“How did you survive!?” Sophia exclaimed, flabbergasted.
“My older brother …err… old older brother… helped
me.” Tears threatened to leave her eyes, but Kara managed to hold them back.
“Oh I see. Go on.” The Acara shrugged, unimpressed.
Kara proceeded on. “I guess that I’m pretty
normal besides that… and I um… am happy about being in your family now. So uh,
is that good?”
The three of them, as well as Alexandra, nodded.
“Can I go show her around town?” Larrissy asked.
“Sure,” Alexandra replied. “Be back by dinnertime,
though. Okay? That means be back in only 30 minutes!”
“Alright, Alex! Thirty minutes it is! Now c’mon,
Kara… so much to see, so little time! We gotta hurry!”
Larrissy bolted towards the front door. Kara
fluttered after her.
***************************
Larrissy showed Kara many things that she’d never seen before. And one of
those was the Rainbow Pool.
The Pteri was admired it greatly, and gawked
at all the great colors pets were currently being painted. A red Moehog changed
into one which was colored white; soon after him, a green Scorchio transformed
to Spotted, and then barely a moment after that, a blue Aisha turned into a
baby!
“D-do you think I’ll ever be painted… like those
guys and you?” Kara asked her sister.
“Well, all of us – being Sophia, Mark and I
– were painted last year. Alex spent a lot of her Neopoints on us, but she has
even more than she did before she bought all of our paint brushes now. Most
likely, you’ll be able to. I’ll ask her when we get home, okay?”
Kara nodded her head vigorously, and then a
wily grin forming on her face, she questioned, “Can we go home now?”
Larrissy got her point, and she said, “We gotta
go home anyway… so the answer is yes. Let’s go now!”
The two bolted off towards home – Kara’s wings
flapping rapidly, Larrissy’s legs moving in large strides.
************************
During dinner, which was a feast of all gourmet food, Larrissy brought up
the matter of Kara being painted.
And after a long discussion about it, the answer
was that she could be.
“Decide which color you want to be painted after
dinner, and I’ll go buy the paint brush tomorrow. The only color, though, I
prohibit you from picking is baby; I do not want you turning into an egg,” Alexandra
said. Then she grinned, and so did the rest of the pets, except for Kara. She
did not know that baby Pterii turned into eggs.
Dinner soon ended, and Larrissy and Kara rushed
out of the house and to the Rainbow Pool to find a color for the Pteri to be
painted. The two carefully looked over each available for her, and after a long
time of debating, they decided.
***************************
The next day, standing at the edge of the Rainbow Pool was a Rainbow Pteri.
Her multicolored feathers glimmered in the sunlight, and her heart was filled
with love towards her family.
The Pteri’s name was Karaunnie, and now, it
didn’t sound too formal – nothing at all did.
One simple thing in life brought Karaunnie happiness.
And that thing was love.
***************************
Sitting huddled in a corner in a house in the rundown part of Neopia Central
was a red Lupe. His stomach roared in hunger, the result of barely ever eating
anything at all, and his heart ached for the genuine feeling of love. Most of
Neopia forgot him, but one family did not.
The family who remembered him was the family
that consisted of Sophia14474, MarkellNeo6, LarrissyHappyNeo, Alexandra6833
and finally, the Rainbow Pteri with the name of Karaunnie.
*********************
The End
A/N: Hi everybody^_^ Thanks for reading my story, and um… Neomail me with
any concrit you may have! Thanks. (That’s the cutest smiley in the world =D)
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