Once upon a time, there was a little Doglefox living alone in Neopia Central. He was a happy little Doglefox, spending his days wandering the paths of the happy city and barking at the happy Neopets who went about their business. Sometimes, some of them would even feed him if they had extra treats or if the shopkeepers in the bazaar had any food to spare. 

The little Doglefox loved Neopia Central. He loved the people, he loved the food, he loved the sun and the clouds and the wind. But what he loved most of all were the trees—the ones that provided him shelter when it rained, and that would sometimes drop their sticks for him to chew on.

Sticks were his favourite things in all of Neopia. He loved to bite them, he loved to play with them, and he loved to carry them around with him. They gave him something to gnaw on when his teeth hurt, and they helped him feel brave when things were scary, just like the trees they came from. They helped him feel a little less lonely, too. Because even though Neopia Central was so busy and there were so many nice Neopets, something always felt like it was missing for the little Doglefox.

Day after day, he would go looking for the thing that was missing. With a stick in his mouth and his ears and nose perked, he would roam Neopia Central to find it. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he would understand when he found it. It would smell right, he was sure, because everything had a smell. The Doglefox didn’t know what every smell meant, but he knew that the good smells would lead to something nice. After all, that was how he knew who would play with him and which shopkeepers had his favourite food.

One day, while the little Doglefox was exploring, looking for this missing thing, he tripped over the stick he was carrying in his mouth. 

Crash, tumble, oomph! 

He ended up rolling into a bush filled with berries. The branches weren’t very sharp, but they were thick and troublesome to push his little paws through. Luckily, he still had his trusty stick to help him get out, so he used it to move the branches out of the way and get through the bush. A part of him was a little sad about it, though. The berries smelled nice.

But wait! There was another smell, too. Something… something good. Something really good!

The Doglefox put his nose to the ground. It wasn’t there. It was up ahead a little, and getting closer, and closer…

A foot fell onto the path in front of the Doglefox. 

The Doglefox looked up. 

And then he saw it—he saw what was missing.

The little boy was covered in grey fur. He had droopy ears and limp hair and watery eyes, and he had the biggest frown on his face that the Doglefox had ever seen. He was carrying big squares with pictures on them—pictures of skies and fields and trees!—and a few long things in his hand that almost looked like sticks. The Doglefox didn’t know what they were, but he knew that the little boy was the best thing he had ever smelled in his life.

“Arf!” 

The Doglefox watched the boy stop in the middle of the plaza and put down his picture-squares and the colourful sticks. Everything in the Doglefox’s body was telling him to go to this little Neopet, but a part of him was nervous. What if the boy didn’t like him? What if he didn’t want to be friends? 

But then The Doglefox smelled something else. Something dark and smoky and rotten, like a flower that had fallen off a bush and been rained on for a whole week. He wrinkled his nose and shook his fur, because he didn’t like it. And the smell was close…

Whatever it was, he couldn’t let it get to the little boy! So, clenching his teeth around the stick that had helped him get here, The Doglefox made a run for it. A run for the little boy.

“Arf arf arf!”

“He knew from the moment he saw you.

“You were his person.”

At first, the boy didn’t seem to know what to make of him. He frowned his big, sad frown, and told the Doglefox that he couldn’t play, but that was okay. The Doglefox didn’t need to play with him. He just wanted to be around the little boy, because he was special and the Doglefox knew it, even if he didn’t know why. He just hoped that the boy would understand one day.

So he stayed, and day after day he walked home with the boy, because he liked the boy’s company and he was worried about that rotten-flower smell that sometimes followed him around, and because sometimes the boy would smile at him when they walked together. 

Later, he learned that the boy’s name was Ozzy. Even later, he learned that Ozzy had the brightest smile in all of Neopia, and that when he laughed, it was the most amazing sound the Doglefox had ever heard.

But then one day, trouble struck: two big, mean Neopets approached Ozzy and tried to ruin all his picture-squares, which the Doglefox learned were called ‘paintings.’ The boy worked so hard on those paintings and was always making new ones. The Doglefox couldn’t just stand by and let those mean Neopets upset him!

So he did the only thing he knew how to do: he gathered a stick in his mouth and chased the bullies away. 

After that, the boy smiled even more. He even invited the Doglefox to come inside his house with him! It was the best day of the Doglefox’s life, because that meant that he and the little boy were finally friends. Best friends! And Ozzy even gave him a name.

Styx.

It was the best name in all of Neopia. The Doglefox, now called Styx, loved it because Ozzy gave it to him. It was important to him, too: it sounded like Nyx, who was the girl in the pictures on Ozzy’s fridge. She was Ozzy’s big sister. Someone he loved.

Styx was pretty sure he loved Nyx, too.

But then things changed. The rotten-flower smell that hovered around Ozzy turned out to be a girl called Vira. Vira was rude and mean, and she didn’t like Styx. She tried to pull Ozzy away from him, and blamed Styx for things he never even did! No, he did not like Vira at all, and he tried to tell Ozzy… but Ozzy wouldn’t listen. Not even when Styx barked really loud and tried to warn his friend that Vira was looking at his special plushie. 

He knew then that he had to take matters into his own paws.

“But he also knew that you were in danger!”

One night, all of Styx’s worst fears came true. The special plushie in his pile of sticks, the one that looked like a paint brush, was missing, and the room was full of the awful smell of rotten flowers. He sniffed at his messy pile of sticks for good measure, but in his little heart, he knew the truth: Vira had stolen Ozzy’s treasure!

He growled out, “I’m going to get it back for you, Ozzy!” and took off running into the night.