O.o I gave my virtual pets personalities... This cannot possibly be healthy.

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Family Problems

"Well, this is your room. It only has basic furniture, I thought you'd like to pick out your own colors and stuff." The speaker was my new owner. She looked weird, but I figured I'd better get used to her since I was stuck here from now on. I swaggered into the near-empty room, arrogance hiding the nervousness I felt. There was no furniture, just some lights and a large rug. The walls were far too colorful for my tastes, but overall it was a rather nice, if horrendously oversized, house. The room could be worse, I supposed, looking around. It was certainly much larger then what I had at Pet Central.

"You can take awhile to get settled in, when the others get home I'll introduce you, we'll have supper, and after that we'll go furniture shopping for stuff better suited to a growing lupe." My new owner finished and starting to leave when a loud crash heralded the arrival of my new brother and sisters. "Oh, never mind, come on." She held out her hand, which I think she expected me to hold, and I walked past her into the hall. With a shrug she followed.

A red ogrin and two kois were coming down the long, rather dimly-lit hallway, talking loudly about that days' school assignments and what they'd do tomorrow. School, I'd have to go with these losers? The talk died as they saw me, the ogrin first, then the blue koi. The red koi continued her monologue until the blue one poked her with one fin. She stared at me for a full second before her mouth opened again. A record, I would later learn. It took all my self control to keep my ears up and from tucking my tail beneath my legs, but there was no way I'd let them see how nervous I was.

"Like, hi. Are you, like, our new neighbor?" One sentence and I could already tell I didn't like her and wondered if they'd take me back at Pet Central. For lack of any better idea I looked at my owner. Something in her smile gave me a very bad feeling.

"You did it again, didn't you…" This tired comment was the ogrins'. The two kois stared at him in puzzlement for a moment before the blue one realized what he had meant while the red one remained clueless yet again.

"Uh, hi. I'm Veraith, this is ShadowSkieth, Shadow for short, and my loud sister here is Larkenadora, but we just call her Lark. Nice to meet you. Um..?" She was waiting for my name; the other two looked at me expectantly. I drew myself up to glare haughtily down at them, the effect some-what hampered by the fact that the two kois were floating slightly above eye level, and… tried to remember the impossible name my owner had given me.

What was it..? It began with 'F', I'm sure of that much. Realizing I was looking like a fool, I snarled the first thing that came to mind.

"That's none of your business!" …That was the best I could come up with! Veraith looked like she was about to cry, Shadow seemed startled, but that irritating red koi, Lark, looked downright smug.

"Don't cry Veraith, he's, like, just embarrassed because he can't remember his name." She then stuck her tongue out at me! Veraith stopped her sniffling, which I was for some reason glad to see. Not that I cared or anything… She looked at me and nodded understandingly.

"You don't have to be embarrassed, it took Lark a whole week to remember her name." She said while warding off her sisters' attempt to forcibly silence her. Shadow nodded as well. "Yeah, on the first day of school she had to call home to ask Mum what her name was again." Lark immediately tackled the much larger ogrin, screeching "He doesn't need to know that!"

Despite myself I smiled slightly and tried in vain to suppress it before anyone noticed. Too late, Veraith smiled back while Shadow tried to get untangled from Lark, but only succeeded in making the situation worse when his fluffy ears accidentally tickled the irate koi. A tickling match ensued, which made the situation even louder in the small hallway.

Our owner, who had mysteriously disappeared when Veraith took over the introductions, called from another room. Although muffled, both by the bamboo walls and Lark's screaming, my sensitive ears picked up our names being called to come eat supper. So that was my name, I wouldn't forget it again.

Lark finally got herself untangled from Shadow and stalked down the hall with all the dignity she could muster. "I bet it'll take him two weeks to remember his name!"

To my surprise, Veraith and Shadow both started to come to my defense, but before they could yell something that might later be regretted I sauntered past them to catch up with Lark. She glared at me and waited for me to counter her. "It's Faulitarnulf. Like I'd forget that, it's too easy." Now I just had to repeat that in my head until it became the truth…

"Hmph, yeah, sure you will." She stuck her nose in the air and sped up slightly, leaving us behind.

Shadow grinned at me, knowing exactly how I had suddenly 'remembered' my name, but said nothing. "Fauli… Something, that's even worse then Larkenadora!" Veraith floated quietly between them for a moment. "You know, there really isn't any easy way to shorten that. I guess it'll have to be Fau. If that's okay with you, of course!" She sure panics easily, nothing like her, my, annoying sister. "Yeah, that's fine." It would have to be, for all my bragging I'd already forgotten that wretched name. I sniffed the air, something smelled good. Shadow noticed and took a sniff as well.

"That would be omelete. Sausage and pepperoni to be exact" Shadow stated, causing Veraith to groan. "Not again! You'd think she'd make something decent, if only to give Fau a good impression." Shadow shook his head. "There's jelly too."

I couldn't understand why they looked annoyed, it smelled good to me! "What's the problem? It smells great." They stared at me in shock, Shadow thawed first. "You get sick of omelete's after awhile, but you'll learn that first hand. By the way, it's about time we got another guy; Lark keeps trying to use me as a dress up doll. If she comes towards you holding makeup and ribbons, run. Run and do not look back." I had no idea what makeup was, but I nodded as if I did. It still felt awkward and I wondered if I'd ever feel like I fit in.

"How long are you going to be staying, anyway?" Lark had grown tired of sulking and floated back towards them. She seriously didn't get it? I was wondering how to break it to her when Veraith sighed and took Lark's fin, pulling her backwards while Shadow pushed me to walk faster. As a result, we were safely in the kitchen when the explosion came. "I DON'T WANT ANOTHER BROTHER!" Shadow paused, staring at the door for a moment before clicking the lock button. "What about Veraith, she's still out there!" The thought of leaving my new sister at the mercy of that creature was appalling.

Oh yeah, that creature is my sister too…

Shadow smiled reassuringly." It's fine, she'll come through a window." He assured me.

"Welcome to our home, hope you'll like it here." Our owner was sitting at the table sipping orange juice when she should probably have been calming Lark down and keeping the house from being destroyed. I couldn't help but sigh. Obviously I'm the only reliable person in this house; they need me far too much for me to leave.

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In case I was too vague, Faulitarnulf is a yellowlupe... Not that anyone cares. Please review, just put +1 so I know that someone read this. Please? That's all I ask.