Of Hope and Happiness
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For a long time, heshe—they drift, from conscious to unconscious, from existing to not.
Then, there is a pressure, squeezing and crushing them, as if compressing and forcing them through a tube all-too-small.
Ah, they think, suddenly aware of thoughts and feelings, it is that time again.
The pressure starts to relax, but they are not fooled. They have been through this process too many times to be. The pain comes a beat after, shredding their insides and piercing their skin like a thousand hot needles.
Pain, a sign that they must be alive.
They do not scream, for they are no longer new to this, having been constructed and reconstructed for so many times that they have lost count. (That is a lie, they remember a total of 17 times, and they wonder how long more before they can finally rest.)
As the pain subdues into a relatively tolerable throbbing, they become a he and he finally exists.
He is a blue Pteri this time.
"Hey there."
The blue Pteri opens his eyes to a young human teen. (Human, of course it is a human; it has always been a human.)
"I'm Ann," she introduced shyly, hands clenching the hem of her shirt, twisting the fabric into tiny wrinkles. "Do you... have a name?"
Yes, he wants to say. I have more than a dozen of it.
"No," he says instead, because he is supposed to have none.
The girl beams, eyes lighting up in excitement. "You'll be BlueBird then, Blue for short."
The newly minted BlueBird snorted mentally. While he has never seen what a 'bird' is, he knows that a 'bird' is very similar in appearance to a Pteri. And he has just been named based on his looks. The only thing that could be worse would be naming him 'Pteri', followed by a bunch of nonsensical number. He would know. He has been there.
But he has a role to play now—no owner likes a jaded pet—so he gives his wings a little flap, and chirps, "what a great name, I love it!"
The response he gets is another bright smile. Inwardly, he thinks it is sickening.
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He doesn't like young owners, humans that are considered 'children' by their own standards.
It is not that they lack the experience of handling Neopets, though he remembers the hunger pangs whenever some of his ex-owners had forgotten to feed him, and painful pull of his pelt because they simply did not understand the concept of pain or empathy. No, it is not that. Beyond all those, what displeases him the most is that they lack the responsibility. They played with him, groomed him with gentle tugs and fed him delicious food, but that… that only lasted from anything between a day or two to less than a year, before they get bored of him, or get bored of taking care of him, or get bored of just having a Neopet in general.
And when that happens, he'll be alone all over again, and he'll…
(… He doesn't want to think about it.)
But then again, Blue doesn't like owners who are adults. Adults are the worst. They always have something that they want to do, and they don't respect his feelings at all. Blue recalls that one of his past owners wanted him to get listed in the Gourmet Club Hall of Fame, and that had been a torturous cycle of eating and forced-eating until his owner had gotten bored and left.
It is also one of the only times he has almost weep in joy when his owner abandoned him.
Currently, Blue's new owner is both older and younger than his past owners, and he muses absently about how she would treat him.
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Blue's new tastebud absolutely detests anything sweet, and craves desperately for Gross Food, which is terrible because it deviates from the norm, but it is nothing he could not hide from his new owner.
(Seeing that he is supposed to a normal blue Pteri, and that the desire for Gross Food would certainly weird his new owner out. He might not have like Ann very much, in a way that he might not have like his past owners very much, but an owner is still an owner, and he doesn't want to be abandoned anytime soon.)
However, Ann is a very thoughtful and caring owner, had Blue been a normal Neopet, he would have even like her a little, because she never ever fed him things that are rotten or looks funny, not once. She deems Gross Food as, well, gross, and feeds him none of it.
Instead, she offers him slushies and smoothies and chocolates, the reputed 'popular food', food considered well-liked by the majority Neopian population. Food in which Blue has a strong dislike for.
(Blue considers, once, if he should complain about the food or reject it entirely, but no Neopets have ever done that, not unless it is a Gross Food, and he very carefully, tucks the thought away.
He doesn't want to be passed of as an anomaly.
Pets with abnormalities are not pets for very long.)
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Blue thinks that Ann is too dumb.
She does not invest on stock market, does not restock, does not sign Blue up for Battledomes (which Blue is thankful about, even if he does not voice it), does not bet on Food Clubs or whatsoever, despite all of them being the easiest source of neopoints and rewards.
("Why don't you, owner?" Blue enquires, voice a sing-song to conceal the mocking underneath. "Do you not want to learn how to do it?"
She laughs, giggling like a frivolous damsel.
"Nah, I'll skip those," she answers, "they're boring anyway. Might as well spend more time on interesting things. Hey, that looks fun, why don't we try a round together?")
Rather, she plays games, from Meerca Chase to Cliffhanger to Roodoku. She is not very good at action games, Blue realises, almost all her scores are even lower than owners younger than her. However, she is unbeatable when it comes to puzzles and strategies, and Blue has never defeated her in a game of Godori.
Ann does not care much about neopoints, but she saves consistently whenever she can help it. When Blue asks her where is she going to spend all that money, she only smiles mysteriously and says, "you'll know one day" before tugging on his wings to urge him along to that Wheel of Excitement.
Yes, Blue decides, Ann is far too dumb, unlike owners who takes advantage of every chance to earn more neopoints, who can easily profit hundred thousands in the span of a week.
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Ann finds great joy in exploring the world of Neopia, taking in the sights of different lands and talking to the natives whenever possible.
Like an overly excited Gelert pup, Blue noted, with an almost fond exasperation, it's funny how she acts so childish when she is older than them.
But Blue does not protest even when he is being dragged along.
And if the edges of his beak tugged up, he does not notice.
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Sometimes, Blue watches Ann furrow her brows in determined concentration over a game of cards, and thinks, just a little, that maybe she is rather tolerable, or even at a satisfactory level when compared to some of his past owners, after all.
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"Ann," he says one day. "Are you saving that neopoints for a paint brush?"
She laughs, her laughter like bells chiming in the wind. "Of course, not! If I do that, you won't be Blue anymore, would you?"
For a moment, Blue wonders about the significance of the colour, before dropping it in favour of a game of Godori with his owner.
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Days turn into weeks, and weeks bleed into months.
But Ann's visits, they've become...
Less
And
Less
Fre-
quent.
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It starts with the small stuff, like how Ann stops spinning Wheels and starts to pour more time on more profitable games. Like how before she would take the time to dress the Fashion Fever Neopets earnestly, now she ends the game almost immediately after it starts.
One day, she checks the bank account and looks as if she heaved a sigh of relief.
That day, is the last day Blue ever see her.
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Their Neohome is demolished, and a new one built in place of theirs.
He would have bristled, or even feel a tad bit forlorn, but he is too preoccupied with the gnawing hunger that stabs at his stomach.
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Sometimes, as Blue peeks through the old, ratty blanket given to every abandoned Neopet, he thinks that the pink Uni has taken the easier way. Not necessarily an easy way out, but she is considered much, much luckier than most Neopets.
She has snagged the job of being the receptionist of the Pound, a permanent job until the end of Neopia, most probably, and she will remain there as so, a nameless pink Uni smiling and talking mechanically to anyone who steps in through the door.
He hates her just a little, for escaping the fate that thousands of millions of Neopets have to go through.
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Blue dreams, and he remembers, memories of his time spent with Ann flickering in his mind.
(It has been a day where the sun shines just right for a nice afternoon nap under the shade of a tree, and there are no plans for the day, so the two of them decides to simply sit down and enjoy the cool breeze as it weaves playfully through them.
"Hey, Blue," she has said, her familiar voice an echo that claws at his heart. "Do you know why I name you BlueBird?"
Blue has known that a Pteri looks similar to a 'bird', has known of Ann's insistence of not getting him painted, but he could not fathom out the actual reason behind his name, so he shakes his head, tousling his feathers, "Why, Ann?"
Ann grins at him with so much warmth that Blue blinks to make sure she is indeed looking at him, but that moment is gone when Ann leans back to gaze at the distance. "In my world, birds are the only animals that can ever soar in the sky; they're the freest creature ever," she explains, with just a faint touch of longing, "and among them, the bluebird is the most special, because it symbolises—")
Blue wakes up, tasting bitter in his beak, and thinks that he couldn't loathe his name enough.
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Blue is a blue Pteri, with no special feature and low Battledome stats.
Is it any wonder that no one would adopt him?
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Sometimes, Blue hates and hates, resentment and anger bubbling right under his skin. Why did she force me into her life? He thinks, and waltz right out of it as if she doesn't care, not a single word, not a single goodbye.
What right does she have over me? Why am I supposed to be her Neopet?
He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a window. The next moment, the window breaks into spiderweb cracks, and his feathers stain red.
How can she leave me with those words? Named me so and abandon me? It must have been all a joke to her, to tear me apart with her poisonous words.
Blue screeches with rage, wings beating furiously, tail swinging, breaking any objects caught in the vicinity. Not before long, a Defender comes to subdue him, pressing down on him until he calms into a helpless misery.
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(But you know, there is only a thin line between love and hate, and the horrible, horrible truth is that in order to hate someone—to truly, honestly hate someone… you'll have to love them first.
And Blue did.)
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Time eats away at his emotions, until he is only a mere empty shell once more. When his body becomes too weak, mind too unstable, he simply fades away without a sound, his existence no longer notable to anyone in Neopia.
He closes his eyes for the final time, and that particular memory of Ann resurfaced. He huffed a weak, mocking laugh, finding it all too ironic.
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("—hope and happiness." And Ann has looked at him, regarded him with such conviction as if he has all the answers in the world.
Blue grins back, eyes crinkling.
He thinks that maybe he would have felt some sense of attachment or affection for his given name this time.)
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He doesn't.
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And for a long time, he—they drifted, from conscious to unconscious, from existing to not.
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(In another world, a monitor beeps weak.
A young teen lies on the white, sanitised bed, comforted with the thought that she has manage to make it before time runs out.
But what is the saying again, about roads to hells and good but misinformed intentions? And how would a human even learns of the inner workings of Neopia?)
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(In another world, a monitor beeps flatline.)
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Been such a long time since I last posted... Please leave a review on your way out!