The Very Hungry Skeith

(part three: The Soup Kitchen)

by Emminou

The small skeith had slept restlessly, troubled by odd dreams. Therefore, she wasn't as ungrateful as she made out when Yang woke her early the next morning.

"Gerroff," she mumbled, squeezing herself further under the service counter where she'd crawled the night before. It didn't work. Yang crawled under the counter, and said, very quietly, "Lily, if you're not out from here by the time I count to three, I will personally bite your tail off - and I think it's only fair to warn you, I'm a very fast counter!"

Fast at counting Yang may have been, but by the time he'd reached two-and-a-half, Lily was sitting sulkily by the door. "What did you want?" she snapped as he joined her.

"Lily, Lily, Lily," he said with exaggerated patience. "I told you, yesterday, we only want to help you."

"Help me do what, exactly?' Lily growled.

Yang chose to ignore her question. Instead, he pushed the door open and headed out into the street. Curious in spite of herself, Lily followed.

***

"Where are we going now?"

She watched the aisha prepare to reply. Before he could say anything, she added: "Don't fob me off again!"

Yang grinned delightedly. "You're not as dull as Yin thought you were! You actually realised-" he broke off, and a very sheepish look replaced his grin. "I, ah, shouldn't have said that."

Lily glared at him. "I told you, don't fob me off again! Where are we going?"

With a nervous look at Lily's sharp claws, Yang muttered, "Yin says we still don't know if you're trustworthy. I'm, ah, taking you for a - how do I put this? - test run."

"Trustworthy? She's a fine one to talk!" Lily snapped. "I wouldn't trust her as far as an angelpuss could throw her!"

Yang, a few steps ahead, made a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. "If only you knew," Lily thought she heard him say.

"So?"

"So, what?" the white aisha asked, turning to glance at her.

"So, where are you taking me?" Lily demanded.

"You know, I really admire your persist-" he stopped at Lily's warning growl, before continuing hastily with "Er, the Soup Kitchen, actually."

"Really?" Lily asked. She sounded so surprised that Yang stopped in his tracks.

"Yes, really. Why'd you ask?"

"'Cos we walked past it about five minutes ago!"

Under his breath, the white aisha mumbled a couple of words about the... dodginess of Lily's parentage. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"You didn't tell me we were going there!" Lily protested.

***

They back-tracked until they arrived at the Soup Kitchen. The cauldron-shaped building was filled with neopets and their owners. Lily had a quick look for Sandra; only when she was completely sure her owner - ex-owner, she reminded herself - wasn't there did she relax enough to follow Yang inside.

For a moment, she thought she'd lost him. It certainly wouldn't have been hard. The Soup Kitchen was filled to overflowing with creatures of all shapes and sizes. Finally, she caught a glimpse of her companion, seated beside a skinny red usul.

Lily headed towards Yang, managing to trip over no less than three pets on her way. She sat down next to Yang, on the other side from the usul.

"What are we doing here?" she hissed.

Yang jerked his head towards a serving counter; behind it, a slim woman with brown hair was slicing ham. She wore a long pink shirt over blue trousers. A red-and-white kerchief tied her long hair out of her face. She turned around, and Lily saw she had-

"Wings!" the young skeith gasped.

"Yep," Yang said. "She's a faerie."

Lily watched the faerie serving her customers. She had a brisk, cheerful manner that made Lily instinctively like her. The faerie dumped the sliced ham into a cauldron, one of six, on the bench behind her and gave it a stir. Then she reached under the counter and drew out a string of sausages.

Lily felt Yang tense beside her. "Lily!" he whispered. "Listen closely. This is very important! While I create a distraction, I want you to take those sausages."

"What?" Lily yelped. "I'm not a-" Yang wrapped a paw around Lily's mouth.

"Just do it!" he hissed. Lily shook her head. The aisha twisted around until he was staring Lily in the face. "My dear child," he purred, "I thought you understood. Yin and I want to help you - to be able to do this, we need your help. Refusal to help will result in our being unable to help you. So, will you help me?"

He took his paw away from Lily's mouth. Blankly, the skeith nodded.

"Right then." Yang leapt up, and began to push through the crowd towards the counter. Slowly, Lily followed him, her eyes fixed on the sausages. There are a lot of them, she thought to herself. Surely it wouldn't hurt to take a couple-

Stop that! another part of her cried. It's theft! Theft is wrong!

But I'm so hungry...

So are all the other pets who come here!

"Would you like something?" a voice asked. Lily looked up into the kind face of the Soup Faerie. Terrified, she could only stutter, "N-n-n-no, th-thanks."

The faerie smiled dreamily at her. "Are you sure, little one? You look like you could use some help."

Lily shook her head, wishing the faerie wasn't so very nice; it made what she had to do next so hard.