Sarah woke up the next morning wondering when she had fallen asleep. Each time she had tried, she kept hearing someone, perhaps her mother, screaming her name. She never saw a face to put with these screams. She honestly didn't think she'd ever see one… because after the voice screamed her name, it let out a horrifying, pain stricken cry… and then, there was total silence. It could have been because Sarah's world went black, or possibly because… because the owner of the voice was no more. The latter reason was the one Sarah chose to believe. She had no reason to believe anything other than that.

She ran her fingers through her hair. Her hair was the one thing that attracted the most attention from other people. It was short, the longest bits falling between her ears and shoulder blades. Her hair was purple- lilac colored with a few grape colored highlights… and those grape highlights matched her eyes perfectly. She'd never had anything done to either her eyes or hair- both were naturally their purple colors. She often wondered where she got these features from. Mother? Father? She didn't know… she didn't think she ever would.

Sarah put her hand down to help her sit up and felt something soft and squishy under her hand. She looked down to see her favorite and rather interesting looking plushie lying there- a Darigan Kougra with Faerie wings. Sarah knew she was probably a little old for stuffed animals, but Dari, as she called the plushie, had some sentimental value. On the right wing, embroidered in gold thread, was her name and on the left wing was "With Love, From Mom," in the same gold thread. She loved that thing, no matter how strange it looked. To her, it was proof that her mother did love her… once. Whether she still did or not… whether she was still alive to do so or not… it didn't matter. She did love Sarah once.

Sarah was just about to get to her feet and locate Oraion when a blue ball of fuzz ran into the tent and tackled her to the ground.

"Good morning Sarah!" the fuzz said cheerily, licking her face affectionately. "It's a beautiful day out there! A little chilly, but the sun is shining! What do you want to do?" Sarah laughed happily, hugging her Kougra friend tight.

"I think I want to go to Neopia Central today," she replied as she set him down and got to her feet. "Collect our interest at the bank…"

"Wow, one neopoint," Oraion said in mock amazement. Sarah didn't blame him. Sure, there were plenty of ways to get neopoints in Neopia… if you were good at games or happened upon an item worth selling. Neither was the case with her. She was lucky if she lost a tooth and the Tooth Faerie decided to be generous. She had been offered a lot of neopoints for her locket, but she refused to sell. Next to her plushie and her backpack, it was all she had to remind her of a life she didn't remember.

Sometimes it really amazed her that she was so happy with her life. She was flat broke most of the time, had to steal just about everything to get by and she didn't know who she was or where she came from. She really had nothing… and everything at the same time. She had Oraion, she had friends… friends.

"Maybe we'll see Kay and Lupie on the way," she said hopefully. It had been a long time since she'd seen her best friend and her faithful Lupe. Kay Topaz was an aspiring pirate and a master thief that Sarah and Oraion had met when they were younger. Sarah was a thief as well, but not as good as Kay. In all actuality, if she had been a good thief, she and Kay probably would have never met.

It wasn't long after Oraion had saved Sarah from Techo Mountain when they found themselves on Krawk Island, trying to pawn some doubloons they had "acquired" while they were still in Mystery Island. Sarah kept the doubloons in her light faerie backpack, which she set down for a second to help Oraion get untangled from the ball of yarn he was playing with. When she went to pick it up, the bag was gone… but two sneaky looking characters seemed to be running away from her really fast. She was about to start after them, when something latched onto her pant leg and held her still.

"Oraion!" she protested. "Come on, we've got to go after them."

"Sarah," he replied, calmly. "It's not worth it- those were pirates. They kill people! They…"

"Took my pack with all our food, doubloons and your Red Kiko Squeeze Toy." There was a pause.

"Okay, let's go get 'em." Sarah smiled and started after the pirates- never separate a Kougra from his favorite squeeze toy.