As it happened, I didn't have to stay in the Pound as long as I feared. I stayed one lonely night within the confines of my new cell, eating the hard pebbles and mush that they called food. (The water, too, was stagnant, and had a slight film over the top that I was forced to either penetrate with my finger or my tongue. Being a Quiggle, it was easier, though more disgusting, to do it with the latter.) I was just about to dip into my food container (that was filled once in the morning for the rest of the day) for a self-scheduled lunch when a pack of Neopets filed in through the doors leading to the lobby.
At first, I thought it was a case of mass abandonment from one owner—something that happened with a fair amount of frequency, if my one day there was any indication. But as I looked closer, I noticed that these Pets weren't tagless and despondent, though their visages were serious and concentrated. They wore navy uniforms with black carrying equipment, and from the golden stars blazing on their chests, I knew that they were the police.
Fear was my initial reaction. Cops could mean that there was a criminal amongst us, and the few paltry possessions I held I immediately held my arms over in a protective umbrella. Even worse was the prospect of a more serious law-violator, perhaps in cahoots with crime bosses like Malkus Vile.
But no—much to my surprise, they were approaching my pen, stopping at the column where my cage lay and tipping their heads upwards at the instruction of the Green Uni that guided them. One of them, a Chia whose shoulders displayed badges indicating a higher ranking than his comrades, stepped out from the fray, addressing me directly. He looked familiar, and after he began to speak I recognized him as the police chief I had gone to when Vali had first disappeared. My heart immediately found its way to my throat.
"Princess Fernypoo? Is that you?" asked the Chia police chief incredulously. I hesitated at first, wondering if I should pretend to be someone else to maintain my identity's pride, but then gave in for Vali's sake.
"Yes," I admitted heavily, my voice husky with regret. "I had an unfortunate run-in with the Lab Ray."
"My apologies, ma'am," said the Chia police chief, and he sounded sincerely sorry. I didn't want his pity, but I didn't force him to reclaim it. "We're here about Vali."
"I thought you were." Immediately, I became animated, jumping to the bars of my cage and nearly knocking over my food-and-water dish in the process. Scummy water splashed across the bottom of my cage, and sent a rank stench wafting into my nose. I ignored it. "Have you heard word back from her? Do you know where she is?"
"Yes, we do, Princess. We found her, and we've got her back at the police station."
Even in the midst of the devastated atmosphere of the Pound, my heart had never been so full. I nearly collapsed in the dirty water that dribbled out from my cage, dripping to the ground. A warmth filled me, a warmth that could not be penetrated by the dank coldness of the Pound around me. It was an elation reserved for those who thought they had lost something imperatively precious forever, and it was indefinable to those without the experience. Those who had—who took part in that beautiful brotherhood with me—could look at each other and nod knowingly with a smile, acknowledging that we alone had felt the glow of Heaven's gates.
After basking in this radiance for a few moments longer, letting the wondrous reality set in, logic came back to me. "Hold on. Why are you telling me this, instead of my own—my former owner? Did you tell her?"
"Not yet." The Chia police chief smirked. "Rumor's spread like wildfire about how your owner ditched you for some Maraquan Gelert. Her store's doing pretty poorly now because of it. Personally, I'd rather you reclaim Vali and have you two live on your own—I wouldn't want Vali to fall victim to these circumstances."
"What do you mean?" I asked, specifically about the 'living on our own' bit.
"Iffin you want us to, the Police Department and the Neopian Government's offering you two liberation from owner circumstances. Only if you get a job of course, though."
Although I had never worked a day in my life, and previously I would've scoffed at the notion, now the thought of living free of obligation towards a human and overlooking Vali's upbringing (while raking in the income) seemed a most fantastic and dream-worthy prospect. I stared down at them, as if they were offering me the keys to a perfect life.
"Of course I accept. Now, bring me to Vali. I can't wait any longer."
The demands and bossiness were the remainder of my days as a member of the upper class, and I could detach myself from my body and observe these mannerisms. I wondered if they would fade in time, rubbed smooth by the rough edges of real society, as my brattiness and vanity had.
The police went through some paperwork from DrDeath and the Pink Uni at the front (I didn't manage to catch the Pink Uni's name, although I always wanted to know it), and after a few stamps and signatures, we were out the door and heading towards police headquarters. The policemen tried to make conversation on the way there, but I gave them short and unsatisfactory replies, too over-stimulated with the thought of seeing Vali again to bother with speech. The possible situations of our reunion flashed through my mind—would it be pleasant? Would she be traumatized? Would she be a different Pet than I remembered? Would she still be a Baby Skeith? All of these thoughts scrambled through my mind at their own respective frequencies, meshing together to form a mangled web of thoughts unsorted within my skull.
I entered police headquarters breathlessly, planning on the shock of seeing Vali at any moment. All my life had been boiled down to this moment—I no longer had to fill my head with superficial worries about the latest fashions and keeping up with what was in style. As a Red Quiggle, all of the vanity of my former life was shed away when my fur had been replaced with sticky skin. Left were only the important aspects of life: Vali, and the pursuit of honest happiness for the both of us. I couldn't help but fantasize the possible future of just the two of us, playing and laughing and surviving, answering to only ourselves.
It was the moment before they led me into the lobby that they warned me Vali would be there. It was decided they would go in first, talk to Vali for a moment, especially about the physical changes I had gone through, and then reveal me by signaling me to open the door by three knocks. I agreed, and waited anxiously behind the door, peeking between the cracks of the doorway and trying to catch a momentary glimpse of Vali. It was no use—the navy uniformed backs of the policemen obscured her from my sight.
Their time speaking to her was limited, but the anxiousness in my stomach stretched time to eternity. Finally, those long-awaited knocks came at the door, and I pushed with all my might against it, nearly knocking over one of the officers in the process. I leapt into the room, and searched about eagerly with my eyes.
She saw me before I saw her, and she made contact, too, before I could register her presence. Her arms were slamming right below my mouth—she had grown, far more substantially than I would have guessed, but even as a shorter Quiggle I dominated her in size. Instead of her infant clothing, she was dressed in something more appropriate for toddlers: corduroy overalls and a white shirt printed with Blumaroos at the collar. She grasped me tightly, squeezing me with all of the strength, which was not quite enough to throttle me, but to pinch my lower body with significance. I held her back, bending down slightly to grasp her with just as much feeling as she gives me. The reciprocation of the sentiment between us is divine, and I can feel her fluttery heartbeat against my own veins, and for a moment our hearts pump as one. We're reunited not just in person but in body, sisters at the soul.
When we pull back, however, so I can get a good look at Vali's face, there's something wrong. Instead of the bright smile I expect to overwhelm me, there's tears trailing down her pudgy cheeks. Startled, I wipe them away with my thumbs, petting the bald back of her head.
"Vali, what's wrong?" I asked, kneeling so I could look her straight in the eyes. "You look upset."
"Th-th-they're gonna cut 'im down!"
First of all, I was confused by the fact that she replied in words. I expected to be answered by nothing more than scant gurgles and sobs, as before she had been kidnapped she was without the ability to speak. What confused me more, though (after all, Vali learning to speak definitely wasn't a bad thing), was the statement that came from her newly formed vocabulary.
"Who's going to be cut down, Vali? Tell me."
"Th-th-the Brain Tree!" She fell into a fit of blubbering at this point, burying her face into my side. Tears leaked down on my skin from where she was crying, and I looked up at the police officers for an explanation.
"I should've told you up front, Princess," apologized the Chia police chief, holding his hands out in a gesture of asking for forgiveness. "The brains, so to speak, of this kidnapping operation turned out to be the Brain Tree. You probably know of the slew of complaints we always get about that snarky piece of rotwood, but this was the final nail in its coffin. We sent it a letter, informing it that it was to be chopped down today. We've already got some boys down there, finishing the job."
Vali began to sob even harder into my skin, her whole body falling into deep spasms with each outcry. "They're cuttin' 'im down! They're cutting 'im down!"
"Why is she so upset?" I practically mouthed to the Chia police chief.
"It's a kind of kidnapping syndrome. They grow affectionate to their captors, whether or not they treat them badly."
"She doesn't appear to be hurt," I say, more to myself than anyone else. I give Vali a thorough look-over, and unless there's evidence of abuse underneath her clothes, the Brain Tree seems to have left Vali well in-tact, physically. I look up to the Chia police chief, formulating a plan. "You think we could go and watch them cut it down? Maybe that would give Vali some sort of closure."
The Chia and I argued over Vali's miserable head about whether or not it was appropriate for Vali to see her kidnapper one final time. Eventually, though, my wants won out over the police chief's, if only by virtue of them being louder and more concrete. (The Chia police chief seemed hesitant to reveal all of the details of the case, and I traded off his secrecy on the matter for Vali to visit the Brain Tree.) When I asked Vali whether this was what she wanted or not, she nodded hastily, nearly shaking the tears out of her eyes.
We took the trip to the Haunted Woods by foot, making sure to follow the beaten path. (Vali claimed to know her way around some of the more obscure footpaths, but, escorted by the Chia police chief, we were encouraged to take ones that were known for their safety. Still, with his shiny Ultra Bubble Gun, I suspected the Chia police chief could've afforded to go on a more direct, if dangerous, path.) Soon, we heard a voice, obviously reading from a script, booming in the distance. As we got closer, words began to form from that voice, words proclaiming a judgment's verdict and the punishment about to be executed.
We quickened our pace, and soon the owner of the voice came into view: a Kacheek, a government official by the way he dressed, standing on a stump, addressing the Brain Tree. I had never seen the Brain Tree in real life (I had still been a true princess when the Haunted Woods were discovered, and had never any burning desire to visit such a spooky, slimy place), and it was even more horrible in person. Pictures didn't capture the way its orange brain glistened and throbbed periodically; the way its beady, wild eyes stared through, rather than at, me. Branches stuck out from its brain as if someone had lodged them there, and these branches were restrained, tied to the ground so the Tree, apparently, could not lash out. It looked infuriated, its eyebrows curved down in a scowl.
"He's sad, he's sad," insisted Vali, humanizing the Tree with a gender momentarily. I patted her on the head sympathetically as we took a protected place behind the Chia police chief. She was still so young, and had obviously been wrongly impressed by the Brain Tree.
The Kacheek had finished his long proclamation of the Brain Tree's ills, and stepped down from the tree stump solemnly. Simultaneously, a pair of Wockys on either side of the Brain Tree held a large saw between them, picking it up and putting it just beneath what served as the face of the Brain Tree. The Brain Tree, oddly, said nothing in its defense, watching the Wockys with its infuriated look. They brought the serrated edge against the bark of the tree and slowly began to move back and forth, as if rowing a boat through air. Instead of movement forward, though, their steady rocking made the bark on the Tree begin to give to the steel, inch-by-inch.
The Brain Tree did not scream—I imagine it had too much pride to go down like a common animal, wailing for its pathetic life. It squeezed its eyes shut, seeming to bear the pain. The sound of wood being sawed so slowly—the Brain Tree, we were informed by educated bystanders, was a hardwood tree, and had an unusually thick skin and interior—and I imagine it was agony for the Tree to see itself slowly being split in half. I felt no mercy for it, however, and rather agreed with some of the spectators who jeered at the Brain Tree's pained expression, seeming to enjoy the spectacle.
Vali seemed to be the only one in the crowd particularly stricken with grief by the experience—while I disliked seeing something undergo suffering, I reasoned that this was justified for the Brain Tree's delinquency. Yet Vali was nearly driven insane by being there, shouting and screaming and pulling at my arm anxiously, unable to be settled by conventional means.
I restrained her as best I could, with help from the Chia police chief, but she was a growing tyke—destined to be a muscular Grarrl at that--and had acquired strength over her period of absence that I hadn't accounted for. The Wockys were nearly three-quarters through the middle of the Brain Tree when Vali broke from our check, bursting out from the crowd and into the no-man's land between the police line and the Wockys, their faces emotionless and mechanical.
Up until this point, the Brain Tree had been in its own world, or so I presumed: its beady eyes were glazed over, or it looked towards the skies listlessly, as if it would alleviate its agony. It didn't see Vali lumbering in front of it at first, but its eyes refocused as soon as Vali let out a cry directly in front of it. It looked down from its trance, and the haze dissipated from its eyes—a look of almost elation came to its face, of surprised delight. It tried to hold out a branch to her, only finding itself breaking the bough due to its restraint so the branch was no longer long enough to reach Vali.
"Vali!" cried the Brain Tree, but its words were immediately muffled by a growling noise that came from behind it. The Wockys paused momentarily at this noise, and the crowd fell silent to listen. The growl grew louder then, as if someone was turning up the volume, or the source of it was getting closer. An emotion finally found the Wockys' faces—fear—and they looked about ready to abandon their posts. Sound seemed to be sucked out of the air around us as a horrible earthquake-like sensation trembled the ground—but it was no earthquake. One needed only to look behind the Brain Tree to see the commotion.
A blackness was formulating there—but it wasn't just a deep abyss. This utter absence of light had assumed a form: a form too terrible to describe. Suffice to say that it was a beast, the only differentiation from its top and bottom two red, burning eyes that hovering at the top of the pitch black cloud. It was expanding in size, consuming the Woods that lay behind the Brain Tree, erasing them from existence with an ease that chilled the bone. The crowd was petrified at its appearance, all cold with fear's sweat and yet paralyzed by it, rooted into the ground just as firmly as the Brain Tree. The prospect of disappearing just like the surrounding Woods was high in our minds, instilling more terror in us all than the specter itself.
The growl—now a howl—came to an ear-shattering climax, and, like a flock of birds formulating into attack position, the abyss streamlined itself for penetration. It surged up into the air, as if to disappear from us into the heavens, and then made an elegantly ominous arch, redirecting itself so it plunged towards us at sonic-boom speeds. The beast aimed itself towards the Brain Tree at last second, rather than the crowd, and dove into the Brain Tree's bark, seemingly, shaking the ground even harder as it did so. The Brain Tree turned momentarily black, its boughs scrambling in the air uncontrollably, as the beast plummeted into it, its eyes reeling backwards and its mouth baring its fangs against the whirlwind that surrounded it. The Wockys shrieked and retreated from the spectacle, both managing to get away without being sucked into the vortex.
The tail of the beast wiggled into the Brain Tree's cranium, and then everything suddenly dropped to silence without transition. Sound resumed around us, and the Woods continued to exist behind the Brain Tree—but the Brain Tree did not. The light that indicated life was extinguished in its eyes, and though not fully severed at the trunk, the upper portion of the Brain Tree had been destabilized. It began to tip backwards, slowly, and then fell into the brush and rocks behind it with a loud cracking noise, then fell into stillness. Stranger still was the smile that seemed to linger on the Brain Tree's lips, having not been there before the beast entered its body.
Everyone else seemed to contemplate on safety before approaching the Brain Tree's trunk and fallen body (now an elaborate log—its brain was beginning to wither and decompose in an accelerated fashion, revealing the long branches that lay underneath). Everyone, that is, but Vali, who ran to the Brain Tree's trunk amidst her sobs and threw herself dramatically on the many-ringed surface, letting her head fall into her arms.
I came next, feeling an obligation to protect Vali, even if I wasn't sure whether or not the beast had disappeared for good. I approached Vali from behind, putting a hand on her shoulder. She continued to sob, oblivious to my gesture of caring and soothing.
Around us, movement began. Empowered by Vali and me, the police began to approach to check to see that the Brain Tree really had been disposed of. The Wockys had disappeared, and the excess crowd began to follow suit, dispersing back to their own respective jobs and daily lives. Vali's world, it seemed, was the only one rocked in a negative way by the demolition of the Brain Tree, her shoulders seizing with every new sob.
Finally, she lifted her head, craning her neck around to look at my face. Neopets teemed around us, going about their government assigned duties, cleaning up the wreckage and beginning to remove the log—face dissolved back into the trunk and brai now fully evaporated—away from the site. Vali was looking at me with bleary, miserable eyes, sniffing periodically against congestion.
"It's snot fair, Ferny," she insisted, wiping her eyes furiously and only succeeding in making them redder. "It's snot fair."
I suddenly felt very old, wisened and jaded towards the world by my few years of living that I had over Ferny. I petted her gently but modestly, not imparting particular sympathy towards her pain. I knew she would have to overcome this hump, and to truly grow, she'd have to do it alone. I, too, had my own struggles, my own summits, that I still had to scale, and though we may suffer in parallel, we could never truly indulge in each other's agonies. To try and do so would only cause a stunting of each other's growth, and in the end, a robbery of our personal experiences. So I regarded her with distance and detachment, and comforted her the way a world-weary elder would.
"Welcome to Neopia, Vali. Welcome to Neopia."
I woke up to the sun, and I knew something was wrong immediately. It took me a while to reorient my thoughts, to gather all the occurrences of yesterday and apply them to what should've been happening today, but after quite contemplation in my bed, I realized that it wasn't just a feeling of foreboding I had—there really was something out of whack.
Miko, I knew, was an early riser, and whenever she and Chiitsuru were off to do something exciting, they would leave early and I would find myself to an empty house. Most of the time, this was a pleasant happening, and I relished these mornings blissfully alone. But the emptiness of the house was an omen that day. There was no coffee dripping from the kitchen, and I didn't hear Chiitsuru's shrill voice begging for Faerie Pancakes. Instead, I heard nothing.
Without bothering to get properly dressed, I rushed out of my bedroom and towards the inventory, bypassing the kitchen table on the way. I practically ripped the handle off the inventory opening it, my eyes lunging for where I had last put the guitar. That space was conspicuously empty, and with that, I began tearing through the drawer, desperate to find the guitar.
But it wasn't there. It wasn't under any of the excessive amounts of food items, and it wasn't under the ripped and decapitated toys that Chiitsuru had broken (and incidentally, made more valuable). Anxiety rushed through my body like a shot of adrenaline, and I cried out in dismay. Frantically, I turned to the kitchen table to find a note bearing Miko's handwriting. Hungrily, I picked it up and hoped for some indication that she had not done what I feared. It read in her tight, meticulous handwriting:
Dear Max,
Went to the Quest booth with the Moehawk guitar. Chiitsuru's been talking about being painted Faerie for quite some time now, and I—
I stopped reading as soon as I got into the second sentence. My hands automatically dropped the note, as if it were made of red coals. The anxiety I had felt earlier was replaced with disgust—complete revulsion towards my fibber for an owner. A fire began to rise in my gut, and I began adding the dry wood of internal monologue to that spark: she had promised me I'd get the paint job! I worked my butt off for those Neopoints, and all Chiitsuru ever did was sit there, watch the tube, and complain! Why did Miko always have to take his side, comply to his demands, when all I had was a modest, logical one? When was it going to be my turn?
I didn't even realize I was moving until I snapped out of fanning the flames of the rage inside of me. I was exiting the house and, for the first time in what felt like centuries, taking to wing. The eating right and walking places (compiled with the workouts I had done regularly while on vacation) had done well to get me in shape. For most Skeiths, lazy and obese, their wings become merely ornamental items signify the fact that they used to fly. But with my muscular wings and pectorals, along with a body lightened by exercise, I took off easily, heading towards that elusive castle in the clouds.
I had been to Faerieland on vacation, and as a result knew the layout of the kingdom. I doubted that Miko and Chiitsuru would still be handing over the guitar, so I centered my course straight for the Rainbow Fountain. Miko would not get away with this treachery, I vowed, the Fountain gushing multi-colored water becoming larger and larger in the distance.
The Wheel of Excitement and Faerie Petpet store passed under me. The fountain was only a few wingbeats away now, and I completed them successfully, dropping to the unstable cloud ground that held the Rainbow Fountain. It was a large Fountain, comprised of many different segments where various Pets could bathe, but only a select few owners congregated around it, a shining excitement in their eyes. The Fountain Faerie was tending to each of them individually, instructing them on how to use the baths. From what I could see, each individual tub had a faucet that could be turned to a variety of settings, turned on, and then the bath would be filled with that sort of transformative water. Then, it was all up to the Neopet to overcome their fear of water and dive in.
As it happened, the Fountain Faerie was tending to a very familiar Island Zafara and his owner at the moment. I approached from behind stealthily, listening in on the Fountain Faerie's speech in her sweet voice, so wasted on scum like Miko and Chiitsuru.
"… and then your lovely little Zafara can jump on it, and become his new color!" The Fountain Faerie beamed on them, displaying a perfect row of glittering teeth. I wondered if the Tooth Faerie herself inspected the Fountain Faerie's chompers. "And marvelous color choice on Faerie, by the way," said the Fountain Faerie with a wink. Miko said something inaudible to the Fountain Faerie that made her laugh, and then the mermaid split from them, on to help another quester.
I watched Miko and Chiitsuru fill the tub with all sorts of curse words brewing in my heart. I was tempted to dart forward and box Chiitsuru in the ears, then give Miko the guilt trip of her life—after Chiitsuru had bathed, of course.
But then, a revelation came to me. I needn't wait for them to complete their elaborate and heinous backstabbing at all. I could abort this treasonous operation by my own means, and a smile, for the first time that morning, dominated my countenance. As Chiitsuru prepared to belly-flop into the tub, I prepared my final revenge.
A burst of speed overcame my legs, and I was sprinting towards them as if to knock into them. Hearing the rustling sound of cloud behind them, Miko and Chiitsuru were momentarily distracted from the task at hand. Miko saw me, and recognized me (which was more than what I could say for Chiitsuru) and gave a shout, but she was too slow to react and stop me at my breakneck pace. This was the race I, the tortoise, had been training for, and now I was about to surpass my archrival, the hare—Chiitsuru.
I leapt. My back legs served as a perfect springboard, and I corrected for any bad aim of my launch in my wings. My body, a projectile, made a perfect arch in towards the pool. Time seemed to slow as I neared the surface of the Rainbow Fountain, watching the light purple water swirl beneath me. It reflected back my body to me in a quivering carbon copy, and I could see the wild and ineradicable smile stretched across my face. I was coming home, and I could see myself approaching, growing larger on the surface by the second.
I imagine the splash was gigantic, considering the baths were meant to be stepped into gently or jumped into by smaller Neopets—but I didn't have to feel the backlash of my impulse. I only felt the water all around me, cool and fresh, invading my nostrils and eyes but without my panic. I was submerged, and immersed in my change—I could feel my shifting features, and my skin pull back the veil of dull green to the color I was destined to be all along.
I was still for a moment, enjoying the sensation with every nerve in my body—and then I laughed, sending a fleet of bubbles up to the surface. To think, that pathetic, ugly teller Max the Skeith was bathing in the Rainbow Fountain, to emerge a butterfly from his chrysalis!
I waited for the feeling of transformation to cease—the instant was fleeting, but impressed itself upon my memory with a brilliance unequaled. Revitalized, I pushed from the bottom of the bath and into the air, exchanging the tranquil quiet of water in my ears for the chaotic and meaningful soundtrack of air. I opened up my wings and took to the air, thankful that I did not have feathered wings that would not allow such a swift escape.
I could hear Miko and Chiitsuru shouting after me—probably shooting phrases laden with curses after me—but it was easy to tune out their drone. I was above them now—both physically and metaphysically. It wasn't so much about the transformation, though it certainly contributed—who's ever seen a Faerie Skeith before? The transformation was only the top of the long mountain I had scaled from a valley of dejection to the peak of euphoria. It had begun that one night with the crash of the Ixi Potion—but now those glass shards floated on the tide with all the water under the bridge. I couldn't carry a grudge against Miko or Chiitsuru. For if they hadn't oppressed me, I would never have had the chance to revolt and find freedom.
I soared above Neopia—soared and watched humans and Neopets like cogs run about their daily lives, fretting over the insignificant. They wanted to be bigger than they were, desperately trying to scramble up the unsteady rope ladder of fame and wealth in Neopia. Perhaps if they only stopped a while, and looked to the sky, they could see a beacon of hope—of relief from the status quo—hovering right above their heads.
Because I wasn't concerned with the irrelevant anymore—the big things failed to intimidate, and the big things failed to irk. I flew above them with the effortlessness of a thermal. There was only one thing I needed to know, and keep dear to myself. Material items were worthless in the face of a new and permanent mantra:
I am Max the Skeith, and what a curious, radiant reality!