Part 5, Kyra the Old Faerie
"Ug! I just feel so old!" shouted Kyra.
"You are the pack elder Kyra." Emma pointed out.
"Yes I know, but I just want to feel younger!"
"You don't look that old." comforted the Uni.
"Yes, I do!" yelled the distraught Zafara. The arguing went on for a good fifteen minutes until Emma spotted something.
"What's that thing?" asked Emma while pointing to something pinkish off in the distance.
"Don't know, let's go check it out!" Kyra bounded off after it, happy for some excitement. She was getting quite bored of fighting with Emma.
The two walked up to the thing. It was brown and hard except for the end that was soft and the tip of the soft end looked wet. It also had purpleish-pinkish wings sprouting out of it. Kyra picked it up and touched the wet end. She blacked out for a few seconds and when she came to, she saw Emma staring at her with her mouth hanging open.
"Kyra?" asked Emma, mouth still wide open.
"What Emma?" Kyra asked, quite confused.
"Take a look at yourself in the water." Emma's eyes showed her amazement.
Kyra walked up to the river and looked in. She stared, now with her mouth open too. "I, I, I'm a faerie!" Kyra stared at her reflection, now speechless with amazement. Emma then taught Kyra how to fly with her new wings. "Wow, this is so cool! In all my years as being the pack elder, I've never done anything like this! Let's go back and show the pack!" Kyra was showing off her new wings by doing loop-de-loops in the air.
On the way back, Kyra heard something like water splashing. She told Emma and when Emma heard it too they ran (or rather flew) to the lake, where the noise was coming from.
When they got to the lake, they found a Christmas Zafara out in the middle of the lake, and she was splashing around and drowning. Without thinking, Kyra flew off to the Christmas Zafara and grabbed her by the paw. She had to work to fly the other Zafara off to Emma and the safety of dry land.
Once on land, Kyra panted and let the water drip off of her newly purple fur for a moment, then turned back to the Christmas Zafara. With a little help from Emma and Kyra, she quickly gained consciousness.
"You OK?" Emma asked.
"I'm good." the Christmas Zafara panted as she stood up.
"Uh, I meant Kyra, but that's good too."
"I'm fine." Kyra shook off the water that was still dripping off her purple fur. "I'm Kyra and this is Emma. Who are you?"
"My name's Moon, thanks Kyra. Well, I'd better be going." Moon was ready to take off already.
"Wait, don't fly off so soon, you won't stick around at all?" Kyra took Moon's paw as the white colored Zafara started to fly. Moon agreed to stick around and meet their pack, so they headed off to the den.
When they finally got near the den, Moon flew up high, always on the lookout for predators.
"What's up?" Emma asked from the ground, Kyra right at her side.
"Turn back! There are Lupes ahead and they look like they're getting ready to hunt!" Moon yelled from way above the heads of Kyra and Emma.
"Oh no!" Kyra yelled, looking rather distraught.
"Kyra, it's just Dragon and Raven. No one's gonna chase us." Emma reassured the nervous Faerie Zafara.
"No, not that, we're supposed to pup sit the cubs! That's why they haven't left yet!" Kyra finished telling Emma why she was so nervous before she flew up to Moon, ready to explain to her that their pack consisted of both herbivores and carnivores.
Back at the den, Dragon was pacing angrily in front of his hunters. "Where are they? They know today's their day to pup sit! We can't hunt until they get here!" he half yelled. He then saw two Zafaras flying a little ways off. "Never mind, Classique, you pup sit with Miricle. The rest of us will hunt. If they get back, leave the cubs with them and catch up with us. Let's go!" he then howled loudly to signal the start of the hunt.
"They're on the move? But who's watching the cubs?" Kyra asked herself as she landed with the calmed Moon.
"Don't know, I'll go fly ahead and check it out." Emma was the fastest of the three (considering that Kyra just got her wings that morning and Moon had almost drowned) so she flew ahead to check on things.
The two Zafaras walked towards the den and quickly ran into Dragon and his hunters. A purple streak leapt out of the bushes and onto the path of the Zafaras. The two herbivores jumped in surprise, yelling so loud they probably woke the dead. "Oh Dragon! It's you! You guys almost gave me a heart attack!" Kyra's heart rate slowly returned to normal. Instead of laughing, wagging their tails and telling Kyra they accidentally mistook her for food, the whole hunting party came out of the bushes, bearing their fangs, Lupes and Gelerts growling. "Don't you recognize me? It's me, Kyra!" the hunters growled louder and Dragon moved his head, signaling to the girls.
Kyra's eyes opened wide, finally understanding. "Moon, by pack doesn't recognize me! Stay close, I've seen them hunt before and I know their tactics." Kyra was quite freaked out by this time. She waited until Saphire, Guin and Jema were leaping at her before taking to the air, Moon following. Guin sniffed and stopped in mid-jump but that didn't stop Saphire and Jema. As the two Zafaras flew up, Hermies and Jema chased them, while Shadow ran back to the den.
They flew higher and higher, dodging the Kougras attacks every flap of their wings. Dragon and the other non-flying pets could only watch from the ground. At one point Moon aimed a kick at Jema, which would have knocked the Kougra out if it had hit her, but Kyra threw her foot in front, hurting her own foot but breaking the flow for Jema. Because Jema closed her eyes as the kick was aimed, she didn't even know that she had been helped by the very pet she was trying to hunt down.
Kyra was flying higher and higher, now separated from Moon thanks to the kick sending them in different directions (never underestimate the power of those Zafara hind-legs), Jema right on her tail. Kyra saw a yellow and purple blur out of the corner of her left eye, but before she could figure out what it was she was rammed into by Miricle. She quickly lost control of her new wings and went spiraling downward. When she tried to open her wings, she realized that when you're falling backwards, it's really hard to spread your wings. The ground was so far down that if she hit, there was no way she could survive. Moon saw this but couldn't bread away from two Kougras and a Gelert, that had now turned all their attention on Moon. As the ground-bound Zafara plummeted, all the carnivores licked their lips.
All of a sudden, a familiar voice popped up in Dragon's head. "My son, go with what you think is right and your loyal pack will follow."
"Yes father." Dragon nodded quietly, only slightly surprised to remember his father's advice at that time.
"What dad?" Twinkle asked, though she never got a response. When she returned her attention from where her father had been to the falling Zafara she saw her father running towards Kyra.
Just before Kyra hit the ground, Dragon jumped up and caught her by the scruff of her neck. (My more loyal readers might remember Winds doing this to Fudger in my Pound story.)
"Dragon! How did you figure out it was me?" Kyra happily yelled, using her new wings to break out of his mouth and hover next to him.
"First off, it smelled like you, second you knew our names, third you saved Jema, fourth you seemed like you couldn't fly well and fifth, just a hunch. Who's the other Zafara?"
"She's my new friend Moon. Can you call off Hermies, Jema and Miricle? They could hurt each other."
"Hermies! Jema! Miricle! Stop, that's Kyra's new friend!" Dragon howled from the ground. Unfortunately the flying hunters were so high up that they couldn't hear his howl. That was Kyra's cue to take to the air. She flew up to them and yelled at Moon, telling her to just drop. Moon was terrified, but she trusted Kyra enough, and fell. The three Faerie pets turned to Kyra and started chasing her again. She dove downward, this time in control of her new wings.
Just before Moon hit the ground, Twinkle jumped up and caught the Zafara, just like her father, setting Moon down gently. The three flying hunters saw this, and realizing that the hunt was off, turned around and descended, landing near Dragon. Just then, Emma arrived with Classique, Shadow and the cubs. "What happened here?" Emma demanded.
"Yeah, what is going on?" Hermies yelled, quite confused.
Kyra explained what had happened that day, clarifying everything. When she was done, Dragon was the first to speak. "So Moon, I saw that kick you aimed at Jema."
"Hate to cut in but thanks Kyra." Jema quickly blurted out.
"As I was saying, you've got a pretty powerful kick there. Do you have a pack?"
"No, actually, I'm all alone." Moon scuffed her foot in the grass.
"You do now." Dragon smiled. Kyra and Moon both gave him a big hug around his neck.
AN: OK, I admit that in a real Lupe pack the would only have carnivores, SO SUE ME! I guess I was being overly creative (if there is such a thing) when I was writing this (a few years ago, somewhere around 2002). I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain something, at dinner time, two herbivores pup-sit the cubs and petpets while all the other herbivores graze and the hunters go out and hunt. When the hunters get back they feed the pups and petpets while the two herbivores playing pup-sitter for the night quickly go out and eat.
P.S. AN: Many of you are probably wondering why I misspelled many of the names, and yes, I do that on purpose. One, so that when I have other charichters with the same name in other stories, people don't get them confused, so when I spell Sapphire, it means one of my pet's petpets, and when I spell Saphire, it means the Lupe. Two, I'm such a terrible speller, I probably misspelled their names when I originally wrote this, but I guess the original names kinda grew on me, so I kept my original (and bad) spelling.