Chapter three: Gone with the blink of an eye.

It had been a few weeks since Orange had been born. She could now hover a little bit, but not fully fly.

Roxy had become more of a mother figure to Orange, she helped her along, taught her to read, and many other things. Sara had taught her how to draw, played with her outside and took her shopping. Mavis was still trying to keep up his tough krawk attitude, but with Orange it always seemed to melt away, he was trying to teach her to fly and how to sword fight, which was pretty hard for her but she did her level best.

She had hopped away for the day to go to the park and practice flying a bit. She had managed to get a little bit farther than hovering, actually flying on some rare gusts of wind. After a while she finally caught a gust of warm wind underneath her wings and began to slowly flap them, as she did she rose higher and higher into the air until...she was flying! Really truly flying! She chirped in joy as she leveled herself off to balance. After a while she was daring enough to try a trick she'd seen other Pteris do, a small little flip in the air. It didn't look too hard, but then again neither did flying.

She pumped her wings hard to gather some speed then adjusted her wings to tip up hoping to let the wind catch them and flip her onto her back. It did just that, except not the way she wanted. She hit the ground with an 'oof'.

"Ugh! Now it's going to take me forever to get back up into the air. Well at least Mavis will be happy to-", she was cutting off by someone close by laughing uproariously. She hopped up and turned to glare at the person.

But she did not find a person, just a tree and in that tree sat another pteri, a male fire pteri. He was sitting alone on a low branch with his left wing covering his beak, trying to muffle his laughter.

"What are you laughing at?!", Orange squawked at him.

His eye went wide for a moment when he noticed that she had noticed him. "Y-you...hahaha" he chirped from behind his wing.

"Why? What did I do to make you laugh at me!?", Orange said now hopping towards the tree.

"Hmm? Oh nothing much. I've been sitting here watching you this whole time and just when you tried to flip and fell straight to the ground, that was hilarious!", he said then took a deep breath to try and calm himself and moved his wing back down to his side.

"Oh! You are so mean! I'm a beginner, I don't know how to do all of this stuff! I'm still trying to get the whole flying thing down right.", she scoffed at him.

He simply looked at her for a moment then said, "Well, it's not that hard. I mean you are a pteri, with wings I might add, flying is your Adam given talent."

"Yea well, I don't exactly have a teacher any where, none of my siblings have wings. Plus! I just flew, you saw it!", she pointed to the sky with her wing tip.

"Yea, you flew. I saw it. You just didn't fly very well," he said as he flew off of the tree and landed right beside her. "I can teach you, I know a lot about flying. Do it everyday."

Orange gave him a look that said, 'Yea right'.

"I can, honest. If you want to learn from me that is."

"Will you laugh at me every time I fail?" she asked.

"No. Well maybe. Only if you mess up horribly-" he was cut off by her turning around and hopping away. "W-wait! With my teaching you won't mess up! So, no I won't laugh. I promise."

Orange turned to look at him, "Why do you seem so desperate to help me?"

"Uhh..well. You see I don't actually find a lot of other pteris to talk to. I don't have an owner, so I get kind of lonely." he admitted.

"Y-you don't have an owner?!" Orange squawked. She had never heard of such a thing, well other than the pets that ran the stores and things, but a lone pet?

"No. I'm a rogue pet. Always have been, well except this one guy did pick me up one time, for like a week. Painted me fire then sent me to the pound. When I saw where I was going I freaked out and flew off. Been on my own every since," he smiled, slightly proud with himself.

"Ok, fine. I'll let you teach me. But I don't want to be like a mooch or anything, I have plenty of food back at my house, come with me and you can eat. It looks like you haven't for a while," Orange said looking at his thinness and untidy feathers.

"Oh! That'd be great! Yea, it's kind of hard to get food without neopoints...My name is Parasadorna by the way. What's yours?"

"Nice to meet you Parasadorna, that's quite a mouth full. My name is Orange."

"Yea, I know. Long name. Well none the less it sounds cool."

Orange chuckled a bit and began to hop towards home. Parasadorna following.

They eventually made their way back to the house, slowly since Orange hopped all the way. "It's right around this corner, " she chirped, "Home sweet ho-" she stopped in shock as she rounded the corner.

Something was wrong. The house, it was covered with thick ice. She saw Neopian officials carrying out three very familiar pets, all covered in ice too. Sara, Roxy, and Mavis, covered in ice...what was going on?

Parasadorna landed beside her, "Oh crap. Orange we've got to get out of here quick!"

"No. I want to know what's happening to my home and siblings!" she said and started to hop towards the officials.

"No! Orange, I know what has happened. They're frozen." After Orange gave him a 'no duh' look by look at him then to the ice he said, "No, no. You don't understand! I mean like the bad kind of frozen. The kind where you can't come back frozen! They're a lost cause, you can't save them. I'll explain more later, but for now we have to get out of here. I'm sure if they see you too, they will freeze you in a heart beat!"

He grabbed her by the tail with a foot and lifted off. Carrying a confused and worried Orange with him they flew off to a far and safe place that Parasadorna had been staying.

That night somewhere deep in the forest of Mystery Island the sound of a weeping pteri could be heard. The sound would continue on through out the night.