-1Chapter 13
"Hm?" Falkor halted his movements, almost throwing the switch to melt the snow. "That must be them, they haveta' be freezin' their tails off by now," Falkor pondered briefly to himself as he got up and rushed to the door. What he saw on the otherside astonished him,
"P-P-Pandora? I-Is that you?" He questioned the arctic pretztail on the other side, if that was Pandora he surely liked the change.
Melony completely ignored the fudgehog's question, "you've gotta help them!" She begged for Falkor help while pointing to Jorelo and Pandora, not even looking at them. Without waiting for an answer, she swiftly turned around and ran towards the nearly frozen duo.
Melony grabbed Jorelo by the arms, who still had a decent grip on Pandora, and wasted no time dragging him to the doorstep. It didn't take Falkor long at all to help Melony pull the two into the house and close the door, cutting off the cold air. Melony searched the house all over for blankets, but Falkor grabbed her before she had gone into the hallway.
"That's no place for you," Falkor scolded her, but he was shocked by how warm Melony was despite being out in the snow for hours, "…Let me handle it- Just grab a seat and relax," Falkor sat back down in front of his faithful machine and Melony had followed him like a lost dog. The careful fudgehog deleted the past commands and focused on warming up Jorelo and Pandora.
Melony had gotten lost in its blinking lights, the moving gears, the whole machine itself captivated her. She had never came close to seeing technology this advanced before.
Falkor now started typing in the code for Jorelo and Pandora to return to normal body temperature. He pulled the switch and hoped for the best. After the machines humming died down, Melony and Falkor turned to face the two cold piñatas. Pandora was the first one to wake up, she soon took notice that she was lying in Jorelo's arms and giggled a bit. Her laughter had woken Jorelo up, and eventually the dazed fudgehog realized that he was still holding on to Pandora from behind.
"Ah!" Jorelo shouted and quickly released her.
"Aww, I didn't mind really," Pandora admitted as they both pulled themselves up, they realized that they weren't alone. Pandora's face had instantly flushed as she saw Falkor and Melony trying to hold in their laughter. Pandora wouldn't hit a fellow female but she would gladly gave Falkor a good beating or two, but she was somewhat beat herself.
"…So, where are the bedrooms here?" Jorelo asked, rubbing his sleepy eyes as Pandora yanked him by the paw and led him to the hallway, it was the first door on the right and right across from the bathroom.
"I'm gonna get rid of the snow before I go to bed guys," Falkor announced, but only Melony responded.
"…Alright" The depressed pretztail sighed as she knew her home was built from pure snow, and if the snow were to melt, so would her home. Unfortunately, before she could speak up, Falkor had already pulled the switch and suddenly Melony's life flashed before her as she unexpectedly fell down and started to howl in pain as her body shook violently.
"Huh? Are you okay?" Falkor shouted to the pretztail who was having a seizure over the floor. All the commotion caused Jorelo and Pandora to rush back into the control room to see what the problem was.
"Melony!" Jorelo yelled as he rushed to her aid. Falkor glanced over at the dark fudgehog and raised an eyebrow.
"That's her name? Falkor wondered as Pandora glared at him, her face filling up with bitter anger. She began to rip him a new one. "She's going nuts and all you can think about are names?"
"Well I didn't know her name!" Falkor defended himself, "she just started doing this just as I started to melt the snow," Jorelo had gotten the idea that the machine must have done something that was harming Melony's life. The dark fudgehog ran to turn it off as Pandora fell to her knees and tried to calm Melony down. Jorelo lifted the switch, the clunk it made caught Falkor's attention.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Falkor scowled as both the machine and Melony had cooled down.
"Your matter creator here almost killed Melony," Jorelo pointed out with a stinging glare, believing that Falkor should have known better. Melony returned to breathing normally again, let out one soft pant after the other as Pandora did her best to console the shaken pretztail. The pink pretztail slowly brought Melony to a sitting position.
"Pan….dor…a… What, happ….ened?" Melony forced herself to speak as the wind was knocked out of her. Pandora hugged Melony gently.
"Just Falkor being an idiot, you'll be fine," Pandora stroked Melony's hair. However the name wasn't familiar to Melony. Too tired to think about it, she sighed and fell into a sleepy darkness.
Jorelo stared out through the window, most of the snow disappeared, but still some puddles, mush, and mounds of the melted stuff were left to evaporate away by itself.
How could Melony's attack have been related to the machine melting the snow? Did Melony herself hold some connection to the snow? Did the matter creator end up accidentally creating the pretztail while it materialized the snow… Randomly created? Jorelo had kept the ideas all to himself. Unfortunately, the thoughts eventually led the fudgehog to the fact of his own artificial creation, and it wasn't that different to Melony's.
"I'm sorry…" Falkor apologized to Pandora, wishing she'd forgive him for his honest mistake, however he had only received another tongue lashing from her.
"Don't apologize to me, apologize to Melony," Pandora growled as she was becoming more of a jerk. Falkor didn't like her attitude, but he guessed Pandora and Melony must have created some kind of bond that Falkor didn't see.
"Tch, should have guessed Pandora was gay for her," Falkor aimed to cheer himself up with mockery, but he was somewhat fond of Melony so he took the comment back knowing it was also pointed at Melony. Now that he thought about it, that's all that he was good at: Hurting people. The illusion drove Falkor into a deep depression. Both Jorelo and Falkor had gone off to grab something to out of the mini-fridge by the hallway only to retreat to their bedrooms soon after.
Falkor would have offered to look after Melony, but Pandora certainly wouldn't have allowed it. Instead, Pandora carried Melony to her and Jorelo's room, she saw the fudgehog was already dead asleep on her bed. It was a queen sized bed made for their size, so only two piñatas could comfortably fit on the bed. Pandora didn't want to squeeze in three piñatas on there, she had decided she would let Melony sleep on her side of the bed and Pandora herself would be sleeping on the recliner in the corner.
Pandora kept a watchful eye over Melony as long as she could before her tiredness had consumed her. Jorelo, Falkor, and Pandora were fast asleep as the minutes past them by. However Melony had woken up a couple of hours later. Aware that she had been moved, the arctic pretztail scanned her surroundings intensely.
Jorelo was laid out next to her and Pandora was sleeping on the recliner, her upper body was slumped over onto an arm of the recliner. The sleeping pretztail was snoring moderately, but not loud enough to really wake anyone up.
Melony snuck silently out of bed and into the hallway. The curious pretztail journeyed deeper into the hallway and walked to the door nearest to hers and gently pushed the door open. The room inside was exactly the same as the one she found herself in, the only difference was that Pandora and Jorelo were replaced with just Falkor. For some reason, Melony felt more comfortable around Falkor. Maybe the reason was that she mistook Falkor as an arctic fudgehog because of his colors.
The stealthy pretztail slipped into his bed without a sound. Knowing there was plenty of room on the bed, she respected his space and slept near the edge. Falkor however, was hogging nearly all of the blanket for himself. Though it didn't really matter to Melony, she was used to the cold being an arctic pretztail and all. Plus just being with Falkor was enough to warm her up inside. She fallen asleep in just moments.
Jorelo had returned to his previous dream. He was lying on the floor after his recent spill at home, Pandora was already at his side. Malak stayed in his seat, not really wanting to get involved with the situation anymore.
"Jorelo, are you okay?" Pandora helped the dizzy fudgehog sit up. The fuss was interrupted by a few firm knocks on the front door.
"I'll get it!" Malak offered and sprang from the couch. He now had a reasonable distraction from the problem that had face him moments ago. The rapping on the door was still constant as Malak ran to the door, not wanting the stranger to wait any longer. The mallowolf opened the door with a false grin on his face, but the guest on the other side had made it disappear in a blink of an eye.
That guest was Falkor, and both were very uneasy at this moment. Falkor would have thrown a good insult or two at Malak, and Malak would have easily gave Falkor a good bruise on his other cheek to compliment the first one, however there were other people around, and they would have broken up the two's fight before it had even started.
"Uh… Is Jorelo available?" Falkor asked the mallowolf without giving him any eye contact, "I need to talk to him," Malak understood and let Falkor in without saying a word. Falkor would have pushed Malak out the door and locked him out, but now was not the time. He went in anyways and spotted Jorelo sitting up in Pandora's arms, Jorelo was slightly unaware of Falkor's presence. Pandora however, was fully aware of Falkor.
"Falkor! What ar-" She shouted at him, but Falkor cut her off.
"I came by to say I'm sorry, that's it," he announced while approaching Jorelo. He stooped down to his level, "I'm sorry, okay, I..I…," he would have told them why, but Malak was in the room and he didn't think it wasn't a good idea to spill the beans just yet.
Malak began feeling as tense as Falkor was. Certainly Malak would be at loss of words if Falkor were to say the truth to Jorelo, but Jorelo was still trying to get a clear picture of what was stooping down in front of him. Jorelo's markings began to glow again, it sent a deep chill down Falkor's spine. Eventually driving the uneasy fudgehog to leave without saying a word.
Malak had to keep his emotions locked up even as Falkor walked out the door. Once he was gone, Malak had let out a sigh of relief as he closed the door, grateful that Falkor didn't go on about his reasons for inflicting pain onto Jorelo.
"That was nice of Falkor to say that," Pandora smiled slightly, "I'd never think he'd do that…" She couldn't keep Jorelo sitting up like this for long. "…Malak, can you help me get Jorelo back in bed, he shoulda' been resting," the pretztail asked him, looking over her shoulder at Malak.
The mallowolf easily noticed that Pandora was struggling to keep the fudgehog from falling back onto the floor. Malak had walked to Pandora's aid and picked up Jorelo like he did the first time and brought him into bed, and of course with Pandora following him all the way there.