Flamewhisper slinked down the stairs on creamy velvet
paws, his hazel eyes slightly drawn with weariness. The Faerie Gelert had just
woken up and was still a bit drowsy. Yawning, he adjusted his silky wings on
her back. They always felt a bit cramped when he awakened in the morning.
He was a bit of the odd one out in his family.
All of his siblings were...well "special". His Aisha brother could work magic.
Teikobou the mutant Lupe was an ancient warrior, and Kiiarai the baby Eyrie
was a drop out from Meridell's battle school. As for Flamewhisper, he had no
interesting history or any kind of unique talents. He had been created by his
owner after his siblings had been adopted.
The reason he had been named Flamewhisper was
because his owner, Trinket, had been planning on painting him fire. When she
created him she had the paint brush ready and everything, but when they reached
the rainbow fountain he had declared that fire did not suit him and he wanted
to be a different colour. The whole family was surprised when Flamewhisper chose
to be painted faerie. Kiiarai had rolled her eyes and announced that Faerie
was a GIRL colour. His two brothers were indifferent and didn't really care.
Trinket didn't complain, she just sighed and did as he wanted. Honestly, Flamewhisper
didn't actually care if faerie was a "girl" colour. He thought it suited is
peaceful outlook on things, unlike fire, and didn't believe that certain colours
were for certain genders of pets.
Finally he reached the kitchen of their tiny
NeoHome and he padded softly up to his owner Trinket who was busily cooking
up some breakfast. Trinket was a dragon hybrid, ebony wings extended from her
back and she possessed long clawlike hands.
"Trinket?" Flamewhisper asked quietly looking
up at his keeper placidly. "May I go to the Coffee Shop? I want to get some
work done on a poem I'm working on, and it's the perfect atmosphere to do so."
The Gelert's main passion in life was writing. He loved to write poetry and
sometimes stories. He was a very philosophical thinker and liked to put his
thoughts into works of poetry. It was his dream to one day pluck up the courage
to perform his poetry at the coffee shop.
"Sure. Don't care," was Trinket's indifferent
reply, sometimes the dragon hybrid could seem a bit brash, but Flamewhisper
knew how much she really cared about them.
"Thanks Trinket," Flamewhisper responded
cheerfully, placing his beret on his head. It had two holes in the top so his
long ears could stick through.
"Bye Whisp! Have fun!" Kiiarai, his little Eyrie
sister, exclaimed with a broad grin through a mouthful of NeoFlakes. Whisp was
her nickname for him. He was quite fond of it. Flamewhisper waved in return
before picking up a load of papers in his paws along with a feather quill pen.
Then he eased his way out of the door and headed towards the art centre.
***
"Thou hath summoned me?" Shekspear, a Robot Aisha, asked with a perfectly serious
expression on her face as she faced her owner. The young man tried to keep a
blank expression but broke into laughter anyway.
"Shek, you're a nut!" The man told her with a
broad good-natured grin as he ran his hand through his short brown hair. His
name was Razi, but he was better known as the "silver monkey" because of his
long silver monkey tail.
"Oh, I know," she replied with a slight
lopsided smile on her face. The Robot Aisha may have been a bit of a jokester,
but she was very serious when it came to acting and drama. She always dramatised
everything. She was also not too bad with a set of bongos.
"Well, I wanted to ask you. You're heading out
to the Coffee Shop, Right?" Razi asked his Aisha, expecting an affirmative answer.
Which he quickly received in the form of a nod. "Good, Think you could do me
a favour?"
"Sure, Why not? What is it Razi?" Shek asked
with a twitch of her long spindly earstalks, her neon red eyes focused on her
keeper's face.
"You know Trinket? That dragonlady I met a little
while ago? Well, She has a new Gelert who's a bit of the oddball in her family
and he doesn't have too many friends. He spends most of his time alone at the
Coffee Shop, I was wondering if you'd talk to him?" Razi asked hopefully.
"Of course. You know how much I like hanging
out with other folk like me!" Shek told Razi with a laugh, a twinkle in her
eye. He knew she meant that she was an oddball as well, and quite proud of it.
"I'll be happy to introduce myself to him. I'll head down there right now, and
perhaps I'll bring Bit." Bit was Shek's best friend. His full name was hasarighttobebitter.
He, like her, was also very interested in acting along with poetry. Shek had
a feeling the three of them would get along quite well.
"Thanks Shek, I really appreciate it," Razi
told her sincerely. "Now I'm off to go fetch Lrai and Koyashi from the Magic
Shop!" he said, referring to Shekspear's two siblings. A Mutant Scorchio and
a Shadow Uni prospectively.
"And I'm off to the Coffee Shop!"
***
Flamewhisper dumped all of his papers onto an empty table in the coffee shop.
Then took a moment to adjust the beret on his head. He then wandered over to
the counter.
"Hello there, how may I help you?" the Shoyru
who tended the coffee shop asked in an easygoing manner, her long thick eyelashes
flicking up and down.
"Can I get a house blend coffee with cream?"
Flamewhisper replied politely as he pushed his pouch with the NP given to him
by Trinket onto the counter. The Shoyru smiled serenely in response as she whirled
around to make his cup of coffee. That was when Shekspear and Bit arrived.
"Greetings Friend!" Shek had a huge grin plastered
across her face as she sauntered up to Flamewhisper, her bongos hanging around
her neck on a thin brown cord.
"H-Hello..." Flamewhisper replied in an uncertain
voice as he warily looked at Shek and the Faerie Ixi beside her. Friend?
he wondered to himself. I don't even know them...
"I'm Bit, and this over-exhubrent one here is
Shekspear but we all call her Shek for short," the Faerie Ixi explained
calmly to Flamewhisper. "Shek's owner is friends with yours and told us we'd
find you here." Shek nodded vigorously in agreement.
"Oh?" This surprised Flamewhisper, he couldn't
see Trinket asking one of her few friends to send out their pets to hang out
with him. Besides, he liked it better alone, he didn't need anybody else...
"Here's your coffee. Enjoy! That'll be 165 Neopoints,"
the Coffee Shop Shoyru announced cutting off his train of thought as she slid
the mug of coffee in his direction.
"Thank you very much," Flamewhisper said
graciously as he handed over the Neopoints The Shoyru's face lit up cheerily
as she went to go serve the next person.
"Anyway," Shek, the Robot Aisha continued.
"I heard you write poetry."
Flamewhisper froze, he didn't want anybody to
see his poetry. At least not yet. It was private. His own emotions. Nobody else
would understand or appreciate it. They would tease him. They would say it wasn't
well-written. They would say it was bloody awful.
"I write poetry too, and well, Shek and I were
wondering..." Bit's voice drifted off as he exchanged glances with Shek who
picked up where he left off.
"If you'd start a Poet Society with us. We both
wanted to have weekly poetry readings here at the coffee shop, and we thought
it would be neat to start a little group of people interested in writing and
listening to poetry. You dig?" Shek explained to Flamewhisper. "I can play Bongos
and provide the beat to the Poetry readings, I also write a bit myself although
I prefer Acting to writing poetry," Shek added with a slightly shrug of
her shoulders.
"And we could all help each other out and give
each other suggestions on how to improve our works. I think it would be a really
good experience for us all," Bit told Flamewhisper. "We could invite other
pets too who enjoy poetry and what not."
Flamewhisper blinked dumbly. He was just thinking
something like this would be a dream come true this morning. Now that it had
happened so abruptly he didn't know what to think. All he knew was that now
he did want to share his poetry. It was odd. He felt as if he could trust these
people with reading or listening to his inner most feelings. He could not comprehend
how he could make such a decision so quickly, all he knew was that he could.
That these Neopets were ones he liked, and appreciated. Most of all they were
like him.
"I would like that very much," was his response
to the whole thing. "Having other people help me with my poetry would be wonderful,
and having get togethers would be even better."
"Glad you agree!" Shek beamed. "Want to start
planning some things? Like when our little group can meet and such? I could
also teach ya how to play the bongos. We can all teach each other everything
we know!"
"Sounds absolutely wonderful!" Flamewhisper replied
enthusiastically.
"I told you we'd be able to do this Shek,"
Bit said with a laugh.
"I never doubted you buddy." Shek grinned sheepishly.
"Just wasn't so sure we could convince this guy so easily!"
"I have feeling that this is a beginning of a
very good friendship," Bit said with a sincere smile on his face as he
sat around the small table with other two.
There were nods of agreement all around.
The End | 
