A Time for Change?

by ZephrSurfer

It is a day I will remember like no other. Never has something so outraged me, saddened me, and so broken my self-esteem as it had. Change I have usually welcomed, no ALWAYS welcomed, until that horrible, rotten day.

I remember my owner, coming back to our house looking very upset about something. In fact, she was crying. I can recall asking her what was the matter. The response I got was not quite what I had expected.

"Oh, Zeph, Zeph, ZEPH! It's horrible! They... they can't! I'll protest to the Faerie Queen if I must! Never will I let them touch you!"

"I... I..." I stammered. I had no idea what was going on.

"Don't panic, Zeph! I'll make sure they get it through their fat Faerie heads that ZephrSurfer will never allow herself to be cursed so!" Then she flung her arms around my neck and cried, silvery drops sliding down my then navy-blue scales.

I was puzzled. What was going on was elusive to me. I reached up and ran my claws through my Mohawk-style hair. "It's OK, Freezair," I assured my owner (I had never been the kind of pet to call my owner "Mommy.")

"No!" she sobbed as she pulled away. "It WON'T be OK." Crying even harder, she stomped into the house. I knew she was going to tell my fellow pets what was wrong, but not me. I felt slightly hurt, but I knew it was probably for the better. It seemed to be affecting me, whatever it was that was wrong, and she didn't have the heart to tell me.

I was hurt, confused, and very, very scared as well. I knew that Freezair was probably right, that things WOULDN'T be totally OK. I fell asleep that night, holding my favorite Green Fuzzle, unsure of my fate.

But that was not the worse day of my life. That did not come till six days later. And that day was far more horrible than the one I have just described.

We were eating lunch. I remember what we were having... Bloatershrooms. They are some of my favorite food. They look a little weird, but they are some of the most delicious foods in the world. Even Baby_Marron, my Poogle fellow pet, would eat them, and believe me, there isn't much that she likes to eat.

I took a big bite out of my 'shroom. It was wonderful and tangy, and the texture was superb. A little bit spongy perhaps, but still superb.

"So," asked Infinice, my Kacheek friend, shakily, "How 'bout that new Battledome, ehh? Quiet a challenge, huh? Umm, heh heh..." She was shaky about something. I was curious as to what. I still did not know what had caused the commotion at my house six days earlier.

"Umm, yeah." replied Princess, the Chia in our group. "I just can't seem to win any fights!" She attempted to laugh, but it came out hollow sounding. They had been like this all week, so unsteady.

"Say, Zeph, will you, umm, pass the salt?" Freezair was eating a mushroom too. She usually ate whatever we did. Out of all my friends, she seemed to be the most upset. She had spontaneously burst out crying twice in the past six days. I was pretty sure she had even cried herself to sleep that first day.

I raised my eyebrow at the odd request. It may not seem odd at first, until you realized that there WAS no salt out on the table. She noticed this right away.

She was sweating now, and did a double take and glanced out the window. "Uh, pepper then?" she asked quickly.

"No pepper either," I told her.

She glanced at the window again, a massive sense of urgency pulsing on her face. "Oh for cripes sake," she said to me, her breath becoming very rapid and uneven, "JUST PASS ME SOMETHING!"

Suddenly, something, a horrible, great glowing green something, blasted through our window. It sliced though the air, and came spiraling, twisting, straight at me. It struck me with a devastating force.

Horrible, searing pain and heat rippled throughout my body. It felt like I was being ripped apart. I could hear horrible crunchings, and realized, with utter horror, that they were the crunchings of my own bones. My skin tingled and pricked, as if someone was sticking it full of pins, and I thought I could feel things growing out of it. My hands were becoming huge, lopsided, and clumsy, as well as my wings. Something began to emanate from around my neck. My jaws, my powerful jaws, they felt so weak, and they were becoming bigger, taking up at least half of my face. My eyes, I could feel them narrowing, and most of the weight on top of my head suddenly seemed to vanish, all in horrible pain.

The light vanished. I fell. My whole body seemed to be covered in electricity, though. I lifted my head. My horns... I could tell they were not there any more. My lovely scales... they had been replaced by something else, something far more vile and inefficient. My tail... where was my powerful crushing tail? My claws... they were now mere PAWS! I stared at the window where the beam had come though, and chanced to notice my own reflection...

I was not there.

Instead, in my place, there was some creature. Some creature. It had a giant, clumsy beak. It had ridiculous looking tuffs on top of its head. It had some sort of goofy mane around its neck. It had awful, clumsy wings that looked as if they couldn't fly an inch. And it had paws that looked horrible and dull.

This was the creature called Eyrie.

This was the creature that was supposed to be me.

Now, nearly a month has passed since the evolution of the Tatsus into Eyries. And still I am not used to what I have become. I know that there are some owners out there who, if their pet changed and they did not like the look, would abandon them right away, and I can be very thankful to Freezair for not doing so. Now, of course, others will disagree. "But look what it has done for their popularity! They used to be so unpopular, and now look! Near the top of the list!" Well, this may be true, but think of all the owners who grieved at the loss of their loyal dragon pets. Think of the owners like my Freezair who still are. In fact, think of when other pets have evolved. Remember when Tigrens became Acaras? I was not around then, but my owner knows people who were. And how many of their owners do you think were happy? Very few.

So the next time someone gripes about the new look of a pet, and you say something like, "Yeah, but everybody ELSE thinks it's cool," then consider this: The reason that particular person adopted that particular pet is because they liked them just the way they were, without them having to change. Bah!

The End