Who Will Love Me Now, Who Could Love Me?

by merlin775

My name is al_poh. That’s like Edgar Allen Poe except without the Edgar and al instead of Allen. I am a Mutant Moehog. Now I’m here looking out into the world with all its wonderful paintbrushes and codestones and I am forced to laugh at the mere cruelty of it all. You see, I didn’t used to be like this, nope, I was once a normal pet.

***

My ex-owner, Remmus, made me. I was his first pet. We had lots of fun, we made an amusement park for me to play in and I was taking frequent lessons at the island training school. I even had a Meekins named Zechariah. Yep that was the life.

I imagine I must have lived about two months with Remmus before he took me to the pound. My heart beat faster and my hooves were sweaty in that instant when we stood between the 'adopt’ and ‘abandon’ doors. But Remmus went to the left, to adopt, and I was calm again. I didn’t know then that I was fated to make another trip to the pound, one where I would not be so lucky. We went into the room, it was squeaky clean and smelled of bleach. It reminded me of a prison then and in a way it did imprison so many pets. We wandered the rows of cages, not exactly knowing what we wanted.

“Here you are my little cup cake!” Remmus practically squealed. He bent down to a low cage with a white fur ball inside. “I’ll have the white Wocky,” Remmus called to the Uni in attendance.

I looked suspiciously at the Wocky, the thing looked like bad news to me. We took the Wocky, named Sapphire, home. I thought how much she looked like her name. Luxurious and spoiled beyond comprehension. As dangerous as she was beautiful, I knew there was something more behind those deep blue eyes than there appeared.

Well that Sapphire was bad news from the beginning and I knew it. She had Remmus completely at her will. He devoted his time to doing her every whim and command. I was quietly moved out of the spotlight, replaced by that evil scheming Wocky

Everything went pretty well for a few months. I was no longer the apple of my owner’s eye but I did still have a family and I knew how bad it could be. That is until one morning when I came down to breakfast and Remmus and Sapphire were conversing in rapid quiet speech.

“What’s up guys?” I asked looking at them curiously.

My sister glanced at me evilly out of the corner of her eye.

“Um, Al, we’re going to go for a trip to the village today, okay?” Remmus said. Something wasn’t right and I knew it but I went along with the way things were going anyway.

“All right!” I said, “I’ll get my coat.”

So off we went to the village we stopped and got some breakfast from a local’s shop then continued to the Shop Wizard.

“One Moehog Transmogrification Potion please,” Remmus ordered the old man.

“Right over there,” the Wizard said, "550 Neopoints.”

“Thank you,” Remmus finished and moved on.

This can’t be good, I thought, a Moehog potion can only be for one pet… me!

“Now this won’t hurt a bit Al, but your sister wanted to know what one of these would make happen,” Remmus told me as he forced the liquid down my throat. I was on my back looking up into Remmus’ eyes and I knew I couldn’t hate him for what he was doing. Those weren’t his eyes, those were the eyes of someone brainwashed by my evil sister. That cat knew exactly what would happen, this was all part of her plan. So I could only hate her. My skin turned and I became an ugly beast.

“Ug!” I heard Remmus say. My sister cackled. She looked at me and her eyes said it all. You won’t be going home again. You’re going to the pound, for the last time. I knew she was right. An hour later I was in the pound, Zechariah lay next to me snoring and sleeping fitfully. He had whined for about half an hour before resigning himself to sleep. How could everything have gone so wrong when not so long ago all was so right?

***

Yep, here in the miserable depths of the pound I lay. My skin is mottled and wrinkly and my eyes are empty and weak. I still have Zechariah but he’s not the same, all the fire has gone out of him. I do have it better than many pets here. My cage, ever the bane of my existence, is near the window. So I can see all the pretty pets outside going by and laughing at me. Things couldn’t get any worse and I knew it, but I didn’t think they were going to get better either.

*Ding Dong* Hmmm, wonder who that could be, we haven’t had a visitor in this part of the pound for weeks. “Look Jeremy, let’s see what we have here,” a girl said coming around the corner onto our row of cages. She was very lively and obviously had no worries about the way she dressed. Her clothes were comfortable but somewhat out of date.

A blue Korbat was hovering around her shoulders chattering incessantly. “Oooh, lookie there Merlin, lookie at that one Merlin,” it babbled.

“Hush LilJermey, they’re not monkeys on display, they’re pets just like you,” the girl chided.

It made my heart swell for someone to speak so kindly of me and I hoped she might pay some notice to the Mynci in the cage above mine for I had found him to be very kind. I had no thoughts at the time that she might pick me. However, as she came alongside my cage she stopped and looked at me.

“Whoa, you’re ugly,” the Korbat said.

The girl gave him a bop on the head that set him spinning in air and a mean look. I shriveled up in my cage, away from the prying eyes.

“Hi big guy,” she said, "How long have you been here?”

“About a year I think,” I mumbled, “Take the Mynci. He’s really very nice.”

“Oh, but I like you,” she said her pretty voice rang in my ears the words I had waited to hear so long. In the same type of whir and rush that I had come in I was leaving the pound.

“C’mon,” she said, “You need some food in you.”

We went to the store and ate like I hadn’t in a year. Zechariah stuffed himself too and was soon taunting the Korbat, a game he seemed to love.

“Where are we going now?” I asked as we set out again.

“To a different sort of pound,” Merlin said, “I think you’re going to like this one.”

We soon arrived at our destination and I found that I was indeed going to like this pound. It was an adoption guild where there were other pets for me to play with and I was fed really good food every day. I talked to Merlin a lot and learned that her full name was Merlin775. I also learned more about the other pets at the pound, act_chikeny, musilam_bob, nimster555, and of course, LilJermey the Korbat who never shut his pie hole. I spent a lot of time at The World Around Us Adoption Agency and Shelter. It was a wonderful place founded by Miss_Blackcat. However, a pound is still a pound and I once again began to long for a family of my own. That deep longing inside of me that I had harbored while in Neopia’s Pound had been only suppressed the agency, not completely quelled.

***

One day Merlin walked in with the biggest smile I had ever seen her have. She went over to the counter and began to fill out papers. Oh boy, I thought, someone’s being adopted.

“Well al, ready to go home?” she asked.

I was speechless, what could I say; someone had actually adopted al_poh the Mutant Moehog.

“Wh... who,” I stuttered unsteadily.

“Me,” she smiled, “you’re coming home with me and you’re going to meet my pets and ya’ll are all going to be brothers and sister.

We walked home to 867 Winding Wood Drive, Neopia Central. There I met SloberySlimer, my new sister who had autism and who Merlin had found abandoned. I also met Xenophobia and Aley946, my new twin little brothers, the terrible two. Merlin adopted them out of the Adoption Agency at the same time. Wild776 was there too but be was only visiting because he had been visiting with his Aunt Excalaber775. Wild was my big brother and my idol because he had stepped in and helped to raise the younger two when Merlin’s husband had walked out on her.

“Al,” Merlin said, “we’ve got to do something about the way you look.”

There it was again, the horrible UGLY truth spoiling everything. “What would you like to be? A Moehog like you were? Or something else maybe?” Merlin asked.

Wow, I thought, a chance to have my old life back, but then the pain that being a Moehog reminded me of came back so vividly that I changed my mind.

“Um Merlin,” I said, “even in the pound we hear thing and I heard that a new pet just came out called a Pteri. I think I’d like to be that.”

“Okay then,” Merlin said, “it’s settled. Grab your coats we’re going to get a morphing potion.”

My siblings were excited and the twins hopped about whooping at the invitation into town. We went to the Wizard and Merlin ordered a Pteri Morphing Potion.

“There to your left,” said the Wiz.

It was eerily similar to the time when I had come here with Remmus and Sapphire. “What colour would you like?” Merlin called from the end of one long aisle. Her voice broke into my thoughts and I hollered back, “Blue, I think.”

Merlin paid the clerk 999 Neopoints. “What a bargain,” she muttered as we made our way to a candy store and Merlin gave the twins and SloberySlimer each 5 Neopoints to spend on a treat or two. The twins were sure to blow all theirs on the trading cards displayed on a rack in the corner. “Here,” Merlin said handing me the potion, “drink up.” I took it in my unsteady hooves and thought, I’m about to be me again as the thick liquid bubbled down my throat. I found the potion to be full of feathers that stuck to the inside of my mouth.

Suddenly I felt different, I was covered in feathers and a bird. I flew up above the crowds finding I instinctively knew how and yelled and sang for joy. I was normal no longer a socially rejected mutant. Looking down I could see Merlin, she was smiling and I was smiling, I was happy and I had a family again.

The End

Note: Sapphire and Remmus are purely fictional and any similarity is coincidental.