The Chronicles of K'drathe: Part One

      “All right, I’ll be down in a second!”

      Silvana, a green Lupe, had been found roaming the streets of Neopia when she was very young, then was found by a Neopets owner named Rowan. Rowan had two other pets: Zafiro, a blue Lutari and Fuego, a red Shoyru. To Silvana, it seemed that she was always different from the other pets. Maybe it was because she wasn’t really related to them, but she felt like she didn’t really fit in with the rest of the family.

      Rowan always switched off who was shopkeeper every other week. For instance, if Fuego was shopkeeper for one week, the next week Zafiro would be shopkeeper. The week after that, Silvana would work in the shop. Rowan did it this way so her pets would earn the money she used to buy things for them.

      Silvana put down the pencil she had previously been drawing with (the drawing was of Jhudora, the Dark Faerie) and went to the ground floor of her Neohome.

      “You’d better hurry up if you want to get to the shop on time,” Rowan told her. Silvana nodded.

      Fuego grinned at her from behind Rowan. “Have fun with the greedy customers, Silvana.”

      “That’s enough,” snapped Rowan. The insult had not been directed at Silvana, but at Rowan – the whole family knew that their shop was not terribly popular. In fact, you might even go so far to say that most people didn’t even know it existed.

      Fuego rolled her eyes.

     “I’m going!” called Silvana to Zafiro.

     “See ya,” said the responding voice from the kitchen.

      As Silvana walked out the door, she heard voices coming from the Rainbow Pool. She glanced over towards it and saw her worst enemy getting painted Fire, the color Silvana had always wanted to be painted.

      Silvana hurried by the Pool, trying to get to the shop, Rowan’s Neopet Supplies, before the other Lupe noticed her. His name was Rex. He was also her worst enemy.

      After arriving at the shop, Silvana turned the “closed” sign over so that it read “open”. Not that it made much difference.

      She opened the drawer behind the cash register and pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. She sat down and began to draw a forest with different kinds of petpets in it.

     The bell on the door jingled. A customer!

     “Hello, welcome to...” began Silvana. Then she saw that it was Rex.

     “Oh,” Silvana said rudely. “It’s you.”

     “No need to sound mean about it, Silvana,” said the Fire Lupe calmly. “Oh... what’s this? A Fire paint brush?”

     “What?!” shouted Silvana. Her head jerked up, her eyes blazing with excitement

     “Oh, I’m sorry,” laughed Rex. “It’s a paint brush plushie! Silly me!” He tossed it back on the wooden shelf carelessly. A Royal Lupe, Rex’s friend, giggled. She was appropriately named Princess. Silvana hated them both.

      “Well, I’ll see you at school, Silvana, if you still have enough money to go!” giggled Princess.

     “Oh, and by the way, Silvana...” began Rex. “I wanted to ask your opinion of something. How do you like my new color?” This made Princess laugh so hard, she leaned against a table of plushies and knocked them all off the table.

     “Hey!” yelled Silvana. “I just finished stacking those!” She glared daggers at Princess.

     “Whoopsie!” giggled the mean Lupe. “Oh, well... now you’ll have something to do besides waiting for your non-existent customers! Bye, Silvana!”

     The shop door jingled once more, probably for the last time until Silvana went home, as the two Lupes left, still laughing wickedly. Silvana remained where she was, seething at Rex and Sunfire. They will pay, she thought angrily. Oh, I wish I had an ability... but I’m only Level 1. Not that Rowan would have enough neopoints to buy a bottled Faerie. Silvana sighed. She began to pick up the fallen plushies.

    ***

      “Why do we have to have soup every night?” complained Zafiro, looking disgustedly at his bowl of soup.

     “Because,” Rowan said exasperatedly, “we can only afford to go to the Soup Kitchen. It’s free.”

     “But Griffin saw me there. He’s going to know we’re poor,” whined Fuego.

     Silvana remained silent. She was staring into her soup, as if she could see something in it.

     “Silvana? How was your day? Did anyone visit the shop? Silvana?”

     Silvana wasn’t listening. She now actually saw something in the murky liquid of the soup. A Faerie... a Lupe... then nothing.

     “Huh? Oh, sorry. I zoned out a second there. What was the question?”

     Rowan sighed. “I said, ‘Did anyone visit the shop today?’”

     Silvana decided not to say anything about Rex and Princess. “Umm... a Mynci came in, but he didn’t buy anything,” she quickly invented.

     Rowan nodded sympathetically. “It’s annoying, isn’t it? The one time we get a customer, they don’t buy anything.”

     “Yeah...” Silvana’s voice trailed off.

     Zafiro looked at her closely, his eyes narrowed. “Something else happened, didn’t it?” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

     Silvana shook her head no. “Nothing happened, Zafiro. I’m fine.”

     “Are you sure?” asked Fuego. “You look like you’re being bugged by something...”

     “I’m fine! And if there’s anything bugging me, it’s you!” Silvana snarled. She abruptly stood up and left, leaving her now-cold soup at the table.

***

     Silvana scowled at her reflection in the mirror in her room. The green Lupe glanced toward the door as someone knocked. “What do you want?” she snapped.

     “It’s Rowan. Can I come in?” Rowan seemed hesitant, as if she thought Silvana would still be mad.

     “Fine.”

     The door opened. Rowan came in. “Hi. Are you okay?”

     “Duh. Why wouldn’t I be?” Silvana glared at her.

     “You seemed upset at dinner.”

     Silvana looked away. “Rex was being stupid.”

     “Oh. Do you want me to call his owner again?”

     “No. That’s probably why he was doing it today. You just called her yesterday.”

     “What exactly did he do?” inquired Rowan.

     “He made fun of the fact that he was richer than us and that he had enough Neopoints to buy a paint brush.”

     “What color was he?”

     “Fire.”

     “Oh...” Rowan gave Silvana a hug. “I’m sorry. I know you want to be Fire so bad, and it doesn’t help that Rex has that color now.”

     “Yeah, well... I was thinking about being painted Island, anyway. Fire seems so... dark, you know? Island...” Silvana’s voice trailed off. She knew just how much Island paint brushes were.

     “It’s time for bed. I’m going to make sure Fuego and Zafiro aren’t destroying the house like last time.” Rowan smiled.

     Silvana laughed a little bit. Fuego had seen a Spyder in the house once and thought it was a severed hand crawling across the floor. She screamed and ran around the house, yelling, “Don’t let it get me! Don’t let it get me!” Zafiro heard her and chased her, trying to find out what it was that had frightened her so badly. Their neighbor eventually came over to find out what was going on. Rowan answered the door and said she didn’t know; Fuego and Zafiro were acting like maniacs.

     “Good night, Silvana.”

     “Good night.”

    ***

     “Silvana... Silvana... join us... it is your destiny...”

     “Who are you?” screamed Silvana.

     “Silvana...”

     A Dark Faerie appeared. “I am Senka. I have come for you.” Her red eyes glimmered with evil.

     At least three thousand Dark Faeries rose up around the one called Senka.

     “AAAHHHHHHHH!”

     “What? What is it?” cried Rowan, rushing into the room.

     Silvana looked around. Sunlight streamed through her bedroom window. In her mind, she could still see the evil-looking Dark Faerie, her red eyes glowing, surrounded by thousands of other Dark Faeries. And they all wanted her to join them.

     “I... I had a dream,” said Silvana.

     “Try not to scream when you wake up. You’ve been doing it all week.” Rowan looked worried.

     Silvana had been doing it all week. But until this morning, she could never remember what it had been. She shuddered, seeing again the Dark Faerie’s smoldering crimson eyes. She almost wished she couldn't remember.

     “Well, come downstairs for breakfast. We’re having omelettes.”

     Silvana groaned. “Again?”

     “You know we don’t have enough Neopoints to go to the Food Shop.” Rowan was beginning to look uncomfortable.

     “Yeah, but...” Silvana couldn’t think of anything else to say.

     “Omelettes? Again? I would rather eat a rockfish!”

     At the sound of Fuego’s voice, Rowan sighed and went downstairs.

    ***

     “Silvana! Come over here!”

     Silvana glanced up from the book she had been reading to see her friend, Larkyn, beckoning her over to her lunch table. Silvana got up from the lunch table she had been previously sitting at and joined her.

     “How are you? I heard something happened with you and Rex. I was on vacation all week at Mystery Island, so I only just heard. What happened?” The green Kougra looked curious.

     “Nothing happened,” muttered Silvana. “He acted stupid.”

      Larkyn smiled. “He doesn’t act stupid, he is stupid!”

      Silvana smiled back. She felt lucky she had as good a friend as Larkyn.

     “Hi, Silvana. How are you today?” A sickly sweet voice sounded from behind Silvana. Oh, no, she thought. What does she want now?

     She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before turning around from her locker to face Princess. “What do you want?”

To be continued...