Tate's New Home

      I quickly lost my train of thought as a blue Shoyru swam past me. This stopped me instantly. I knew enough of my kind that I realized this Shoyru was not Maraquan but a normal blue Shoyru. This also meant he really shouldn’t be swimming. Shoyrus flew. That was their thing. I swam as fast as possible after him and once I finally caught up to him, I squeaked in my tiny voice, “Stop!”

      The Shoyru stopped abruptly and turned to look at me. I was panting and quickly slammed my mouth shut. He looked curious as he swam slowly over to me. I started talking very quickly with no real direction to my words. He then gently put a hand over my mouth and pointed up to the surface.

      I didn’t really understand what he meant by that and my thoughts quickly jumped to the possibility of danger. As I swam down deeper into the water, he floated up to the surface. I was confused but followed him. As my face broke the surface, I could hear the Shoyru say, “There! Now I can breathe!” He inhaled sharply and looked at me expectantly.

      “Oh,” I said. “I was just wondering why you were swimming. I mean, you are just a normal Shoyru, right?” I stared at him with big eyes and hoped he wouldn’t be mad for any reason.

      He stared back down at me. “Shoyru? Yes. But I am anything but normal. You see,” he began. “My owner is very nice and she loves to go outside of the box. When she thought of the idea of a flyer, like myself, swimming, we started working on it right away!”

      He seemed very excited, so naturally I was too. I jumped up out of the water and did a nice flip in the air. He stared in awe. “Well,” he said, “I can’t quite do that yet.” As he began to swim, he yelled back at me, “Come on!” and kept heading toward the shore.

      I was still a little afraid of the island because of when I was stuck, but I decided solving the mystery of this Shoyru was more important than my fears. I bolted after him, only stopping once I had made it a ways past him. He jumped onto the shore with a hand stretched out to me. I remembered that I could breathe on land, so I hopped into the Shoyru’s hand and settled down so I was comfortable.

      “Where are we going?” I said. I had a wicked grin on my face at the thought of this great adventure. A memory struck me once more. I loved reading. My favorite kind of book was adventure. I knew that much about myself now. It was a great discovery!

      He barely glanced at me, saying quickly, “To my owner,” and that was the extent of our conversation until we reached a small structure in the middle of the island. The blue Shoyru didn’t bother knocking and walked right in the already cracked door. He went over and filled a big bowl full of water and then set me in it. I was nicely surprised by this show of kindness and had a big grin on my face as a strange creature walked through the door.

      “There you are, Moonsong!” said the Shoyru. “Look what I found while I was practicing my swimming today!” The Shoyru pointed to a shocked me.

      The one called Moonsong let out a gasp and ran for the table I was sitting on. This broke me out of my frozen state as I ducked for cover. Luckily she wasn’t planning on running into me as I had thought. Her big eyes stared through the glass at me and I felt like this had happened many times recently. I felt very in the spotlight and more scared than ever before.

      Finally a small smile broke the creature's face which soon turned into a huge grin. I was very happy she seemed to like me and started to calm down. It was amazing how many things were scary when they were all so much bigger than you. She turned to look at the blue Shoyru on the other side of the room. “Very nice, Thauris!” So this was the Shoyru’s name. This also was something I wanted to know. I loved this business of finding out things! Moonsong then continued, “I’d never thought I would see a baby Nimmo. Most people don’t really like Nimmos that much anyway, with a few exceptions. Hardly any take the time to turn them into babies. I think they are simply adorable as babies myself.” She hugged Thauris and praised him for his discovery. Were they talking about me? Nimmos, babies, discovery. It was all very confusing to me.

      That was when my all my memories came back in a rush. At least, I thought it was all of them. I gasped in the sudden self discovery. I was a Nimmo of the baby painted kind. My owner? Ah, yes. My owner’s name was a mystery to me but I remembered the lab. The awful ray pointed at me day by day. I remembered the day I turned into a Nimmo, but not what I was turned from. I had been turned into a beautiful pink Nimmo, but that wasn’t what my owner thought. My owner had been disgusted by the thought of a Nimmo and in one last act of desperation she painted me. This was how I came to be a baby Nimmo. From there, my owner tossed me into the ocean. Obviously she didn't want me.

      Moonsong, who I recognized as a human, walked back over to me. “You know, we really better get you back to your owner,” she said.

      “No,” I said. “My owner, she threw me out. She hated Nimmos.”

      Moonsong looked very shocked by this indeed. She started pacing around the room. When she thought of something she would say it out loud. “Why didn’t she just bring you to the pound? I mean, even that is terrible, but at least you wouldn’t have been left homeless!” she yelled. Then on another thought stream she said, “And what is your name, little Nimmo?”

      I thought about it for a minute. “Tate,” I said. “My name... is Tate. Yes, that sounds right.” I grinned at this funny human as she pondered this.

      “Yes,” she finally said. “That is a good name. Well... on that note, I’ve decided.” The human named Moonsong looked like this should be a very exciting thing. At the look of confusion on my face, she clarified. “I am going to adopt you, little Tate.” The big grin dropped off her face as she saw me looking at her strangely. “Of course, that’s only if you want me to!” she said quickly.

      I pondered it for a minute. She seemed quite nice and Thauris surely loved her anyway. It was the best option I saw so I gently nodded my head in agreement. Moonsong squealed and picked up a glowing Thauris to give him a big hug. Then she ran over to me. “Well then, welcome home, sweet Tate,” she said. I don’t think I had ever felt so at home in all my 2,357 days of life. My old life was a sad one of being unwanted. This new life was one of love. I had a feeling I would like this place. Especially if Moonsong read me books. We were all glowing with happiness when a red, emo Xweetok walked down the small staircase from the attic.

      She glared at me then turned that glare toward Moonsong. “And who, exactly, is this?”

      Moonsong glanced at me worriedly before turning to the Xweetok and saying, “Alana dear, this is our new family member.... Tate.”

      Alana let out a angry growl and stomped out the door.

      "Well," said Moonsong. "That went well!"

The End