Lost With Isaerios: Part Two

      “We’re lost, we’re lost, we’re lost!” I moaned through my tears, rocking back and forth and clutching my bag. “Lost lost lost lost...” Isaerios slapped me and I snapped out of it. Slapped and snapped. Nice rhyme. ANYWAYS!!!

      “Get over it, Ailemea!” Isaerios growled at me. “Self pity isn’t going to get us out of this mess that you put us in!”

      “I put us in? Are you crazy? If you hadn’t been so maddening I wouldn’t have had to knock some sense into you! It’s YOUR fault!” I yelled at him. He laughed.

      “My fault? Oh my gosh! You are the most spoiled, snotty, high and mighty neopet I have ever met!” Oh great. He was starting it again.

      “See here, you brat born out of a Tyrannian Jubjub’s nest,” I snarled. “You only got into our family because I let you! I see my mistake now.”

      “Oh yeah - now should I bow down to you? You’re nothing but a big fat yellow Skeith with a Xweetok mask on!” Ouch. That one hurt. I opened up my month to fling another insult at him but both of us were interrupted by large nips in our paws. In unison we yelled out in pain and looked down to find Teagy and Haelee looking blearily up at us. Teagy because that’s how he is, and Haelee because she had gotten a cold. My backpack lay open on the ground, Haelee’s blanket poking out.

      The two petpets somehow looked stern through their grogginess. They looked back and forth between Isaerios and me. Then Haelee back to squeak and yelp at me while Teagy used a different tirade for Isaerios.

      “SQUEAK SCREECH EE OO!” Haelee scolded me. “OO EE YELP AH.” The chiding went on for a while before Isaerios and I grimly turned to the other.

      “Sorry...” I muttered insincerely.

      “Sorry,” he replied, about as sincere as I was. Teagy and Haelee were content. Teagy leaped into Isaerios’s arms and Haelee crawled back into my backpack. As I picked up my bag Isaerios stated a plan.

      “We need to go that way,” he pointed. “The Happy Valley shouldn’t be that far away.”

      “Hello???” I said. “We were just nine thousand feet up and fell a few hundred. That means we are still quite far away from the Happy Valley.” I love it when I feel smarter than Isaerios. There is just this really great sense of satisfaction. Isaerios frowned.

      “You’re right. That means we have to find the Ice Caves,” he said. I grimaced, remembering my experience last time.

      “Great.”

     *****

      Jeanie sat at the lodge table with a mug of hot borovan in front of her, her head in her hands. Nexy sat rather sheepishly patting her back while Aros lapped up his owner’s borovan. Oreh was talking to the Poogles that patrolled Terror Mountain. After a few minutes he went to his owner’s side.

      “They say they found where Isaerios and Ailemea disappeared,” he announced. “There were scuffle marks in a clearing by a cliff. They must have tumbled over.” Jeanie sighed and rubbed her red eyes.

      “This is all my fault,” she said miserably, warming her fingers on her mug of borovan. Her brown eyes looked into it sadly.

      “What are you talking about?” Oreh demanded. “It isn’t your fault they don’t get along. It wasn’t you that pushed them off the cliff!”

      “I’ve been pushing them so hard to get along that I didn’t realize that their personalities just don’t fit. I thought that if I placed Isaerios with Ailemea during her weakest points they might learn to find some kind of common ground, but now I’ve done nothing but bad.” Jeanie rubbed her eyes and then stood up, pulling on her jacket.

      “This is not your fault,” Oreh insisted, standing up as well and forcing Jeanie back into her seat. “Once they get back they just need to spend a few months without seeing each other is all.” He smiled jokingly but Jeanie shook her head.

      “No, Oreh. I think when they get back... one of them has to go.”

      There was suddenly dead silence in the lodge.

     *****

      I struggled to whistle a tune as Isaerios and I trudged along in the snow. This didn’t work of course, seeing as I can’t whistle. Isaerios was padding along in front of me and I was carefully walking in his paw prints. I found that it wasn’t as cold as walking in fresh snow.

      The landscape was bright white and was like a wasteland. No trees, no houses, nothing. It was pretty much empty except for a lot of white. White. White. White. I made a mental note to avoid my stepbrother Shuibee for a little while after this.

      I was still admiring – sorry, loathing is the word I was looking for – the landscape when I suddenly realized that Isaerios had stopped a few yards ahead of me and was looking around in confusion. Thankfully, with him being shadow and all, I didn’t have to search in desperation for him. Desperation. For him. Ha!

      “What’s wrong?” I asked, pawing a snow paw with my paw. (Say THAT five times fast! =))

      “Something’s not right,” he said, looking at the snow under his feet. “I think I’m trapped.”

      “Good for you,” I said indifferently, half listening. Isaerios tapped the snow under him and was rewarded with a hollow reply. He frowned.

      “I don’t advise you coming near me,” he said.

      “Fat chance of that. Great idea, though.” I suddenly wished I had some bubbles to blow. They just make indifference so much more... indifferent! I settled for “admiring” the snow around me still. Unfortunately for me, the sun wanted to as well. So, I looked at the snow, and the sun reflected into my eyes, causing blindness. A calm blue Xweetok like me would normally just cry out and cover her eyes with her paws. Sadly, I was not a calm blue Xweetok like I normally am. I was starved with hunger and thirst and was tired of my brother and walking.

      “AGGGGHHHHH!! HELP ME! I’M BLIND!” I stumbled around wildly, looking for someone. Of course, I didn’t find anyone. I did find Isaerios.

      “AILEMEA, NO!” he screeched. Too late. I grabbed onto him and the ground beneath us collapsed. We fell into utter darkness. The irony is, I didn’t know that, I was already in utter darkness. Ha ha ha... um. Yeah. Anyways.

      “YOU IDIOT!” Isaerios yelled at me. I had fallen on top of him, thrown across his stomach.

      “I love you too,” I said dryly, struggling onto my paws. Once secure, I stretched luxuriously and heard my spine pop a few times. “Where are we?” I tried to look around, but once again, I was blind.

      “I have no idea, you dunce, I can’t see anything either,” he snarled. He seemed to be struggling with something.

      “Did you get blinded by the sun, too?” I asked curiously.

      “NO. It is just really dark down here!” he grunted, and I heard the sound of something moving.

      “What are you doing?” I said, trying to find him.

      “Trying to get these boards off my legs, I think I broke something,” he said stiffly.

      “Let me help.”

      “You’ve done enough, thanks,” he said angrily. I rolled my eyes, not that anyone could see, and turned away.

      “ScREECh oo?” Haelee inquired from my backpack.

      “We fell into a pit,” I informed her. “Isaerios broke something and I’m blind.” Haelee replied by hopping out of the bag and dashing away. The tap tap of her little paws took her to Isaerios. A groan escaped Isaerios from the darkness and I sighed.

      “What the?” Isaerios said suddenly. There was a whish-whish as Haelee could be heard in the darkness. After what seemed like an eternity, the sound stopped and Haelee scuttled past me into my backpack. One minute later, there was a click and light filled the room. I could see, but my eyesight was so blurry that it didn’t help very much. I could see however that my frilly pink skirt looked rather crumpled. I began to straighten it out self-consciously.

      “It looks like a plain old pit,” Isaerios said grumpily. I looked up and watched, slightly smugly I admit, as he dragged himself around. A white blur instead of a black leg confused me however.

      “What’s with your leg?”

      “Your Ditsy splinted and bandaged it,” Isaerios admitted, sounding slightly put out. “Now, there’s got to be a way out of- HEEEEEERRRRRREEEEEEE!” I leaped back as he screamed his last word, his voice echoing away. He had vanished, Teagy on his shoulder.

      “Well, now that we’ve gotten rid of him,” I said, half-jokingly. Haelee glowered at me and scuttled across the floor to where Isaerios had disappeared. “I was only joking!” I muttered, following.

      “Squeak,” she squeaked to herself. I gasped.

      “Nice hole!” I exclaimed. I didn’t get another word out however before Haelee shoved me into it. “Agggghhh...” I saw the hole of light at the top of the slide I was tumbling down and saw Haelee’s tiny face disappear. A moment later she leaped into the hole, dragging my backpack in her teeth. She slid much faster than me and soon we were clinging to each other and screaming our heads off as we tumbled into darkness.

To be continued...