The Nameless Warrior: Part Two

Weeks later, the Ixi's efforts were rewarded when he saw a thin, scraggly, red form slip out of Faerie Foods and dash towards the dark castle. Determinedly, the ixi chased him through the throngs of people. The little Lupe was amazingly fast, but he was not one to give up. Finally, he managed to bowl the red lightning bolt over from behind.

     "Gotcha!" he yelled triumphantly, pinning the Lupe and flipping him over to stare down at him. "Hah!"

     The Lupe fell, surprised, and the ixi could feel fragile rib bones under the scruffy hide. But the ixi did not get up, did not let the Lupe squirm free, no matter how pitiful it was.

     "Let me go!" The Lupe's voice was surprisingly harsh and raspy, and it looked as if it had been in a fight recently. A fight it had lost - badly.

     "I'm not letting you go until you explain why you took our book!" the ixi declared angrily.

     When the Lupe realized he was not going to get free, he snarled angrily, "I only have a minute left; let me go!"

     "Jhudora's quests can be found by the Shop Wizard! Why did you have to steal? Who are you? Have any family? Who's your owner?"

     The ixi got the shock of his life when the Lupe spat, "Jhudora is my owner."

     So astonished was the ixi that the Lupe managed to knock him off and scampered off towards the castle. Sitting where he had fallen, the ixi considered the Lupe's words before running home.

     "Hey, Dhiibshowl?"

     His owner turned around, glanced at him. "Where have you been, ZipStreamer? I wanted to take you to Coltzan's Shrine -"

     ZipStreamer shook his head, cutting off Dhiibshowl. "Can Jhudora own pets?"

     Taken aback, Dhiibshowl blinked at ZipStreamer before shaking his head. "No, I don't think so. She can have pets do quests for her - you haven't been there, have you?" he asked suddenly, giving ZipStreamer a stern look.

     "No, but a Lupe's living with her, and he claims she owns him." ZipStreamer sat down and poked at the clockwork Wocky that needed new batteries or something - it was moving decidedly slower today.

     "What's his name? I'll search for him, look him up in the Neopia Pet Registers." Dhiibshowl placed a strawberry trifle before his one and only pet before looking up at a passing event. "Darn ghosts," he muttered under his breath.

     ZipStreamer looked up from his food briefly. "How much they take this time?"

     "Only 50 Neopoints."

     ZipStreamer shrugged and went back to eating. "I don't know his name, but I do know that he does quests -" by robbing people, he thought, "- for her."

     "See if you can get his name, alright? I've gotta log out right now. You stay close to home; I should be back and then we'll play Shapeshifter."

     "Yes!!" ZipStreamer fairly danced with joy; it had been at least a month since their last game (getting the avatar, of course that's the only thing Dhiibshowl thinks about) and ZipStreamer loved the challenging puzzles.

     Dhiibshowl left, and ZipStreamer glanced at the forbidding castle. Who would leave a pet with horrid Jhudora?

     A very bad owner, he decided. That Lupe needed friends, people who cared for him. And ZipStreamer was determined to be one of them.

     "Cut it close again," Jhudora murmured. "Perhaps I should teach you to move faster."

     "No, mistress," he mumbled, not wanting to beg and yet, not wanting to get punished. "I did get it to you."

     She looked closely at him, eyes intense on his face. "Are you being impertinent, my Lupe?"

     "No," he said hastily, trying to sidestep her anger. "Merely pointing out that I completed what you asked me to do within your time limit."

     Her eyes narrowed, and he realized that by trying to justify his actions, he had just made her angrier. Cowering, he tried to move away, but she allowed him no such release.

     Hours later, he crept away from her workroom - she had forgotten about him and turned to another one of her projects - and laid down under the window, nursing his hurts and trying to ignore the screaming pain in his limbs. That had been one of the worst punishments he had gone through. Snarling, he tried to find a position he could lie in that would not make his body shriek in protest.

     When he managed a tentative pose that wasn't as agonizing as some of the others, he thought over the events of the day. Why had that ixi found him? Was he actually looking for him?

     Was it possible someone . . . cared about him?

     He went to sleep feeling the first genuine bit of happiness he felt for a long time.

     The next day, when he was summoned to find a cornupepper, he moved at lightning speed to find it long before his time would run out, and, in returning to the castle, he passed by the Ixi's house purposely. Glancing around, slowing down, he peered into a window and looked around for the ixi.

     "Who are you?"

     He leapt into the air, startled, to see the ixi behind him. Watching him warily, he said, "I'm me."

     "Do you have a name? My name's ZipStreamer."

     "No," he said shortly, trying to ignore the echo of Jhudora's words that resounded through his mind.

     ZipStreamer looked at him carefully, realizing he had touched a sore spot. "Well, I have to call you something," he said to the Lupe logically.

     The Lupe moved uneasily. "I have to get back to the castle," he said, well aware of the seconds that slipped away in a continuous stream.

     "Can I go with you? Like, walk up to the cloud ships with you?" ZipStreamer began to walk without waiting for his answer. Stunned, the Lupe hurried to catch up with the fairy ixi.

     "So, where do you live?" ZipStreamer asked, looking at the sack on his back.

     Looking puzzled, he said, "The castle. Where else?"

     "Ah. How much time do you have left?"

     The Lupe reached into his mind, where his internal clock ticked. "A minute and forty-one seconds."

     "What do you do all day, quests?"

     "Well, yeah . . . if she wants me to," the Lupe answered, shifting his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably.

     ZipStreamer stood on the dock - the ships were manageable by two people, but often one was an owner, and another was their pet. Pets were generally not skilled in maneuvering the small ships that ferried owners and pets from cloud to cloud or Faerieland to Neopia Central. "Who gets us across?" he asked.

     "Y - You're coming with me to the castle?" the Lupe asked, both strangely happy and fearful.

     ZipStreamer made a face. "No. Dhiibshowl doesn't like me doing her quests, since they cost a lot and she doesn't give out very good rewards. Doesn't want me anywhere near there."

     "Oh." The Lupe glanced sidelong at ZipStreamer. "I need to go now."

     ZipStreamer looked around. "Who'll get you across?" he questioned, bewildered.

     The Lupe made a motion. "I can do it myself." After a pause - precious seconds wasting, hurry up and say it! - he said softly, "Thank you, ZipStreamer."

     ZipStreamer beamed. "Will I be able to see you tomorrow?"

     "Maybe," the Lupe said before he and ZipStreamer parted ways.

     But weeks went by before they finally ran into each other again; the ixi was now Darigan.

     The Lupe - nearly out of time - did not take time to slow down, but panted as he ran for the docks, "What happened to you?"

     "Huh?" ZipStreamer wheezed; he was having a hard time keeping up with the Lupe "Oh, that was the lab ray. Stupid thing. I want to be Island."

     At the docks, the Lupe still did not slow, instead dodging towards an amazingly small and rickety ship and leaping in. "You should go," he panted as he began to work the mixture of machinery and magic. Admittedly, he did it awkwardly, but he actually managed to get it moving at a fairly fast rate.

     ZipStreamer skidded to a stop before he fell - it was a long way down! - and gazed in frank admiration of the Lupe, who disappeared into the dark shadows of Jhudora's castle.

     Quickly, the Lupe tied up the boat and leapt onto the spongy cloud surface. Darting into the huge gates and up the pathway, he winced. He wouldn't be able to make it in the ten seconds left; he still had to wrestle open the huge, heavy front doors.

     When he finally managed to get before her, she eyed him angrily.

     "Twenty-nine seconds late," she whispered.

     He deposited the cornupepper before her and flinched as she reached forward and gripped his ear -- the one she had hung him from yesterday for not moving fast enough out of her sight. Wincing, he closed his eyes and awaited the punishment that was not long in coming.

     Later that night, he lay upon the cold dungeon floor -- unable to move from pain -- he dreamed of escaping.

To be continued...