Tales from the Void #1: Edna's Dilemma

      Edna was once an alluring Zafara with dainty green fur, features and an ambrosial personality. Intelligent, bright and quirky; spell-making was her art and she was eager to fully commit herself to it. She procured in the purchase of a private tower so she could spend her days fixating her focuses on spells specifically around the subject of medicinal ailments and blessings to help others in her environment.

      Acquiring a commendable four bedroom condo in the Woods (before they were Haunted they were simply known as the Woods, I assure you) Edna’s first days were boisterous. Despite after a few weeks becoming a pivotal, popular figure in the community (well known for her kindness and willingness to help the unhealthy) she grew lonely in her tower and often struggled to cope with the upkeep her cheap medicinal practice demanded.

      Strolling down the Woods one day, she found her attention was caught by a store owner endorsing exotic foods from other lands.

      “GET’CHA HISSI EGGS, HISSI EGGS HERE, GET’CHA HISSI E EGGS, SHOP SPECIAL!” the impertinent Skeith businessman advertised. Quizzical, Edna asked what the Hissi eggs were for. The reply agitated her...

      “Eating!?” she questioned, flustered. “That’s intolerable! I’ll purchase both of those Hissi eggs right now! I refuse to let a Neopet be EATEN!” Edna announced, before exchanging her hard earned Neopoints to acquire the two eggs.

      The merchant grinned deviously; smirking to himself, he declared, “Everybody knows Hissis are absolute nuisances in pairs!” as Edna became a blur in the distance. Edna’s inconceivable kindness would surely be her downfall.

      Within days, the two peculiar, scaly creatures had hatched from their shells. Edna named one Hing and the other Loat, both names she was keen on. Edna had a revelation and thought to herself that the two creatures could be brought up as apprentices used to help and eventually acquire her medicinal business; she parented both creatures as her own.

      The two Hissis quickly became irritant over Edna’s love. They fought endlessly between each other, fighting the right to be the one to bask in her endless commitment of care. Edna struggled to look after the two reptilian annoyances, but her innate kindness forced her to avoid throwing either of them out of her tower. She would constantly reiterate she loved both of them, but still the competition grew and grew between the two winged serpents.

      Before long the two olive green Hissis were fully grown and still bitterly contesting one another for Edna’s love. She still cared immensely for them both, but grew more proactive at ignoring the would-be distractions and carrying on with her work. Edna was undertaking a project of great importance, a universal super cure which could heal most Neopian diseases with one small swig! The mixture was experimental and portentous, however, possibly with daunting side effects which she would need to weed out.

      As she was mixing the broth one day, Hing and Loat burst into her working quarters. “Motherrrrrr, Motherrrrrr,” Hing annoyingly persisted. “Iiiii wanttt tooo hellllllpppp youuuu,” he proclaimed, equipped with a randomly selected potion from one of her shelves.

      “Don’t add that to the brew, Hing!” she imperatively ordered as he budged closer and closer to her cauldron. “We don’t know what it could do!”

      But the Hissi brothers persisted. Hing grabbed the potion’s handle while Loat gripped the bottom tightly, they tried to remove the potion from each other’s grasp as it suspended dangerously above Edna’s cauldron. Edna worriedly enforced, “Be careful, be careful!” as the two Hissis swung back and forth, back and forth on either side of Edna’s universal cure (which was still much in the alpha phases, so to speak).

      “I wannnttt to helllpppp Mmmmotherrrrr,” Hing inferred.

      “Nooooo, Mothhherrrr wannnnttsss meeee to hellllpppp!” Loat insisted.

      This dastardly game of tug ‘o’ war continued with Edna shrieking maniacally at short distance. The Hissis ignored her pleas. The stress upon the potion’s container forced it to crack and then break in two, the unknown liquid streamed into the Cauldron and it began to react vehemently as the two Hissis flew out of control, spinning backwards. Their wings clipped the sides of Edna’s brew, causing it to tumble. The liquid poured out, raining onto her skin. Her fur quickly became mottled; she felt herself burning both physically and also burning with the anger which condemned her conscious mind.

      “Loooook whaaatttt youuuu haavvveeee donnneeee!” Hing vociferated with disgust at his brother.

      “Meeeee? Itttt wasss youuu! Thisssss is why I hattteee youuu!” Loat implied protectively.

      Both Hissis were completely insusceptible to what was going on around them. Edna rose to her feet drudgingly, her eyes turned into hot, white triangles as her rage grew and grew before finally she hit her limit and burst into a flurry, gripping tightly her spell-book.

      “You IMBECILES, look what you have done to me!” Edna exploded as she morphed into a hideous permutation of her once beautiful self. “You... You...” She continued to express her undying anger as the Hissi brothers shuffled into one of the room’s corners together, trembling with fear. “Out... OUT!” Edna demanded, but she wasn’t finished.

      As the two Hissis made a bolt for the doorway, she muttered a congested phrase from her spell book which neither Hissi knew the meaning of. A massive ball of toxic green fire engulfed them both. As the two Hissis yelped in pain, they lost consciousness.

***

      Edna, now a monstrous being, has become a recluse still devoted to her spells and experiments, but now they are for much more sinister, some say sadistic, purposes. Now she is known as the crazy old hag of the Haunted (how they became Haunted is an entirely different story) Woods; it is believed her mutation, depression and anger were all defining attributes as she drifted into insanity.

      But, what happened to the Hissi brothers you may ask? Well;

      Hing awoke a few days later next to his counterpart in a dingy cave somewhere buried within the Woods. “Youuu idddiotttttt,” he said. “Wwhyyy did youuu doooo thatttt?” he questioned.

      “Meeee? Ittt wassss youuu!” Loat replied. The two paused for a few brief seconds. “Atttt leeeeasstttt we don’ttt havvveee too livvveee toggettthhherrr anyyymorrreee!”

      “Thatt’sss oneeee posssittivveee!” Hing agreed, for once, as the two sprang into action.

      But as the two tried to separate from one another, they were bound. The two glanced at each other unnervingly, realising they had not checked their bodies. As their eyesight moved downwards, they came to terms with something catastrophic.

      “Nnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooo!” the two Hissis (or Hissi, if you will) wailed achingly as they realised their necks had been amalgamated at the beginning of their body.

      “Weeee arrreeee Loatttttt andddd Hinngggg,” the two repeated... “Loatttthinggggggg?”

      The two were forced to live together for all of eternity, attached to the being they hated the most.

      And that was how the very first Mutant Hissi was born.

The End