You wake with your face full of snow and the feel of small paws on your back. Groaning, you lift your head, spitting out the gritty flakes. As you bring a half-numb hand to your face, you realize with a strange detachment that a glowing blue aura surrounds your hand. After another moment, you realize the aura is surrounding you entirely.
A few minutes pass in still silence. Your head seems to clear from its exhaustion-induced muddle. Climbing Terror Mountain, just to see the sights, you must have missed a sign or strayed off the path...night fell, and you still hadn't found your way to civilization. Eventually, the snow seemed more comfortable than walking...
Craning your neck, you look over your shoulder to see a fluffy blue Noilkeet resting its paws on your back. The petpet seems completely unphased by either the cold of this Terror Mountain night, or the blue glow emenating from its tiny front paws.
Suddenly, you begin to hear a faint whistling, followed by the sound of wingbeats. Your gaze lifts to the sky, in time to see a sleek Hissi swooping in for a landing.
The Hissi comes to a graceful stop in the snow beside the Noilkeet; she is an ice pet, with a strange crest that sprouts three "ribs", much like a Draik's ears - but these are tipped with small glowing orbs. A slender, long fang protrudes from each side of the Hissi's mouth. She rests a little of her weight on an elegant white staff as she peers down at you.
You try and fail to get to your feet twice before the Hissi extends one of her wings to you. You're surprised not to be shot through with cold when you use it to balance your weight.
Stubwing allows you to use her wing for continued balance as you, the Hissi, and the Noilkeet begin moving through the snow; Stubwing seems able to move just fine with wiggles of her tail alone.
You might agree, except that, well, your face is half frozen from cold.
STORY
I started life as a red Scorchio, created by a human named Tiger at the Create-A-Pet center. Very early in life, however, I decided that I wanted to be a Draik instead. Don't get me wrong, Scorchios are endearing in their own way, but I never felt I belonged in one of those squat bodies. I suppose I always felt...snakey, and at the time, a Draik seemed to be the perfect species. Hissis hadn't been discovered by Neopia yet, to give you an idea of how long ago this was.
But morphing potions are expensive, especially to a newbie like Tiger. She had bought the pieces of a secret laboratory map, and had been taking my brother Cedarfur in the hopes that he would become a Darigan Eyrie for a while, before she asked me if I would like a try while Ced took a break. I agreed.
Being zapped doesn't actually hurt, although it seems like it should. There are some after effects; headaches and stomachaches were usually the worst of it, though, and when I thought of the possibility that I might turn into a Draik the very next day, I didn't want to quit.
Eventually, I became a Hissi, then a very new species to Neopia. Shortly thereafter, I was zapped ice. I imagine you're aware of this already, but ice is not a color you can get from a brush or a potion. Tiger and I were both a little hesitant to simply press the button and risk loosing the color. If I decided I liked it after all, there was nothing I could do to get it back.
I know humans don't have morphing potions or paint brushes, so maybe it's hard for you to understand the way it feels sometimes to completely change species. There are times, of course, where it feels unnatural; I never enjoyed being four-legged species, and being an invisible Scorchio and a snot Korbat were not my top color choices. But most of the time, there was just a feeling of expectation while I adjusted to my new dimensions. I suppose it's like trying on new clothes without the aid of a mirror; you have to decide for yourself whether they fit correctly.
In this case, for the first time in a long time, I experienced constance. It was a little awkward at first, getting used to moving with only a tail and no legs, but once I learned, I realized that I was graceful, like an elegant dancer - like a Draik. As I learned to fly, I realized that in this form, I felt the way I wanted - not just beautiful, not just graceful, but released.
So I decided to stay an ice Hissi. Cedarfur went back to using the lab ray, and I returned to my siblings, to my friends, to books and games. But I was worried; we live in Brightvale, and although it's not the hottest place in Neopia, it does get very warm in the summer.
Now, ice pets don't actually melt, and neither do chocolate or jelly or custard pets. Like pets with "normal" skin and fur, we grow more of whatever material our skin is made of; I grow new ice the way you grow new skin. But we do drip, which can be embarassing. Think of it as overactive sweating, though I'm glad not to be a jelly or chocolate pet leaving a sticky trail behind me.
Oh- as I was saying, I was worried about summertime. I didn't want to be cooped up in some icy room to preserve my dignity, so through the fall and winter, I searched for books, trying to find a way to keep myself from melting.
One day, while heading home from the library after another disappointing afternoon, I happened to take a dingy sidestreet to avoid a hot chocolate cart, and wound up outside the entrance to a bookshop I had never seen before. I would have passed by without a second look, but something in the window caught my eye.
The book was entitled "Ice Magic". Nothing particularly strange about that- except that the words were written with foreign characters I had never seen before, let alone learned to read.
I entered the shop, and found myself in a dusty, but not unpleasant little store that looked like a cross between Osirus's pottery in Sakhmet and a pawnshop. Strange pendants and charms were hung on plaques, books were piled on every available surface, mobiles of stars hung from a case in the far right of the room, and a display of vibrant stones was tucked neatly beneath the counter.
The door fell shut behind me, and almost out of nowhere, a purple Ruki appeared behind the counter. Evenin', miss, how might I help you? he asked, casually leaning his elbows on the counter.
It took me a moment to organize my thouhts. There's a book in the window, I said at last. And...I'd like to take a look at it.
Which book would that be?
Ice Ma- I stopped myself in the nick of time. The book with the ice on it, I ammended lamely. The, uhm, one with the runes.
The Ruki strode to the window, and plucked the book from the sill. He handed it out to me, but before he let me take it, said sterntly, Miss, I'll have you know - if you can read it, I'm required to give it to you.
You're...you're what?
The Ruki just waved toward the book. Go on and take a look at it, miss.
I looked down at the book. Embossed in gold runes beneath a picture of an icicle was the title. "Ice Magic". I knew as surely as if I were reading Neopian, though the symbols were more like those of ancient Lost Desert pyramids than the modern Neopian alphabet.
Looking up at the Ruki, I admmitted in a half-panicked tone, Okay, I know what it says. Why? How can I-
The Ruki shook his head. It's up to you to find that out, miss. Take it and go on home; might make more sense if I'm not in your face.
I left, although I was very confused, and a little scared. For the first time, I began to wonder if I had some sort of amnesia, or if Tiger knew more about me than she had ever said. I couldn't imagine what she might be hiding, but if there was something...
When I confronted Tiger about the book, however, she seemed geuinely perplexed. I wouldn't have known how to erase your memories, even if I wanted to. You remember how little I knew at first. She had a point, and anyway, loosing my memory didn't sound or feel right.
Tiger suggested I just read the book, saying that the answer might be in those cryptic runes. Her advice and my curiosity won out over my caution; I settled down with the book that night, and began to read.
What I read was...fascinating. It wasn't a book about ice spells. It was a book about magic, but it didn't really seem that way. It seemed like a book about the world, and how it works - it took me a while to realize that the things it was talking about weren't actually possible, as I knew them.
Eventually, the book became more straightforward. Or at least, as straightforward as a book about magic can be. It said that since I could read the runes on the book, I had to be a mage, a pet with inate magical abilities. There're also sorcerers, who learn from books but don't have innate gifts, and magicians, who pass their abilities on to an apprentice...
It gets a bit technical from there, so I'll spare you the details. You don't want to even get me started on faerie magic...
Anyhow, the book - it said that I was a mage, a pet with an innate talent for spellcasting. Naturally, I wanted to get started.
Unfortunately, the hardest part of being a mage is learning how to harness and use that magical energy. I hadn't known it even existed until the day I read the book - I wasn't going to be able to summon anything for a long time.
Learning to feel my inner magic, and actually use it, took a long time. Several weeks. And during all that time, winter was coming closer and closer to an end. Toward the last few weeks, I started getting desperate - if I couldn't figure out a solution to my heat problem, I was going to have to stay inside for the entire summer, or cause a huge mess everywhere I went. That was why I'd been looking for the book, if you recall.
If it hadn't been for my brothers, I don't know what I would have done. Nemo, my oldest brother, patiently coaxed me back into calmness everytime I started to panic, or wanted to do something too big. He knows a lot about restraint. Cedarfur, meanwhile, was always looking up tricks and tips in the library, both our home collection and the in the Brightvale library. He found all sorts of small ways to help my spellcasting, and was always willing to help me work out a tangly bit of magical theory. Riverclash...well, he kept me laughing when I most needed it.
A bit anticlimactically, I guess, I learned how to make heat-proof, cold-trapping shields about a week before Brightvale's first bought of warm weather. I immediately went to look for the bookshop I had found Ice Magic in, to thank the shopkeeper, but no matter how many times I tried to find that alley...I never could find it.
Like I said, magic is complicated.
That's not quite the whole story, though. Obviously, I spend part of the year up here in the mountains, during snowstorm season. But that might be a story for another time.
Riverclash is actually older than me, which surprises most pets. He's a very big goof-off, and though he's big for a Kougra, he seems pretty young. Don't get me wrong - he cares. Sometimes, he even tries not to be hyperactive. I think there's just too much energy packed inside that fuschia fuzzball.
My brother Cedarfur is my only younger sibling. He always has his beak in a book, usually a fantasy story. He would make a pretty good sorcerer, I think - he's certainly got the mind for it - but aside from the fact that I have no idea how one goes about becoming a sorcerer, Cedarfur isn't particularly interested in it. He does like hearing about my adventures(not that there are many), and I think he's actually writing them down somewhere. It makes me a little uncomfortable, but I can deal with it if it makes him happy.
Strawbereis, or Berries, as she's usually called, is my oldest friend. She's a spotted Kau with a green thumb...er, hoof. I think we get along so well because we're both the younger sisters of a hyperactive nutcase (Riv and GC are, of course, best friends themselves). We both have adopted brothers, too, though at least Berries has one other sister instead of a horde of brothers. Berries sometimes comes to visit me on the mountain during the big snowstorms - she's a lot better at plowing through drifts of snow than a scrawny Hissi like me is.
Altadorian food is probably the most delicious food in Neopia. Whether it's salad, bread, or dessert, if it comes from Altador, I like it. I suppose I should also mention that I don't like spicy foods, for obvious reasons....although, milder Qasalan dishes are tasty as well...Qando Pitas are incredible.
Of all the lands in Neopia, Terror Mountain is definitely my favorite. And not just because of the cold - Terror Mountain is a wonderfully beautiful place. Where else can you see the auroras, or visit crystal caverns, or fly over panoramas of colored lights every night?
