COMMENTARY
I’ll be the first to say, “Whoops, I my fic got archived.” I was settling into college life, and lack of a computer didn’t help much either. But maybe it was a good thing for my readers who wanted to be able to see Celestia chapters close together or just wanted to reread.

For my readers who have been with me from the very beginning (Around the year 2005, wow!), thank you for your patience as we explore the beginning… yet again. It is not a drastic change in writing compared to the first rewrite. This “revision,” as I shall dub it, provides me with a chance to clean up certain parts of Celestia and meld the chapter 0 (before our hero, who I’ll refer to as “Tay-fic”, moves into the AC town) to the rest of the story.

The biggest change detail-wise is that I decided Tay-fic won’t be nearsighted. And that the chapters are smaller and given titles.

Chapter 1 – The Internet Friend
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I always thought that I’d forever be indebted to a jolly and chubby guy with a white beard. You know, that old man who flies around on a sleigh of reindeer and gives presents to the little kids, but is really an icon for mass marketing schemes. That guy. He was my savior.

No, I never met him. But he made December my most favorite month of the year. I was a big fan of his, though for different reasons than the norm.

Around the start of November, the adults would remind us about this saint named Santa Claus who would reward us with presents if we were good. So the kids would behave... for the most part. They would even leave me alone, until Christmas day, which was nice.

That was the day of the annual orphanage open house event. The adults passed out presents to the children they thought were good enough. (These presents, by the way, were the items donated by charities throughout the year.) That was what the older children looked forward to by their pre-teen years because by then, adoption had become a distant dream.

Of course, things change. The older kids eventually figured out that the whole Santa Claus thing was just a hoax.

Who could blame the adults though for encouraging the charade? Miro was crazy at that time of year with the sales, and the adults wanted time off from their jobs. They had families. They wanted to spend time with them at this time of year, not orphans.

Head Girl was the one who figured out the saint was a fictional character last year, and she let slip of the fact to the clique of older kids at the orphanage. So now they were able to continue their bullying into the last months of the year, as long as they were subtle about it. There were many “accidents” which involved me tripping into a pile of dishes or knocking over something and making a mess.

I had learned that there was no point in telling one of the adults what was going on. They got paid their fixed salary. They were content. What was one child to them?

I had food and shelter, the essentials of life. Time had passed since summer, and I was used to once again, how life had always been in the orphanage. But that summer was the last straw, giving this little seed its first crack, yearning to see some sunlight. All that was needed now was the catalyst—the trigger. That came one fateful day before November.

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \

October 31st was one of the worst days of the year. It was the last day the kids could pull pranks on me as openly and not be punished, which they took full advantage of.

At lunch, I had knocked over a vat of soup, but unexpectedly, the timing caused the soup to spew all over the floor and Head Girl. Needless to say, I cleaned up the entire mess, as well as a mountain of dishes, as punishment. I was given a sandwich made with the moldy cheese for lunch when I finished.

It had taken so long to clean up that it was 5:50. I downed my dinner on the way to the teacher’s office. She was strict and distant, but at least didn’t play things completely by the book like the other adults. If I wasn’t one of her most favorite students, I wouldn’t have been able to use her prized laptop for a little bit. That was the one thing I had to look forward to each day.

Before I knocked, I shook off any crumbs on my clothes; I didn’t want to make a mess in the room. I timidly knocked on the door. It creaked open to reveal the room—bookshelves of binders and papers that obscured the desk—and I slowly entered.

By the desk, the teacher said, “I didn’t think you were coming today. After what you did at lunch, I don’t know if you should even use the computer.”

“I-I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I’d lost count how many times I apologized this year, let alone today.

I wasn’t paying attention to what she said. It was the same thing she said as always, but with different words. Eventually she stopped talking and said, “Five minutes.”

No time was wasted flicking the laptop on. As soon as it booted up, the internet window popped up on the Miro town web site. There were some interesting headlines, a mixed bag of the usual: the pumpkin bakeoff; the costume contest; a missing teenage report.

However, I didn’t have time to read any of that stuff with a few minutes. Besides, who cared what was going on in Miro? I typed in the URL address for a forum which I had stumbled upon a few months back.

A long post awaited me in a private thread from my friend.

CelestiaTangy_Orangey @ 4:11 PM
CelestiaLooksus is exciting today because everyone has been waiting for Halloween. We all will dress up in
Celestiadark cloaks with pumpkins on our heads and try to get a lot of candy! What are you going to do? ^^

That sounded like it would be quite the event and possibly a lot of fun. Sometimes, I wondered if Tangy—her nickname—was exaggerating. Like, there was a week in September when she was ecstatic over a sport fair in which she claimed that almost everyone in her town participated in.

I typed a short response.

"AmberLuce @ 5:52 PM
I got the second volume of Clashing Fates from the library. I’m reading it tonight."

I wondered what I’d do on the laptop next with my time left. There were the message boards that I could browse, but there wouldn’t be much time to find a thread worth posting on.

However, when I went to the next page, I got a notice saying that Tangy had responded to the thread. So quickly! That could only mean that she was online.

"Tangy_Orangey @ 5:54 PM
Wow your online right now! ^^
Im glad that you finally get to read it! But still you should do something special today. Doesn't your town do something special on holidays?"

I almost typed, What is so great about the last day of October?, but saying that could lead to explaining why I didn’t like October, possibly leading to the fact that I lived in an orphanage, which I was trying to forget while I was online.

"AmberLuce @ 5:57 PM
Just because the last day of October is called “Halloween” doesn’t mean that everyone in Miro's going to waltz out of their houses onto the cold streets and run around wearing pumpkins. Well, there's a baking contest or something going on today..."

I tapped the refresh button every few seconds, waiting impatiently for her response.

I tried to visualize in my mind’s eye what Tangy might be doing at that very moment. I pictured a girl about my age, give or take a year, sitting in front of a computer in a well furnished room—possibly her bedroom. She might have blonde, flowing hair, that went some length past her shoulders, and her blue eyes would be looking at the monitor, waiting. Or she could be an imaginary person inside of the computer. It didn’t really matter, either way, but it was more fun to imagine.

"Tangy_Orangey @ 5:59 PM
Why dont you go to that, Tay? Baking sounds fun! It might be my next hobby...
Its almost 6! gtg!"

Chapter 2 – Red, Everywhere
---
I sighed when I saw her log off. Then again, it was six o'clock. The teacher looked up over her files, and I reluctantly logged myself off as well.

I really did wish I could go to some kind of event in town, but I was practically trapped inside this building. But I really did have a book to read. I wandered back to the bunkroom upstairs. The room was deserted, of course. Everyone was outside playing. That was fine because it would be nice and quiet in my little corner of the world.

Surprisingly, the book was where I left it under my pillow. Something was missing though. My treasure. The red scarf. It was not there. Gone.

Panic fluttered up my throat, but I tried to hold it down and thought back to the last time I had the scarf. It was yesterday. I wore the scarf around all day. Then at night, I folded it and put it under my pillow. So someone took it. That was the only explanation. Head Girl must be behind this. Ten times out of nine, it was.

She probably took it to wear for herself since it was starting to get cold. If that were the case, I would probably never be able to wear the scarf again. I absentmindedly twirled my bangs around with my index finger while lost in thought. Yes, if that were the case, then I would have to take the scarf back and then hide it somewhere really safe. Like under a floorboard or something.

It was the only memento I ever had of my very, very first friend. At least, I associated that scarf with memories I had buried. Either way, I didn't want to lose that item too.

With a rationale established for the missing scarf and a skeleton of a plan forming, I was able to file the thought away for later. Tonight I would let the subject weigh on my mind. Thinking could be done when the lights were off. Reading could not.

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \  

It was midnight.

Actually, it was fairly close to midnight. Sometime before then. Everyone had fallen asleep, but I was wide awake with the lost scarf on my mind. It was missing, probably stolen. I needed to somehow recover it and then hide it someplace safer than under my pillow.

That explained why I was up so late, not why I was standing downstairs.

I figured maybe I could sneak onto the laptop and make a post on the forum to Tangy. It wasn’t like there was anyone else that I could talk to who might understand. Before Tangy, I had Tr—no. There was never someone. No one, no one, no one.

So I could give Tangy a description of my plight, lightly smudging a detail here or there. I hadn’t told her very much about myself, just my real name. She hadn’t told me much about herself either though, just that everyone calls her Tangy. So she didn’t know that I lived in an orphanage; she probably just thought that I was a normal kid like her. But maybe someday, I would tell her more about myself, and I’d learn more about her.

The air was freezing, even though it was inside, so I wore my jacket. I tried the door and was startled to find it unlocked. I was anticipating that I'd have to pick the lock, not that I was complaining. It normally would’ve taken me an hour, at best, to get the door open, if I really had to. Lock picking wasn't exactly my forte.

I tiptoed inside the room. The laptop was left on the desk, where it usually sat for charging, only it was not charging. Warily, I held the laptop up to check that the cord wasn’t underneath. The charger cord was not there. Another missing item. “More Head Girl mischief?” I wondered.

Then I froze. The door was unlocked. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. She wouldn't happen to be awake at this hour, would she?

It occurred to me that I was just standing in the middle of the room holding the laptop. What if Head Girl was awake and what if she came into the room?

But I had to go on the forum. I would post my scarf dilemma quickly so that when Tangy went on in the morning, she would see my post. Maybe I could sneak online later on that afternoon. Yes, that would be a good plan.

About when I decided this, a tremor shook the orphanage, and I nearly was knocked off my feet. I peered out of the room down the hall. Everything looked okay at first, until I caught a whiff of a particular odor. Monotone alarms went off, and the top most air in the hallway became a cloudy dark grey. Smoke! The orphanage was on fire!

The adults were shouting, running about the building to rouse the sleeping children from the bunkrooms. They were leading the little ones, blind from sleep, to outside as quickly as possible. No one seemed to notice me.

I hacked hoarsely. I was still standing rooted to my spot when my brain finally kicked into action. I had to get out of there! I could now hear the flames eating away at the ceiling upstairs. I must have been directly under the source of the fire. A portion of the ceiling that was in flames crashed down, and the blaze began to spread.

I stumbled through the thick smog out of the nearest door I could find in the chaos to outside. There was no more time for thought, just survival and surviving. After reaching outside, I kept on going and going and going down the street until my heart was no longer thumping in my ears.

I was about a block away from the partially burning orphanage when I turned around to look at the sight. Outside stood a crowd of people—the orphans and adults. From behind me, sirens wailed, steadily growing louder. The fire truck. I got out of the street just in time for it to whiz by me.

The abrupt wind the vehicle kicked up reminded me how cold it was outside. I loosened my grip on the laptop I was clutching close, as if I had been shielding it from harm when I ran. Half of myself said that I should follow after the truck and rejoin the group of orphans who stood by the adults. They would be finding shelter someplace for the night, and then in the morning, the adults would figure out what to do.

But I was too tired from the event that just the mere thought of going back the distance I’d come from seemed crazy. Kind of like swimming across a lake and reaching the other side exhausted.

Circumventing the sewage drain, I took went up the concrete steps by the nearest building, the public library of Miro. I dropped against the wall, huddling in a corner by the double doors. I took my jacket off and used it as a small blanket.

Tomorrow, I told myself, I would find out where the orphanage shelter would be. But my conscience knew that was a lie I fed myself so I would sleep, believing that there was supposedly a plan.

The reality was, this seed had cracked. This seed was ready to for sun. This seed would not and could not turn back now.

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \  

At some point, my conscience stirred to a slight awareness. I was not asleep, but not fully awake either. It was the cold that had stirred me. I didn’t feel my jacket anymore, but I was too tired to feel around for it. In a few minutes, I would probably just seep back into my slumber anyway.

Then I felt something furry, something warm, something heavy near my chest where my hands rested. Its rhythmically slow and constant purr lulled me back to sleep until morning.

Chapter 3 – Looking for Looksus
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Every morning, the first thing I did was yawn and stretch. It was like my way of telling the world, "Good morning!" But before I had even gotten a chance to raise my arms an inch in my yawning stretch, I stopped. I had brushed my hand against something furry. I stiffly pulled myself up a bit so that I could peer at what it was that I had touched on my tummy.

It was a cat.

A blue and white cat, if anyone would believe it, wearing a checkered shirt custom-made to fit. He looked up at me with a content look, as if he had done something praiseworthy. There was something about the cat I noticed though after a good minute of staring back at him. There was no collar.

"I guess that makes him a runaway too," I thought.

Then I caught myself. I had said "runaway too." I never formally declared myself a runaway, yet here I was. I could be a runaway too, if I wanted. I mean, I'd gotten the running part down; now I just had to actually run away to someplace.

"I'm going to move into a friend's town," I told the blue cat, and as an afterthought, added, "I wish there's some way I could let her know though."

The blue cat raced ahead of me into the distinctive building of a train station, ignoring the "no pets allowed" sign. While the street was deserted, the inside of the train station was just the opposite. People loitered around small shops on the entranceway while others walked purposefully. The blue cat skillfully navigated through the maze of feet and bulging bags. I tried to keep up, while trying to not attract any attention.

Because I was so focused on the cat's direction, I paid little attention to my own. The result was running into a woman in a waitress uniform outside of a shop. She forced a smile, and asked me if I needed help. I looked left and right, avoiding her gaze. My clothes were pretty ragged; maybe she'd realize that I was a runaway or something. I was also trying to find that blue cat. Of course, he was nowhere to be found.

“If you were about to ask me how to use the Wi-Fi, this instruction sheet should self-explanatory,” she said.

The woman thrust a half sheet of paper in front of my face, and after I took it, hustled off, disappearing into the crowd.

I looked the leaflet for Pastel Café. It explained about Pastel Café’s new Wi-Fi service; Wi-Fi meant internet… which meant I now had a way to contact Tangy. “That cat knew what I was looking for,” I thought, bewildered.

I retreated to a small table in a corner of the café and read the directions before booting the laptop up. Once the laptop was on, I would only have a handful of minutes to use the nearly dead laptop to go online. There would be no time to waste.

I pressed the power button. It was go time. About two minutes later, I was rapidly typing up a message to Tangy. After every few lines, I submitted my message through the quick post box. Worst case scenario, it’d be better for her to get some of my message than none of it.

CelestiaAmberLuce @ 12:11 AM
CelestiaThis might be sudden, but the place I lived at burned down last night.

CelestiaAmberLuce @ 12:11 AM
CelestiaI'm looking for somewhere to live. I thought of your town first,

CelestiaAmberLuce @ 12:12 AM
Celestiaso I'm going to see if I can find a train to get to Looksus.

CelestiaAmberLuce @ 12:13 AM
CelestiaI’m catching the train soon. See if you can meet me when I get there?

Mid-post of the fifth message, I saw my shocked reflection on the black laptop screen turned to a deflated expression. There were other things I still had to type! Like what I looked like, for starters. And then I realized that I didn’t even know her real name, just her nickname.

But there was no time for idling. I could only keep moving forward with my plan. I had a train to catch before someone realized that I was gone.

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \

I must have spent at least an hour running around, trying to find out which train went to Looksus, and I was about ready to give up. The employees started to eye me with suspicion of gave me looks that told me that I was a head case. So when I noticed that there were security officers in the train station, I tried to duck out of their sight and blend with the crowd.

It felt like I had to get to Looksus, and if I kept trying, I'd be able to somehow get there. I hoped that telling that to myself over and over would help my battered moral, but it only made the situation seem even more hopeless as I aimlessly wandered up one corridor and down another. I was looking for a sign of some sort.

That's why I came to a sudden halt and rubbed my eyes when I saw what probably was the long-awaited sign and stared. It was not a blue cat though.

Instead of seeing a contiguous wall next to me, a huge chunk of it was missing, as if a giant had taken a bite out of it. Out of the makeshift open doorway, I could see one of the passenger cars of a train a mere hand's length away.

It didn’t seem strange that the passing crowd of people totally ignored this sight, but rather that the guy standing by the car’s open door wore a very cartoony monkey suit. The getup was even complete with a vest and a nametag that read "Porter."

"Does this train go to Look-sus?" The words came out of my mouth without thinking.

The monkey man looked confused for a moment before he said, "Oh, you must mean Looksus," he said, pronouncing the ‘Look’ part as the name ‘Luke.’ "This train will take you there, but there's a toll if you plan on moving from here to there."

My heart sank. "You mean money?" I chided myself for asking such a stupid question.

He looked surprised, if it was possible for a man in a suit to look surprised. "I never said anything about money. I only meant that it was not free."

"What's the toll then?" I asked, exasperated.

The monkey man looked me over and after a while, he said, "The laptop will do."

I didn’t even have to think it over. I handed the dead laptop to him.

He stepped aside. "Welcome aboard the Crossing Express. We shall be leaving shortly."

I took one furtive glance back before boarding the train, checking to see if the secret police were going to pull a net over my head. But the people in the corridor continued going about their way without paying any attention to me. Feeling assured, I stepped through the space in the wall into the passenger car. There was something strange afoot, and I wasn’t able to place my finger on it until Porter—if that really was his name—slid the car door shut.

"It's empty," I said, confused, but relieved at the lack of people. "Don't you get more passengers?"

"Usually not," he said.

An awkward air hung between us. The monkey man excused himself and went to an adjoining car, and I just stood there, processing the last twelve hours.

I started to explore the train car when a triumphant whistle blew and the train softly jolted to a start. A searing bright light flooded in through the open windows, and I shielded my eyes to avoid being momentarily blinded. I ran to the window by the nearest seat and squished my nose up to the glass to peer out. An olive green landscape filled with trees dotted the view as it sped by. It was such a breathtaking sight and foreign. I had never seen so much green without a trace of concrete anywhere.

I stared out of the window for some time, until my paranoia kicked in. I saw that the car in front of this one was the only other passenger car, and the back door led to a small balcony outside. And there was the shadow of someone on that balcony, talking on a cell phone. What if they had tracked me down and were letting the orphanage know that I had been found? I needed to find someplace to hide.

Chapter 4 – Rover
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I wildly surveyed the train car again. Above me, there was a storage rack filled with blankets for the passenger. At that same time, I heard the rear doorknob turn. I snatched one of the blankets overhead and threw it over myself and let myself fall on my side. I curled up in a ball to occupy the entire seat. The blanket covered my vision, but at the very least, no one could see my face. It was the best I could improvise on, and hopefully it would do.

The door opened and light footsteps walked in and stopped by my seat. I felt the person’s eyes looking at the blanket. So my hiding place was very conspicuous.

Instead of my blanket being yanked though, he asked, "Hey, do you mind if I sit here? I won't drool or anything, you know!"

I figured him to be a boy old enough to go to college, but not quite an adult yet. He probably wasn't part of the secret police squad that I imagined was after me. Still, I kept my mouth shut, hoping that he would go away. But it was not meant to be. I heard him waddle over to the seat right across from me and felt his eyes resting on my hiding place.

"Are you really asleep?" he asked, probably with a goofy grin over his face. Silence. "The weather is nice today, don’t you think?” More silence. “The stocks are looking up.”

It was as if he was having a conversation with an imaginary friend. Of course, it was nothing but conversation openers, but I was determined to not say a peep. I was doing well in this regard until he asked that one question.

“What’s your name?”

"Tay," I replied automatically.

I grimaced. I had said something. I couldn’t help it; it was a habit to answer that particular question promptly. But now that I had said something, he was going to yap and yap.

He laughed. "Did you pick that name for yourself or something? Well, it is a cute name for a cute girl!"

Indignantly I said, "Well, what's your name?"

"Rover," he said proudly. "I chose it myself because I never stay in one place for too long." He paused purposefully before switching subject. "Did you hear the news this morning?"

When it occurred to me that he was expecting a response, I replied with an, "Um, no..?"

"An orphanage in Miro caught fire last night," Rover said with interest.

A knot tightened in my stomach. I didn’t really think he would start talking about the orphanage. Since he had brought up the subject though, I edged in the thought on my mind. "Were all of them safe?"

"Mostly," Rover said. "There was one girl with third degree burns around her neck who was rushed to the hospital."

"Who?"

"I don’t know her name, but I remember what she looked like," Rover said. "She had long blonde wavy and struck me as an animal hater."

I thought to myself, "That sounds like it could have been Head Girl.” Even though she had been so horrible to me all these years, I was torn between rejoicing and feeling some sympathy. But then I remembered that because of her, I didn’t have my red scarf anymore. No sympathy for her.

"Anyway, the Rafferty family adopted her." After a pause, he asked, "Why do you ask?"

I was too panicked to tell if the question dripped with danger or just curiosity. "Just trying to make conversation," I said quickly.

"Tay, you need to lighten up." He laughed again. "So where're you going?"

"Looksus."

"Looksus, huh?” Then as if he had a great idea, he said, “Hey, do you need a house?"

The absurdity of his question made me want to scoff. Playing along, I said, "Yeah, I really could use one of those."

The scruff of cloth and feet softly landing on the ground alerted me Rover stood up. "Good, I didn't even have to convince you. Well, I'll be back in a flash; I need to set everything up for you."

When he had walked out to the balcony, I poked my head out from under the sheet. I saw Rover's fuzzy silhouette through the window shade talking on his cell phone. Snatches of the conversation made it into the train car. My heart went out to whoever was on the other end of the line putting up with Rover's antics.

I went back and forth in my head on whether or not I would hide back under the sheet when he came back in. While it seemed like I wouldn't have to worry about being dragged back to the orphanage anymore, I still decided to keep myself hidden from his view because I wasn’t sure if I could really trust him. What did he have to gain by helping me?

So when Rover came back into the compartment, he saw a person hiding under a sheet, just like when he left. But he also heard loud snores coming from under the blanket. Rover said something quietly to himself before walking into the adjoining passenger car.

Relief passed through me when I heard the door open, and as soon as the door shut, I crawled out from the sheet. The first thing I saw was a parting gift Rover left on the seat across from me. It was a beat-up cloth pouch that contained two things. The first was a short note from Rover.

"You definitely aren't royalty. In
fact, you look so pitiful! Here's a
little something for ya."

The rest of the pouch's contents were a few shiny gold-colored coins. Confusion was my first reaction. What would I need these coins for? Then I felt guilty. The money must be for the house. I had thought of him as a bad guy, when he was just looking out for me. I had to apologize and thank him.

I approached the door to the other passenger car, slid the door open, and stepped inside.

It was empty.

I sank into the seat nearest to the door. If he wasn't here, the only other place he could be would be the very front of the train, with the conductor. Until the train arrived at Looksus, I debated with myself on whether or not I should go to the conductor's car. Three hours later, I was still sitting in the passenger car, weighing the decision in my mind.

It wasn’t until the sound of padded footsteps that I looked up.

Porter had entered the compartment, and he took his time walking down the aisle. He stopped by my seat and stood there absent-mindedly for a few seconds before speaking into the loud speaker system via microphone. "We will be arriving in Looksus shortly. Please gather your bags and prepare to disembark." Porter tucked the microphone back to its unseen hiding spot and continued to stand by my seat.

How come he just standing there? And why by my seat? The disquieting quietness got to me, and my next thought slipped through my mouth.

"Why is he wearing that..?"

I caught myself mid-thought when I realized I had spoken aloud. I almost had said, 'Why is he wearing a monkey suit?'

"Did you say something?" Porter quickly asked.

"Um, I was just saying, I, um, wondered why you made an announcement over the speaker system if the train's so, um, empty."

"Routine," he said with a smile. “I make an announcement even if the cars are empty.”

I looked at him, awestruck by how much he seemed to enjoy his job. I always thought jobs were a thing to be loathed. At least, that's how it seemed to be with the adults in the orphanage.

After a while, I realized he was looking at me too. No, studying was the more accurate way to put it. I broke the gaze, looking down at Rover's gift in my hands, mentally chiding myself.

He tried to renew our conversation. "I heard you are moving from Miro to Looksus." I gave a small nod after both sentences. "That will be tough... you’ll be starting a new life there, meeting new people, and learning things that you didn’t know before."

I looked back up at him, trying to decipher his newest riddle. The train was starting to slow down. "Is it because I'm going to live on my own? Or maybe cause Looksus isn't a big city?"

He shook his head at every one of my guesses, even though some of them probably were true.

An amused Porter said with reassurance, "You'll see." The train came to a complete stop. He slid the door to outside open and said, "Farewell, miss."

"Bye... mister," I said before making the hop from the car to the brick platform outside.

Chapter 5 – Tangy, like citrus
---
Immediately, I noticed that the train platform was completely outside--there was no sign of a building in sight! It was nothing but trees with an abundance of fruit, browned grass, and an occasional flower here and there. The air had an unusual quality to it too--cleanliness. A gentle wind whispered in my ear, letting my hair flow freely in the breeze. Looking straight ahead at the cobblestone path that lead into town, I thought to myself, “Looksus seems to be a nice, quiet country town.”

Of course, first impressions are quick to change.

On the path, a pair of clothed animals walked towards where I was. Walking. On two legs. Chatting. With each other. In English! They registered vaguely as an orange cat and a raccoon, although they were as tall as the monkey man was and each had a similar cartoony appearance.

The raccoon was talking to the cat. "Calm down; she should be here any moment," he said. His words only seemed to excite the cat even further though.

"I really really really can't wait, mee-ow!" The cat exclaimed. Then she turned her head to look at the station.  Her eyes grew as wide as saucers, and she pointed straight at me. "OHMIGOSH!!! There she is, there she is! HI TAY!!!"

She ran towards me, her paws flailing in a waving motion with a huge grin on her orange-like head while I stood petrified to the spot. The world seemed to drop into a slow, drunken daze. As if to add the finishing touches to my arriving at the blurred line of insanity, the train whistled before it started to chug away. Reality no longer made sense; the ground was slipping.

No, it wasn't slipping. I was falling; my world became black. I heard a vague gasp and cry that might have been made out of concern... or it could have been the whispering wind. Instead of hitting the ground, a feathery touch was there, embracing my fall...

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /

Voices gently washed over me as I regained consciousness. There were three voices: a voice filled with timid concern, one of sharp sarcasm, and the third of a rambling entrepreneur. I remained still to get a bearing of what was going on. Besides, they were talking about me.

"Your most noteworthy contribution thus far has been frightening her upon arrival," chirped the voice with thick sarcasm. It sounded like she was a stone’s throw away.

"I didn't mean to," said the timid voice, which registered in my head as that orange cat, who apparently was my internet friend. It sounded like she was close to my side.

The third voice commented, "From what I heard, it would be expected to be a shock for a girl like her. It was a lucky thing that you were able to catch Tay when she fainted, hmm?"

"It was just a lucky coincidence that I was even there." The snappy speaker muttered, before starting to walk away. "I am leaving it up to you to keep her out of trouble, Tangy."

I barely raised my eyelids, as to take a peek at who was talking, while still pretending to be asleep. I could barely see an orange cat near me, and there was that raccoon I had seen earlier standing by a window. As the door opened, I saw the silhouette of a black bird. Even though her words were harsh, she had an air of sadness about her. And then the door slammed shut before the orange cat could finish her reply.

“I’ll try my...best.”

"It has been a while since she had that change of countenance," mumbled the raccoon. "She must feel pressured to find the Guardian for her Link." Then he said to the cat, “When Tay wakes up, bring her over to Acre B-3. I need to show her the two houses I have for sale. My shop should not be left closed for long, hmm?" The entrepreneur then made his exit through the door.

As soon as he left, she said softly, "Tay... Tay, are you awake?"

I mumbled a, “Mm-hmm,” before I rolled off the pineapple-styled bed to my feet. Now that my eyes were completely open, I scanned the room and its curious objects. The bed was the center of the room. There was an apple-shaped clock and TV with fruit-based chairs and tables on the other side of the room.

And then I zoned in on the orange cat in front of me with her eyes that were dancing, but at the same time, full of concern. A life-like large green leaf hung loosely over her forehead like an accessory, and her lack of whiskers was made up in freckles. Her face reminded me of a tangerine.

As I studied her, the old picture I had created of her in my head from the time I knew her over the forum deteriorated. The previous image of a giggly middle school girl with long blonde hair was shattered and replaced with that of the cat in front of me. Not like anything was wrong with how she really looked like, but it definitely wasn’t what I had expected. I would have guessed first that she didn’t really exist before guessing that she was a cat. After all, it seemed that most of my friends turned out to be figments of my imagination.

"Tay, it’s... really you?" the orange cat asked. She sounded nervous and excited, as if she was unsure if this was real or not.

To avoid staring at her tangerine-like head, I looked down at my shoes, hoping to find that I was on top of a trap door that would lead out of this place. Instead, I was standing on a carpet covered in an orange slice pattern design. It ought as well have been her face there.

“Y-yeah, that’s me... Tangy,” I said. “And your real name is really...?”

“It’s Tangy,” grinned the cat.

“I thought that was your nickname,” I said.

“Nope, it’s my name,” the cat said. “Everyone really does call me that.”

... which was why I had originally thought that was her nickname.

"C'mon, Tay!” Tangy said. Without warning, she grabbed my hand and started to make for the door. “We gotta pick you out a house to buy, mee-ow!"

I pulled my hand away, as soon as it touched her fur. “I can walk myself!”

“O-okay,” Tangy said. Her ears drooped a little.

“You just startled me, that’s all,” I said, hoping that would do for an apology. “Um, let’s just get going?”

Tangy happily talked and rambled while were walking, but I wasn’t paying attention to what she said. There was so much that had happened within the first few minutes of being in this place, and my brain was going ninety miles an hour trying to process it all.

For instance, I compared that blue and white cat that I had followed in Miro to Tangy. Tangy was a cat, but she was not exactly like the cats in Miro. There was a difference, but I wasn’t able to put my finger on it exactly until I saw a blue squirrel sleeping under a tree near a purple cat in a patch of tulips. The epiphany hit me—all the animals here were proportionally about the same size. All the animals—even me—were the about the same height. But in Miro, squirrels and cats were noticeably smaller than me. Here, it was like everything had a cartoony appearance.

I had to know if there were any other people in this town other than me—humans. Something that was normal.

"Hey, ummm... Tangy?"

"Yes, Tay?" She asked with a mixture of excitement and apprehensiveness.

"Do mostly uh... animals live in Looksus?" Unintentionally, I stressed the word animals.

There was a small amount of hesitation in her response. "Well, there the two who work in the library. And there’re two others that live in Acre B-3, if they count, but I don't see them much,” Tangy said before drifting off.

After passing over a bridge, we soon came upon four houses. A message board was erected in the middle of a loopy cobblestone path that connected to the doorstep of each of the four houses. The raccoon from earlier stood there waiting.

Chapter 6 – The blue house
---
"I was wondering when you would come," the raccoon said. He looked me over, as if to appraise my worth. Uncomfortable, I shifted the weight on my feet.

"Nice to meet you...?"

"Tom Nook." The raccoon said simply. He grasped my hand with his paw and firmly shook it. My arm stiffened at the touch of more fur, which resulted in an awkward handshake, but Tom Nook ignored that and continued speaking in his brisk business-like manner. "I have two houses for sale," he indicated the two smaller nearby houses. "Look inside them and choose which one you want to buy." When he saw my hand hover hesitatingly over the doorknob of the house with the yellow roof, he added with a laugh, "There are no locks on the doors, so go on in!"

“Hey Tay?” Tangy said. “I have to go now, but we’ll hang out later, right mee-ow?”

“Yeah… Sure,” I said before going into the first house.

After looking at each house, I discovered both were practically the same. Both had a dusty crate in a corner of the house's small solitary room and a primitive tape deck in the other. With worn and torn wallpaper complete with shabby floor tiles, the two houses for sale ought to have been advertised as a pair of cozy run-down shacks. It was as if Tom Nook had decided to convert two small warehouses into houses for some quick cash.

"I guess I'll... choose this house," I eventually said.

"Of course! Very, very good!" Tom Nook exclaimed cheerfully. "This must be a very important day for you."

"Mm-hmm," I murmured. If I had been completely on my own on my spontaneous plan to run away, I probably would be living under a bridge or in an alley, only to be starved and found a few days later.

The raccoon began to lecture me on the house and bits of information that he thought might come in handy. I had already processed a lot today, so his words went in one ear and out the other until he got to the payment.

"… That will be 19,800 bells," he said.

I handed him the beat-up cloth bag I had gotten on the train.

Tom Nook weighed the bag in his paw and said, "You only have 1,000 bells, and you hope to buy a house? That’s so funny, I could just laugh." And that’s what he did. Loudly. The next moment though, he was grave. "You need a place to live, but don’t have enough money to buy a house. A thorny situation..."

“I could always go back to where I came from,” I suggested meekly.

He shook his head, as if the thought was unacceptable. Suddenly his eyes lit up with an idea. "You can work at my shop to pay off some of your house. Think of it as a loan, hmm?" I nodded dumbly. "Very good! Then I will see you at my shop in a few minutes."

Before he gave me a chance to say anything, he scurried up the cobblestone path to his shop.

Since he didn’t say I had to follow him immediately, I looked at the red and blue roofed houses that dwarfed mine. The owners of both were humans, according to Tangy. Maybe they were home.

I walked up to the one with a blue roof. An object that resembled a beige-colored fire hydrant in front of the house's window sprung to life when I neared it. Its beady eyes sparkled as it recited a message in a squeaky voice. "The master is not home right now. Feel free to look around his house though."

"Really?" I asked stupidly to the fire hydrant.

It repeated its message, assuring me that it was okay if I did walk inside. I was still nervous when I stepped inside, not sure why I was even entering the house when he wasn’t home. That felt like trespassing to me, something that you weren’t supposed to ever do.

The interior appeared to be solely one large room, although the outside had led me to believe that there might have been an upstairs and a much smaller first floor. However, there were no stairs in sight.

The room was cluttered with a random assortment of furniture and a variety of plants. A sword and bow were on display by the door. Colorful bonsai plants rested on the two windowsills on opposite sides of the room. In the back corner was an ebony piano, and beside it was an unusually large red metronome on top of a comparably small round table. In the other back corner was a harp next to a classic-styled desk and chair. Bookshelves were built into the remaining unused space along the back wall and were loaded with many fiction and recipe books. Potted plants positioned around a grandfather clock and a dull bronze phonograph in the center of the room took up the remaining space. There was barely a small pathway to walk around the house.

The blue ceiling light cast an eerie glow across the room causing a chill to go up my spine. Other than a haunting dirge that played slowly on the phonograph, the house was dead silent. Even the clock whose frozen hands were stopped at 8:14—its pendulum was seen unmoving through chipped glass.

“This is a strange house,” I thought, walking a semi-circle around the room. Like a cat, my curiosity got the best of me and I plucked a string on the harp. A cloud of dust rained off of the instrument and into the air. Coughing and sneezing, I stumbled backwards a few steps. A quick glance around the room revealed that almost everything in the room was coated in a layer of dust.

BANG! ... BANG!

I must have jumped several feet in the air and let out a startled yelp. There was a splashing sound nearby. Warily I looked about myself, half-expecting to see my neighbor behind me, but I saw no one; I was alone. It was only the sound of a pair of symbols crashing together in the dirge song. By now, the creepy melody had quieted. Then I became aware that the bottom of my pants legs was clinging to my ankles. They were wet. I was standing in a puddle, but why would water...? Wait, was it water?

In the back of my mind, I thought of many other possibilities besides water due to the house's peculiarity. I stiffened at one thought. “It couldn't be blood...? Right?” I thought, alarmed. “One way to find out.” Scared at what I would see, but feeling that I had no other choice, I slowly dropped my gaze to the floor underneath me. I was standing in a jet-black puddle of a thick liquid littered with many tiny shards of shattered glass. Paper torn to shreds was scattered on the floor a foot away. I let out a breath that I hadn't known I was holding in, relieved that the puddle was only ink.

Then it occurred to me that I was indeed, standing in a puddle of ink, and probably should not stay standing in the puddle for much longer. When I skirted out of the ink puddle though, I tripped over a potted plant and did a face plant on the floor. Luckily, I did not land on anything, but nevertheless I berated myself for my clumsiness.

As I picked myself up from the floor, I could not help but take notice of the ceramic tiles that made up the floor. I stared in awe at the portion of it that I saw. The tile served as a canvas for the colorful mosaic of bright and dark colors, depicting a skyline with night clashing with day, the darkness of night was fusing with the brightness of day. Noticing that the ink mess was covering up a portion of the day side of the artwork, I inched towards it. A feeble halo of yellow paint could barely be seen under layers of dried out and wet ink blotches. I inferred that that was the sun, but unfortunately, ink had spilled on it.

I couldn't help but wonder if this person went on vacation or something. If they were home, why would they leave ink undisturbed on the floor so that it could start to dry out like that? Would the stain even be able to come off the floor? It seemed like such a shame that this mural was marred by black ink.

On the way out of the house, I saw something I hadn't seen earlier. There were seeds and browned apple cores in the potted plants near the door. Something about it seemed off, like it should have decomposed more if it had actually been there for a long time. That detail only added to my musing as I wandered in the general direction towards Tom Nook's shop.

Chapter 7 – Happa Kyodai
---
The first thing Tom Nook said when I entered his shop was an impatient, "Took you long enough." Then he thrust a faded green apron into my hands. A white apple on the front of the apron was its only distinguishing mark. "That's your uniform. It's an old model, so you will have to throw it over your clothes."

My hands fumbled to tie a bow with the strings in the back of the apron behind me, and Tom Nook watched me with an amused expression. It felt like he was appraising me.

"So, what do you want me to do? Clean up your shop?" I asked. But looking around, I saw that his shop already looked spotless.

"You will work as an errand runner for me. However, instead of receiving pay, I will deduct from your loan based on your performance." The raccoon gave me a sharp look, as if to jibe at my so-called late punctuality. "Your first errand will to be to deliver this," he handed me a shiny green leaf, "to Tad in Acre C-2."

I turned the leaf over in my hands, examining it. It was a shiny green; it didn’t feel like an organic plant leaf... it was as soft as cloth, yet seemed very durable. The texture was so unusual that there was not a single word to describe it.

"What are you waiting around for?" Tom Nook asked, "It's not going to deliver itself, hmm?"

"A-ah, yeah, right..." I muttered to myself as I walked slowly from the shop. Then it occurred to me that I hadn't the slightest clue where this Tad lived, or what an acre was for that matter.

Frustrated, I wandered for a bit until I came to the train station. I stopped in front of the map there and looked for Tad's house.  The map was divided in a grid, marked with letters for the rows, and numbers for the columns.

“Oh, C-2,” I said to myself. That was a bit southwest from my house, not too far from where I was.

Soon I reached Tad's house and saw a teal-colored frog standing outside. When he saw the leaf in my hand as I approached, the frog asked, "Is that the elephant slide from Tom Nook, slurrrp?"

"I uh... guess so. It looks like a leaf though." I said, holding up the green leaf.

"Of course it's not just a leaf." Then the frog momentarily paused. "I didn't realize it until now, but aren’t you new here? I never introduced myself. My pals call me Tad."

"Oh, and I'm Tay. I'm working at Tom Nook's shop for a while."

"I should give you something for this delivery," he said when I gave him the leaf. I shook my head in protest because it was only a simple delivery, but he said, "It’s a welcoming present from me to you, slurrrp! Come inside for a bit." Tad entered his house and I followed him.

His house was a single room filled with objects as random as Tangy’s furniture. There were some of those funny dancing fire hydrants—which Tad told me, are called "Gyroids”—and small tables shaped like lily pads and frog-shaped chairs in the corners of the room.

"This is an elephant slide," Tad said, pointing the slide next to the kiddy pool.

"I can tell,” I said, trying not to lay the sarcasm on too thick. The slide that he was pointing at had an elephant on both sides. “So that leaf you’re holding is supposed to be a slide just like that one?”

"Right. See?" He tossed t he leaf to the empty corner of the room opposite of the slide and the leaf materialized into an identical slide like the first elephant slide.

"Oh..." I said, amazed at the display.

"It's Happa Kyodai." and at my confused look, he added, "Leaf mana system. Now for your reward..." Tad handed me a shiny leaf. "I won this at a raffle, but it clashes with my pool gear. Just throw it somewhere in your pad, and it'll appear there, slurrrp!"

"Thanks," I said with uncertainty before leaving his house.

Chapter 8 – The two sisters
---
When I stepped inside the shop, Tom Nook pointed to a parcel and packets of flower seeds on the counter before briskly turning around to return back to his phone conversation. "Only SIX days?!" He thundered into the receiver.

I grabbed the packages and quickly left the store to avoid hearing the raccoon's heated conversation. Once outside though, I realized that I hadn't the slightest clue what my current errands were. The package was marked with a bunch of "fragile!" and "right side up" stickers, addressed to someone named Bob. The flower packets on the other hand, left no clue what I was to do with them.

"Wee one!" Someone behind me called. I was so startled that I nearly dropped the wares. It was a black and white bunny that was addressing me. "My name's Dotty," she said, "What's yours?"

"I'm... Tay," I said, while telling my palpitating heart to settle down.

"Whatcha doin'?" She asked, curiously eyeing my packages.

"I’m supposed to be making a delivery to someone named Bob."

Dotty's eyes lit up. "Really?!" She exclaimed. I nodded.

She enthusiastically told me that she was going to his house and would show me where he lived. I followed behind a hopping and cheerful Dotty. It was like we were starting to head towards Tangy’s house. We passed my house and crossed over the river, where there was two houses surrounded by tulips and pansies. A purple cat was asleep in a patch of tulips and a blue squirrel slept in the shade of a tree.

Full of energy, Dotty bounced back and forth from the cat to the squirrel chanting loudly, "Wake up, wake up!" over and over. Her childish incantation slowly roused the two from their slumber. "I want you to meet Tay."

"Uh... Hi there," I said nervously as the two groggy animals eyed me.

Although the purple cat’s eyes still looked half-open, he instantly brightened at the sight of the package in my hands. "You're my best friend in the whole entire world!" He exclaimed, and then he leapt towards me with outstretched purple paws.

I must have blinked, because one moment, it looked like he was about to give me a bear, er—cat—hug, and the next, he was tightly hugging the parcel some distance away from me.

Dotty laughed and said, "That's Bob for you, and Filbert is the blue squirrel, wee one." Then she tossed the square piece of checkerboard cloth which she was holding, and when it hit the ground, the square multiplied in size, creating a cloth blanket in a mere second. “Picnic time,” she sang. At everyone's impressed looks, she said nonchalantly, "I bought it over in Maplewood. They just started selling these new Happa Kyodai patterns."

"So it's just plain cloth?" Bob asked, the interest draining from his voice.

Filbert felt the texture of the cloth blanket with his paw, and then licked his paw. He then said, "Yup. One hundred percent cotton."

With their interest gone from the pattern blanket, Bob and Filbert exchanged glances before bursting into a chant of, "Caaake! Cake!"

Dotty opened the package when we sat down. There really was a cake inside, and the bunny divided it into fourths. They chatted about the yesterday’s Halloween festival while I nibbled slowly on my cake slice. I felt like an outsider on multiple levels, but they did their best to include me in their circle. Bob told me that once in a previous life, he and Filbert were sisters. A faint smile formed on my face when the comment registered in my head.

Before I realized it, time had flown by and the sun had set a while ago. That was when Dotty inquired about my job at Tom Nook's shop, Nookway, and I told them that I was working to pay off a loan.

"Which reminds me," I said, looking down at the flower packets. “Tom Nook gave me a lot of flower seeds to plant, but he didn't tell me where to put them."

"I know, pthpth," Bob said, "Mike used to do errands for the Nookmeister and he planted flowers!" Both Bob and Filbert said the last part at the same time.

"That's creepy, blue," Filbert said with a laugh.

"Copycat!" Bob called back.

“You’re the cat,” Filbert called back.

Dotty shifted through the flower packets I had and arranged them into two piles while the two were in a childish name calling match that ended in a draw. She gave a handful of red and yellow tulips to me and said, "You and Bob plant those by Bob's house." She picked up the remaining white pansy packets. "Filbert and I will plant these by Filbert's house. It shouldn't matter where they get planted as long as they're planted, you know what I mean, wee one?"

Planting the flowers was unusual, like everything so far in Looksus. The seeds sprouted tulips right after burying them in the ground! "Must be that Happa Kyodai thing," I murmured after the second tulip spontaneously sprouted.

Other than the sound of accelerated flower growth and the ripping open of another few tulip packets, it was quiet. Until the purple cat decided to say something.

"How's your house, pthpth?" Bob asked.

"It's, ummm... How do I put it? Cozy?"

"Could I drop by your house tomorrow?"

"Sure, I guess. Sometime around noon?"

"Sounds good," He said. Then he shut his eyes and promptly fell into a deep sleep that elicited a blank stare from me.

I ran over to Dotty to ask her what was wrong to find that Filbert too, had fallen asleep in his patch of pansies.

“What’s wrong with them?” I asked.

“Oh, they usually have their nap around now,” Dotty said.

“But it’s evening,” I said.

“Yeah, they take a nap before they go to bed,” Dotty said. “Shhh! We must be quiet!”

“O... kay,” I said, even though Dotty’s shhh was loud enough to wake the dead. “Well, I guess I should be getting back to work.”

Dotty gasped. “That’s probably a good idea, wee one! I hope Tom Nook isn’t too mad when you get back.”

And of course, he was.

“What do you mean, you planted those flowers by Bob’s and Filbert’s house?” Tom Nook questioned. “Those were supposed to go by Kiki’s house. Don’t tell me that you dropped the cake too, hmm?”

“No I didn’t,” I said, letting his annoyance go in one ear and out the other.

Tom Nook took a deep breath, sighed, and said, “I will have to deduct some of your pay and reorder the flowers. Just get some rest and be glad that you have a roof over your head.”

Chapter 9 – You’ve got mail
---
It felt surreal when I arrived in Acre B-3 and saw the four houses standing there because it had finally sunk in. Almost twenty-four hours ago, I never would have guessed that I would be in this town, home of my internet friend, who turned out to be a cat, or that I would be free of the orphanage.

The flag on my mailbox was up and blinking, indicating that I had mail. That was curious—who would be writing me a letter when I just moved in? I put the flag down and removed the singe envelope from the mailbox. The address wasn’t anything fancy, but it definitely was for me.

CelestiaTay
CelestiaLooksus, B-3

I hurried inside my house. For some reason, I was excited; my hands were shaking and my pulse quickened. I was very careful opening the envelope and removing the letter. It was written on a sheet of starry sky stationary with a blue gel ink pen; the handwriting was a hybrid style of both cursive and print.

"To Tay:
Rare, the power is, which exist imbedded
inside memories, memories which you
should hold dear. This gift will help to
heighten memory. It is a holder of many
a recollections--memories are eternal.

Signed: _________
Signed:[@___---"

There was also a shiny green leaf in the envelope. I remembered what I learned from Tad earlier and tossed towards the corner of the room. The leaf materialized on the wooden crate there as a fancy hard-covered red diary along with an equally elegant black pen. I let the mystery leaf from Tad float to the hard charcoal-colored floor and it turned into a large mahogany bed that came with silk sheets and a blanket with an exotic design.

I gaped at the two generous presents. An outrageous bed, one fit for a king! I couldn’t believe that Tad had simply given it away to me all because he claimed that it didn’t fit with his house. I had to thank him, somehow! And then there was the diary from... er... I scanned the letter again and examined the envelope, and confirmed that there was no sender name, just the ambiguous wing signature. I thought back on today while twirling my bangs in my free hand.

Today, so many people had helped me, and I hadn’t even gotten the chance to thank them. Namely, I was thinking about Rover on the train. It should have been very easy to thank him, but for some stupid reason, I didn’t. If someone did good to me, I should do good unto them. Or at the very least, thank them. So I wasn’t about to let another good act go by me un-thanked.

I folded the letter back up, returned it to its envelope, and placed it under the mattress.

“I put it under my bed,” I said aloud, as if to make it more official that I had done it, so that if I needed to find the letter, I would know that I really was crazy if it wasn’t there.

Then I looked over at the diary and its empty pages, which pleaded me to fill some of its pages. I didn’t write much before going to bed—just what was on my mind.

CelestiaWednesday, November 1
CelestiaI’m no longer in Miro. I’m in Looksus now, which is a strange town.
CelestiaEveryone I’ve met so far are animals. Talking animals, like that you’d see
Celestiain cartoons or anime. And Tangy is one of them. She’s an orange cat
Celestiathat looks like a tangerine. She looks weird, but she seems just like the
CelestiaTangy I know. And it’s nice to know that she’s really real.

Chapter 10 – Just a dream
---
The darkness around me was as vague as it was familiar to me. Her voice echoed quietly in my ears, nagging the deepest corner of my mind. "You never should have met me. I'll have been nothing but trouble."

Then I saw her appear before me. I ran towards her, but I wasn’t getting any closer to my motionless friend. "Wait!" I called. The louder I raised my voice, the more desperate my voice became. "Trisha, don't go!"

"No, I must go," Her small echoing voice said, "as you must go. I’m sorry; I didn’t know."

She slowly started to fade away into the darkness. I stopped running. It really was futile. She was almost gone. All I could do was plead. Each word carried more and more desperation, like watching the sand disappear from an hourglass.

"We’ll meet again... right? This isn’t really... it, is it?"

The last words I heard her say was, "Yes. May we meet again, Tay." She looked at ease and resigned to her fate was before disappearing. The last thing I saw was her faint modest smile. And then there was nothing left.

The darkness around me suddenly shattered into a sea that crashed down on me. I was pushed under. I couldn't breathe; I was drowning in this dark abyss of water. In a matter of seconds, all the fresh air in my lungs was gone. Surely, I thought, this would be the end.

But it wasn’t—not yet. A hand broke through the surface of the water. A voice reassured me I would be safe; that I was not alone. I seized the hand and he pulled me free of my watery prison that would have sealed my fate.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

I woke up with a start, momentarily bewildered by my surroundings until I remembered that I was in a house—my house—in a town I moved to yesterday, called Looksus. After establishing that I was safe, my thoughts drifted to my dream.

It had started a couple of months ago. I’ve had that dream a few times, but not very recently. I thought the dream had stopped because I had decided that none of that mattered, that the past was in the past, and that I was going to live the future. I had things to do today, and none of it was going to involve puzzling over something that was in my head.

I was feeling optimistic about how my first whole day in Looksus would turn out as I entered Nookway.

"I was wondering if you would ever show up." Tom Nook said crossly. The raccoon-shaped clock behind the counter chimed eleven o'clock.  “Here are the flowers. Plant them in the correct spot this time, next to Kiki’s house! This is for Kiki too.” He handed me an assortment of flower seeds, as well as a white medicine bottle, before shooing me out of Nookway.

---

~ COMMENTARY ~
---
I was aiming to have the entire first page of 25 posts straight updates, but that didn't work out too well--I've only gotten to 13, and 14 and 15 are soon done. I'm also visiting my parents and the internet is being abnormally slow for some reason. But I digress. xP

Thank you for having an interest in Celestia, and I hope to be able to keep your interest as I repost/revise/write more. ^^

That's great, Taylor! It just futher confirms my assumptions that all staff are brilliant at writing...

Love it!

Yay, we're alive again!

Glad to see this is back! We'll have to watch it more carefully from now on to make sure it doesn't fall into the abyss again. Looking forward to more. ^_^

Wow this is great!   It's interesting!

Beautiful story.

Chapter 11 – Kiki
---
It was easy finding Kiki’s house once I realized that it was on the other side of the river from Tangy’s house and that there was a bridge connecting the two sides. I hesitated at Kiki’s front door though. I would deliver the medicine first and then ask about the flowers.

I looked down over my shoulder at my reflection in the river. Seeing my reflection helped me to focus. “Here I go,” I thought. “I hope that Kiki is a nice ani--!”

The door behind me opened, and before I could spin around, a pair of furry paws shoved me forward. I fell, hands flailing in front of me, as I crashed into the water.

SPLASH!

Stunned, I rolled over and combed my dripping wet bangs out of the way to see a white cat standing in the doorway. The red and yellow paint markings on his face added to his scary stare. “You must be Tom’s new chore kid,” he said with a smug smirk.

I was at a loss of words. All I could muster was a nasty glare. I didn’t think he noticed though, because he walked away without saying anything else.

“What are you doing in there, wee one?”

My glare melted away, recognizing the speaker of that voice. “Oh, hey, Dotty. That white cat that just left... he pushed me.”

“Oh, that must be Kabuki,” Dotty said huffily. “He’s so mean and a hermit too!”

As I got up, I saw that I had dropped the flower seed packets in the water when I fell and hastily retrieved them up. A raging Tom Nook flashed through my mind. “Oh no! I hope they’re okay!”

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured me. “They’re safe in their little packets.”

Dotty reached out her paw, as if to help me out of the water, but I clambered out on my own. It wasn’t too hard to do, and besides, I didn’t feel like touching her soft animal fur. She still had her paw held out, which was when I noticed that she was holding the medicine bottle. I took it back from her by grasping the top of the bottle by the cap.

“Thanks for your help and everything, but I should be getting back to my job,” I said.

“Okay! I’ll wait for you, wee one.”

“Sure,” I said with a sigh. The villagers were all pushy in their own way.

I was about to enter Kiki’s house, but stopped. My clothes were dripping wet. In the orphanage, I always had to make myself scarce or look presentable. I couldn’t run off someplace, so I had to go with the latter. I twisted the apron an innumerable amount of times, wringing out as much water as possible. Dotty watched me with great interest as I proceeded to do that with my shirt and pants and stayed put as I entered knocked before entering Kiki’s house.

Potted flowers adorned every inch of the room inside, almost completely covering the orange and brown square patch carpet. A path led to a small bed with a black cat propped up against the headrest. The cat looked up from the laptop that had been occupying her attention. "Hi. I’m Kee...kee," the cat said, each syllable a struggle.

“I’m Tay. Tom Nook asked me to give this to you. I’ll put it uh, right here.” I came forward enough to place the medicine bottle on her bedside table and then retreated back to where I was a few steps away... close to the door.

“I’ve wanted... to meet... you. Tangy talks... about you... a lot,” Kiki said with a small and tired smile.

“Yup, that’s me,” I said, edging slowly towards the door. “Erm, Tom Nook also gave me some flowers. Where do want them to go? Outside?”

“By the... wind... oh,” she said, pointing towards the open window.

“Great, I’ll do that real quick for you,” I said. Kiki started to push aside her sheets, as if she was about to get up. “Don’t worry about it! I mean, you should get some rest.”

As I shut the door behind me, I saw the black cat’s saddened expression, and the guilt poured down. Unlike Head Girl, the cat hadn’t done any wrongdoing to me. But I had to get out of there as soon as possible. Her frail voice and body made the atmosphere feel like I was treading on a thin layer of ice that could break at any moment, and I wanted out. Something felt unnatural about the whole thing. That was all.

A black and white bunny popped in front of my face.  “So how do you like Kiki?” Dotty asked.

“Wh-what are you still doing here?” I returned. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“I told you that I was going to wait for you, wee one!” Dotty said with a laugh.

“Oh,” I said, absentmindedly as my thoughts drifted back to the black cat. “How long has she been like that? Kiki, I mean.”

“I’m not sure. She’s been like that before I moved here,” Dotty said. “which has been about a month.”

"A month? What’s wrong with—"

"Shhh!!!" Dotty pulled me away from the door. "Not so loud!"

“Oh, right,” I said in a more hushed whisper. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

“Not really,” Dotty admitted, “I just sort of know the story behind it.” Seeing that she had gained my interest, her pep returned as she narrated. “One day, Kiki was found unconscious near the library. Someone had to carry her home because she was so weak; she didn’t even have the strength to talk!” Dotty was an animated storyteller, with her eyes growing wide at this comment. “But she can now talk, so she must be getting better, wee one.”

“I hope so.”

“So is that what those flowers are for?”

“Oh, these?” I said, looking down at the forgotten-about flower seeds. “Yeah, Tom Nook told me to plant them by her house.”

“Ooh, I brought flowers too! Let’s plant them together, wee one,” Dotty said.

We walked to the side of Kiki’s house where the window was and knelt down on the soft earth. The flower seed packets I had were a variety of cosmoses, and Dotty had white roses. She helped me plant the flowers so that there would be white roses in between yellow and red cosmos flowers. Afterwards, the bunny hopped off elsewhere, while I stood by the mini garden, trying to figure out how the flowers grew so fast.

“It looks... nice,” said a wispy voice. “Thank... you.”

I sprang up and bonked my head on the windowsill. Taking a step back, I saw that black cat, Kiki, looking out of the window. “Th-that’s good,” I said, ignoring the stars dancing around my head.

Kiki set a folded blue and pink shirt on the windowsill. “A re... ward for a job... well done,” she said.

“I don’t need that,” I said, inadvertently taking another step back. “I mean, Tom Nook’s paying me for what I do.”

Kiki pushed the shirt closer to the edge of the windowsill insistently. “But you’re... wet.”

“I was, er... I wasn’t paying attention,” I said. I didn’t feel like placing blame on her earlier guest, even if he was at fault.

“Then I’ll... bring this... shirt to... your house,” Kiki said. She slowly started to withdraw the shirt, but I stopped her by taking the shirt.

“Fine. You probably shouldn’t be walking that far anyway,” I said with a defeated smile. “Thank you for the shirt.”

Kiki smiled back. “You’re well... come.”

Chapter 12 – Accessorizing
---
I took a detour to get back to Nookway. Instead of crossing the river again, I followed the base of the cliff until I reached a section where it sloped up. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was though, so I wandered towards the four familiar rooftops of acre B-3. I could change into the shirt that Kiki gave me in my house.

There, I saw a purple cat loitering outside of my house. I couldn’t fathom why Bob would be lurking outside of my house, unless I had more cake... until it hit me. Yesterday, I told him that he could come by my house, and here today was, and I wasn’t there!

Degrading myself for my faulty memory, I hurried over to Bob. “I’m sorry, I was doing an errand for Tom Nook and lost track of time!”

“No big deal,” Bob said, brushing my apology aside. "I don't have anything to do today, pthpth."

Although my house was boring on the inside compared to the others I had seen, Bob didn't seem to care. He made a beeline to my bed to feel the silk bed sheets once we were inside. When he mentioned wistfully that his bed had cotton sheets, I asked him if he would like to trade bed sheets later.

With the assurance that he would be able to see the silk sheets again, Bob finally released his gaze from my silk bed sheets to look around the rest of my small house. That's when I became aware of Bob's acute powers of observation.

"Why are your clothes wet?" Bob asked.

So he just noticed. “I fell into the river by Kiki’s house and hadn’t gotten a chance to change,” I said.

"Do you like being wet?" Bob asked, genuinely curious.

"Not particularly...?”

"Then why are you holding a dry shirt?"

"I just said,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I haven't had time to change into it."

Bob laughed. "That's a Happa Kyodai shirt," he said. "You know, instant-change clothes."

“Magic clothes?” I asked with skepticism.

"You hold the shirt, and then you wish the shirt you're wearing switches places with the shirt in you're holding."

He wasn’t breaking out laughing or saying something like, ‘just kidding, haha!’ so maybe he was being serious. Not expecting anything to actually happen though, I closed my eyes and thought, “I want to wear this shirt, I want to wear this shirt...?”

When I opened my eyes, I instantly noticed that the clothes I was wearing were dry. In my arms, I was holding my damp wavy tan shirt and store apron. "Hey, it really worked!"

"See? I toldja so, pthpth." Bob said.

I looked down to admire my shirt. It was a blue and pink gradient, and the best thing was the new feel it had. I put my wet clothes next to the wooden box in the corner before we went outside.

There was a white pelican standing in front of my mailbox. He wore a green uniform and cap and held a package with his wings. He was looking at my mailbox with a troubled expression until he looked over at me. "Are you Tay?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Then this is your package." With some annoyance, he added, "Next time, tell your friend to not mail packages this big."

As I accepted the package, I saw his nametag and said, "Okay, Pete." I turned the package over, looking for a return address. All I found was my address, written in the same blue cursive and print style as the last letter I had gotten. Pete started flapping his wings preparation for takeoff. “Hey, wait! Who sent this?”

“It’s none of my business,” he said. “I have more mail to deliver; can’t stop to chat.”

The mail bird steadily rose into the sky until he was over my house before flying onward to do his next delivery.

"Whatcha waiting for?" Bob asked. His whisking tail gave away his hidden curiosity.

He looked over my shoulder as I opened up the package. Inside the box was a long piece of green material. My pulse quickened as I picked it up. I tried loosely wrapping it around my neck.

“What are you doing, pthpth?” asked a confused Bob.

“Oh, I thought it might be a scarf,” I said, as I sheepishly unwrapped the cloth. It wasn’t long enough to be able to replace my red scarf, and it wasn’t made out of the same material. It felt more like my bed sheets than a scarf.

I handed it to Bob, who was eager to examine the silk-like gift. “It’s a hair ribbon,” he said.

“I guess,” I said. “This is the second time my mysterious pen pal sent me something. I wonder why they’re mailing me gifts.”

"Who cares who sent it; you should wear it," Bob said as he walked a circle around me, holding up the cloth. At that moment, the cat reminded me of Tom Nook’s sharp, appraising gaze.

“I don’t really want to,” I mumbled. “I need to be getting back to work now, and besides—woah, hey! What are you—?!”

Bob was standing on his toes behind me, doing something with my hair. I had thought that my gut reaction would’ve been to spaz out if one of those animals put their paws near my head. Instead of tensing up though, I relaxed. It felt like human hands wearing leather gloves that were doing my hair.

When Bob was done, he walked a semi-circle around me. "It looks good on you," Bob beamed.

Wanting to see what he did, I turned to my house door and looked at my reflection in the small bit of glass on the door. Bob had tied the ribbon into a bow that was big enough so that both of the loops rested near my ears. It wasn’t quite the same, but it was still nice.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling at my reflection.

"I've practiced a lot using the old items, pthpth. It's not the same as Happa Kyodai..." Bob trailed off, with mixed feelings on the subject.

Come to think about it, Bob had to actually put the ribbon in my hair, unlike the clothes and furniture which magically would do the work for you. “But Happy Kyodai’s really convenient to have around, right?”

"Yeah, but it’s like food,” Bob said. “Lasagna always tastes better if you make it yourself instead of that new instant kind."

Of course Bob was going to somehow relate what he was talking about to food. How silly of me.

"Anyway, can you do me an errand?” he continued. “Sometime when the Nookmeister isn’t giving you too much work and you have free time?"

“Sure, what is it?”

I don’t know where he was carrying it up until now, but Bob handed me a thick hardcover book. “Blathers told me that this book was very good, but it was boring. There were almost no pictures, pthpth. Can you return it to the library?”

The book was titled Color Theory. I looked through the pages quickly, like a flip book, and when I got to the end, realized that the book was mostly text. For a book about color, it sure lacked it.

“Okay, I should be able to do it later today,” I said.

It seemed like a weight was lifted off Bob’s back when I said that because he was grinning ear to ear. “Thanks, pthpth. If it were me, I probably never would have gotten around to it,” he said before happily walking away.

Chapter 13 – The Twins
---
“What is the meaning of this?!” Tom Nook demanded, appalled, when I entered Nookway.

“I’m sorry I took so long to get back,” I said. “I went back to my house to... change.”

Tom Nook said harshly, “Employees are to wear their uniforms at all times while on the clock, hmm?”

Maintain appearances or hide, maintain appearances or hide...

“I understand, but my uniform got soaked when I fell into the river, and—”

“You ‘fell into the river’?” Tom Nook inquired with narrowing eyes. He could tell that I was trying to dodge around something.

“Kabuki pushed me,” I stated, but quickly added, “I should have been looking out where I was going, and I’ll do that next time. Better.”

“You made one of my customers mad?” Tom Nook continued, not appeased.

I was saved by the bell. Or in this case, the two pint-sized raccoons that trooped into the shop. “The train’s here, Uncle Tom Nook!” They chorused. The twins disappeared into the back of the store and immerged each with a dolly loaded with one box. It almost looked like the raccoons were running in place, as they were using a lot of energy, but were moving at a walking pace.

“Good,” Tom Nook said contently to himself. “With Tay’s help, it should go faster unloading the shipment.”

I stared at him; it was as if he had forgotten that a few moments ago he was chewing me out over the uniform standard. It was too weird—I never had gotten off easy before.

“Do you want me to follow them to the train station?” I asked.

Tom Nook laughed, and I had a sinking feeling about what he was going to say next. “Ho ho ho! Yes, but you’re going to bring a dolly with you too. You’ve got work to do still, hmmm?”

The third dolly he had in the backroom of his shop was piled high with the most boxes, and whatever they were, they weren’t bags filled with feathers. Manual labor: one of my least favorite forms of punishment.

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /

When I arrived at the train station, Tom Nook was talking to a monkey wearing a vest, and the twins were finishing loading their boxes on the train. The monkey waved at me, and because it was polite, I waved back. Mid-wave, it registered with me who he was. That monkey was Porter, not a man dressed in a monkey suit. That reminded me of the other person I had met on the train—Rover. Since Porter was an animal, I had a sneaking suspicion that Rover was nonhuman too... especially if he were friends with Tom Nook.

Tom Nook drew my attention back to the job at hand by pointing to the car that I was supposed to unload the boxes on. The little raccoons helped me to unload the packages and then load a couple of new packages onto the dolly.

“What’s your name?” One of the raccoons asked me. "I'm Timmy, and..."

"I’m Tommy," the other one said.

"I'm Tay," I said.

"That's a cool name!" They both said.

I smiled; it had been a while since someone had said that my name was nice. But then I remembered the voice of Rover from the train and frowned. ‘Did you pick that name for yourself or something?’

Timmy and Tommy lead the way as I pushed the dolly. Tom Nook had already returned to his shop, and we opened the boxes in the back room of his shop. They were each stuffed to the brim with various colors of Happa Kyodai leaves.

“Is that all for today?” I asked.

“Aren’t you the eager one, hmm?” Tom Nook asked, looking at me sternly.

“Oh, do you have another errand for me?”

“I ran out of all the little jobs that I didn’t feel like doing, so you’re now on your own to pay off the rest of your loan,” Tom Nook said. “There are 14,740 bells left. Don’t take too long to pay it off, or I’ll have to sick the raccoon goon squad on you. We wouldn’t want that, hmm?” He laughed at his own joke.

I looked around, expecting to see the twin raccoons poking their heads out around a corner, but didn’t see them anywhere. “That’s still a lot,” I said. I should have asked how much my wage was when he initially hired me. “How am I supposed to get more money if I don’t work at your store?”

“You can go fishing or gather fruit. Yes, that would be a good idea, hmm?” Tom Nook suggested. To my surprise, he plucked a fishing rod off one of his shelves and gave it to me. “You can have this. Be sure to bring me some rare fish!”

So maybe I was still working for Tom Nook 'unofficially.' What mattered was that officially, I wasn't an errand runner anymore, so I could spend my time doing whatever I wanted... Like doing that errand I had promised Bob.

I put the fishing rod in a corner of my house and left with Color Theory in tow.  The map by the train station listed the library as a new addition under the museum. As I headed to the library, my imagination started to go off on its own. Bob had said that he hadn’t anything else to do today, yet he asked me to return the book for him. If he had so much time on his hands, he could have brought it back by himself. And he seemed so relieved too, knowing that he wouldn’t have to go.

What if the library was a tortuous place? It was under the museum. In a house, such a room would be called the basement. And basements were notorious for being rooms of torture.

I had been to the library in Miro on several occasions though, and it wasn’t too bad there. The building had many windows for the sun to shine in. They were strict about two things though: noise and food. It wasn’t a problem for me, but maybe, I assured myself, it was a problem for Bob, being in such a quiet place, deprived of food. That must be it. Surely.

It was good that I had created my own rationale for the library, because I was standing in front of the museum. It was a large white building with a design based on Roman columns. There was a pair of elaborate stained glass windows on the set of double doors. One was a moon and the other, a sun.

“Time to do Bob’s errand,” I said to myself, clutching the hardcover book in my hands.

---

~ COMMENTARY ~
---
Welcome back, previous readers, and welcome aboard, new readers! =D

Now that I think about it, based on how I've been labeling the chapters... It'll say that I have an inanely large number of "chapters." ... ... Oh well... Really, it doesn't matter that much how it's organized/separated, right? >_>

I love it

I love it too.

I wonder how long it'll take us to catch up to where we were when the last thread died

... x.x

ooh i love it! i just finished reading taylor. im so glad you had that in your sig or i would have had nothing to do but wait for people to reply to my private threads while i was new. though im sorry that i won't be able to post again on this for a while because of the rules though don't think i don't klike it because i'll still be reading it!

More!! Great story, glad to see it's back up!

*Flags*

Tay says tht shes letting her readers catch up