Chapter 12: Down Memory Lane

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“Okay, okay! I won’t look,” Nyx laughs. “But hey, check this out…”

She comes closer, still with one hand behind her back. From his position on the table, Ozzy watches with wide, curious eyes until she’s right up next to him. “I got you something.”

“You did?”

“Yep. So close your eyes… Uh-huh, just like that. Three, two, one… Ta-da!!”

Ozzy’s eyes open, and he blinks away a blur from scrunching them so tightly shut. When it clears…

He gasps. In Nyx’s hands—both of them—is a plushie. But not just any plushie: a paint brush plushie.

A Grey one.

Struck and hesitant, Ozzy reaches out—breath held, as if the slightest exhale will shatter the illusion, and he’ll wake up from this dream. It’s not a dream, though: it’s real, and the soft felt of the Paint Brush Plushie and the smooth silk of the purple ribbon around its fuzzy handle are enough to prove it.

His fingertips run over the ribbon. Only belatedly does Ozzy look up at Nyx, awe sparkling in his wide, grey eyes. “Is this really for me?”

“Of course!” Nyx’s smile has softened, and she steps back as Ozzy takes the plushie in both hands. He holds it up and gives it a few gentle swings, as if brandishing a toy sword or painting an imaginary canvas.

“I’m glad you like it,” Nyx says. Ozzy startles, then slowly stops swinging his brush. He gazes back at his sister, a smile growing on his face.

“I do! Thank you, Nyxie. Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.” Nyx laughs, then turns to start her daily rummage through the cupboards. “Now, it’s getting close to supper time, so any special requests?”

Ozzy swings his plushie again, pretending he’s painting food into the pantry. “Can we have cereal?”

“Again?!” Nyx’s palm strikes her forehead dully and she sighs, but with a glance back into the open cupboard, she finds that there isn’t much choice. And so, with a wry smile, she says, “All right. Islandberry Crunch it is.”

Ozzy clutches his paint brush plushie closer. That’s so much! He wants to say. My head is spinning! But he keeps quiet, because Nyx is in business mode, and there’s nothing that can stop her when she’s set her mind to something.

As she speaks, she holds out her hand. Ozzy takes it without thinking, but nearly drops his plushie in the process. Nyx doesn’t seem to notice; she just keeps talking, listing out all the things she needs to do, until…

“Here we are,” she declares when they come to a stop in front of the bank. “Wait here, Ozzy, I’ll only be a minute. Just have to collect that interest, make a quick withdrawal, and then we’re off to the next stop.”

“The Neolodge, right?” Ozzy asks. “Do you want me to go get your Neopoints for you?”

Nyx laughs. “Are you asking because you want to help, or because you think I’m going to stop and chat with one of the guests again?”

“You always stop to talk with the guests!” Ozzy complains. “Especially when they tell you stories about their vacations and all the places they’ve been.”

Something changes in Nyx’s eyes. It’s as if her gaze grows distant, faraway. “I guess I do,” she mumbles. “It’s just… well, it’s exciting, you know?”

Ozzy doesn’t think so. “I guess.”

“Tell you what,” Nyx begins, “you go get those Neopoints, I’ll finish up at the bank, and we’ll meet at the post office. Then we can get something to eat and head home, okay?”

Ozzy nods. “Okay.”

“Great. See you soon, Ozzy!”

“Oof!”

Dirt and gravel crunch under Ozzy’s fur. He grunts as he slides in the gritty sand of one of Neopia Central’s pathways, spitting out a clump of grass as he comes to a stop. Above him, a shadow looms: a long neck, stubby arms, a plated tail. When he opens his eyes, blinking crust and dust out of them, a pastel Chomby grins down at him with the bag of Neopints Ozzy had just collected from the Neolodge dangling from his hand.

“G-give that back,” Ozzy says, voice much softer and weaker than he wants it to be. He swallows down the waver in it, and tries again, reaching up to tug on his ears. It’s an old trick Nyx taught him—focus on how that feels, not whatever’s upsetting you. He takes a deep breath. “That’s not yours!”

“I’m holding it, aren’t I? That means it is,” the Chomby says. He laughs, and from somewhere behind Ozzy, another voice chimes in,

“And so’s this stupid plushie!”

Alarmed, Ozzy lets go of his ears and opens up his eyes. He tries to scramble to his feet to stop the bullies from ruining his plushie, but his knees crumble beneath him and he ends up back on the ground. “Stop…”

“Aww, what, afraid we’re gonna keep it?” The other bully is a spotted Quiggle, and his grin is big and mean.

“Why would we want to do that?” the pastel Chomby says. “Why would anybody want a grey paint brush plushie? It’s so ugly and drab.”

“Perfect for a washout like you!”

The bullies break out into laughter—loud, grating, cacophonous laughter that echoes in Ozzy’s ears so loudly it feels like the world is shattering around him. He slams his hands to his ears again, squishing them as hard as he can, like pushing them back into his head will make the laughter stop…

THUMP! BAM! POW!

The laughter stops. Ozzy cracks an eye open, just in time to see the pastel Chomby fall on the ground next to his Quiggle friend, holding his face and groaning in pain. He rolls, tail thrashing, and the Quiggle staggers to his feet…

Only to scream and scramble back on all fours as Nyx stomps toward him.

“Yeah, you better run!” she shouts, brandishing her fist. “And you—!”

She turns back to the Chomby and picks him up by one of the plates on the back of his neck. “I’d better not catch you messing with my brother again, got it?!”

“Okay, okay!” the Chomby whimpers, practically flying out of Nyx’s hand once he’s found his legs. He runs after his friend (who’s long out of sight now), kicking up dust behind him as he goes.

“A ‘sorry’ would be nice, too!” Nyx shouts, but there’s no point. She sighs, hands on her hips, and shakes her head before turning to face Ozzy with a smile on her face that makes the tears on Ozzy’s sting just a little less. “I can’t stand bullies like that… They think they’re so tough just because they’re big. Are you okay?”

She holds out her hand. With a tiny sniffle, Ozzy nods and takes it, allowing his sister to lift him gently to his feet. “I—I’m sorry, Nyxie, I shouldn’t have gone off alone, I didn’t mean—”

But Nyx silences him with a hug. “It’s okay,” she says as she lets him go. “You’re all right now, and that’s the important thing. Here…”

She walks over to pick up Ozzy’s fallen grey paint brush plushie. Nyx holds it out to him, and Ozzy takes it back gingerly, tears still in his eyes.

“Don’t listen to them, Ozzy,” Nyx tells him. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

When his plushie is back safely in his hands, and his hair has been ruffled a little for good measure, Nyx doubles back to retrieve the bag of Neopoints that the bullies had nearly stolen—that Ozzy had nearly let be stolen. If only he had stayed home…

Nyx holds up a hand. “Oh, no, that’s okay, you don’t have to—we were going to go see the Soup Faerie again—”

“Nonsense! It would be my pleasure to have a hot dog with the two of you.”

A wavering smile comes over Nyx’s lips, and she rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. “Then I guess we’ll have to take you up on that. What do you say, Ozzy?”

Despite the embarrassment still burning hot beneath his fur, Ozzy nods. A hot dog really does sound good right about now…

The smell of grilling meat and mustard wafts over to Ozzy as they approach Hubert’s Hot Dogs. His stomach growls again, another embarrassing reminder of just how hungry he is. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for them to order or get their food, and the three of them quickly settle in to eat.

“Hold on!” Mr. Hornelius says, just as Nyx is about to take her first bite. She pauses, mouth still open, and Ozzy giggles, but Mr. Hornelius isn’t joking around. He holds up one finger to stall them both, rummaging in his pocket for something.

That something turns out to be a camera.

“Let’s take a picture to commemorate a wonderful day,” Mr. Hornelius says, and Nyx’s mouth finally closes into a smile.

“Oh, all right,” she says. “Come here, Ozzy.”

She puts an arm around him, and Ozzy leans into her, trying to balance his hot dog in one hand and his plushie in the other. He nearly drops them both in the process, and then nearly loses his balance again when the camera’s flash goes off, and both of those instances of clumsiness somehow, miraculously show in the picture—

But he’s still smiling in it.

“What a perfect picture,” Mr. Hornelius says, admiring the photograph in his hands. He passes it over to Nyx, and she smiles down at it too.

“Yeah… it is, isn’t it?”

They part with Mr. Hornelius after finishing their food, Ozzy wrapping the handle of his paint brush plushie up in a napkin to make sure he doesn’t get any grease stains on it. The doors to the post office swing open and Nyx confidently strides in, greeting the old Chia at the counter.

Benjamin Stampley smiles at the sight of her. “Hello, Nyx! And young Oizys, too. What can I do for you today?”

“He goes by Ozzy now, most of the time,” Nyx says with a smile, and Ozzy is grateful that she corrected Old Man Stampley so he didn’t have to. “And we’re here to pick up some mail I missed yesterday. Mr. Hornelius told me someone came by to deliver it special, but since I was working a little later than usual at the Toy Shop, I missed it.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Mr. Stampley says, turning to shuffle through the various filing boxes behind him. “It seemed important. Had its own special courier and everything; it was nice to catch up with that one mail carrier from the Space Station… Marilia, I think her name is. Lovely Grundo, most dedicated post-worker you’ll ever meet, but almost never gets any time away…”

Suddenly, Nyx goes tense. Something in her posture and expression changes, even though she hasn’t moved a single muscle other than to flex her hands on the countertop. It makes Ozzy nervous.

“Ah, here it is!” The old Chia turns back and passes Nyx a letter—an envelope with a big, red, stylised ‘V’ on it.

Nyx lets out a sudden breath. “Th-thank you,” she says, smiling. She accepts the letter and tucks it into her bag to read later. “Really. I appreciate it, Ben.”

“Oh, I’m just doing my job.” The old man bows his head. “Ah! Speaking of which, come by if you’d like to pick up another shift. We’re a little short-staffed right now, since our usual carrier’s been off with a bad case of Itchy Scratchies.”

Nyx takes Ozzy’s hand in one of her own, while she waves at Old Man Benjamin Stampley with the other. “Will do. Thanks again!”

The doors shut behind them, and Nyx lets out a breath. “Well! That’s all taken care of. What do you say we head home now?” she says, bright and cheerful even though she still seems a little frazzled.

“What’s in the letter?” Ozzy asks.

Nyx’s smile falters, but just for a blink. “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing… But hey, didn’t you say you were going to finish your drawing tonight?”

“That’s right!” Ozzy gasps. He reaches for Nyx’s arm and tugs on it heartily. “Come on, Nyxie, let’s go home! I want to finish it before bedtime!”

He makes his way down the hall. It’s slow going, from the miasma of sleep and a strange, growing sense of dread. If Nyx does have a shift somewhere tomorrow, why is she still up? She never stays up this late to begin with unless something’s wrong…

The light is brighter now. Ozzy blinks against it when he peeks his head around the corner to look into the kitchen. There’s Nyx, facing away from him with a piece of paper in her hands. The mysterious envelope from the post office, with its bright red ‘V’ on it, lies open and discarded nearby…

“I can’t believe it,” Nyx says softly, unaware of her uninvited eavesdropper. “I… I really got accepted…”

She sniffles. Ozzy recognises that as the sound that woke him up.

“I’m going to Virtupets Space Station.”

No.

He can’t see Nyx’s face from this angle, but from the way her ears are perked, and from the breathlessness in her voice, Ozzy can tell that she’s… she’s happy.

No. No.

“I’m going to be a pilot!”

All at once, the ground beneath Ozzy falls away. The walls fade and melt into nothingness, into big black spaces where the sky should be—but there are no stars, no sun, no light…

No nothing.

No Nyx.

His entire body goes numb. His hands fall loosely at his sides, and distantly, there’s a small plop! on the ground. For a moment, he can’t even breathe.

No, no, no!

Another sniffle, and Ozzy is back in his house, but everything looks—feels—different. The light in the kitchen isn’t as bright, and the paintings and photographs on the walls seem duller too. The floorboards, though—they’re hard under his hands and feet as he scrambles back to his room, running and stumbling and tripping and running even more, as if he were fleeing from the beast he used to think lived in his closet—the one that Nyx always protected him from—

He dives into his bed, pulling the covers up over himself and curling into a tight, trembling ball beneath them. He reaches for his ears and tugs at them, shivering and quaking with the sobs he doesn’t want Nyx to hear—and that he knows now she doesn’t want to hear, either.

It’s fine. She won’t be around to hear him much longer.

But he’s not being a brat. He can admit that maybe he’s not being entirely fair, retreating to the comfort of his bed and the darkness under the covers, but why should he be fair? It’s not fair that Nyx is leaving him. It’s not fair that she never told him she had applied to work at Virtupets. It’s not fair that she expects him to be happy for her when she’s taking away the only real source of comfort he’s ever had in his life.

No, they shouldn’t expect him to be fair, and they shouldn’t be surprised that he’s not coming out to say goodbye. Nyx probably doesn’t want him to, anyway. She’d been looking forward to this day for so long—looking forward to getting away from her big burden of a little brother as soon as she possibly could.

There’s silence in the house for a while, and then footsteps. The front door opens and shuts. For a moment, Ozzy curls in tighter around himself, tugging at his ears to fight off the indecision warring in his heart—but he eventually wiggles out from under his bedcovers to look out the window, to where… where…

Where Mr. Hornelius is standing a few steps along the path leading from their house, one arm raised to wave goodbye.

Ozzy scrunches his eyes shut again, not wanting to see what’s up even further ahead, but… But this might be the last time he sees his sister until she comes back. She’d said it would be a few weeks for training, and then a few more after that…

He opens his eyes. All he can see is Nyx’s back, small and getting smaller with every step. She looks tiny in the vast frame of his bedroom window, even though she had always seemed so big. So safe.

Tears spring to Ozzy’s eyes, and he tries to turn away, just like she’s turned her back to him, but he can’t. It’s too hard to move, suddenly.

But then, Nyx stops. Her feet come to a halt on the path, and she just… stands there for a moment. One moment, and then two, and…

She turns. Nyx is too far away for Ozzy to see her whole expression, but not far enough he can’t see the enormous smile on her face. Despite it, though, she lifts both hands into the air and waves them wildly, criss-crossing at the wrists, and yells so loudly that Ozzy can hear her even through the window glass:

“Goodbye, Ozzy! I’ll be back soon, I promise!”

Ozzy turns away. He slinks back into his bed, and pulls the covers over himself again.

A long, tired sigh escapes him. He really doesn’t want to be outside today, but there’s some solace, at least, in the fact that it’s cloudy and cool today. Maybe he should wish for the sun like so many other Neopians here seem to, but something about grey days like this makes him feel just a little bit more at home.

There’s less colour to suck out of the day this way.

He trudges his way to the Neopian Plaza and sets up in his usual spot. It’s not much, but it’s what he’s used to, and he’s just off the path of passers-by; they should have a good view of him and his paintings, but…

…But it’s another day of nothing, until eventually, after hours and hours of waiting around for something that never happens, Ozzy decides to pack up and leave. One by one, he tucks each desolate grey painting under his arm, and with a sigh, he begins the trek home.

…But he’s not alone.

The further he gets away from the plaza and the Neopets in it, the quieter it should get. He knows this—he finds it relaxing, usually. Today, though, he’s accompanied by the scritch-scratch of little claws in the dirt, and the shhhffffff of something else dragging through it.

He turns around. A strange little Doglefox is following him, with a surprisingly large stick in its mouth.

Ozzy frowns. “Stop following me,” he says.

“Arf!” the Doglefox replies, inadvertently dropping its stick.

With a small huff, Ozzy turns around and continues on his way.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

He claps his free hand over his ear.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

“I can’t play with you!” Ozzy calls back.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

The next day, when Ozzy makes his way back to the Plaza, he’s not alone. Splinters of wood fall to the dusty path beneath his feet as the same Doglefox from the previous day chews on another stick, so close to him that Ozzy nearly stumbles over the little guy more than once.

He pauses to stare down at the strange creature, frowning and confused, and for a moment debates nudging it away with his foot.

“I don’t know why you keep following me,” he says, more to himself than the Doglefox. “I already told you I don’t have time to play. I’m busy trying to sell my paintings.”

The Doglefox looks up at him, its stick still held between its paws. “Rrr-arf!”

Ozzy sighs. It’s going to be a long day, he thinks.

And he’s right.

As usual, there doesn’t seem to be anyone interested in his paintings. Nobody comes up to say hi or to ask him about prices. A few more Neopets do look his way, but most of them seem more interested in the Doglefox than him. Typical.

But it doesn’t bother him as much today as it normally does. Maybe it’s because it’s a little warmer than usual. Maybe it’s because the Doglefox looks like he’s having a good time. Maybe it’s just because the Doglefox is cute, wagging his tail and chewing on that stick… or any of his sticks, because somehow, in the few moments Ozzy hadn’t been watching him, he seemed to find new ones. Bigger ones, skinnier ones, ones with extra branches.

Where is he getting them all?

The Doglefox isn’t just good at finding sticks, though. He does tricks with them while he’s playing, too: turning onto his back and kicking the stick to make it spin; throwing the stick off into the distance and then running to go get it; sticking the stick in the ground and dancing in circles around it…

The most impressive, though, is when the little guy tosses one of his sticks up into the air and catches it in his mouth.

“Whoa!” Ozzy gasps, lurching forward on the stool he’s set up and clapping his hands to either side of his face. The Doglefox seems to notice; stick still in his mouth, he turns around, wagging his tail.

“Rrr-rrr!”

Excited by his audience of one, the Doglefox does it again. He lowers himself closer to the ground, giving the stick a few little hefts to test it before he launches it in the air again. One, and two, and then up it goes…

BONK!

And down it comes again, squarely on top of the poor thing’s head.

“Rrrow…”

“Heh… Haha… Hahahaha!”

Ozzy can’t help but smile. The absurdity of it all sweeps him off his feet and he bends over, clutching his straining tummy and laughing so hard he can barely breathe. The Doglefox looks up at him, tilting his head in confusion, but his tail starts to wag, and wag, and wag…

Ozzy lifts a hand up to his face, catching a tear before it falls from his eye. For the first time in what feels like his entire life, it’s a tear of joy.

It’s one day when he’s throwing one of the Doglefox’s many sticks that it happens. While the little guy is off fetching, taking a little longer than usual to return (he probably found an even bigger, better stick to bring back), familiar voices pierce through Ozzy’s hearing like the whizzing of an arrow:

“Wow, look at all this junk!”

“A bunch of ugly, washed-out paintings to match an ugly, washed-out painter. Ha! My baby sister could paint better than this.”

Dread curls its icy claws in Ozzy’s chest, but he turns around anyway, toward the source of the voices. He knows who it is before he sees them, though: the pastel Chomby and spotted Quiggle that Nyx chased away what feels like a lifetime ago, back to torment him again.

The Quiggle leers at Ozzy’s paintings. He’s holding up one of the canvases now, between his finger and thumb, like it’s a gross, smelly rag that he’s afraid to hold properly. The Chomby laughs and points.

“Yeah, and all your baby sister knows how to do is scribble!” he says. “Give that painting here, I know how to make it better.”

“N-no!” Ozzy protests, reaching out for the painting. “Stop, give it back—”

But it’s too late. The Chomby pushes him over, then turns around and shoves his foot through the canvas.

“No!!!”

The Quiggle bursts out laughing, and drops the half of the canvas he’s still holding to point at Ozzy. “What’s wrong, washout? You gonna cry about it?”

“Of course he is,” the Chomby chimes in, before Ozzy can even open his mouth to protest. “All he does is cry now that his big sis isn’t here to wipe his nose.”

A too-familiar burn rises up in the back of Ozzy’s throat and behind his eyelids. No, no, he can’t cry now, he can’t prove them right—!

But he can’t help himself. A sniffle escapes him and he curls up on the ground, clutching at his ears. The bullies’ laughter rings out above him, filling him, their words sinking in past his skin and settling right into his heart…

“Owww! What the—?!”

Suddenly, the laughter stops. Ozzy cracks a tearful eye open to see what could have possibly silenced the bullies, and for a moment—just one tiny, breathless moment—he half expects to see tall antenna-ears, vibrant purple hair, and a righteously furious expression.

Instead, he sees… a stick?

“What the heck was that?” The Quiggle asks, eyeing his Chomby friend warily. The Chomby rubs at the back of his head, gritting his teeth.

“I don’t know, I—”

“Grrrr-rrr-rrr-ARF!”

The bullies turn to the side. Ozzy opens both eyes. There, just a few metres away, the little Doglefox stands, rump raised and fur bristling. His nose is curled up and his teeth are bared in an adorably ferocious snarl, warning the bullies away.

They burst out into laughter.

“Ha ha ha! Oh, that’s rich!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Seriously! There’s no way that mangy thing could ever—”

“What, now that your sister’s here, you’ve got a little pest to fight your battles for you, washout?”

The laughter continues, and Ozzy pulls himself to his feet. He dusts himself off, ready to tell the bullies that his friend is not mangy and is not a pest, but before he even gets the chance, the entire world seems to leap into action.

“Rrr-rrraaar!” The Doglefox moves first. He runs up toward the Chomby and launches himself into the air, jaws open and sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight. Before Ozzy even knows what’s happening, the Chomby bully cries out and flails his arm around in a blur of minty green and orange.

“Waaugh!”

After what seems like way too long, the Doglefox lets go. He lands firmly, almost gracefully, on all four of his paws, then whips around so fast Ozzy almost can’t comprehend it. His tail is still bristling, and his ears are pinned back flat to his head.

“ARF! RARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!”

“Wahh!” The Quiggle jumps about four feet in the air, and the moment he lands, he turns and scrambles away. “Help! This thing is feral! RUN AWAY!”

Together, the two bullies take off, leaving Ozzy behind to blink disbelievingly. He shakes his head, trying to clear his brain out long enough to process what had just happened. As he does, though, something else catches his eye…

“Um…”

He reaches out for the Doglefox’s discarded stick, and holds it out to him gingerly. “You, uh… you dropped this.”

The Doglefox blinks. All at once, the anger drops from his face—no more wrinkled snout, no more flattened ears. His eyes are big and shiny again, and his dopey, tongue-lolling smile has returned.

“Rrrarf!”

Without warning, the Doglefox leaps at Ozzy. He stumbles back, only just barely able to catch him, and then bursts into his own fit of delighted, uncontrollable laughter as the little guy licks him all over his face.

Ozzy laughs. The Doglefox’s tail is wagging, and he’s got a big, tongue-lolling smile on his face.

“Be careful,” Ozzy warns, and helps him back to his paws. He takes the stick for his new friend, and gives it back once they’re inside the kitchen so that he can’t hurt himself by running into any more doorways.

With the Doglefox seemingly safe and happy enough, Ozzy turns to the empty cabinets. “Now, it’s getting close to supper time,” he says, “So, um… any special requests?”

“Rrrf!”

“Hmm.” Ozzy has no idea what that means, so he decides to choose what to eat himself. There’s… not much, really. He hasn’t exactly been the best about food shopping lately, and Mr. Hornelius hasn’t brought anything around for a few days. But there is one thing, and it puts a smile on his face…

“There!”

Ozzy sets two bowls of Islandberry Crunch cereal on the table, then sits down in one of the chairs. “This is my favourite cereal. Here’s one bowl for me, and that one’s for you.”

The Doglefox jumps up on the counter. He sniffs at the bowl, the giant stick still in his mouth, and makes a weird motion with his head, halfway opening his mouth while still trying to keep the stick balanced in it. Ozzy snorts. Is he trying to eat with the stick still in his mouth?

“You sure like your sticks, huh?” he says after swallowing a mouthful of cereal. Then, with a glance toward the fridge, he hums. “Wait a second. ‘Sticks’ sounds kind of like…”

Ozzy rises from the table. He makes his way toward the fridge slowly, and carefully peels two taped-up pieces of paper from it before returning to the table and carefully setting them down: one drawing, and one photo. He points at one of the Neopets in the photo—the tall blue Aisha he had been trying so hard not to think about for the last few years.

“This is my sister. Her name is Nyx.”

The Doglefox tilts his head to the side, curious. “Rrf?”

“I was just thinking… um… you know, since you’re going to be living here now, you—well, you probably need a name, and…”

There are a number of pastels, pencil crayons, and markers on the table, haphazardly left behind from some of Ozzy’s art projects over the last two weeks. He reaches for one of the markers now, grateful instead of embarrassed that he hadn’t cleaned up, and takes back the Doglefox’s cereal bowl.

On it, he writes four letters:

S T Y X.

“Styx,” Ozzy says. “That’s what I’m going to call you from now on. Your new name.”

“Not now, Styx. I’m almost done…”

Apparently undeterred, Styx trots into the room and marches right up to Ozzy’s feet. He’s got a stick in his mouth, as usual—he’s amassed quite a collection now, all of them piled up at the foot of Ozzy’s bed where Styx likes to sleep—and he drops it right where Ozzy can see it in his periphery, tail wagging and tongue cheerfully hanging halfway out of his mouth.

Ozzy glances down at it and frowns, truly rueful. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t stop right now. We’ll play later, okay? Promise.”

With a whimper, Styx lowers his head. His ears droop and the tip of his fluffy tail brushes against the ground, and for a moment, Ozzy feels something pulling at his heartstrings. He really is busy, though, and he wasn’t lying about promising to play with Styx later…

But strangely enough, Styx perks up a moment later, turning and scampering off to a different corner of the room. Ozzy glances at him as the little guy rummages through a messy array of canvases, palettes, and a collapsed easel or two, but doesn’t pay too much attention. He probably spotted something that looked like another stick.

A moment later, the Doglefox emerges with something in his mouth. Ozzy doesn’t really see it, since he’s turned back to his painting, but his attention is drawn back to his fluffy friend when he drops whatever he’d been holding and nudges Ozzy’s foot with his nose.

“Ruff!”

Ozzy sighs, scrunching his eyes shut for a moment and laying his paint brush aside. “All right, all right, what is…”

The Grey Paint Brush Plushie stares up at him from the floor, balls of dust and cobwebs clinging to it. The room goes cold, all of a sudden, and a lump forms in Ozzy’s throat, icy and sharp like he’d just swallowed an iceberg.

Styx bends down to nudge the plushie toward him with his nose. His tail is wagging, his ears flopping as he raises his head. Ozzy turns away briskly, back to his latest black-and-white painting.

“Why do you want to know about that? It’s… it’s nothing. Nothing important, anyway.” It hurts him to say it, but the anger and sadness burning inside him and melting the lump in his throat—the abandonment he can still feel branding him just as strongly today as it had when he’d first seen Nyx reading that letter—hurts even more.

Styx whimpers. He picks the Paint Brush Plushie back up and nudges Ozzy’s foot with his snout, but Ozzy doesn’t turn around to look at it, or him, again.

“I told you it’s nothing,” he snaps, hating how his voice comes out broken but cold. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it anymore.”

Another whine, but this time Styx backs off. Ozzy can hear the scritch-scratch of his claws against the wooden floor, leaving this time, but he chooses to ignore it. He’d forgotten all about that stupid plushie before now.

He’d wanted to forget all about that stupid plushie.

The watercolour strokes of Faerieland on his paper are devoid of people. No Faeries, no Neopets. That, too, reflects this dark and gloomy day. Ozzy doesn’t really mind, though. He’s got Styx with him, happily chewing on yet another stick, so there doesn’t need to be anyone out in the Plaza today.

He reaches down to pet his Doglefox friend, and Styx cheerfully lifts his head to nuzzle into the touch. His tail wags wildly. It makes Ozzy smile for a second to think that, at least if nobody else cares, he’s still got his little buddy with him.

Hours pass by. Nobody comes out. It’s as if the plaza itself has frozen, like it’s nothing more than an image Ozzy had painted on one of his many canvases. Maybe it’s because it looks like it’s going to rain, or maybe it’s just because everyone has finally gotten sick of seeing his face. Whatever it is, it…

“Hey. You there.”

Ozzy startles as a voice pierces through his thoughts. In front of him is… is…

A girl?

Immediately, Ozzy sits up straight. He looks at the girl, a pale green Acara with twisty black horns, a stylishly-tattered dress, and the reddest eyes he’s ever seen. The girl looks back at him, and Ozzy has to turn around to check that she is, in fact, looking at him, and not some other Neopet that maybe suddenly appeared out of thin air, but… there’s nobody else around.

Just him and Styx, as usual.

He points tentatively at himself. “Uh… me?”

“Yeah. Anyone else here to talk to?” the girl says, a smile on her face that’s just a little bit scary, but this is the first time anyone other than Styx or Mr. Hornelius has talked to Ozzy in a really long time, so he almost doesn’t notice.

She doesn’t say anything else. Ozzy doesn’t know what to do, and she’s staring at him expectantly, so he ends up defaulting to his usual plan of action: looking down at his feet. “Um… Can I, uh… help you?” Stupid, stupid, stupid! Of course you can’t!

From the ground, Styx looks up at him, curious. His tail isn’t wagging anymore, but he's clinging to his big stick with his mouth and both paws.

“Yeah, actually,” the striking green Acara says. She comes close, bending at the waist to lean forward, and jabs her finger at Ozzy’s collection of artwork. “I’m curious about your paintings. I’ve been looking for something new to… brighten up the place. So to speak.” She grins. “You got anything good?”

“Huh?”

“I said, have you got anything good?” She comes closer and peers around Ozzy’s shoulder.

Get a hold of yourself, Oizys! Ozzy quickly nods and gets to his feet, sliding off his little stool and standing next to the girl. “Um, yes! I… I think so, anyway.”

The Acara grins, her sharp teeth visible. “Then let’s see what you’ve got.”

“There you are, Painter!” she says, her sharp-fanged smile bright like the sun cutting through the clouds overhead. Without even realising it, Ozzy starts smiling too.

“You’re back…!”

“Yeah, I am,” the Acara says, hands on her hips. “And you’re late. I was almost convinced you weren’t gonna show today.”

“I show up every day, even if I don’t want to,” Ozzy says, but he doesn’t really know why, so he claps his hand over his mouth. “Er, I mean…”

“Whatever,” the girl says, waving a hand dismissively, and even though it should feel like she’s being rude, Ozzy is actually grateful that she’d shut him up before he said something really embarrassing. “You’re here now, just like I hoped. I wanted to see if you had any more…”

He doesn’t hear the rest of what she says, though, because his brain catches on one specific word, and everything else melts away as it echoes in his mind.

‘Hoped.’

She had hoped to see him?

“Uh, hello? Neopia to Painter,” the girl snaps, waving her hand in front of Ozzy’s face. Ozzy startles, and below him, Styx growls.

“Grrr…. grrr!”

“Shh, quiet, Styx!” he says hastily, then looks back up to his… customer? “S-sorry about that. Um, what did you say you wanted?”

“Another painting,” the girl says. “I liked the one I bought yesterday soooo much, I thought I’d come get another. So, what’ve you got for me today, Painter?”

The girl introduces herself to him as Vira. Ozzy likes the way it sounds—like a painting, but with sound. She tells him that he has a funny name (“Oizys? Who on Neopia could have come up with a name like that?”), but she also tells him that she likes ‘Ozzy’ much better, which is a relief, because that’s the name he prefers too. It’s what his sister—

No. He’s not thinking about that.

He and Vira become fast friends. She’s a little mean, but not in the same way the Chomby and Quiggle bullies were. She’s mean in a way that’s sharp and confident, and doesn’t make Ozzy feel stupid or like he’s sucking all the colour out of the world. A part of Ozzy wishes he could be as carefree and unabashed as Vira is, but just knowing he has her attention is enough to make him feel a little bigger, a little brighter. She likes his art, likes to talk to him, and likes to spend time with him.

Styx, though… Styx doesn’t seem to like her. He growls sometimes when she says one of her mean jokes, but Ozzy chalks it up to the one time she accidentally stepped on one of his sticks and broke it. He’d apologised on her behalf, but from the way Styx kept growling at her even after that, and how he had kept growling at the bullies even after he’d scared them off, he doesn’t seem to be the most forgiving Doglefox.

It’s probably a good thing the bullies never came back.

Styx does tolerate Vira when she’s around, though. When they’re at the plaza, he maintains his distance, gnawing huffily on a variety of sticks and twigs and branches, keeping to himself except when someone miraculously comes to inspect Ozzy’s paintings but then walks away without buying anything.

“It’s okay, Painter,” Vira tells him every time it happens, “they don’t have taste like I do. You couldn’t pay them to appreciate art.”

Styx doesn’t seem to like it when she says stuff like that either, but Ozzy doesn’t really know why, nor does he know what to do. What the little Doglefox likes least of all, however, is when Vira comes over for tea (a special floral tea that she’d bought and taught him how to brew), and when Ozzy takes her into his makeshift art studio to show her his latest projects.

“You’ve gotten good at this,” Vira says about the tea Ozzy has brewed on one such day. “Could have used a little more time to steep, but you’ve got the sugar right, finally.”

“I just didn’t want to keep you waiting,” Ozzy says, sipping his own tea carefully. It’s still too hot, but he’s gotten used to the flavour now.

“No, you wanted to act quick and get it to me while that Doglefox wasn’t in the kitchen nipping at your heels.”

Ozzy frowns. Styx is in the kitchen now, curled up by the refrigerator, and he bares his teeth at Vira. “Grrrrrrr!”

Vira laughs and sticks out her tongue. Ozzy looks away, uncomfortable. “He doesn’t nip at my heels…”

“No? Well, he sure nips at mine,” Vira responds with a shrug and a sip of her tea.

“Rrr-rawrf!” A sound somewhere between a bark and a whine, and Ozzy’s frown deepens.

“That’s not nice,” he tells his little friend, because he doesn’t want Vira to get upset. After a few weeks of spending time with her, Ozzy has started to worry that she might be lonely, too, even if he knows she’d never admit it.

Styx’s ears fall back, flattening against his head.

“Rrrow…”

“Whatever,” Vira says. Just then, something catches her attention, and she stands up to move closer to the fridge. Styx yelps and gets up, scurrying away with his tail between his legs. Ozzy watches him go, feeling guilty, but he doesn’t follow. He trails after Vira instead.

“Who’s that?” Vira asks, pointing at the photo on the fridge of Ozzy and Nyx with their hot dogs, and then a once-special drawing that Ozzy had gifted to his sister years ago—one of him and Nyx, standing side-by-side.

Ozzy flushes. “That’s, um…”

He can’t say it.

Vira looks at him with one brow raised, either unimpressed or expectant. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with her.

“...Nobody,” he finishes. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

“Grrr! Rrruff ruff ruff! Grrr!!”

His rump rises up in the air, and his growls and barks fill the hallway. There’s no stick in his mouth, for once, which should worry Ozzy, but it doesn’t worry him nearly as much as the little guy gnashing his bared teeth at Vira.

“Augh! What the—?! What’s his problem?!” Vira shrieks, whipping her head toward Ozzy.

“I don’t—”

“Whatever it is, control the stupid beast!”

“He’s not stupid!” Ozzy protests. “He’s just—he’s worked up.”

“About what?!”

“I… I don’t know,” Ozzy finishes lamely. “C-come on, Styx, calm down! It’s okay, boy, everything’s okay…” He looks around, eyes shifting back and forth between Styx and Vira. He has no idea what set Styx off like this, but it’s bad behaviour—and it’s upsetting Vira, too.

“I’m sorry, Vira,” he says. “Just give me a second…”

Vira scoffs. She crosses her arms. “Whatever. Just make sure he doesn’t try to bite me.”

Ozzy sighs and lowers himself to his knees to speak to Styx. “You should stay here,” he tells the Doglefox, and it earns him a heart-wrenching whimper in response. “Don’t follow us right now, okay? You’re upsetting Vira.”

He stands up again and continues to lead Vira to his studio. For a few steps, Styx follows behind him…

Until Vira snarls and rolls her eyes.

“He’s following us, Painter,” she mutters, clearly displeased, and it makes something in Ozzy twinge. He whirls around, his nose crinkling.

“I said stay here, Styx!” he snaps, and immediately regrets it. Styx’s tail droops between his legs and he gets his shoulders up, staring at Ozzy with big, hurt eyes.

“I…” Ozzy frowns. He hadn’t meant for his voice to get so loud. He hadn’t meant to get angry. But Vira…

He groans and smears a hand down his face, torn. “Look, just… just don’t bother us for a while, okay?” he says, and then hurries himself and Vira into his studio, leaving Styx all alone.

“Ugh, finally!” Vira says when they’re alone in Ozzy’s studio, and Ozzy has shut the door tight behind them. She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms again, clearly still perturbed by what had just happened. “That little beast’s had it in for me since day one. What did I ever do to deserve that, huh?”

Ozzy frowns. He wants to defend Styx and point out that Vira hasn’t been nice to him either, but Vira’s already in a bad mood—if he upsets her, she might leave and never come back.

Just like Nyx.

Instead, he tries to change the topic, and goes back to what they were talking about before Styx had started acting up. “So, um… you looked a little lost in thought out there before Styx… uh, barked.”

Vira glowers at him. “So?”

“So… I dunno, I guess I was just wondering what you were thinking about.”

That, at least, gets Vira’s smile back, even if it’s more like a smirk than anything else. “Oh, just wondering when you started getting so nosy,” she says, flicking at Ozzy’s ear playfully.

Despite himself, Ozzy laughs and shakes it off. The danger of upsetting her seems to have passed, at least for now, so he goes back to his original plan: showing his friend his work.

“Okay, I get it,” Ozzy says, moving toward the easel set up in the middle of the room. “You don’t have to tell me, I guess. But look at this—I really think you’re going to like what I’ve painted this time.”

Vira hums. “Is it another flower?” she asks, bored.

“Yes. Er, no. Er… not exactly…”

A dark, elegant brow rises at that, but Vira doesn’t say anything else. At least not until Ozzy pulls the sheet off the easel to reveal his latest painting: an endless field of grey and black and white flowers, spanning into a wide, open, clear greyscale sky.

For a moment, Vira’s eyes go wide. Ozzy wonders if she recognises the field—if he’d done a good job at recreating the stories she’d told him. He thinks he might have, if her breathlessness and slow steps toward the canvas are any indication—but before he can ask, she shakes her head and turns away, snapping back to her usual cocky, confident self.

“Not bad,” she says, a smile evident in her voice even if she doesn’t turn around to show it to Ozzy. “I like the flowers. But it’s still missing something.”

Ozzy smiles, too. “I know. I’m not done yet—but I will be soon. And when I am… I want you to have this. The painting, I mean. I want you to keep it.”

Vira glances at him for a second, her eyes still wide and her mouth slightly agape. But again she turns away, hastily hiding her expression from Ozzy.

“...You’re such a sap,” she says. Ozzy is pretty sure she means Thank you.

Behind him, Styx slinks into the room. He nudges the back of Ozzy’s heels and paws at him, a tiny whimper in his throat, but Ozzy doesn’t look up from his drawing. Instead he frowns, bushy eyebrows bunching together in the middle, and sketches out another stroke on Vira’s dress. “Not yet, Styx. Hang on, I’m almost done…”

“Rrrooww…!”

“I said not yet,” Ozzy repeats, more firmly this time. “I want to get this just right. We can go to sleep when I’m done.”

The paw that had been tugging at Ozzy’s pyjama pants falls to the floor. In the corner of his vision, Ozzy sees Styx curl up at the foot of the bed as he likes to sometimes, where he’s got all his sticks for comfort.

What he doesn’t see, though, is that something is different about the pile. And what he doesn’t hear is Styx sniffing at the pile, nor the little growl that floats into the night before the tiny Doglefox takes off running.

Vira comes up next to him and snorts, glancing down at the paw prints on the path. “Still running, huh? Looks like he really wanted to get away.”

Ozzy bites his lip. He doesn’t want to face the thought that Vira might be right, but her voice makes the one whispering inside his head louder: Of course he wanted to leave. Why would he want to stay with you?

He opens his mouth and yells, “STYX!!!”

Their search leads them to another path, and then another. Still, the Doglefox’s pawprints continue on, into a sparse line of dark green-and-brown trees, and then into trees less green and healthy. Overhead the canopy thickens, but not with leaves: with branches, gnarled and twisted and angular, like claws reaching up into the dark clouds above them. Below them, thorny brambles begin to creep onto the path, as if grasping at their legs.

Ozzy shivers. “Um… V-Vira?”

“Styx… here boy…” Vira pauses her calling, and turns to him. “What?”

“Th-this is… I th-th-think we’re in the Haunted Woods.”

Vira looks up and around. “Uh, yeah. You got a problem with that?”

Ozzy hunches in on himself, clutching the cereal bowl with Styx’s name on it closer to himself. His eyes dart back and forth, certain that he just saw something move. “N-n-n-no,” he lies. “I just… d-don’t think this is the k-kind of place he’d run off to.”

“What are you talking about?” Vira asks sternly, hands on her hips. “You see those itty-bitty paw prints, right? And all those ratty twigs? What else could possibly be leaving them behind?”

“I guess… But…”

“But what?”

“Why would he be in a p-place like this?”

Vira sighs. For a second, the cold irritation drops from her face, and something else softens her brow. “Who knows?” she mumbles, her voice distant, but in a second she’s back to her usual self, and she flits over to Ozzy to drape an arm around his shoulders. “But it kinda suits us, doesn’t it?”

She shakes him. Ozzy doesn’t say anything. He isn’t sure she’s right, but… something is telling him she’s not entirely wrong, either.

Vira releases his shoulders, then takes his hand. “Come on. This way. I’ve got a good feeling.”

Ozzy follows along helplessly, so worried he can’t even appreciate how warm Vira’s hand is—or maybe it isn't warm at all. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t feel like he knows anything anymore.

He tries to shake off the uncertainty. “What do you mean by ‘a good feeling?’” he asks, still glancing through the trees surrounding them for any sign of Styx. All he sees are shadows—creepy, shifting shadows.

Next to Ozzy, Vira shrugs a shoulder. “I dunno. It just feels right, though, doesn’t it?”

The path narrows. The brambles and thorns that had lined the sides of the trail thicken, and now Ozzy has to be mindful of stepping over them. Some of the brambles have tiny, glistening black berries on them. Berries that he’s never seen before. The further they go, the more there are.

“Yeah… yeah,” Vira says. “I think we’re going to find exactly what we’re looking for here.”

“What is…?” he starts to ask, then stops.

Vira doesn’t say anything. She just leads him deeper and deeper into the thicket with its twisted vines and sparkling berries, closer and closer to the building.

“Ahhh…”

The sound, like a breath on the wind, startles Ozzy. He jumps, whipping his head around frantically in search of something—anything—in the darkness. “Wh-what was that?!”

“What was what?” Vira asks.

“You are a long way from home, little Neopet…”

“Th-that!” Ozzy shrieks. “That voice! Who—what—?!”

“I have been waiting for you, Grey One. For someone who can wield my power…”

Ozzy keeps looking around, loosening himself from Vira’s grasp and spinning in place, as though he can find the source of that low, gentle, crooning voice whispering to him. Styx’s bowl falls from his hand, and he clutches at his ears.

“I—I—I don’t care about that!” he yells out into the gnarled and wretched canopy. “I just want to find my friend!”

“Your friend?” The voice speaks with dull surprise. “Ah, you must mean the Petpet who abandoned you…”

A part of Ozzy wants to say that Styx didn’t abandon him. What comes out instead is a shrill and desperate question: “D-do you know where he is?”

A sigh, little more than a frigid breeze cutting through the trees, brushes past him. “I cannot help you find your friend. But…”

Ozzy tugs on his ears again, tears in his eyes. “B-but…?”

“But I can make it so you never lose anyone again.”

The wind picks up. Vira braces herself against it, one hand up to obscure the lower half of her face.

“I can make all of Neopia understand how you have suffered…”

The hanging tree branches part before them, and so too do the brambles and vines around their feet slither out of the way. In their place is a wrought-iron gate, its black paint peeling to reveal grey metal underneath. Vira walks toward it, facing away from Ozzy, and Ozzy reaches out to stop her—

But she just keeps going, leaving him behind.

He scrambles to follow after her. And there, just beyond the gateway…

The room is a yawning, open space. Curling vines dotted with those strange, sparkling berries sparsely line the wall, leaking in through the cracks in the grey brick facade. Ozzy hardly notices them at all, though, because what’s taking up his attention is the small set of stairs in the centre of the room, leading up to a stone plinth. From the ground, thorns and vines weave around the stairs and sprout from the plinth, wrapping around something glowing with a strange, shimmering, monochrome oil-slick light.

A Paint Brush.

A Grey one.

Suddenly, it’s as if all the air in the room is sucked out of it, fleeing with a rattling gust of wind that sounds like rasping, echoing laughter. It grates against Ozzy’s ears, but something about it feels… soothing, almost. It doesn’t make him want to curl up and cover his eyes or ears like it did before.

Now…

“Take it, Grey One,” the voice in the wind coaxes. “With the power of the Acrimonious Paint Brush, you can make all of Neopia grey, as well.”

Ozzy wrings his hands together. Belatedly, he realises they’re empty, no longer holding Styx’s cereal bowl; but that thought is almost a distant whisper in his mind now. All he can see is that strange Paint Brush, and Vira walking toward it.

At the base of the stairs, she turns around to face him.

Then, slowly, she raises her hand.

Vira’s teeth are sharp when she smiles.

“Do it, Ozzy,” she tells him. “Take it. You can make Neopia a better place for Neopets like us. You can get your revenge on everyone who left you. You can make them see what you see every day. What we see.”

Ozzy swallows. His foot shifts forward—not a step, not yet. But Vira stretches her hand out more insistently, and her red, red eyes are alight with fervour, with desperation. But her smile…

Her smile falters, like she can’t keep it up. Like some great emotion is trying to seep in through the cracks, just like the vines and berries through the grey brick wall. “Once everyone’s an outcast like us,” she says, “once everyone is grey and gloomy and ugly and twisted—then no one will ever have to be lonely again, Ozzy. No one.”

Lonely. There’s that word—the one he hates so much. The one that Vira had said to him, once, the first time he’d made tea for her, and he’d made it so weak she said she couldn’t even taste it. He had thought, back then, that she was talking about how lonely he was, but now, looking at her wavering smile…

She wants him to take the Paint Brush. She thinks it will help him—help them. His only friend left in the whole wide world is asking him to take it, to help paint a world for them where they’ll feel more at home. Where they’ll belong.

And she would never, ever lead him astray.

With a deep breath, and with all the courage he has left in him, Ozzy takes Vira’s hand.

Together, they walk up the steps to the plinth.

Together, they come to a stop before the Paint Brush.

“It might hurt a bit,” Vira says, gazing at the vines as she unlaces their hands and pats Ozzy’s shoulder encouragingly, “but I know you can do it.”

Ozzy nods. He doesn’t look at her. He just looks at the Paint Brush, and its grey kaleidoscope shimmer, and the thorns and vines surrounding it.

He reaches through them. The barbs stick in his sleeve; the thorns tear at his fur and sink to the skin beneath. They’re sharp, and Vira’s right: it does hurt, but each prickle is a reminder to Ozzy of how much everything has always hurt.

How much it hurt when he and Nyx lost their parents.

How much it hurt when his bullies tormented him.

How much it hurt when Nyx left.

How much it hurt when people would pass by him day after day, acting like he didn’t exist.

How much it hurt when Styx left.

How much it hurt when he abandoned Ozzy, too.

Just like everyone else.

Compared to that, the vines are nothing. Compared to Ozzy’s anger, billowing up inside him again and again and blossoming into something that finally, finally feels like purpose, nothing feels like it can ever hurt him again.

He takes hold of the Paint Brush, and for a moment, all the pain disappears. The vines and brambles surrounding him and digging into his flesh wither and fall away, crumbling into grey ashes on the dusty ground. And with them, so too does Ozzy fall away.

All that remains now is the Grey Painter.

“Are you all right, Nyx?” Mr. Hornelius asks, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. He had just finished stocking the pantry with groceries, including a few extra boxes of Ozzy’s favourite cereal. Nyx looks up at him with what she hopes is a reassuring smile, even if she doesn’t really feel it.

“I’m worried about Ozzy,” she admits, even though it’s not much of an admission. “And to be honest, I’m not really sure I should be going to Virtupets at all.”

Mr. Hornelius gives her a sympathetic nod and removes his hand. “It’s scary to go off on a new adventure, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“But is it so scary that you don’t want to go at all?”

“No!” Nyx yelps, sitting up with a jolt—but then she slumps back down in her seat at the kitchen table. “I mean, I want to go… I want to see the world, you know? But I don’t want to leave Ozzy, either.”

“I understand.” Mr. Hornelius’s voice is kind. He takes a seat at the kitchen table next to her. “But you won’t be gone forever, will you? It’s just a few months—you’ll be back before either of you knows it, and you can write in the meantime.”

“I know, but…”

“And I’ll be here, too.” When Mr. Hornelius smiles, it’s gentle and warm, crinkling the corners of his lips and stretching out the crow’s feet at his eyes. “I’ll take care of Ozzy while we wait for you to come back.”

Nyx smiles. Finally, it feels real. She sits up, reaching for him. “You promise?”

Mr. Hornelius takes her hand.

“I promise.”

Ozzy still hasn’t come out of his room by the time Nyx has to leave. She stands at their front door with Mr. Hornelius, worrying at her lip; as she glances over at their landlord, he looks up into the window of Ozzy’s room. Nyx follows his gaze, but doesn’t see Ozzy: just a quick little movement the same colour as his sheets.

“He’s… he’s not coming out, is he?”

Mr. Hornelius gives her a sad, resigned look, as if his heart is breaking, too. He doesn’t say anything. He probably doesn’t even know what to say. Nyx doesn’t know, either.

She takes a deep breath, then shakes herself out and tries to smile. “Take good care of him for me while I’m gone, okay? And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“You have my word,” Mr. Hornelius says, placing a wrinkled hand over his heart.

And with that, Nyx is off. She takes the first step onto the path leading away from home—the path that will lead her toward adventure, and to the dream she had always kept locked safely away in her heart.

But it’s hard. The first step is the hardest. The second step might be easier, and every one after that even more so, even though it slowly becomes more and more difficult to see the horizon through her tears.

Nyx stifles a sob, lifting an arm to her face and scrunching her eyes shut to try and staunch the flow of tears—but it’s no use. She comes to a stop when she’s far enough away from the house to keep her from wanting to run back, and then turns and takes one last look back at the home in which she raised her little brother.

“Goodbye, Ozzy!” Nyx calls, lifting both hands above her head and waving them frantically back and forth. A wide smile spreads across her face, hope blooming in her chest even as she says the most difficult words she’s ever had to say. “I’ll be back soon, I promise!”

Months go by, and a gloomy sky hovers overhead as Torgos Hornelius III walks up to Ozzy’s door. It’s not the first time he’s been over this week—he had come by twice already to check on the young man and gotten no response—but he can’t help but worry.

To that end, he’s brought a few containers of Bangers and Mash and Baked Juppie, and even a slice of Islandberry Drum Cake, which he had decorated with pieces of the Islandberry Crunch Cereal that Ozzy loves so much. The poor lad doesn’t seem to leave the house very often, and probably isn’t eating well because of it.

Torgos approaches the door and knocks on it gently. “Ozzy?” he calls, as softly as he can while still making sure he’s heard. “Are you there? I’m just checking in…”

The old Tonu presses his ear to the door. His hearing isn’t quite what it used to be, but it’s far from lacklustre—and just like all those visits before, there’s no response, at least at first. Then…

A shuffle behind the door, and then a whimper. A familiar voice mutters, “She usually sends more by now…”

Torgos frowns. Is Ozzy talking about his overdue rent? He thought he had made it clear to the boy that there was no need to worry about it—he wasn’t about to kick poor Ozzy or his sister out of their home…

A frown spreads over his face. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard from Nyx in quite some time. Her letters had stopped coming a few months ago, but he hadn’t thought much of it until now—Virtupets is a busy place, and her work schedule must have been hectic.

He knocks on the door again, rebalancing the containers of food he’s got in his arms. “Are you hungry, Ozzy? I’ve brought you some food…”

No response. Not for a minute, or five minutes, or even ten. Eventually, Torgos decides to leave the containers he’d brought at the doorstep, just as he has for every other visit in the last few weeks.

“I’ll just leave it here for you, when you’re ready,” he says, and departs.

“No kidding,” his pastel Chomby friend says, snout wrinkling. Despite their low opinions of the grey Yurble and his artwork, though, he seems to be getting a fair amount of attention from other passers-by: there’s a blue Lupe who stops to admire one of the landscape paintings, and a rainbow Buzz who tries to ask for the price of one of them, only for the Yurble to look down at his feet and ignore him. Others look from a distance as well, and murmur a couple compliments to their friends that only just carry over to where the bullies are standing.

That won’t do.

“Hey.”

Her voice startles the Quiggle and the Chomby, and they look around wildly until they spot her emerging from the bushes. Both of them flinch away, mouths open and melty cheese slipping off their half-eaten slices of pizza. It would be comical if it wasn't the kind of reaction she always got.

Nobody loves you when you’re ugly and twisted.

But she puts her feelings aside. None of that matters right now—she’s used to looks of disgust, and she has a job to do.

“It’s terrible, right?” she says, looking past the Quiggle and Chomby and smirking. They follow her gaze to the Yurble sitting gloomily amidst his paintings, and both of them scoff. “He really thinks his art’s good enough to sell? Yeah, right. I can paint better than that, and I can barely draw a circle.”

The Chomby and Quiggle laugh, just as she knew they would. She’s been watching them for a while, after all—and her patron has been watching even longer.

“I think he needs to be taken down a peg.”

In unison, both the Chomby’s and Quiggle’s heads swivel around back to her. “What do you mean?” The Chomby asks, wide-eyed, while the Quiggle nods.

“I mean that Yurble should be shown exactly where his so-called ‘art’ belongs.” Her grin widens, and she lifts her foot up high—only to bring it down, hard, on the ground, and to grind the toe of her boot in the dirt. “Get it?”

The Quiggle nods even more enthusiastically, and a mean-spirited smile crawls across the Chomby’s face—exactly as she had expected. “Yeah… yeah!” the Quiggle says, while the Chomby turns around and pounds a fist into his hand. “Let’s go show him!”

They set off without so much as glancing back at her. But that’s fine. It just means she can slink away, back into the shadows, and watch the fun unfold.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

Oh, how she hates that sound. It grates on her ears like nails on a chalkboard, or like the songs of happy Neopets singing off-key in the flower fields. She grinds her teeth just to distract from the noise, as if that will do anything about the pesky little Doglefox that now follows her mark around like a… like a… well, like a dopey little Doglefox.

She pulls out her dagger, running her finger along its hilt. The chain connected to it jingles, and a chill settles in beneath her fur, just as unnerving as it is familiar.

Patience, my toxic flower, a voice croons to her from the dagger, so softly that the grey Yurble and his infuriating new friend can’t hear it even as Vira follows them from the shadows. All will come in due time. This is only a minor delay…

“I know,” she mutters to herself, slumping against a tree she’s decided to lean on. The sky is a deep, twilight purple now, and she looks up into it, eyes darting between the stars. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier these days, and the Yurble never stays out past sunset. He’ll be home soon, and with that stupid Doglefox, too.

She needs to do something about it. It’s in her way.

In her patron’s way.

So she waits. She waits for hours and hours, staying out until the sun goes down and the moon is high up in the sky—and then even longer after that. She waits until she knows the Yurble will be asleep, and she makes her way to his house, flying up to one of the windows to take a peek inside.

There. The bedroom. The grey Yurble is sound asleep behind the glass, snuggled up under the covers, and at the foot of his bed… That stupid, annoying Doglefox, all curled up in a pile of sticks and cuddling with…

Oh. It’s too perfect.

She smiles to herself as her boots touch down onto the ground, and touches the hilt of the dagger again—glowing, now. Her patron has something to tell her.

She glances over at the nearest shadow, and nods.

“Yes, my patron,” she says, softly. “I think I understand.”

Day after day, he would go looking for the thing that was missing. With a stick in his mouth and his ears and nose perked, he would roam Neopia Central to find it. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he would understand when he found it. It would smell right, he was sure, because everything had a smell. The Doglefox didn’t know what every smell meant, but he knew that the good smells would lead to something nice. After all, that was how he knew who would play with him and which shopkeepers had his favourite food.

One day, while the little Doglefox was exploring, looking for this missing thing, he tripped over the stick he was carrying in his mouth.

Crash, tumble, oomph!

He ended up rolling into a bush filled with berries. The branches weren’t very sharp, but they were thick and troublesome to push his little paws through. Luckily, he still had his trusty stick to help him get out, so he used it to move the branches out of the way and get through the bush. A part of him was a little sad about it, though. The berries smelled nice.

But wait! There was another smell, too. Something… something good. Something really good!

The Doglefox put his nose to the ground. It wasn’t there. It was up ahead a little, and getting closer, and closer…

A foot fell onto the path in front of the Doglefox.

The Doglefox looked up.

And then he saw it—he saw what was missing.

The little boy was covered in grey fur. He had droopy ears and limp hair and watery eyes, and he had the biggest frown on his face that the Doglefox had ever seen. He was carrying big squares with pictures on them—pictures of skies and fields and trees!—and a few long things in his hand that almost looked like sticks. The Doglefox didn’t know what they were, but he knew that the little boy was the best thing he had ever smelled in his life.

“Arf!”

The Doglefox watched the boy stop in the middle of the plaza and put down his picture-squares and the colourful sticks. Everything in the Doglefox’s body was telling him to go to this little Neopet, but a part of him was nervous. What if the boy didn’t like him? What if he didn’t want to be friends?

But then The Doglefox smelled something else. Something dark and smoky and rotten, like a flower that had fallen off a bush and been rained on for a whole week. He wrinkled his nose and shook his fur, because he didn’t like it. And the smell was close…

Whatever it was, he couldn’t let it get to the little boy! So, clenching his teeth around the stick that had helped him get here, The Doglefox made a run for it. A run for the little boy.

“Arf arf arf!”

At first, the boy didn’t seem to know what to make of him. He frowned his big, sad frown, and told the Doglefox that he couldn’t play, but that was okay. The Doglefox didn’t need to play with him. He just wanted to be around the little boy, because he was special and the Doglefox knew it, even if he didn’t know why. He just hoped that the boy would understand one day.

So he stayed, and day after day he walked home with the boy, because he liked the boy’s company and he was worried about that rotten-flower smell that sometimes followed him around, and because sometimes the boy would smile at him when they walked together.

Later, he learned that the boy’s name was Ozzy. Even later, he learned that Ozzy had the brightest smile in all of Neopia, and that when he laughed, it was the most amazing sound the Doglefox had ever heard.

But then one day, trouble struck: two big, mean Neopets approached Ozzy and tried to ruin all his picture-squares, which the Doglefox learned were called ‘paintings.’ The boy worked so hard on those paintings and was always making new ones. The Doglefox couldn’t just stand by and let those mean Neopets upset him!

So he did the only thing he knew how to do: he gathered a stick in his mouth and chased the bullies away.

After that, the boy smiled even more. He even invited the Doglefox to come inside his house with him! It was the best day of the Doglefox’s life, because that meant that he and the little boy were finally friends. Best friends! And Ozzy even gave him a name.

Styx.

It was the best name in all of Neopia. The Doglefox, now called Styx, loved it because Ozzy gave it to him. It was important to him, too: it sounded like Nyx, who was the girl in the pictures on Ozzy’s fridge. She was Ozzy’s big sister. Someone he loved.

Styx was pretty sure he loved Nyx, too.

But then things changed. The rotten-flower smell that hovered around Ozzy turned out to be a girl called Vira. Vira was rude and mean, and she didn’t like Styx. She tried to pull Ozzy away from him, and blamed Styx for things he never even did! No, he did not like Vira at all, and he tried to tell Ozzy… but Ozzy wouldn’t listen. Not even when Styx barked really loud and tried to warn his friend that Vira was looking at his special plushie.

He knew then that he had to take matters into his own paws.

One night, all of Styx’s worst fears came true. The special plushie in his pile of sticks, the one that looked like a paint brush, was missing, and the room was full of the awful smell of rotten flowers. He sniffed at his messy pile of sticks for good measure, but in his little heart, he knew the truth: Vira had stolen Ozzy’s treasure!

He growled out, “I’m going to get it back for you, Ozzy!” and took off running into the night.

It’s still pretty boring, she decides. Faerieland looks nothing like what he’s painted—or at least she assumes, since she’s never actually been there before. Everyone up there is always so happy, so vapid, so pretty, content to listen to their queen and not think even for a moment about anything she had done to hold onto her power.

Some people had everything. Vira? She has nothing. Nothing but this.

Snarling, she finds the nearest trash can and tosses the stupid painting right in it. She has more important things to think about than how beautiful Faerieland actually is. If she wants to be beautiful too, she’s got work to do—so she pulls out her dagger and focuses, reaching out to her patron to deliver her report.

The hilt of her dagger warms, and an eerie glow begins to surround the blade. “Yes, my toxic flower?” the voice of her patron croons, settling the turbulence in Vira’s heart—at least for now.

“I bought that hunk of junk, just like you said,” she tells her patron. “Everything is going according to plan.”

“As I knew it would,” the voice responds. “Now, onto the next step…”

“As you command.”

The connection between them fades away, and Vira re-sheathes her dagger. It’s time to go home for the day, to ready herself for the next phase in her patron’s plot.

But…

Even as she stomps away, Vira can’t help but cast a glance back at the trash can, and at the corner of the painting still sticking up from it.

It doesn’t take long to earn the Yurble’s trust. Soon enough, he’s inviting her to his house, they’re sharing pots of tea, and he’s showing her all his paintings, even though that stupid Doglefox of his keeps sniffing around and nipping at her heels. Ugh, that Doglefox—the biggest thorn in her side right now, easily. If it wasn’t for him, she’d probably have turned Ozzy over to her—their—side for good by now.

But it’s fine. Her patron told her to be patient, so Vira will be patient. She knows what to do now, anyway.

So she waits, as always, until there’s a moment for her to act. It comes soon enough, on a day when Ozzy is leading her to his studio, excited about—surprise!—yet another one of his dull and gloomy paintings. They pass by a door she’s never seen past before, but today it’s open, revealing…

There it is. The Paint Brush Plushie she’d seen in the bedroom window all those weeks ago, right there for the taking.

Suddenly, the Doglefox barks. He growls at her, fur bristling and teeth bared, and Vira bares hers right back, snarling in anger. “Augh! What the—?! What’s his problem?!”

Ozzy gets between them, trying to soothe the Doglefox while still placating Vira. It’s annoying, more than anything else—but it’s also an opportunity. If she just pushes him a little further, maybe Ozzy will send the Doglefox away for a while, so they can get some time alone…

She scoffs and crosses her arms, turning away so Ozzy can’t see her smirk. “Whatever. Just make sure he doesn’t try to bite me.”

Ozzy’s painting rattles her.

For a moment, Vira isn’t sure what she’s seeing—it must be a dream. Yeah, it has to be. She’s dreaming, seeing her flower field painted in such vivid detail, such loving brushstrokes. And it’s not done. Ozzy told her it wasn’t, and that when he finishes it, he wants her to…

She thinks about the Faerieland painting she had bought, and something clenches in her stomach. She bites her lip, and glances at the painting in front of her one more time. Ozzy has left the room to go check on the Doglefox, but he’ll be back any minute. This isn’t the time for her to… do whatever it is she’s doing now. Get sentimental, or whatever. She doesn’t care—she doesn’t.

She has work to do.

So she rushes out of the room and makes her way to Ozzy’s bedroom. The coast is clear—she can hear him talking to Styx outside—so Vira pushes the door the rest of the way open and flits over to the Paint Brush Plushie on the floor, nestled in a pile of sticks. A part of her wants to roll her eyes at it, but she doesn’t have time to indulge in any feelings right now, even ones of disgust. She just takes the plushie and flies away, stashing it behind Ozzy’s couch so she can grab it on her way out. Tonight, she’s going to put the final phase of her patron’s plan into action.

Tomorrow, she will meet the Grey Painter.