I just joined Subeta. I love to write and wanted to turn my experience with Subeta into a fun writing prompt. Click on my profile to see the pets/characters in my story!

Anyway, here's my effort. I will continue to update chapters as I write more. Feel free to comment, review, or message me! Thank you for your time.

Ch.1


   Hello, my name is Fed. When my former owner put me up for adoption, he sent me off with 20 meal vouchers from the Resort, and so I became known as Fed around the agency. 
"That one has already been fed by his Lakeview account."
 

   I became somewhat accustomed around the agency. The kennel technicians were always delighted that my run took slightly less time than the others even if by only a few moments. I felt a little sheepish however around the other improvised creatures. My meals were hot, prepared with the utmost care, and imported from the neighboring Lake District by chefs. The dichotomy between the welcoming staff of the agency and the rebuff from fellow tenants was uncomfortable at times. It was a weight however that waxed and waned for I was have with a particular physical defect and even with the fresh meals and favoritism among the personnel, my fellow peers tended to pity me more often than envy. 

   I had grown accustomed to their pity as I have my own body. I get around alright, though even with practice, my gangling limbs and skinny wings remain a daily hindrance in the way of locomotion. Further, my eyes do not reside in my skull but the tops of my front paws. Two orange and red orbs will always gaze skywards until I place a clawed hand to my face; holding one arm up like this leaves me with only three appendages to hobble around with however, and because my wings sprout from my ulnas instead of my shoulders, flight is only possible blind or staring up at the clouds, which does nothing for not crashing into all matter of obstacles on the Delphi beach. If there was any luck to be had for me, I found it in my blessing of three tails. I held one behind for balance while the other two probed around me as I walked like twin, tentacle-like canes.

   I smiled at a few of my fellow ragamuffins and at all of the staff, but made no lasting friendships at the agency. It was only when a stranger approached me with funding for my future, and in turn my independence from the shelter that I came to appreciate the bonds that bind us to one another, even if those bonds were fleeting. Some people came to the shelter to find a companion, others protection, charity case, or pet project. I am not sure what the woman wanted. She didn’t say a word to me and left me to do as I pleased with a pile of cash and my life ahead of me. I may not have been able to repay her, but I was going to eke out my existence for a spark had been lit within me.

   I knew the money wouldn’t last long. It was a great start that I am still confounded by and thankful for, but my first priority was to find a way to make a living. I announced that I was leaving to the shelter staff and we briefly traded our warm wishes. They asked where I would go, and I mentioned wanting to sail into the town of Darkside. One young lady stated that it was a bit boring of a boat ride and gifted me a book from her locker and a little bookmark with the moon and stars on it. I thanked her and was on my way. It was no easy task with my difficulty moving and the intricacies of my sight, but I limped to the dock, past the bustle of crowds and carnival lights and caught the next boat off of Delphi towards the murky isle of Darkside. 

   The book was Kanisship Down. I finished it eagerly on my trip across the sea. It was a harrowing tale of a warren of kanis that were forced to flee their homeland and start anew in a dangerous, unfamiliar land. It was a little complicated for my first book. There were more characters than I had fingers. Nonetheless, I completed the last page just as the black and purple land of Darkside was spotted. I had been to the island before. It was a place of beings so twisted that even I could stagger by without a second glance. Some had green, decaying skin, others horns, and still others wore a scowl so mischievous it would put a brick in your belly upon sight. I used the money to check into an inn and fell asleep promptly on the bed, the book on the pillow beside me.

   The next day, I picked up my job search immediately.  I had heard rumors of a graveyard shift hiring delivery boys in the nearby town of Shadowglen, and without much thought on the matter set out straightaway. It was a pretty standard job around these parts. Residing on an island demanded that a lot of product be imported from outside places, and in order to foot the bill, there were many exports on our end as well. The packages that came into the harbor needed to be unloaded and delivered to shops and denizens alike, likewise products that were going out needed to be collected for shipment. It was an ongoing requirement of island life, and I was familiar with the work having witnessed a similar movement of items in and out of Delphi. Plus, it was advertised as a graveyard shift, and so with the quiet curtain of nighttime to obscure my efforts, it all seemed like a sound chance to make an honest living. 

   A week after I was liberated from the agency, I had landed the job. It wasn’t actually a graveyard shift in the traditional sense. I was only marginally discouraged that “graveyard” was a description of the location and not the hours. It was a job nonetheless and I was not one to be choosy. I wasn’t sure why my employer, Quentin, was hiding out in a graveyard, but he smoothed over any of my lingering misgivings with his cheerful character. I found myself trusting him quicker than I had trusted anyone. It was not that I considered myself hard to get to know, it was just that no one had ever spoken with me so easily before. He gave me my assignments, always asked how I was, and how the job was once I returned, but he spoke without the waver of pity. He spoke as if I was not freakish and looked me in the eyes, wherever they may be. I mostly held my hand up to my face; it was more natural for others to want to look at each other’s faces when conversing, but once, I had just come back into the shop from a job, and he glanced right at my feet as he spoke without missing a beat. I stared up at him and caught the gleaming of his toothy grin against the glow of the ceiling lights.

   The work was simple enough. I brought meat pies and old champagne, stickers, and fusty old apparel to Quentin and to the townies. It was as if everyone was always bartering with each other. The wares I carried were both unique and seemingly trivial, but the customers were thrilled to hear me pawing at their doors, and Quentin paid me regularly. It was not a lot of sP, but he often augmented my wages with meals, trinkets, and many interesting books that I pored over day in and day out. I found my new lifestyle greatly rewarding. He may not have been my owner. In all technicalities, the woman who paid my way was, but I pretended that he was. It was only in secret however for he had many other employees, friends, and personal pets, and at least as far as the employees were concerned, I may have been the least efficient. I’d like to think I was the most determined though, and in my heart the most loyal, though I knew both of those extremes may not have been true either. 

   One otherwise unremarkable evening, I hadn’t been working there for long, but Quentin took me aside with a special reward for my duties.

   “Hey, Fed, how was your round tonight?”

   “It wasn’t bad, sir. Skitters liked the journal we imported for his shop.”

   “Great, that’s fantastic,” he liked to wander around as he spoke, never one to sit still for very long. He gestured a lot as well with long, pointed fingers, “So I stumbled upon something and thought of you today. I know how you sweat just to walk around these parts. The terrain isn’t so flat, you know, and,” he said a few more sentences, but my heart was sinking. I had thought he was about to scold or worse fire me. I moved to speak up, but didn’t want to erupt either. I think I made some diminutive noise that faltered in my throat. I raised both my hands to my face and I caught him retrieving a globular flask from the pantry. It had delicate, etched glass and a fiery, red liquid that lapped at the sides of the bottle as he brought it to me.
 
   “Now don’t take this the wrong way,” he continued, “I think you’re just great the way you go about with what you have. Isn’t that what could be said about any one of us? But I saw this, and the guy had no use for it, and I thought if you were ever in a dark place, or feeling trapped, or down, that maybe you could find some comfort in a thing like this.” I studied the bottle as he prattled on with his kind, ceaseless smile. It was an elixir. “You have these sage eyes, and calm demeanor, and you’re clearly some sort of dragon, so what about a regal looking sun Mahar? This elixir is for you—not that you need to use it, but I thought you should have it. Am I digging myself a hole, here?” I shook my head, a slight grin now creasing me cheeks as well.
 
   “I understand. I will treasure it always.”

   “Great! So you won’t feel trapped is all, Fed.” He handed me the bottle. I took it in one hand and studied it with the other. I resisted the urge to pop open the cork and down the whole thing, instead relishing the alternative reality it granted me. I have a hard time explaining why, perhaps Quentin did too, but that bottle only invigorated my confidence. Without taking a single swig, I felt like a new being. I was in utter glee as I walked back to the inn that night. I placed the prized item beneath my bed, next to my Kanisship Down novel and my night sky bookmark. That night I dreamt of grassy fields, and bright suns, and the jeweled belly of the Mahar. When I awoke in the morning, I peeked at my treasures before heading out to town to do some exploring. My next shift didn’t start until several hours later, and I was in the mood to see the world, or more modestly the nooks and crannies of my new home.


Ch. 2

It was always pouring and the ground was soggy. I closed an eye as I walked to avoid getting mud in it and ended up stopping by Skitters’ shop to take a reprieve from the rain. He offered me a stained fabric to dry my hands and invited me to check out his wares. I looked through the books as he enthusiastically talked my ear off. I wasn’t sure how he could be so chatty with the greater part of his musculature missing, but he spoke gregariously about Shadowglen and its Unliving inhabitants. He recommended that I check out the Underground to see more of the local flair and that it was dry down there, mostly. The rain had grown so heavy that it sounded as a stampede of Hipottu on the roof.  I took Skitters up on his invitation and followed his green finger to where it pointed just outside his front door. There was a heap of rocks clustered around the entrance of a cave. The rocks were black and slick, but just beyond, the stone indeed appeared much dryer. I thanked him and paid for a new book, but asked if I could leave my purchase here until I returned, hoping that the rain would die down by then. With that I darted outside.

I shook myself off at the mouth of the cave, ringing out my gray mane and eagerly drank in the scene around me. It appeared as a little shanty town with boarded up houses and cardboard rooves. I was careful not to knock over any of the candles that lit up the tunnels. The Underground was really quite pretty in the odd lighting. Maybe not pretty in the sense of the Delphi ocean front, or Veta mountains, but endearing.  There were many corridors formed by stalactites and stalagmites so ancient that they fastened together as stony pylons. Every once in a while a droplet of water would trickle down and splash from a fissure high above. I wandered away from the corridors that echoed with running water and towards what sounded like the din of voices. It wasn’t long until I came upon an opening in the cavern. It was a stunning grotto where enormous tree roots had broken down through the stone above and intertwined with the rooftops of the petite shops that had been built into the walls of the cave. There were more green people here just like Skitters and several green pets as well. They staggered about just as I did, though they with organ meat that clung to their eroded skeletons. There were plenty of interesting smells that carried through the air in the grotto. I wouldn’t have guessed that cooking was a passion of the Shadowglen inhabitants, but a handful of denizens were fervent about offering me samples of their cuisine.
 
Among the workers, there was only one that appeared to be from out of town. She was not green, but stood out with her cream, nearly white complexion and puff of a tail that hung over her head like a mane of pale hair. She glanced up at me with blue saucer eyes and a curved smile ripe with pointed teeth. She offered me a blood pretzel, stating that Elsie had baked them no more than an hour ago. I peeked into the shop, lifting a paw around the corner of the root that made up the storefront. There was an elfish girl inside, green and gray with a pink apron and oversized oven mittens. I watched as she organized her bakery items into neat rows beneath a dingy glass counter top. The little cream Popoko tugged at one of my tails and invited me in to try more, “and buy something,” she added.
 
I spent nearly two hours at Half Baked, but we only spoke of food. I had yet to find out what brought her to Darkside isle; many Subetans passed through here, but few opted to settle down. The natives were at best welcoming, at worst horrifying, and the environment was harsh. There was an active volcano that would spew toxic gases and smoke into the air. The green Unliving were not bothered by it save having to sweep the ashes from their doormats. For those like the Popoko and I and any other Subetans that visited, it was a major health risk. I still preferred it to the rush of Centropolis.

That evening, before my shift at Quentin’s, I sat on the bed with my new book from Skitters and a handful of Shadowglen’s finest baked treats. Some tasted fine, others had a more “exotic” appeal. One of the hardest parts of living in a different place was adjusting to the food. I slid the elixir from beneath my bed and set it on the desk while I read and munched on snacks. I glanced at its swirling contents in between pages.

Work was not too difficult that day. After my last delivery I wandered back to the Underground, again dodging the rain. A few of the locals greeted me with the glint of recognition in their smiles as I made my way through the cave. The Unliving didn’t always take too well to outsiders, and so I took their subtle greetings as a compliment.
 
I met the Popoko at The Lost Skeleton. She said her name was Zettai, but the locals tended to say “Zet’a.” We ate meat pies and she spoke of the West Continent where she worked at the bake shop. She said that she lacked the patience to stay in any one place for too long and so she volunteered to ride the boat back and forth between Darkside and Centropolis to aid in the deliveries. She would be leaving tonight, but would return again next week. She sounded quite self-sufficient for a creature no higher than my elbow. I asked if she had an owner to which she eagerly acknowledged with a bobble of her head. She took me by the tail and pulled me outside. Night had fallen and the fog was thick. There were fireflies in the air that reflected in the clouds as floating candles. We scurried past Skitters’, past Quentin’s, and into the pumpkin patch. It was cold and abandoned this time of year as it was nearly winter.
 
“There isn’t anything here,” I began, scanning the barren field. She ignored me, leading me further through the dried up vines and rotting squash. She pulled out a little purple comb from the purse at her waist and ran it through her tangled tail. We waited and she shushed me before I could protest. It was then that I saw the field shimmer; the whole thing did. I heard t

Hi, I have read your whole story. You write beautiful how it is in Shadowglen.

The characters such as Skitters and Quentin correspond quite well with the image that I have of them.

"A Kanis Shipdown" is inspired on the real book "Wathershipdown" from Richard Adams.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story :) Have you read Watership Down? That was my favorite book in elementary school. It was one of the first books I really got into.

I know the book and the movie from 1978 too. They are both wonderfull. Info about the movie It's directed by Martin Rosen. I love the style of this animation.

Oh yeah I love that movie! The animation was spot on to capture the tone. My favorite rabbit was Bigwig haha

I'ts difficult to say what's my fave rabbit is. I love Fiver, Blackberry, Bigwig, Dandelion, Hyzendley, Kehar.

Oh well, the last one was a gul.

El Ahrairah was my fave rabbit too of course!

I think the Black Rabbit of Inlé is the most handsome rabbit. ❤

I know also the following book from him in 1996 (The first one was from 1972): Click for Tales of watership Down. Especially the storie's about El Ahrairah told by Dandelion, are fantastic.