Mousapelli’s Fanfiction » Neopets, Caring for Eyries

Neopets, Caring for Eyries

Title: Caring for Eyries, Chapter 2
Rating/Warnings: G for amorous hooting
Summary: When full-grown, the Eyrie is intelligent, loyal, well-groomed, and helpful. As an adolescent, the Eyrie is scatterbrained, vain, and easily distracted by shiny objects.
AN: The random Neopets contest of the week is to take a Book title from the site and write a short (>500 words) story about what is inside. I picked Caring for Eyries, and wrote an excerpt of chapter 2.

Caring For Eyries
Chapter 2: The Adolescent Eyrie

When full-grown, the Eyrie is intelligent, loyal, well-groomed, and helpful. As an adolescent, the Eyrie is scatterbrained, vain, and easily distracted by shiny objects. While it won’t make your Eyrie any less annoying, understanding your Eyrie’s behavior encourages a much smoother transition to adulthood for both you and your pet.

Problem #1: Hunting Small Prey

Your Eyrie may begin bringing in small animals it has hunted itself: Tigermice, Scamanders, even the occasional smallish Babaa. The important thing is not to be upset with your Eyrie: seeing you as the head of the household, your pet is merely offering you your share of the hunt.

Hunting strengthens key skills an Eyrie needs for the Battledome, such as reflexes, speed, and pouncing. Yelling or shaming your Eyrie while hunting may damage his confidence, or even make him want to become a Kacheek.

Instead, praise your Eyrie for his skill, encourage him to keep the mess outside your Neohome, and when he is not paying attention, dispose of the prey in any manner you deem fit. For methods of distraction, see Problem #3.

Problem #2: Reflective Surfaces and Amorous Hooting

Your Eyrie may develop an inability to pass by mirrors, spoons, Snorkle Toasters, or any other reflective object without pausing to admire its reflection. A low, steady hooting may also ensue. Adolescent Eyries may spend hours engaged in this pursuit, heedless to you calling their name and of the fact that they are completely blocking the refrigerator.

This a vestige from the days when Eyries only came in one color, and only small differences in feather and fur care could differentiate one Eyrie from another. Moreover, Eyrie grooming is complex, and to the Eyrie just learning how to groom, every feather placement, from tail to ear tuft, must be scrutinized. Shouting at the Eyrie is useless; it can’t even hear you.

Until the Eyrie learns to be satisfied with its appearance, there is nothing you can do. Some inventive Eyrie owners place a small rug in spots that pose particular problems so that they can drag their Eyrie out of the way until the incident passes.

Problem #3: Distraction by Shiny Objects

Arguably the most irritating problem, owners of adolescent Eyries find that they can’t take their pet anywhere for fear that it will wander off in pursuit of anything pretty that happens by. Offending objects can include, but are not limited too, beads, Ice Motes, buttons, Dubloons, keys, and Ultra Mega Bot 2000s.

Eyrie eyes are keen and always on the lookout for flashes of quickly moving objects, once again a remnant of their days as hunters. These reflexes will serve them well later in life, but in young Eyries the impulse to stalk and pounce is completely out of their control.

Until the brain and oculatory system of your Eyrie mature, most Eyrie owners find the easiest way to fight the distraction reflex is to simply have a bigger shiny on hand to flash at your pet. This can even be a benefit at times, when you wish to distract your pet yourself, whether to throw away its latest ‘present’, or to go through its room and get rid of all the raggedy T-shirts that it refuses to throw away itself.

Every Eyrie is unique, but with patience and understanding, soon you and your Eyrie will laugh about the time he brought your neighbor’s Green Symol, or the time he pounced your Gilded Peophin Vase into a thousand pieces. Good thing for Meerca Brothers Glue and Sparkly Blue Paint!