# Through the lens of a fish's eye...



## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part I

*My story begins with hatching, just like everyone else's does. Like most of them, I also went to a pet shop in a dark vehicle that jostled us roughly about and like everyone else, I was there for a little while; at least until the woman with the accent unlike the others that handled us came to call. She took many of us that day, and as I heard later, bettas were hard to come by in this new land for a few weeks to come. We were taken to a small room filled with many tanks that were about half filled and lined with colourful gravel: there was one for each of us, and we all relished the new water. We were relatively happy at the place that the Keepers called a "pet shop," but we had more space to roam here, and as much food as we could eat. We were warm and happy--at least until they allowed the young humans to experiment on us.

I learned that we were in a laboratory for a group called a "class," and the class was studying this thing called "Animal Behaviour." They made us look at each other though transparent partitions and the walls of our tanks. They wanted to monitor our aggression as we flared at each other in an effort to defend our territory. The group I was with wanted to know how I would respond to other body shapes and sizes using these synthesized fish on a very annoying device they called a "laptop." It was ridiculous. Naturally, I made them work for it: if they were going to toy with me, I wasn't going to make it easy for them as my brothers would. The pictures they showed me weren't even of the same species and didn't move until one of them decided it would be more effective to shake the laptop to try to make things more realistic. Her efforts made me laugh and I decided to be a little more co-operative for her sake. 

One day I heard one of the keepers tell the humans that they could take us home at the end of the day's experiments and I felt a chill of fear: one of the boys in my group had spoken of dissecting my brain to see how everything worked. The girl who shook the laptop rolled her eyes, however, and said she already had a home ready for me.

This sounded ominous...


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## LittleNibbles93

Oooh, how interesting! Can't wait to read more!


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## bettamaniac

that does sound ominous


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part II

*I couldn't believe the betrayal that I now faced at the hands of the people who had rescued me from the pet shop, the Keepers who had cared for me and given me the space to be myself. They were going to pass me off on someone else, and the person that they intended should take care of me was none other than the young woman who suggested waving her computer in my face to synthesize other fish! As the balding male Keeper put some of my tank water into a large bag, but I avoided it at all costs until he came into the corner where I was hiding with that awful net they sometimes used to remove the dead from tanks that had more than one inhabitant. I did not want to go, and even as I felt my body leave the water I struggled to free myself from its clinging folds. To my disgust I found myself in the bag once I was free of the net and immediately sought to escape, biting at the seemingly soft walls to no avail. I would not stop, however, and continued to furiously pace around the perimeter of these new confines to try to find a weak point that I could turn into a suitable hole while the humans discussed everything necessary for my care.

"I think we have everything we need," the woman said. "I'll talk to you if I need more information."

Great. A newbie. That's just great. I was going home in the hands of an amateur who had never taken care of fish before. I was doomed, and I knew it, but even as she shrugged her backpack onto her shoulders and took me from the Keepers, I waved my fins at them frantically, hoping they would reconsider. When they did not, I renewed my efforts to escape.

"Even if you could get out of that bag," she said to me in a tone she must have thought was rational, "there is no water out here for you to live in, so you may as well stay where you are."

I had absolutely no intention of ceasing my struggle, but I could hear the wind blowing as she approached the door to the building and shivered in spite of myself. I had nothing to fear, however, because the human opened her sweater and nestled me into the soft warmth of her body, away from the bitter weather that still raged around her. I would have gladly stayed there, but she placed me on the seat of her car so she could remove her heavy bag and take her place behind the wheel. Unfortunately there was more air than water in my little prison, so I was forced to lay on my side until she came to my aid, but I was subjected to further indignity when she placed me in a cup holder and used the storage area of the arm rest to hold up the knot tied in my bag. I struggled even more to try to free myself. Before I knew it, I was in the darkness of her sweater once again, with no idea where I was going, except for the fact that she seemed to be climbing a steep incline. I heard a door creak open and slam closed before she took me out of the blissful warmth. I felt like someone who had been kidnapped, blindfolded and taken to a new location: the sudden light after the sweater was blinding, and before I could determine where I was I heard the excited squeal...

"FEESHIEEEE!!!!!!!!"


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## Nutt007

This can't be good... Write more!


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part III
*
I knew that small humans made that sound, but I never, EVER expected to hear such a high pitched squeal from an adult human in my lifetime. And yet, I just had. The science girl held me up until her eyes were level with mine and gave me an apologetic look after giving her a very concerned one.
"I'm sorry little guy," she said to me. "And what was that?" she asked the other human.
"Feeshie!" She replied with a slightly quieter squeak, though still obviously excited. "I'm just happy he came home okay. Did he have a good trip?"
"I had to put him in the cup holder with the knot under the lid of the arm rest so he had some room to swim around."
"Poor baby," the new human cooed sympathetically. "I've got something you'll like even better."

Promises, promises, I thought. This was going to be another disappointment, I thought. I was wrong. Instead the new human took me over to a large jar full of water and some large plants and placed the plastic bag inside. The water was slightly cooler than what I was currently in, but the space I hovered above looked very inviting and I wanted to explore it since--unless this was just another tease--this appeared to be my new home and it was the nicest thing I had seen since I had been taken away from my family.

"I have to hurry or I will be late for Shakespeare," the scientist said.
"Okay. I'll see you later."

Lovely. The person who was just experimenting on me less than an hour earlier had now abandoned me with the squealer and I was being teased with a vision of paradise. I nipped at the bag in a fit of pique as my water gradually cooled by a few degrees. I wanted to get out of my stupid plastic prison to explore the new world beneath me and get away from the larger human that made such a horrible racket and continued to watch me very intensely. I hoped this wasn't another experiment intended to see how I responded to the promise of a new environment, because I had no intention of co-operating with her if it was. The next thing I knew, there was the taste of strange water in the bag as the larger human cut a small slit in this little movable prison. I swam to it gratefully and gulped the new water with enthusiasm, waving my fins at the human to tell her I wanted more and was nipping at the walls in an effort to make the hole larger. The plastic refused to give way to my teeth. The slit continued to get gradually larger and larger, but it still wasn't large enough for me to slip through as the human continually punched at a little electronic device with her thumbs. Occasionally it would make a noise, then she would look at it, glance at me, and then punch the device with her thumbs again. She explained that she would let me go when I had adjusted properly, but I had no intentions of waiting for her to decide when that would be, so I sneaked between her fingers the minute she reached toward the bag to enlarge the hole again.

I WAS FREE! Now it was time to explore these new surroundings. My world was round, and lined with brown, black, and white rocks that looked like they would comfortable to rest on, but there were also several plants growing out of them, one of which had enormous dark leaves that were comfortable to rest on and large enough for me to hide under if I needed to. As I swam more I discovered what looked to be a very large white shell with brown stripes and small spurs that jutted from it in a spiral: on further exploration of this monolith I found a large opening on one side that formed a cave just large enough for me to hide in, oriented in such a way that I could rest my head on the ledge and still watch the outside world if I so desired. I came up to the surface to take a very contented breath and blew a bubble toward the large human to let her know that I was happy with my space.

"Welcome home, Hamlet," she said.


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## TheKingsFish

To be continued...


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part IV

*The two humans I now resided with seemed very odd compared to the other humans I had seen in my previous travels: they came and went frequently, rose at irregular hours and often stayed up well into the small hours of the morning. The scientist often seemed to be glued to her computer, doing all sorts of odd tasks. The larger human often sat staring at a larger screen at a much larger desk, while something from inside what appeared to be a thinking box made all sorts of ungodly noises. The little human called this "gaming," and the larger human often enjoyed this activity in her absence, or when the little human was busy. The longer I stayed there, on the table next to the couch, the more I came to realize that this was indeed my new home and these humans were my new keepers. I often stared at them quite intently from my jar and watched them for hours. Big Keeper was much broader in frame than little keeper, not to mention taller and paler in all respects. Her long wavy hair was a slightly lighter shade of brown than Little Keeper, and her eyes often shifted between blue and grey depending on her mood. She was the one who made the awful high pitched noises whenever she was excited. Little keeper was smaller, and her curves tended to go in more than out, but she was by no means what she called a "stick," whatever that meant. Her hair was still brown, but darker and shorter than Big Keeper's, and very straight. Just as her skin had hints of gold the way Big Keeper's was more ivory, her eyes were darker than Big Keeper's. They reminded me of Big Keeper's greatest weakness: a substance called chocolate. Just as their physiques were very different, so were their reactions to the world around them: when Big Keeper got angry, her eyes turned blue and she cried a lot; when Little Keeper was mad, her eyes sometimes seemed more red and narrowed and her face would darken slightly as her voice deepened to a growl. Sometimes she would strike at something inanimate until she felt better. Sometimes she would notice me watching her and would stare back at me until I had her transfixed by my gaze...eventually she would relax. Little Keeper seemed to want things neater, where Big Keeper seldom worried about it; eventually Little Keeper would run out of the energy required to guilt Big Keeper into helping her, so chaos eventually became the natural state of the room in which I was kept.

What made them odd compared to other humans was the thing they did for fun: they sometimes left dressed in very strange--and in Little Keeper's case sometimes very large--clothing, carrying swords and shields, only to return hours later and change back into their normal clothes. I sought to understand this behavior, but realized I probably never would without being able to follow them.

I hated water changes, but they were an inevitable part of all our lives. They would often fill a very odd looking bucket with some of my old water and use the dreaded net to put me in it. I watched them from the counter in a room they called the kitchen as they rinsed my jar, gravel and plants, when I wasn't circling angrily around trying to escape these smaller confines. I later learned that this bucket was in the shape of a "skull," and they used it because of the fictitious person who also bore my name. My plants would join me in my skull and I would eventually be taken down the dark and narrow stairs to be placed in my jar again.

Their feeding rituals were often to my displeasure: having never owned fish before, they had only the food that came with a little starter kit containing a mix of flakes and blood worms. I detested the flakes, and would often let them sink to the bottom to make a mess of my jar. Little Keeper noted this with displeasure, and set about sorting out the worms at feeding time...foolish humans. I had them wrapped around my ventral fins...


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## bettamaniac

want to hear more


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## TheKingsFish

In a bit...check out Nutt007's thread in the meantime and poke him until he writes more


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## TheKingsFish

*hamlet: Part V

*Life became a fairly regular cycle for a while: there were water changes and feedings, and mutual observation. Eventually I heard the humans talking about getting a female and found that I simply could not believe my ears. While they kept me comfortable and kept me company, I had been somewhat lonely for my own kind since I came here and was all too well aware that they knew another male would never suffice, and that I could never be with others directly. I would be alone in my jar on the table, but it was enough knowing others were nearby. I saw them bring in a large glass tank one day and knew they were one step closer to making it come true...but there were still no females.

As the term wore on Little Keeper began to pale, and the dark circles beneath her eyes stood out against the white cheeks that should have been slightly pink on somewhat tawny skin. She ate little and slept even less; instead she spent more and more time glued to the computer in her lap and was always feverishly typing. Big Keeper would have worried about me if I had begun behaving as oddly as she had been, but seemed to think that this was normal. I eventually had to accept that there were some things about humans that I would never understand. Big Keeper came and went and was generally her cheerful self, but the scent in the air every time I came to take a breath said that Little Keeper was rapidly deteriorating and Big Keeper was unaware: two weeks after they left here singing, strangely dressed, and sword-less, she touched the side of my jar to say hello and I could feel her hand burning through the glass. By now her face had hollowed, become more sallow; the eyes staring out at me were hectically bright, but not with the mirth that usually filled them. Her eyes seemed almost mad. Every breath she drew rattled, but that would not be detected by their ears yet. By the way she smelled, they would soon, and she wouldn't be able to hide her condition from Big Keeper for very long...


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## Guppie luver

OOOO this is good keep going please!!! i like it a lot so far.!!!!!!!!!:-D:-D:-D keep going


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part VI

*Little Keeper's mind began to deteriorate before her body did: the memory lapses associated with sleep deprivation became more frequent as the days wore on and her workload increased with no respite to be found. A day came when she stood in front of my jar, soaking wet and searching for her shoes, wearing nothing but a blue sheet that absorbed the water from her skin. Her face was flushed from her cleaning ritual, but the eyes gleamed with a feverish madness that was unlike anything I had seen in my keepers before; I found it more frightening than the net that pulled me from my safe haven at changing time. When Big Keeper came in and told her she needed to get dressed or they would be late for school, she informed Big Keeper that she had on her "pretty blue dress" and was perfectly ready to go. Her sheet had other ideas, however: as she pulled on her long leather coat it slipped from around her breast and refused to stay put as she attempted to adjust it. She finally gave up and discarded the sheet, but still declared that she was perfectly ready to go as she shouldered her backpack and turned to walk out the door into the cold fall air.
"You are going back to bed," Big Keeper said firmly as she took Little Keeper by the arm and brought her back inside.
"I'm perfectly capable of going to school," Little Keeper replied obstinately before a coughing fit wracked her entire body.
"You're burning up and not all of your faculties are intact. You are going to bed and that's the end of it," Big Keeper said, adding to the finality of her tone by taking a set of keys from Little Keeper's hand and ushering her off to the room where they slept. I heard them talking later on: Little Keeper had absolutely no memory of leaving the shower that morning and took Big Keeper's word for it that the incident had occurred. This was my first experience of the fever-madness that humans called "Delirium," and seemed more unnerving than the word sounded.

Little Keeper seemed to have recovered for a little while, but it was not to last: the fever that had briefly broken after her attempt to leave the house nearly naked returned with a fiery vengeance that I could feel through the glass in spite of the new heater they had given me. The heat from her face and hands could have protected me from winter's chills well enough. The coughing fits grew longer, more frequent, and more vicious. She could hide from Big Keeper no longer: there eventually came a day when she was half carried and half dragged back into my room and deposited on the couch after a brief period at a place she called "work"--a much shorter duration than her absence normally was when she went to this place. Big Keeper looked very worried and pleaded her to go to a being called a Doctor.
"You know I don't go to one unless I really need to," she protested weakly.
"You need to."
"If this doesn't go away in a few days I will go."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"I'm holding you to that."
"If things get worse you have my full permission to take me there whether I--"

The last sentence was cut off by a coughing fit that left Little Keeper limp on the couch and Big Keeper shaking her with a mixed expression of worry and irritation. Things only continued to get worse.


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## Guppie luver

:shocklease this is so good what will happen.


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## BettasForever

I'm hooked-more please!


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## Guppie luver

Come on more please please.


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## TheKingsFish

Soon, I promise. I just have my hands full of homework at the moment.


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## Guppie luver

Ok thnx:-D


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part VII

*I knew as well as any other betta that sometimes you get sick: sometimes it hits you hard and fast before your keepers can do much to help you, sometimes you have enough time that they can do something about it and keep you living a long happy life. Usually bettas don't suffer as much as the humans do--what I saw in the coming weeks amazed me. The coughing fits wracking Little Keeper's body developed into long bouts of harsh barks that often ended in unconsciousness or strained breaths that sounded like a broken filter motor. Sometimes after these fits she would spit out a rather disturbing slime that was varying shades of pink, yellow, brown or green: at other times she would run outside to vomit in the snow. The only thing I could do was sit and worry. Though her body slowly consumed itself in a blaze of fever and agony, her spirit still remained as she worked undaunted on her heap of papers and steadfastly argued against Big Keeper's suggestions that she swallow a red potion that would make her feel better.

"You first," she replied sarcastically when Big Keeper came into the room with a bottle and a plastic spoon.
"Fine," Big Keeper replied, measuring out a half dose and swallowing it with ease. "Your turn."
"Do I really have to?" Little Keeper asked, her nose wrinkled with disgust.
"It'll help you sleep. Besides, you promised that if I took some you would too. And it's really not that bad."

Little Keeper's face twisted into a mask of revulsion as the first spoonful of potion hit her tongue and she shuddered as it trickled down her throat. I could see her bracing herself to take the second spoon from Big Keeper: I could see the argument happening inside her mind as she struggled with her desire to just throw the spoon in the trash and forget about the medicine, but she ultimately swallowed in and retired to the other room for the night.

As things progressed for the worse, Little Keeper sometimes slept through the times she was supposed to be at school, and eventually stopped going to work as her body weakened. Sometimes she worked in the moments while she was awake, sometimes she watched a box filled with moving pictures, and sometimes she raved at the air in a guttural, angry sounding tongue that I had never heard before. Some of the syllables sounded as harsh as her coughing fits. Whatever she thought she saw filled her with rage to the point where she often clenched and unclenched her fists as though she strongly desired to use them on whatever her delirious mind told her was there, but her conscious self knew was not real.

One day she was lying on the couch staring at me the way the cat often did. Her pale cheeks and lips had a slight flush from her last fit and her bloodshot eyes were hectically bright with the fever I could feel through the glass from six inches away. The dark circles and hollow cheeks made her look like a skeleton. Bettas who looked like that were typically near death. She spoke to me, paused as though I were speaking back to her, and replied to the silence. I don't know what she thought I was saying to her, but she eventually said I was right and took the potion that was sitting next to me on the table before eventually falling asleep. When Big Keeper came home from work and Little Keeper didn't stir, she placed one hand in front of her face and the other on her neck, which did cause the sick human to stir and succumb to another coughing fit. Big Keeper had finally taken her to the Doctor being and came back with tablets to make Little Keeper well again: she took one of these once she could breathe again, and eventually drifted off. Weeks again went by, but Little Keeper gradually recovered her health and her senses. The illness and the never ending pile of homework subsided and the two keepers fell to talking about my future...whatever that meant...


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## bettamaniac

so what caused the "Little Keeper" to become that ill?


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## Guppie luver

Oh is that it ? please say no this is like a book that u can't put down!


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## StarvingPoet

*A Note from "Big Keeper"*

@bettamaniac Pneumonia. It was not fun. Also, it really was that hard to get her to go to the doctor and take cough syrup -though to be fair it was disgusting.


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## TheKingsFish

*Response from "Little Keeper"*

@StarvingPoet: Yes, yes it was. I'm glad you finally admitted that.


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part VIII

*I couldn't believe my ears: they were talking about finding females to put me with to beget fry. I didn't know if I was more excited, frightened, or betrayed. I hadn't seen a female since my own fryhood and couldn't even remember the way that they looked or smelled. Roughly a week after Little Keeper's school term ended, the large tank I saw them bring home graced Little Keeper's desk--only half-filled with water, strewn with tacky ornaments and sparsely planted with small Java ferns that had budded off my own. I didn't know what was happening, but my keepers were excited and very animated. They're happy talk was occasionally punctuated by infrequent coughing fits, but both keepers darted here and there attempting to get everything ready. Then they left again.

When they returned they had another fish in a bag. As much as I pitied it, I was enraged at first to find that they had the audacity to leave that bag floating near the surface of my jar while they waited for the heater in the large tank to get the temperature right. I was angry until I noticed that it wasn't another male...it was a small female, and she was terrified. She had a pink body and red fins shot with strands of blue and blue eyes, but at the moment she was very pale with fear and anxiety. I approached the side of the bag and tried to speak to her, but she paled further and retreated into the opposite corner of the bag. She was very young--judging by her size--and had not been in the area long. I can't imagine the excited squeals from Big Keeper helped to abate her terror, but I was glad to see that the Keepers were happy. They left almost immediately, and in their absence the female began to relax enough for me to talk to her...


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## TheKingsFish

*Ophelia: Part I

*I was happy with my family at my first home, but before I knew it I was in a tiny plastic pyramid, being drugged and shipped away from everything I knew. I found myself in a larger bag surrounded by other pyramids containing more of my siblings and all were just as distressed. My brother was always a nervous eater, but in the absence of our normal food he tried to soothe himself by biting his tail instead; his frantic screams occasionally broken by quick yelps as he took another bite of his tail. When we came out of the darkness, our bag was floating in a large pool of water and those near the surface of the water could see a small forest of plants below. We all hoped that this would be our new home, but we all knew full well that our brothers would not get along at all. Humans came and opened the large bag. All the pyramids scattered across the surface of the pool and I finally believed my brothers about the plants below: perhaps we had all died on our journey and this was paradise? I could see other fish moving through the blue haze of the drugged water, but could not approach them to find out what they were. The only thing I was sure of is that they weren't bettas.

Our pyramids were gently placed in a large bucket and taken over to a much darker corner of this strange building than the pool we had previously been floating in. One by one, our plastic prisons were torn open and drained over a large net: I dreaded my time coming, but could not fight my fall through the air into the net. Below me I could see the blue pool of water from the others before gentle hands lifted me and dropped me into a small bowl of warm, clear water. Once I had overcome the shock of being moved around and handled time and again, I found myself on a brightly lit glass shelf with some of my sisters lined up in a row beside me. They were all plain: their normally dark bodies and red fins were stress striped and pale, but in their plainness, my wild-type sisters were also in a way very beautiful. They flitted about in their own bowls, signaling to one another to assess the new situation when the humans came in. The large one saw me first and picked up my bowl with an excited sound.

"Oooh! They have females! Come here!"
"She's pretty," said the smaller human that came over from her survey of my brothers.
"We have to take her: she won't be here long if we don't."
"Why don't we go see when your mother's bus comes in and come back?"
"Okay."

They spoke briefly with the human that put us in the bowls and left, but returned after a short interval. Once again I found myself in a bag, wrapped up in paper and being transported yet again. When I was finally exposed to the light again, it was not the fluorescent glow of the shelves that greeted me, but a soft and gentle light that fell on a rather chaotic nest of furniture and papers strewn about. The little human looked at me with concern and wonder before holding me close to her body so I could feel her warmth, but they were in a hurry: before I could properly enjoy the heat, I found myself floating again. This time, I could see below me a rather large red blur that took the shape of a male betta. When his angry remarks subsided, I noticed a soft blue sheen that covered his body and felt my own colour begin to rise, but I was still afraid. I hoped against hope that the humans weren't putting me in with him.

"Hello," he said softly.
"He-hello?" I replied, frustrated that my voice quivered when I tried to speak.
"Have they given you a name?"
"What?"
"Have the Keepers given you a name?"
"What are the Keepers?"
"The humans that brought you here."
"What is a name?"
"They call me 'Hamlet,' for example. Every time I hear it I know they're talking about me."
"Oh," I replied, trying to remember if the humans had called me by any sort of name. "I think they called me...Ophelia?"
"Ophelia?" Hamlet said softly as the humans quickly left, dimming the light in their wake. "I'm glad to see you Ophelia."
"And you, Hamlet."
"How did you come to be here?"

In the dark I told him my story...


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## TheKingsFish

*Yes, this is part of the same story*

*Ophelia: Part II

*We talked in the dark for a while before the humans returned. Hamlet explained to me that he had been a laboratory fish before he came here, but since he had settled in he was left wanting nothing. "The Keepers" would take care of her, he explained. Compared to some of the other places she could be, he thought of this place as paradise and he seemed to love the humans as much as they did him. This was a heaven where blood worms fell from the sky and pellets flowed in plenty.

The (I assume) stairs creaked as the two humans returned from wherever they went a couple hours after they left. The small human wasn't around long before she dashed out again, but in my distraction by this behaviour, I barely noticed that the larger human had lifted me out of Hamlet's jar. I paled fearfully as I hovered over the chaos strewn over the floor and landed in a large pool of water on top of a desk under the window. Once I was left to float again for a while, I realized the pool of water was a sizable tank full of lush plants and hiding places that I wanted to explore. I noticed a certain rock in particular; it was roughly the same colour I was and had a large hole in the middle. I could taste something sweet and foreign in the water around me as the large human poked a small hole in my plastic prison, and I understood that this was to be my new home. Perhaps he was really telling the truth. Perhaps I had died in transit and this was going to be heaven and all I had to do was leave the bag of existence. The slight jostling of the bag as the human enlarged the holes reminded me that this was very real. I was alive and about to be turned out into the huge world that shimmered beneath me.

I was fairly patient, but when the human finally freed me, it was very abrupt. I was tipped from the bag in a torrent of water and fell with its current for a moment before righting myself and attempting to get my bearings. I swam quickly toward the rock and hid in the hole to keep the human from trying to pull me out again, but she never came for me. I peeked out and saw her watching, but she still never reached for me. After I while I felt comfortable enough to swim about and explore my new home. The Big Keeper left a few pellets floated on the surface for me to eat at my leisure and retreated to the couch until Little Keeper returned from her excursion. She sat in the chair next to me and watched for a while. I came to the corner of the tank next to her and stared back, wiggling my tail in such a way that I hoped might get her approval. She pressed the tip of her finger against the glass and spoke to me:

"Hello Ophelia. I hope you'll be happy here..."


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## Guppie luver

Oh its soooo good please keep going.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Harley

I just found this and I'm loving it so far TheKingFish, great work!


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## TheKingsFish

Thanks. There will be more at some point this week.


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## Guppie luver

Yes more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:-d


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## TheKingsFish

*Hero: Part I

*I watched the two young women take my sister away with mixed feelings. On one fin, there was the hope that her immediate purchase would spell early homes for the rest of us, but on the other, we were not nearly as colourful as she. Even our first human did not desire us because we were what breeders called "Wild Type." Whatever that meant. I was just happy to be out of the pyramids that we were transported in, and eventually it began to show. A few days elapsed since our sister was taken away, and the rest of us were beginning to despair that we would not find homes as our brothers began to leave the shelves below us one by one. Then a day arrived when they left us in pairs: even the boys with the fancy fins were leaving, but we never got more than the passing glance. Sometimes the humans that passed didn't even notice us where we were on the top shelf. The only other fish that never seemed to go anywhere was a blue plakat on the top shelf across from us: he swam around a much larger bowl than the others were housed in and waved his fins as excitedly as the rest of us, but the humans would look at the slip of paper on his bowl and declare that he was too expensive before taking one of the others home. We watched many leave before the two women who took our sister came back and started observing us.

"Look at this one," the smaller human said as she lifted my jar and put me down lower where she could get a better look.
"She's a dark one," the larger human replied, looking at me more closely.
"She's very eggy," the first one observed. I had been very self conscious of my burgeoning belly before now, but I never dreamed that it would earn me their favour.
"She's ready for breeding," said one of the humans who worked at this place. I had seen her often and she seemed to know these two women.
"I think we'll take this one," the small human replied, "but we'll need to take a closer look at these other girls..."


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## Arashi Takamine

This is a pretty cool story. I'd like to see more. ^^ Pretty please with a cherry shrimp on top?


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## TheKingsFish

*Cordelia*: *Part I*

I watched the small woman take my sisters down from the shelf and place them among the boys to see their colours properly, hoping to find the perfect girls to take home with them. They had already chosen the darkest of us, and I could make out her barring from my perch. It was evident why they chose her. She was beautiful, active, and ready to mate. I was approaching this point as well, so it was in my best interest to imitate her actions as much as possible. While the small human watched the girls below, I waved my fins in an effort to catch the attention of the one watching those few of us still on the top shelf. She pulled me down to prove myself. At first I was nervous, but out of the corner of my eye I could see the young male flaring at me and displaying his fins. I could feel myself blushing and for the moment forgot that I was supposed to be taking part in the selection process to see who would be finding a new home. I focused on the male and returned his advances--even though I knew we would probably never get the opportunity to meet in the flesh. I felt the bowl move into the air and land next to my sister on the bottom shelf: I had been chosen!

The humans watched for nearly an hour and gradually eliminated some of the others from the pool of potentials. They put the smallest of my sisters next to me and resumed their trials, studying the two remaining sisters with patience and intensity. I could feel the tension in them and the two women, waiting for an answer to come. The small human finally pulled down another of my smaller sisters and left to find the humans who had been taking care of us. It was time for us to go to our new home. I was certain of this: I had seen many of the males leave in this manner. I saw the bag full of water and allowed myself to fall into it, knowing that this brief moment of torment may possibly lead to a happier life in a new place with new humans that would take care of all of us. Even as they wrapped the four of us in newspaper for the ride home, I couldn't help wondering what the future held in store...


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## Guppie luver

More


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## Arashi Takamine

More pwease?


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## TheKingsFish

*Hero: Part II*

When the newspaper came off it was like someone removing a blindfold. If I had eyelids, the sudden light after all that time in the dark would have made me blink. My sisters and I were in our bags still, but the humans had small containers lined up on the large, green topped desk that I assumed were meant for us. The small human carefully drained some of the water from my bag into one of them before she came for me. I tried to avoid her net, but she caught me anyway and carefully nudged me into the tiny basin that I prayed was not to be my permanent home. I couldn't tell: so much had happened that I didn't even know where I was. One by one, I saw them capture my sisters and put them in tiny little cells similar to mine before they sat and watched us for a while. We realized we could see through the sides of these containers; we could signal to one another to ensure that no one had been injured on the journey or in transit to these strange new confines. So far everyone seemed intact, but very willing to defend their own patch of water. We were all moving again before any of us really understood what was going on: when we finally stopped I could vaguely see a few plants and gravel beneath the plastic haze of my floating cell as it bobbed on the surface of the water. There was something moving down there--a pink something. I couldn't be entirely certain, but I thought it was another fish. I don't know how long we hovered in that limbo between torment and and our new home, but before any of us knew it, the containers were sinking and we were freed into the larger water that tempted us through the walls of our plastic prisons. We took a few minutes to settle in, but then the chase and the quest for dominance began...


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## Guppie luver

Are they females? I mean hero just fyi


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## StarvingPoet

Haha. Yes, they are females. They are named for characters from Shakespeare. Hero is from Much Ado About Nothing(Yes, she is also female in the play).


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## Guppie luver

OH I havent ever looked at the play yet oops,


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## TheKingsFish

*Cordelia: Part II

*I righted myself in the warm water and took a moment to look around me at this strange new world that I had found myself in: there were plants everywhere and various places to hide if suddenly living with my sisters became a problem. Out of nowhere, the pink blur came into my line of sight and nearly swam into me. It stopped in an instant, and as I looked at the fish that hovered and flared before me I realized that my sister was now before me. She seemed to have forgotten us, but that would likely change in time. At the moment it wasn't important. Our social order was currently a state of chaos, and it was high time that the role of leader was taken once and for all. I gave chase to all who crossed my path, and they often chased me back with threats to bite, but never actually using their mouths to offend. The smallest sister eventually gave up on trying to become the lead female and contented herself with hiding in the flora while the rest of us continued our "battle."

My dark sister--the one the humans called Hero--and I never could really figure out which of us would take the lead in the end, so we contented ourselves with continually giving chase to one another. My pink sister explained that the humans had named us all: they called her Ophelia, my name was Cordelia, and the smaller ones they knew as Silvia and Viola. She said that they would continue to take care of us, with abundant flakes, pellets and blood worms to satisfy our every need. I snorted with derision at the suggestion of these so-called food, but Ophelia pointed out that these people were inexperienced with us. Everything was new to them except the male that sat next to the couch. 

Over the next couple of days the water that started as crystal clear became almost impenetrably cloudy, but the inexperienced humans failed to understand that this meant we needed new water on a constant basis and tried to control the murk with chemicals and products they brought back from the pet shop time and again. Hero abruptly developed a gauzy film that gnawed away at her tail in a matter of hours: when the humans noticed this they removed her to a smaller area with darker places for her to conceal herself. They were at a loss to determine what happened to cause the problem, but treated it aggressively. They brought a new female home in the time that it took Hero to recover, and she came with other challenges of her own...


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## TheKingsFish

*Balthazar: Part I

*Unlike most males at the pet shop, my short fins left me on the shelf among the females because that is what the breeder told them I was. The humans who took me with them did not think otherwise. They even had the nerve to give me a female's name: they called me KATE. Kate?! What sort of a name was Kate? I was MALE. They kept me in a separate container for a few days before putting me in a tank, thinking that I was just an aggressive female. In an effort to prove that I was not, I gave chase to the girls and drove them into hiding. How could they not realize that I was not what I appeared?


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## Guppie luver

Ooooo


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## TheKingsFish

*Viola*: *Part I

*Things had finally begun to settle down and some semblance of normalcy had formed within the tank, even in the absence of the sister the humans called Hero. Cordelia took over as the head female and occasionally gave chase, but there was no aggression to be found in our home until they put the strange new Cambodian in with us. We thought at first that it was just an angry female, but the smell of him and his manner soon demonstrated otherwise: he gave us all a lot of trouble and put a great deal of strain on Corde's patience. Silvia and I hid and let him have the run of the tank while Cordelia tried to put him in his place and Ophelia tried to calm Cordelia. He nipped at us and all we could do was run and hide. He was a bully who said little more than "get out of my way," or "KATE?! Why must they always call me Kate?"


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## Guppie luver

Keep going!


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## TheKingsFish

*Hero: Part III

*The water was a lot cooler than what I was used to in the tank that I shared with my sisters, and the red silk leaves that hung from the floating green pontoon weren't nearly as nice as the real plants in my home, but they supplied enough darkness to kill off the gauze that wrapped itself around me. The water was slightly yellow and had a strange medicinal taste, but it felt good on the open wounds. The Big Keeper had me on her desk next to the big thinking box, moving her fingers on a board that clicked at every touch while the lights shifted to and fro on a screen above me. Sometimes she used a large device with a cord that went into the thinking box: it must not have liked this very much, because sometimes it gave small screams and whimpers that sounded like the throes of an agonizing death. Sometimes the box spoke to her in the human's language with a startlingly loud voice that the Big Keeper called a Danielle. Sometimes the Little Keeper read stories to the Danielle that made it make amused sounds, like the humans did when they were happy. I tried to catch their attention when they brought the new boy home, but in time I was distracted by the more impressive red male that sat in the jar next to the heater they used to warm the room. We would often wag our fins at each other, and sometimes we would talk. The humans say talking is important when you meet a male, don't they?

He said his name was Hamlet, and he wanted to know if I came to his table often, because he had never seen me there before. He must have been the boy that Ophelia was telling us about. She never mentioned that he was so handsome though. I wondered if he would come to stay with me if I showed him the white patch on my belly often enough?


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## TheKingsFish

*Cordelia: Part III*

Things had gotten to the point where I could no longer cope: the sorority was getting out of hand and the young male the humans had left with us was an absolute terror. If that wasn't enough, we had the added strain of living in a cycling tank that these novice Keepers had no idea what to do with. They used all manner of chemicals and media to try to make the water clearer and had only just begun the constant changes that were truly required. I sighed and hid beside the heater. Ophelia came and went in her efforts to keep me company, and from time to time I would raise my head to snatch at the freeze dried worms and flakes that sometimes drifted my way. What was the use? The humans knew nothing and I no longer had the will or the power to be the leader these fish needed. Silvia and Viola now hid in terror and Hero was the only female who would have ever dared to stand up to Kate. He snapped at anyone who dared to call him that before returning sulkily to his attempts at building a bubble nest and pouting for food. I missed the hulking form of Hero, and pined for her even while Ophelia attempted to catch my attention.
"You should go be a fish," she would sometimes whisper.
"To what end?" I would ask in reply.
"Things will get better. You'll see."

The humans noticed my despondency and removed me from the tank after a few days of my unchanged behaviour. The water was clean and devoid of uneaten food, though a little cold. The canning jar they placed me in did not occupy a great deal of surface area, but I was on my own and happy as a clam to be there. I could see Hero in a hospital jar with an ugly silk plant, while the huge figure of a veil tail male splayed in the corner of my vision like a large pool of fresh blood. They noted the second shift in my behaviour and put me back in the tank to face the sources of my displeasure. They couldn't figure out why my condition declined so quickly even after the return of Hero. Novices.


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## TheKingsFish

I promise there will be more, but I will have to disappear for a few days while I greet the rush of last minute assignments. Thanks for reading...see you soon.


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## Guppie luver

ooo good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## dramaqueen

Good story!!


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## TheKingsFish

2 exams done, 2 to go. After that, I will give you more.


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## TheKingsFish

*Hero: Part IV

*Once the humans put me back in the tank it was the same old struggle over again, but there was someone here that I didn't recognize; I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the humans who had always taken care of us would suddenly put this Cambodian male in our midst. Viola and Silvia just hid--I could understand that because they were so small and the young male's growth rate matched his aggression and he was very quickly a large boy. I was only here for a few days when Cordelia again became a source of worry for our Keepers and they extracted her again. We were all fairly optimistic that she would return: Ophelia said she wasn't gone long last time.


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## Guppie luver

Ya keep going.


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## TheKingsFish

You seem very excitable, Guppie Luver


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## TheKingsFish

*Cordelia: Part VI

*I knew this wasn't going to end well: they had me away from the others in the cool and dark again, but this time I was fighting an enemy they couldn't see and couldn't possibly sense as I did. Nothing seemed wrong on the outside, but I could feel it working its way over my gills and slowly impairing my ability to breathe. Little Keeper saw my struggles and lowered my water level to help, but there was no way for her to know I was drowning. It happened while a very large man the humans identified as Big Keeper's father came to visit them: Little Keeper would continue to watch me periodically and then return to her portable thinking box while the larger humans watched moving pictures on the box across the room. I would come to the surface to gasp for air, but as the cold and gauzy hand filled my gills and my mouth this was becoming more difficult. It got harder to move as Little Keeper struggled more and more to focus on her work. I couldn't move any longer: I realized I was going to drown.

Little Keeper looked up as the Large Man went out the door and went back to her work, but she looked perplexed about something and took a break from her box--she stared into space for a moment or two before she noticed me standing next to Hamlet's jar. She looked over at my lifeless body and sighed in dismay, not yet realizing that I had taken on a new form; I now looked like them. Walking was a different experience and, after watching them for a moment I supposed I would have to find some means of clothing myself because I rarely saw the humans walking around naked. My red hair fell about my shoulders in waves and slipped over my face constantly, but I ignored it and willed myself into clothing as I continued to meet Little Keeper's stare. They often spoke of a very flashy character that bore the same name, so I imagined something Little Keeper would die before wearing and visualized it on my body. What I got was a green scoop-neck shirt with sequin trim and a pair of tight blue jeans that I once saw Little Keeper wearing and swore that I would don if I ever had legs. I should have thought twice about the high heels though.

I watched them as they tried to figure out what to do with my fish body--lifting its form out of the water and placing it in a small box in the frozen winter snow by their door. They debated taking me to some sort of bay, but didn't feel that their vehicle would make the trip in the snow and ice. Little Keeper worked on something that vaguely resembled a dragon-shaped boat that didn't want to stick together while Big Keeper looked up a strange alphabet in which to write my name. When the boat failed, she wrote my name on the side of a small cardboard jewelry box and filled it with a fabric shroud, some cotton pads and various ornaments. I was most amused by the penny and the tooth pick they tipped with red paint, though I wasn't entirely sure what any of it meant.

They constantly referred to something called a "Norse Burial" while they worked--now, I supposed, I would find out what that was. The two girls huddled in their winter jackets as they stood at the side of the river trying to get their paper torch to light. An oily smell came from the cardboard coffin they had laid in the snow as they placed my fish body in it and covered it with the silken shroud. They shivered, but I felt no chill since I was no longer made of flesh and bone as they were. When the torch took, they touched it to the shroud, which lit a small patch of the night and melted a small portion of the frozen river near where they stood. I could see its shriveling remains disappear in flame and snow and melted water as Little Keeper softly spoke:

"Lo, there do I see my father.
Lo, there do I see my mother.
Lo, there do I see my sisters and my brothers;
They call me
To join them in the halls of Valhalla,
Where the brave live
Forever."


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## Guppie luver

I am very excitable and I love this book!


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## TheKingsFish

Book? I didn't think it had gotten that crazy yet.


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## TheKingsFish

*Viola: Part II
*
The two Keepers were very somber when they returned from wherever they were: they came back in the small hours of the morning with some fast food in a paper bag, but without the box they were carrying, and without Cordelia. Little Keeper sniffed the cuff of her coat sleeve and went to put it in the laundry hamper. Big Keeper sat down on the couch and began to divvy out the food from the bag, looking very sorrowful and trying desperately not to look at the now vacant jar that once held Cordelia. Did this mean she was never coming back?

Ophelia paced the tank nervously in spite of Hero trying to assure her that it meant nothing; she continually worried about Corde's absence because she had missed one of her closest tank mates very dearly and was counting the days until her friend returned. I was more interested in the reactions of the two humans in the living room: Big Keeper was in the arms of Little Keeper, and both of them looked really sad. The longer I watched them, the more the sinking realization gnawed at the pit of my stomach until I felt I had to hide in my cave. Cordelia was not going to come back.

We were back to normal within a few days, but every now and then Ophelia would hover next to the heater as though Cordelia would magically appear there. The humans just assumed that she just missed Cordelia, but I was beginning to wonder. Eventually Little Keeper began to worry too--and she made no delay in voicing these worries to Big Keeper. After all these illnesses, the humans were watching us very carefully for any changes in the way we acted. Little Keeper was beginning to get paranoid, but eventually she was proven right.


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## Guppie luver

Sorry not a book a storey but it is really good and I cheek this evreyday.


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part IX

*It had been a few weeks since I had last seen Ophelia. She seemed fine then, but now she was a source of worry for the Keepers as they tried to fight whatever it was that was bringing her mood down. They didn't realize she was sick, but I could smell it when I lifted my face into the air to breathe. They did try everything they knew for a good long week: salts, green tea, medicines, but none of it was going to work. The Keepers couldn't smell the death in the air as I could. I watched her struggle with her illness and the cold after the Keepers had extracted her from the tank the other girls were in--to rectify the latter problem, the humans had floated her in a plastic container on the surface of my jar. I seized this opportunity to try to calm her as she dashed about frantically, trying to escape, trying to shake free of the gauze that was gradually suffocating her, invisible from the surface.

With a final splash that caught the attention of Little Keeper, she finally gave up. Little Keeper took the container out while Ophelia was still gasping and tried to move the water around her to help her. She gently placed her fingers under the small plastic body that no longer fled from her touch and raised it to the surface so she could take in air, but when she failed to breathe, I could see Little Keeper's heart begin to sink in her eyes even as she tried even harder to save the fleeing life in her hands.

"Ophelia?" Big Keeper asked in a more muted version of the squeak she greeted me with on my arrival. Little Keeper only answered her with a sorrowful look and continued working: she lifted Ophelia's gills with the tip of her syringe and poured water over them, she used it again to fill her mouth with air as she massaged that tiny breast with a finger.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, barely more than a whisper. "She's gone."
"But she's my Christmas present," Big Keeper whined, lower lip trembling.
"I know. I know," Little Keeper replied, burying her face in her dripping palms to hide the tears she didn't want Big Keeper to see. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I failed."


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## Guppie luver

Aw she is dead so sad.


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## Arashi Takamine

Oh no...First Corde and now Ophalia? Oh my....


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## TheKingsFish

Have you been checking for previews, Arashi?


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## Arashi Takamine

A little bit. I've been following this story for awhile now.


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## TheKingsFish

*Silvia: Part I*

I watched in despair as Ophelia lost her battle, but while Big Keeper's head rested on Little Keeper's shoulder none of them saw the blonde youth in the pink dress who sat in the chair between the two desks. Her blue eyes were deep and sorrowful as she glanced down at us apologetically and tried to communicate with us as though her hands were still fins. Little Keeper eventually noticed the flurry of motion and looked at the girl in surprise as it slowly dawned that Ophelia sat before her as a young woman; she remained silent as she well knew that Big Keeper couldn't see the things she saw.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. If Little Keeper responded, it was something only Ophelia could hear and the rest of us would never know. 

Ophelia continued to watch us in silence as the Keepers eventually rose from the couch and placed her fish body in a small container to be preserved in the frigid air outside before they turned toward us. By this time they had figured out that the boy they named Kate was indeed Balthasar and had isolated him in the hospital tank that Hero had only recently vacated. We knew what this meant: we had heard the Keepers discussing it when members of the sorority started falling ill--now that there were so few of us living here now, we were going to be separated and forced to live in smaller containers on that tiny table next to the space heater. I remembered Hero and Ophelia telling the rest of us stories about the enormous male that lived there--I wasn't sure whether or not to believe them, but Viola gasped in fear and hid under a plant to avoid being captured by the humans as they fished us out one by one.

They put us in canning jars because they had no other contingencies set up for a pandemic situation. It wasn't ideal, but until they found other vessels they made it work, and they scrutinized the survivors very carefully for any sign of disease. However, when they placed us on the table we saw not the two males we were expecting, but four. Hero told us Hamlet had been here longer than any of us, and we were expecting to see Balthazar the Androgy-fish, but the purple and red crown tail and the blue and white double tail were a complete surprise to us.


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## TheKingsFish

You weren't expecting that, were you?


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## Arashi Takamine

No. No I was not. Brilliant chapter.


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## Guppie luver

O O O O O I'm BACK ! lol:-D:lol:


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## TheKingsFish

*Balthasar: Part II

*The blonde girl in the pink dress didn't leave when Ophelia's body died: she continued to linger here for a while. I didn't know why. Perhaps it was because the Keepers hadn't had any spare time to go down to the river the way they did with Cordelia, and they wanted to give her a proper send-off. Perhaps she was just afraid at that point--I would have been. It's hard to say why. I never really asked. It was nice to be around other guys though: we would flare at each other, have nest building contests, and argue about who would be the most appealing to the ladies. None of it ever really mattered because we all knew full well that the Keepers would never allow us to fight it out like real males. Sometimes when I railed about this Hamlet would just yawn and swim away, while Oberon (the Crown tail) would flare and try to prove that he was bigger and more impressive than me. At first it worked; I was small then, short-finned and frightened after being placed in the tank with girls who only ever ran away if I nipped at them. While Oberon wasn't nearly as big as Hamlet, he was still very impressive and hated it when I called him the king of the fairies.

Ariel, on the other hand, was very subdued: I thought perhaps part of it was the really bad case of fin rot he had when the Keepers brought him home. He rested a lot, but blew bubbles in a leisurely manner and often hid in the Java fern that was planted in his jar. Lacking the space and means to set up anything too fancy, and being very reluctant to set up the tank the girls were living in after the outbreak, they brought some glass hurricanes that were large enough to line with gravel and plant in so that these new boys had somewhere moderately comfortable to live. It didn't seem too bad, I supposed: there wasn't a lot of room for heaters in any of our surroundings, but they kept the large space heater next to our table turned on to keep us comfortable.

It was great to see the girls again--or at least the ones that were left--because as much as I was irritated when they tried to tell me what to do, I at least knew that the show the Keepers were running wasn't going to be a testosterone festival.


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## Guppie luver

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ssssssssssssssssssssss eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee


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## StarvingPoet

*Notes from Big Keeper*



Guppie luver said:


> Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ssssssssssssssssssssss eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee


'Little Keeper' seems to find your comments amusing. I'm sure she will write more soon. (she is nodding)


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## Guppie luver

Hehehehe teehee


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## TheKingsFish

*Balthasar: Part III

*Life resumed a relatively normal pace for a while, but Ophelia's ghost continued to pace about the rooms that the Keepers lived in while they tried to find the time to make another midnight run to the river. They came home with a smaller tank at some point, but instead of putting one of us in, they filled it with these very strange, very tasty looking fish with little colour and fan-like fins that would have been perfect for nipping if I could only get at them. They were talking about dividing this and putting two of us in--I couldn't help but wonder which two it might be. I hoped one of them might be me: I was growing rapidly and needed the space to expand and roam, but it was not to be. I couldn't tell you what happened because I had no idea, and neither did my Keepers. I was swimming around in my jar one moment--and the next I found myself sitting in the bedroom, watching my keepers sleep. Little Keeper was in a hurry when she woke...getting ready for work, I think, when she went to wake us all. She saw me laying on the rocks and ran to find Big Keeper, with a shocked cry of 

"We lost Kate!"
"What?" said Big Keeper through the bathroom door.
"My name's not Kate," I grumbled as I followed her.
"We lost Kate. He's just laying with his nose down in the gravel."
"What happened? He was perfectly fine last night!"
"I don't know."

I noticed the boy in the mirror by the laundry room and went over to examine it: I tried to look menacingly at my reflection until I realized that I didn't need to anymore. Like Ophelia, I had a human body. My blue eyes peered out at me from a shock of strawberry-blonde hair and I prodded my Roman-looking nose curiously. The height took some getting used to: I was now taller than Little Keeper, even though I barely looked older than fifteen by human standards. Used to scales, the clothes I wore felt unusual, but I didn't want to be naked like Cordelia and I rarely saw the humans unclothed. Ophelia said that the black suit and pink shirt were very becoming, but I wasn't sure. She brushed the hair out of my eyes and we watched as Little Keeper grabbed a bite for work and bolted out the door. I let her rest her head on my shoulders as I watched Big Keeper embroider our shrouds and prepare our small paper boats for our burial.

Little Keeper was smiling a little when she came home, but her face slid into a rather grim form when she remembered the task that lay ahead of them: she gripped Big Keeper's shoulder lightly as she quickly folded a lily out of paper and ducked upstairs. She returned shortly with a small bottle of a strange looking herb that she filled the flower with and sprinkled over the lining of one of the little coffins.

"'Rosemary: that's for remembrance,'" she said.
"Huh?" Big Keeper replied.
"In _Hamlet_ Ophelia said rosemary was for remembrance."
"I guess so. It will smell nice when it burns anyway."
"Yeah."

The girls arranged the food, pennies, pebbles, and other items into the boats before they snipped small locks of hair and placed them in too. Big Keeper cried a little, and leaned against Little Keeper--whose face was still dark with failure and shock at my own sudden death. We could feel the cold winter breeze as Little Keeper grabbed her cloak and headed for the darkness outside; we decided to stay for a while to say farewell to our brothers and sisters. We would be at the Keeper's side in a moment's notice once the time came to bid them farewell--but if we didn't linger there at that moment, we would never have seen our siblings on this earth again.

Ophelia tugged on my sleeve and we appeared where the Keepers had gone: they already had the fire going and the smell of kerosene wafted toward us on the breeze as smoke drifted invisibly into the dark and starless night. The wind whipped cruelly around the two humans who stood above the small pyre and pulled at Little Keeper's cloak as a rattling cough forced its way out of her lungs. She softly whispered our epitaph as the embers slowly died and the warmth was sapped away from our ashes by the melting snow.

I offered my arm to Ophelia and we walked carefully over the snow and out onto the frozen river. We followed it as it bisected the lights of the city, as it led us under bridges and into the world beyond life.


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## Guppie luver

Oh wow so sad.


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## Pekemom

Incredibly beautiful writing, Kingsfish. You have a true talent. Creative, interesting perspective and a plot that really pulls the reader in. Great job...and keep it coming!!!


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## Blazer23

Amazing.


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## sundstrom

Ive been reading this nonstop all day i just finished the most recent post. I really do truly love this piece its amazing but sad. And i wonder why all her fishies are dieing.


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## Guppie luver

Keep going it is so sad but so good.


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## TheKingsFish

*A Response From Little Keeper*

*@sundstrom: *Most of them had columnaris (we think). For some of them there was simply no explanation.


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## TheKingsFish

There will be more after I get off work and write a proposal for a directed studies course on Betta Behaviour. Maybe tonight.


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## Guppie luver

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## TheKingsFish

*Caesario: Part I

*I was getting dizzier and dizzier as the current in the aquarium spun me round and round as though I were on some sort of human carnival ride, and I was beginning to feel as though my blood were pooling on one side of my body when they finally allowed me to taste the water that surrounded me. It was uncomfortably cold, but after days of travel with no food and little company, I was ready for a change and anything would do. Here I was, a scrawny, pubescent Cambodian in a world of hideously bright neon rocks, fake plants and a filter with a current so strong it made venturing to the surface difficult. I set out to explore this garish world made that much brighter by the incandescent bulbs above my new home: though it was the largest place I had been in since I was just a small fry, there was still much to be desired and my new masters did not fulfill any of those needs.

My thoughts were interrupted by the strange thing that had crept up from behind to inspect me. It wiggled its fins like one of the puppies I could see in the pen at the front of the store, and looked at me rather stupidly as it swam circles around me, but I paid it no mind. It was just a tetra: the panicked flaring was completely unwarranted, and now I felt like an idiot. This place was almost like a prison in the third world, where the well-meaning wardens were actually oblivious to their own inability to keep this place running as it should. Well maybe not that oblivious--they kept talking about either closing the business or selling it, and the last option sounded more realistic.

I was not entirely certain if it had been hours, or days, or weeks that had passed in our tiny little cell in the darkened closet that made up the fish section, but from my position I could see the wardens putting horrendously pink flyers everywhere, and people began to crowd into the store as they had never done before. Things were leaving rapidly, but not being replaced with new shipments. Then I overheard the wardens talking about the fact that this was the last day: they would be closing the door on this place for good. The fate of those who remained here after that was uncertain, but I knew I wanted no part of it. I had to attract attention somehow. The small child that the wardens owned had put the plastic chain across the door that blocked entrance to our tiny chamber, but the two humans that stood on the threshold did not look as though they had any intentions of venturing further in. I didn't hold much store by them either, until I heard the small one criticizing the way my brothers by the door were being kept in a very hushed whisper.

"Those boys are clearly freezing over there. I don't get how you can put _tropical_ fish in the coldest part of your store without even thinking about it."
"I know," the larger one replied. "I'm glad this place is closing."
"If we had more room for males you know I would rescue them all. I wish I could."
"So do I, but you know we can't."
"I know," the small human sighed as she tossed her cloak over her shoulders to cool down.

They had no room for males, but my short fins had hidden that fact from the wardens, and from so far away the two humans at the door could not possibly tell that I was not a female. I had come from my hiding place when I overheard their conversation, but now I wiggled my fins hopefully; gambling on the slight chance that one of them might notice me. Just as the small human began to turn away, the large one put a hand on her arm and directed her attention back to the fish closet: she had spotted me.

"Is that a betta?" she said, pointing at me from the other side of the plastic chain.
"I think so," the small human said as she bent over the barrier to examine me more closely. "Female, but the looks of it."
"Should we ask?" the large human whimpered.
Apparently the answer was yes.
"I'm sorry," the female warden said as she removed the chain, "I guess my son put it up when we weren't looking."
"Thank you," the humans said as the warden quickly bustled away without another word.

The two humans looked around at the other tanks to see if there were other female bettas around in need of rescue, but I knew only I had survived shipping. The small human got as far as the oscar tank before her entire face wrinkled in utter disgust.

"Dear gods," she said with a contemptuous tone.
"What did you find?" the large human asked with dread in her voice.
"They have fancy guppies in with carnivorous fish, and the whole tank is covered in fuzz. They probably don't even know."
"I'm glad this place is closing."
"Me too."
"So," the large human said as they both bent down to examine my tank, "what do you think?"

The small human squinted her eyes and stared at me for a few moments; sighing in pity when I tried to get a breath and was forced down by the torrent coming from the filter outflow. I knew this was my last chance to get out of here...


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## Guppie luver

Whao Get him/her!


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## Alphafish

That's a really cool story. I read most of it yesterday, but had to stop because all those fish deaths were making me nervous. When I get my betta I hope he doesn't die on me... Anyways, I want to hear more from Hamlet sometime...?


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## TheKingsFish

A sudden rash of mortality is always nerve wracking: remember that just because one person/pair of people have issues doesn't mean everyone is bound to fail. And sororities can be very turbulent sometimes, especially when the owners have never established one before.

As for Hamlet, you'll hear from him in a little while. I promise.


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## TheKingsFish

*Caesario: Part II

*I was pulled from the tank very abruptly and shoved into two plastic bags. I couldn't see anything, but I could tell that after a brief wait there was definitely money changing hands and I was free of that place forever. I was suddenly aware of being held against the bodies of one of the humans as they ventured outside: in spite of their muttering about the cold I could not feel it. Two faint clicks echoed through the water as one door opened and my bag was in the cold air for all of two seconds before I was settled in the arms of the other human. Another door opened and thudded closed, some sort of growling machine protested against the temperatures that must have been well below freezing and wheezed to life. We were moving very quickly, and the voice I identified as belonging to the smaller human in the green cloak spoke in a worried tone about being very very late for class. She said that the other human and I would have to go with her.

When the vehicle stopped moving I was carefully pushed into a very deep and very hot pocket that was warmed by a human body and swung in slow, small arcs against her hip as they moved down an incline and came into a building. The human pulled me out of the pocket and passed me over to the other human. There was a quick rustle and the sound of many voices dwindling to hushed whispers as another woman began to speak.

The opaque bag opened just a little, and I could see the face of the larger human smiling down on me, staring down at me intently. I didn't care; I just wanted out of the bag, and I wasn't getting what I wanted. I tried to jump in case there was a chance at freedom, but all I encountered was the warm air and more bag. This was frustrating and a little frightening: I could feel the colour draining from my fins and body as I sat on the table top with the two humans that rescued me from the horrors of the pet shop. I couldn't help but wonder whether this really would turn out to be a change for the better, or if I had been terribly wrong in my assessment of the women who were now my guardians.


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## Guppie luver

Nice.


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## TheKingsFish

Due to a serious outbreak of a very difficult parasite among the entirety of our fish population, I will not be writing for a while. When I return you will be the first to know.


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## Guppie luver

ok and hope it gets better


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## PinkBetta264

oh come on...this was awesome reading, better than a book before bed... and nothing more than part IV??/


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## Arashi Takamine

PinkBetta264 said:


> oh come on...this was awesome reading, better than a book before bed... and nothing more than part IV??/


 She has to take care of her sick betta's. Betta's come before her writing. Be a little more considerate please.


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## BettaGirl290

OMG CAN"T WAIT! hope your bettas get better! i mean it, not for the story though.


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## BettaGirl290

wait i mean i LOVE the story too!


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## PinkBetta264

sorry wasn't being "inconsiderate" I hadn't seen the next pages...and of course sick betta's should come first!


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## Guppie luver

Hey how are you fish are they doing good I hope they get better is it anything we can help with? Hop they all get better.


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## TheKingsFish

*knock on wood* The ones who are eating seem to be recovering. The medicine needs to get to their digestive tracts in order to be effective, so the ones who aren't eating are a source of worry. Any idea how one force feeds a betta fish?


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## Blazer23

Blood worms are my betta's week spot. Do they even bother to look at the food that you give them? Maybe you can catch the betta and give the medicine into the mouth with a syringe.


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## Arashi Takamine

I agree. Betta's do have a weakness for Brine shrimp and bloodworms. It may help to get them to start eating again.


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## TheKingsFish

The one that survived eats a worm or two every couple days. It's what we've been delivering the medicine in because they are more absorbent.


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## Guppie luver

Well good luck


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## Ashleigh

Great story  good luck with the sick fishies!


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## TheKingsFish

*Caesario: Part III

*I felt the bag I was in moving again, and the water around me sloshed gently as the two women moved and packed their things, all the while talking with great interest about what the person at the front of the room was discussing. I could hear that person stop the smaller woman, and as they spoke the opaque bag was pulled away and I was revealed in my fearful state. The person my guardians were speaking to was a middle aged woman whose dark hair was short and greying. Light coloured eyes examined me closely from the midst of a careworn face that had seen a lot of weather and life. Her stature was every bit as diminutive as the smaller of the two women that rescued me.

"She's beautiful," the older woman said.
"She's just a little stressed out at the moment," the larger of the two young women replied. "She'll colour up when she's had some time to calm down and adjust."
"If someone had just taken me out of a nice warm tank and shoved me in a bag I'd be a little stressed too," the older woman replied with an amused glimmer in her eyes. 
"Come here," the smaller woman said softly as she took me from the larger one and gingerly placed me back in the warm, dark pocket of her wearable blanket. The water moved around me as they walked; I could feel them moving down more stairs and down a short stretch before they tapped softly on something hard and I was out in the cold light once more.

There was yet another woman and I was again being displayed like some prize that had been won. This woman was much younger in appearance than the first and had an accent that sounded foreign from anything that I had ever heard before, but her eyes were kind and her touch gentle when she lifted my bag from the hands of the small guardian. She praised my beauty like the other humans, but when she turned the bag in her hands to examine me from all angles the knot slipped from her grasp and I could feel the water rushing upward around me even as the bag fell and landed on the floor in spite of the smaller human trying to catch me.

All colour had now gone from my body and I could hear my pulse throbbing in my jaw as the small human picked me up and whispered softly that everything was going to be alright, but her brow quickly furrowed in concern. The water was slowly leaking from the bag, and she quickly put her small, delicate hand over the breach to stem the flow. The three humans quickly rushed into a small box that moved swiftly upward. There was a corridor, then a small room with a large tank full of guppies that sat next to a sink. While the older woman busied herself to find a suitable vessel, the small guardian gently placed me in the sink, where the water would not cause harm if it pooled. The second bag that I was placed into also leaked. A plastic vessel was now being rinsed out and I was rather brusquely dropped into this. 

"I am sorry," the blonde woman said.
"Don't worry about it," said the small guardian. "She doesn't seem to be hurt."

The water sloshed around in this container even more than it did in the bag, and I felt the motion of the vehicle in this vessel even more than I did when I was in the bag, but at least I had more room now. The vehicle stopped and the larger human quickly moved me through the cold air from the vehicle to a very drafty and untidy room and placed me on a large desk with a green wooden top. There was a five gallon tank on one corner in which a small school of guppies played hide and seek among the plants, and next to the tank was a very large purple and red male betta unlike any I had ever seen before...


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## Guppie luver

Oh I love it keep going!


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## TheKingsFish

*Oberon: Part I

*The little boy that they put in the jar by my tank wasn't much to look at. In fact, he looked like a very malnourished girl at first. Though our guardians didn't see it, I could tell when he flared at me that he was not a female at all. I didn't flare back because I felt threatened: I flared because the five gallon tank that inhabited belonged to me and me only...plus the four cories and a flying fox they called Oppenheimer. Not that they really mattered much. Oppenheimer occasionally stole my food and the cories seemed more fascinated with the rocks on the bottom and the occasional plant leaf--not that I minded this, because the humans always fed me a little too much. But the boy didn't need to be on my turf. In fact, I found it somewhat offensive that the humans would even dare to put him close to me and I flared at the smaller human to "voice" my disgust.

"Be nice, Obi-Fish," she said sternly as she walked by. "It's not like she can get to you."

"They think you're a girl, huh?"
"Yeah," the new boy said. "They called me Portia."
"You can pretend they named you after the car," I suggested.
"What?"
"I don't really know. I've heard the little human talk about how pretty vintage Portia cars are compared to newer models."
"What's going to happen to me now?"
"You'll be alright. They're not mean or anything. There are worse places you can be, you know."
"I think I was there already. What's your story?"
"It's a bit long. Are you sure you want to hear?"

(I learned later that Porsche and Portia are not the same thing)


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## TheKingsFish

*Oberon: Part II*

My story began like everyone else: you've heard it enough times that I don't need to tell you. What I will tell you is that I was never supposed to come here--at least that's what I've heard. I sat on the shelf at the pet store, in this tiny glass bubble for all of two days. The humans that take care of us come in when the shipments do, and that was the day that I arrived in a tiny bag with only enough water to keep me breathing. Unlike my brothers who lay exhausted on their gaudy glass pebbles, I adjusted quickly to my new surroundings and angrily paced the circumference of the tiny world I was given. It was nothing like home, though I had been in multiple way-stations since then and knew this to be just another. I flared at the women that stood there, watching us with avid interest and staring at me in particular; they mocked my purple and red colouring, laughing as they jokingly named me "Oberon: King of the Fairies." The small human looked at me pensively before the two of them walked away.

She greeted me by that name when she came in again with the other woman and a much larger man in tow. She was still thinking about me: I could tell.

"You don't need another fish," the man said. "Anyway, where would you put him?"
"I'm sure we can figure it out," the small girl said.
"You know he won't be around long," said one of the uniformed humans that took care of us. "There was a little kid looking at him earlier."
"Well that seals it," said the small human. "We'll take him."
"Are you sure?" the larger woman asked. The large man just rolled his eyes.
"I have to go to that funeral tomorrow though," she said. "It might be easier if you could come get him in the morning."
"It would be better if you could take him before the store closes," the uniformed one said.
"We can do what we need to do and come back," the man added, "but you really don't need to get another fish. You have your hands full already."
"But he's soooo pretty," the larger woman said as the small one nodded in accord.

Sufficed to say that they did come back for me, and I was treated well from the onset. I'm sure things will only get better, but everyone here has a story to tell. It's not just me, really. I'm sure there will be more to tell you, Portia. But for now the future is unwritten.


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## TheKingsFish

*A note from the author*

The stories aren't done yet; there is still much to tell. As one form of chaos subsides into another I may still find more time to write. Hang in there, my friends. There is more to come, I promise you.


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## TheKingsFish

*Hamlet: Part X

*Our little family had grown so quickly in the wake of the loss of Corde and Ophelia that I scarcely hoped to meet everyone in a single sitting. I'm certain that part of this was contrived to keep we males from trying to hurt each other because they kept the girls in between us until they put Oberon in the large tank on Big Keeper's desk. I didn't mind: Hero was great company and often kept me distracted from my surroundings. I was still very attentive to the Keepers--especially when they approached with food in hand--but most of my time I passed trying to dance with her and building bubble nests to impress her.

She was sweet and funny: sometimes she would stand on her nose and spin in a circle, giving a risque show of her ovipositor before turning to bow her head before me. Sometimes she released her eggs from excitement but remained so large that she normally swam with her tail raised. Sometimes I overheard the Keepers talking about allowing us to mate; I hoped and prayed as I chewed on my pellets that they would allow us to be together. I wondered if we would be happy when it came down to it.


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## Guppie luver

GOOD this means it is getting better i hope!


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## TheKingsFish

*Hero: Part V

*As much as I knew he was once destined to be with my sister, I could not help but be drawn to the large burgundy male in the beautiful jar. His bubble nests impressed me, and the occasional taste of his water given to me by the small human was like ambrosia to me as much as it maddened me. As much as I was saddened to be at his side instead of Ophelia, I was also excited at the thought of being with him. I could feel my ovaries becoming more and more of a burden as my belly grew--Hamlet could see this too, and flicked his tail in frustration as he attempted to sail over the wall of his glass palace only to be hampered by its ceiling and his long fins.

Just as he occasionally flared at some of the other males, I still tried to assert my dominance among my sisters in spite of the walls between our miniscule prisons. My desire to mate only fueled my aggression, and it must have reflected in my courting dances as Hamlet began to behave more passionately toward me--he flared more widely and beat his tail more wildly in a tempestuous dance that would have won the affections of any female.


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## TheKingsFish

*Hero: Part VI

*It came out of nowhere. The Keepers had their theories, but none but Hamlet will ever really know what happened--and his story at this point is one I cannot tell. I only know what I saw.

Little Keeper was getting ready for school when it happened. She bent down to grab her bag, and Hamlet waved his fins at her as always, but his motions of greeting became a flurry of distress as he turned on his side and swam in a rapid downward spiral as the Keeper watched in alarm and called for her counter-part to come quickly as possible. She bore him to the surface in the black net and held him there while he gasped for breath, though he ceased to struggle.

"It's alright, boy," she whispered soothingly. "Take it easy."
"What can I do?" The Big Keeper asked anxiously.
"Get a shallow container with some water and a pinch of epsom salt."
"Ok."

The Keeper disappeared briefly and returned with a shallow dish of water while the small one syringed water over Hamlet's mouth and gills, frantically treating him while she explained to the larger one all that she had seen. They exchanged looks of worry as they moved him over to his medicine and tried to calm the anxious flopping that the move elicited with soothing whispers and the warmth of her body. His motion ceased, but the Keeper did not: she forced the opening of the syringe into his mouth and pushed air into his labyrinth organ...


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