# The Fish Story



## Ravaari (Feb 5, 2014)

This is my crazy thinking when I am bored of what I think my bettas are or were thinking or think on certain matters. It's sort of a story, not much of an actual journal... Feel free to enjoy, it is for anyone who cares.


----------



## Ravaari (Feb 5, 2014)

*Flare*


"I'm tired of sitting here... People don't even look at me anymore. I'm never getting out of here. I will rot in this stupid cup."

Red sighed. _Here we go again..._

"Will you just shut up? _Please._" he replied coldly.

"You know it's true. Don't pretend it isn't," Blue gave him a cold look from his spot on the shelf.

"You are the only company I have. Please don't make me hate you." 

"Suit yourself. Enjoy your delusions."

Red rolled his eyes and turned away. He looked at the fish across from the shelves from where his cup was. _Why do they get big tanks?_ He sighed. He knew the answer. Those fish got huge tanks because they got along with other fish. His kind didn't. Even now Blue was giving him angry looks and flaring a little before moving away. Red didn't flare back. He was too tired, and there was no point anymore. He looked up when a shadow passed across his cup. _A human!_

"Hey, hey Blue! Look!" Blue was way ahead of Red, though. He was flaring violently, stretching his fins out to their maximum trying to impress the humans. Red began to do the same.

One of the humans walked over. It looked like one of the females.

"Hey, look at these!" the human said, picking up Blue's cup. "Betta fish?"

"They're pretty cool looking. Let's get one for the tank."

"Okay, but will they need anything different from the other fish?"

"I don't know... Look it up," the taller human, a male, said. The female handed Blue's cup to the male and pulled out a rectangle thing. It lit up. _They use those to talk to each other without being nearby,_ Red thought. The girl starting pushing things on the phone. "I like the red one better. Get that one," she said, glancing away from the talking-thing. The male set Blue's cup down and picked up Red's. Blue gave Red a look that would kill him if looks could kill.

The humans began talking with one of the humans that worked in the store. They got a bunch of fish for their tank at home. They wandered away from the fish section, Red with them. Suddenly, the girl looked up from the _phone_ as he heard the male call it, and yelled out.

"Wait! Betta fish are _really_ aggressive! We can't put him in the tank! He will kill the other fish!" she told the man.

"Well, I'm not carrying it all the way back to the fish. Just put it somewhere." The girl set Red down on a shelf and they walked away. Red looked around and slowly began to realize what happened and what would happen. _I'll starve here! No one knows I'm here to feed me!_ He began thrashing around the cup faster than he thought he could. He hoped that one of the working people would see him and put him back with the other fish. He did this longer than he knew.

One passed by, but didn't notice him. Some time later, another one walked by, looked at him, and kept walking. They didn't care if he starved! _I'm going to die here..._ Red sank to the bottom of the cup. He was tired from thrashing, hungry, and he hurt from hitting the walls so hard. He didn't know what to do now. He hurt inside, too. _They didn't want me... No one wants me..._ he thought, and he drifted off to sleep.


----------



## Betta Nut (Dec 3, 2013)

Oh I love this, can't wait for more!



There'll be more... right? lol

Love a fishy perspective of the world.


----------



## Ravaari (Feb 5, 2014)

*Flare*

Red sat unnoticed in the back of the store. He didn't know how long he was there, and he would have if he was in a busier part of the store. No one came back to this corner. There was nothing to look at, so no people came. Normally he had a good sense of days because many people would come, then no one would. Many during the day, hardly any at night. He thought that he was there more than a day, but he couldn't be sure. He just laid in the cup in the floor, trying to ignore the pain all over from the thrashing he did whenever he got his energy back up. He had finished coming to terms with his fate. _At least this won't last too long..._ he thought sadly.

Red felt something different. The front of his cup felt warmer. He slowly opened his eyes and immediately freaked out. A human girl with dark brown hair, younger than the two that had left him were, had her face so close to his cup that he thought she was touching it. All he saw when he opened his eyes were her dark brown eyes. It was terrifying.

"Oh, oh! I'm sorry!" the girl said, picking up Red's cup. She looked at him closely, her eyes lingering on his ripped fins. He instantly regretted all the thrashing he had done. _Stupid, stupid!_ he silently scolded himself. _Why would she want a ripped up fish?!_ The girl kept looking at him. He noticed that many different emotions went over her face. First, she looked like the small children did when their parents said no to fish, so he had figured out that it was sorrow. She looked very sad. Then she looked like the parents do when children didn't listen, and he figured it was anger. She was really, _really_ angry. Then she looked like a mixture of the two, and he didn't understand.

"Who would do this?" she whispered, to herself mostly. She got a determined look. "You're coming home with me."

"I am? You'd want me?" he bubbled. She didn't reply. He hadn't really expected her to. She pulled out her _phone_ (he still felt weird thinking of it as anything other than "the talking thing") and pushed some buttons.

"Gram? Yea. No, I'm looking at a fish. No... No he's not in the pet sections. No. No, we are behind the art supplies. Where they keep all of the big bowls and jars? Yes, there. Well, I don't know who left him here. No he doesn't belong here! No, and he looks so sad and beat up. Can I get him? Well, no, but... Fine," she said, a little sharply, then shut the phone and put it in her pocket. She smiled at him. "She's going to come here. Hopefully I can convince her to let me get you."

The girl set him down and wandered down the aisle. She kept coming back and looking at him, then wandering away. She never got very far away, barely to the end. After a while, an older woman with blonde hair walked down to the girl. They were too far away for him to hear, but the girl kept gesturing behind her, towards where Red still sat watching in his cup. The woman reluctantly followed her over to the shelf and the girl picked up his cup.

"_See?_ He _needs_ me. He'll die here, Gram..." the girl pleaded. The older woman sighed.

"Fine," she said. "Do you have a tank for him?"

"Well, no... But I saw a really cool one in the fish section. And it didn't cost too much."

The three of them- Gram, Red and the girl carrying him- walked to the pet section. Red immediately looked for Blue. He was gone. A bunch of new fish were sitting and arguing where he and Blue had once sat and argued with a bunch of other fish before they were bought. _I was the last to go..._ Red thought sadly. _But I'm going now,_ he thought fiercely, _and no one is going to stop me this time!_

The girl grabbed a box from the top shelf. "See? It's nice!" She held it up for Gram to see. They walked to the checkout area and she got out her phone.

"I'm going to call Aunt to tell her we are ready."

The girl began putting things on this black thing, then into large, noisy white things. "I put the tank in its own bag so I don't forget it when we get home," she told Gram, but she was busy yelling into the phone.

"Well you didn't answer my other call! Well how was I supposed to know your phone had low battery? You didn't tell me you were going to electronics! No you did not! Well we are ready now! Fine!" She slammed the phone shut. The girl kept loading the "bags" and an angry blacked-haired woman walked up, younger than Gram but older than the girl. _That must be Aunt._

"We have to stop at the dollar store," Aunt said.

"I can't leave my fish in the car!" the girl said, looking afraid. Red was really glad that she was standing up for him and afraid for his safety, but he thought he could handle it.

"You can just wait for us in the car then," Gram replied.

The four of them walked away from the noisy beeping things where the girl had put their things into bags towards the doors out of the store. The doors opened all by themselves, and Red took his first step with his new girl into the dark, cold night.


----------



## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Love this! Can't wait for more!


----------



## Betta Nut (Dec 3, 2013)

You're a very good writer 

One of my favorite authors is Richard Adams, and this is reminding me of Plague Dogs 

Thank you for entertaining us!


----------



## BettaLover1313 (Apr 15, 2013)

Excellent story so far! Can't wait to read more!


----------



## Ravaari (Feb 5, 2014)

*Flare*

The girl held Red close to her body, trying very hard to keep him warm. The wind was blowing hard, and his water was turning really cold really quickly. She stopped walking when they reached a huge silvery machine. She got inside, and the wind suddenly stopped. The cup began warming up a little more now that they were away from the constant cold air. The girl shivered. Gram and Aunt got into the big silver thing, which the girl called a car, but they sat in a different part. The girl was toward the back where it was noisier. Red pressed himself against the side of the cup closest to the girl, trying to get warm. She smiled at him and put her hands all around the cup. The water began warming up a little, and Red felt much better. Suddenly, Red felt everything, the whole world, lurching backward. Then it stopped, and the world lurched again, this time forwards. Red did not like this at _all_. The girl tried to keep his cup as still as possible, but he still got tossed around. This continued for a while. It stopped, and Aunt got out of the car. Gram turned to the back so she was looking at the girl.

"We'll be right back, okay?"

"Okay," the girl replied. Red heard something different in her voice when she said it. Gram left the car and shut the door loudly. The girl sighed.

"We should take this time to get to know each other, since we are going to be here for a while," she said, looking into Red's cup. She talked to him for some time, paying only half attention. Red smiled to himself and drifted in and out of sleep listening to her random rambles. "I'm really into music... any kind... Art and animals... have a cat, but she can't get you... to mom's house anyway, so I can take care of you... brother and sister will just love... probably want one... hope she will be okay with it... Wonder what's taking so long? Knew this would happen, it always... So absent-minded, you know? But, hey, so am I... Stupid coupons, take forever... Geez, it sure is chilly, huh buddy... Need a name I guess... Wonder if you are even listening to me... Nice having someone to talk to... What you're thinking... Never know these things, huh?" She went on like this for a while, and Red was content.

"Flare," the girl said suddenly and loudly, startling Red awake. _ Flare?_ he wondered to himself. _What is she talking about?_ The girl beamed down at Red and said again, "Flare! Or Fire.... What about Torch? Something fiery, I think..." she trailed off. She looked at her phone and got very angry. "I'm going to have to call you _Dead_ if they don't hurry it up! It is getting really cold in here!" Red got nervous.

"Dead?" he blubbed nervously, but she just looked out the window.

"I won't let anything happen to you. Don't worry anymore, okay?" She smiled kindly at him. Red looked deep into her brown eyes and decided that he would trust this girl with himself. He decided that she would make good on her promise. She looked at one of the bags and got out the box she took down from the shelf at the store.

"I hope you like your tank... And this plant I got. It feels a little pointy... I will file the edges down so it doesn't hurt you." Just then, Aunt and Gram got back into the car and the car roared to life and the world jerked around. Red liked it a lot better when it was just him and the girl alone, her speaking warmly and softly in the background.

After a while in the car, they pulled up to a white building, much smaller than the building Red had loved in. "Welcome to my home," the girl whispered, so that only Red could hear. She ran ahead of Gram and Aunt into the house with the tank and the fake plant. She set Red's cup down and turned a bright light on. 

"Oops..." she mumbled, and picked up a sort of triangle-shaped pink thing and put it on top of the bright light, dimming it. "Cat knocked the lamp shade off again." Red looked around. He was in an orange room with flower stickers and circles on the wall. The girl took the tank and walked out of the room, pausing to push on a circle that was falling off the wall back on. She came back carefully holding the tank, now filled with water.

"You're going to let that sit right?" a large male human said, coming into the room.

"Yes, Daddy," the girl said. Red was surprised. The human children that usually said "daddy" were smaller than his girl. _Maybe she is just different_ he thought.

"Let me see him," Dad said, holding out one of his hands. The girl put the cup with Red into the hand. Red looked at the hand in amazement. It was huge compared to him! "He's all torn up."

"I know. I'm going to help him get better." The man set Red back down on the desk. The girl was leaning over so that he couldn't see her head. _What is she doing behind the desk?_ he wondered. Red heard a lot of noise, then the girl stood again.

"There!" she announced. "Your tank is plugged in and ready to go!" She frowned a little. "It doesn't have a filter... I'll have to change the water often I guess." She pushed a button on top of the tank and gasped. "Ooooh! I know it said on the box that the tank lit up, but I did t think it would look so pretty!"

She began pushing the button again and again, turning the light different colors. She stopped on the setting that had one color slowly change into another color, then another, into another, then back to the first one. Red liked the way the colors faded into each other better than the setting where they pulsed. She left the room, calling out "Be back in a bit!" as she did. Red sat and looked around the room some more.

After about two hours, the girl came back into the room and smiled at Red.

"Alrighty... I think the water should be okay by now." She picked Red's cup up and carried him out into the kitchen. She took the lid off of his cup and began slowly pouring the water out of his cup.

"Wait! Stop! Don't! Help!" he frantically blubbed as loud as he could. He began thrashing around in the little water left in the cup.

"Sorry! I know, I'm sorry!" the girl said. She was walking back towards her room. "It'll all be over in just a moment!" She tipped the cup over, and Red waited to fall to his death.

He plopped gently into the bowl the girl had set up. Red immediately felt terrible for doubting the girl. _Why would she buy me just to get me home and kill me?_ he chastised himself. She smiled at him some more.

"How is that?" she asked kindly, watching him swim in hurried circles all over the tank. She laughed. "I think you like it!" She laughed again. Red dashed all around his new tank, and suddenly the whole world turned green. The world turned blue, then purple, then red. When the world turned red, Red heard the girl gasp softly. He turned towards her to see what was wrong. She was staring at him in amazement. The world turned into a soft pinkish white, and she remembered herself. She smiled a huge smile at him.

"You are definitely a Flare!" she announced. "When that turned red... You just _glowed_!" Red thought about this carefully. _Is she saying that my new name is... Flare?_ The girl began talking in her babbling, half-focused mumbles. She kept referring to him as Flare now, so he did indeed decide that she was naming him Flare.

He smiled softly to himself, settling down onto a large leaf on his plant, whose sides had been filed.

_My own tank... My own name... My own friend..._ he thought as he drifted to sleep again. _My own home..._


----------



## Ravaari (Feb 5, 2014)

*Flare*

The girl sat and watched Flare swim for a while, occasionally talking to him in soft, hushed tones. No one in the house was awake but them. Finally, after hours, the girl was silent. Flare thought she had gotten bored of him, but when he looked at her, he saw that she had fallen asleep where she was on the bed, and he chuckled because she was laying the wrong way. He didn't feel tired after all the sleeping he had done that day, but it was also a very big day, so he decided some more sleep would benefit him. He laid down on his favorite leaf and went to sleep again.

He woke some time during the day. The girl was gone, and some books that had been sitting next to his tank the night before where gone, too. He didn't know where she went, and panicked a little. _Where could she have gone?_ he asked himself over and over as he paced in his tank. He looked around the room. He sighed. _She's obviously not here, so worrying won't do any good._

Flare was swimming around in his tank, exploring his territory and the room around it when he heard the sound. A soft thudding gently shook his tank. He began circling the tank, searching for the source. He went around his plant and the borders of his tank, looking for the source, but saw nothing. After his third time around, he realized that something large had been sitting on the desk next to his bowl that hadn't been there before.

He went around his plant again, and found himself face to face with a large, furry, gray she-cat. He froze as his primal instincts screamed at him. *Danger!!!* they told him. He stared into the gray-blue eyes.

"Hello," the cat said in a silky voice. Flare remembered himself and flared up as large as he could.

"What do you want, _Cat[/B]?" he asked, spitting the last word out to show his distaste.

"Ooh, a feisty one! You'll do just fine..." she said with a purr. She laid down calmly, obviously not disturbed by his silent threats. He waited for her to begin toying with him, as cats had always been rumored to do in pet stores. His mother told him about the cats at the pet store she was raised at before moving on to be a breeder. This cat is no different. She smiled at him again and purred. "Go on, Mr. Macho Fish. Amuse me."

Flare was furious. "I'll not be toyed with! If you plan to kill me I suggest you get it over with!" he bubbled as loudly as fishily possible. The cat laughed. Her laugh was not altogether unpleasant.

"Who said I was going to kill you?" she asked, her voice lighter than before. "Why, that would be no fun at all, now would it? I mean, how could you entertain me with stories of places you've seen and animals you've known if I kill you?" Flare was still wary. He looked the cat over and opened his mouth to speak, but before any words came out, the girl walked into the room.

"Tiger, dear, I hope you are being kind to the newest addition to the family," she said, and the cat purred. Flare noticed something in the cat's eyes change. Any flicker of unkindness that may have been there disappeared and she leaped off of the desk and onto the bed so that the girl could pet her. The girl picked her up and hugged her, whispering kind things to her. Flare felt a different kind of rage building inside himself, and wished that the girl was able to pick him up like the cat. The girl saw him sulking at the bottom of his tank and laughed kindly.

"Flare! Are you jealous of Tiger? Don't be jealous, silly boy! You're both my babies!" she said, still chuckling a little. She put a hand up to the tank where he was laying, and he reluctantly swam to it and pecked at it. She smiled. "You two be nice to each other, you hear?" She left the room again, and the cat jumped back onto the desk and sat next to Flare. She looked down at him.

"So, what do you think?" she asked.

"Of what?" he replied.

"The house, your tank, the room, our mom," the cat said casually, her tail flicking to a different side with everything she mentioned. Flare started a little.

"Our... Mom?" he said trying to figure out what the crazy cat could mean.

"You know, the girl that brought us here? She's our mother now," she replied. There was something sad in her voice. Flare looked down and thought about what to say. He decided to be bold and ask about the sadness he think he heard.

"What happened to your old mother?" The cat hissed at nothing immediately, as if on accident.

"I don't have an old mother," she said with a growl, "just a cat that birthed me and two others and left us to die." Flare thought about this. "And your story?" she queried. He narrowed his eyes a little.

"Cat," he began, but she cut him off.

"My name is Tiger," she said forcefully.

"Tiger, then," he corrected, "I will listen to your story, and I will decide if I trust you. Only then will I tell you mine." Tiger smiled at nothing in particular, small at first, then bigger and bigger.

"You have a deal, Fish."

"Flare," he corrected her. She smiled again, this time at him.

"Okay, Flare. My story starts when I was about two months old..."_


----------



## Ravaari (Feb 5, 2014)

Edit: _Cat[/b]? Should be Cat?_


----------



## Ravaari (Feb 5, 2014)

*Flare*


"My mother was acting stranger every day. One minute, she'd be as loving as ever, then attack one of us for absolutely no reason. Usually around food. One day, she was grooming me, and the human that had been feeding us walked by. She said something to another human that I couldn't see because they were on the other side of our shed (a little house humans use to keep things), but then she came over to us and pointed at us. A younger human came around the corner and gasped at us. We immediately panicked, but our mother rushed over to the two humans to get affection from them.

We were hiding under the shed when the younger human came over to it. She smiled at us and held her hand out, and my sister hissed and shouted '_Go away!_' My brother and I stayed back where she couldn't see us. The girl didn't leave like we expected her to, instead sitting down right in front of my sister. Stripes- that was my sister's name- just glared at the girl and hissed. The girl slowly held a hand out, and Stripes tried to scratch her. The girl frowned, but she didn't leave.

The girl sat in front of the shed for _hours_. We didn't leave in that time, either, so we were getting irritated. Finally, she got up and went back to her own house. We came out and tried to get food off of the porch, but our mother was eating. My brother, Mittens, went up to her to ask for food when she turned and bit him in the face. We all ran away from her. We heard commotion from the house the girl had gone into, and saw her carrying something. We went back under the shed, taking turns watching her and our mother.

The girl came up to the shed, put down three white circles- they call them "plates"- with something on them, and walked away. She only got a few steps before stopping. She turned towards our mother, who had come down from the porch and was heading for the plates. The girl quickly looked back at us watching from under the shed, and walked over to our mother. She was cooing at her and petting her, leading her away from the plates. Stripes just growled under her breath. Then she suddenly sat up so quickly that she hit her head on the shed's underside. She turned to Mittens and me and said 'Food!'

We ran out from under the shed and sure enough, there was fish on the plates. We each sat at one and ate all of it within seconds. The girl smiled from where she was, and our mother pounced on the plates. She was really mad that there was nothing left, but the fish was so good that we didn't even care. Stop giving me that look! It wasn't _betta_, it was sardines, okay? Anyway, the girl went back in her house and we all went to sleep under the shed.

The next day, before any of us even woke up, the girl had come back, cleared the old plates away, and positioned herself in the exact same place as the day before. We didn't make any noise so she wouldn't know that we were awake. She was playing with a stick, dragging it back and forth across the dirt. All of us had our eyes fixed on that stick, but my Mittens and I were too afraid of the girl to pounce on it.

Stripes gave no warning. She just leaped up from her spot in between Mittens and me and launched herself into the stick. The girl was startled and flinched away, then laughed. Stripes froze in fear, but regained herself quickly. She hissed fiercely at the girl and dashed back under the shed. The girl began dragging the stick around again, and Stripes pounced right back out. The two of them did this a few times. Finally, Stripes just stayed out, chasing the stick. Mittens and I crept closer to the exit so we could see.

The girl left again after hours of sitting, playing with Stripes, and just looking up at the sky, or off into the trees. She came back with more fish, only she dropped one piece in front of the shed. We heard another drop softly nearby. Stripes, being bravest, went out and ate the first piece. We followed, eating pieces as we went. We finally got to the plates. The girl had led us to her garage. We ate the sardines and ran back to the shed.

The girl came every day for a week. Every day she came she left us a plate of fish by her garage. Then one day she stopped coming. Stripes went out every day to play with the stick, but gave up. She said it wasn't the same without the girl. Mittens was the first to go looking for her. He went to the garage and laid down where no one could see him. After a while, Stripes and I joined him. We waited for her, but she never even came out of the house. After a few days, the scent of her grew cold and dull. Eventually we went back to our shed and waited for our mother to finally come home.

When the girl returned, we were so happy. We were still slightly cautious, though, so we didn't act kindly. The girl went right back to sitting in front of the shed. Sometimes an older human with blonde hair would ask her if she wanted to go anywhere, but she always said no. A black haired human would call for her at night, or a large male human that looked a lot like her would come tell her to go inside. She always left reluctantly, but she made sure to feed us.

We began sleeping outside of the girl's garage instead of under the shed. She didn't have to go as far for us, and besides, wild catnip grew outside the garage. We had catnip, food, and love, so it was like heaven right there. When the weather started to get colder and the leaves began changing color, the girl and the man that looked like her built a little house that connected to the garage. They put a warm fuzzy thing in it, and we slept there at night. She also put a dish with food and water in the house for us. She was always with us for a week, then she was fine for a week. I heard the man say something about the girl's mother, so we decided she was going to look for her mother during that time. We wondered if we should look for _our_ mother, but Stripes said we didn't need to. We had a new mother, and we _knew_ when she would be around.

One day, the man was talking with the girl. The girl got upset. She came and sat with us. We openly loved her by now, so we were worried. We cuddled up to her. She usually talked to us softly, and we didn't pay much attention, but today she really seemed like she had something to say. She looked at us sadly.

'Winter is coming...' she said quietly, 'and I am worried about you guys.' She looked deep into each of our eyes. She cleared her throat and continued. 'I am going to keep you safe,' she said. We became very excited. We thought she was going to keep us all. 'However,' she said, and our hearts all sank, 'I am only allowed to keep _one_ of you...' she finished. 'Stripes... You can hunt for yourself very well. Mittens, you are a boy, and will get big and strong. Tiger... You are the runt. You are not a good hunter. Sorry,' she added, 'So I will be keeping you.' Mittens and Stripes looked at me, horrified. Just then, a man we had never seen before came over.

'Those your cats?' he asked.

'Well... Not really. I mean... They don't really belong to anyone, I just socialized them...' our girl told him. He made a noise.

'Where they live?'

'This one lives with me, but I don't know where these two will live... We made that house for them,' she pointed to our little house, 'but I don't know what good it'll do...' The man pointed at us.

'I been watching those cats. Would you mind if I took them in?' the man asked. The girl jumped up and we all ran away.

'Oh no!' the girl yelled.

We all gathered in our favorite tree and climbed into the roof if the garage. We were scared. We didn't want to be split up. Stripes and Mittens didn't want to live with the strange man or leave the girl. We looked over the edge of the roof at the girl. The man had gone and the girl was standing alone on the blanket we'd been sitting in. I sighed and turned to my brother and sister. I licked them each goodbye, and I climbed down the tree. I went up to my girl and she picked me up. She waved at Mittens and Stripes sadly, and we went into her house together."

Flare sat quietly with Tiger when she finished her story.

"What happened to them?" he finally asked.

"They are living with the man. I see them in the window sometimes when I sit on the window in Granddad's room."

"He's the big man?" Flare said.

"Yes," she answered.

"So... It seems like you have had a generally happy story so far then," he said, thinking about the girl's kindness.'tiger laughed softly.

"Of you are worried about having a happy life, you shouldn't be. You're with a good human, and those can be hard to come across."

Flare smiled to himself. He was excited to see how his happy story played out.

"I heard Mother mention taking you to her mother's house. That means you have to tell me your story before she gets home tomorrow," Tiger said with a purr. Flare beamed at her.

"I will."


----------

