Eve's Sikeri Exam - Part 1

He’s still following me… Eve thought. Her little shadow. She turned her head slightly and, sure enough, spotted the Sikeri hiding behind a bush. When he noticed her noticing him, he chirped in alarm and dove into the bush. Eve sighed and rolled her eyes. For the past few hours, while she was out on a little errand walk through town, the Sikeri had followed Eve, though cautiously; he never got too close, staying about five yards behind her, moved nearly silently, so much so that a few times she thought she’d lost him, and trying his hardest to stay out of sight, moving like a shadow between objects to hide behind. I wonder who he belongs to…

Eve shook her head and turned back to the path before her. Her journey was almost over and her house in sight. She didn’t know what the Sikeri would do once she was inside, but she hoped that it would find its way back home. As she drew closer to her destination, Eve began to wonder why the Sik might have decided to follow her. On her little stroll through town, she’d picked up some freshly baked bread and cookies. Maybe it smelled them? She climbed the short stairs to her house, looked around for the Sikeri, and placed a cookie at the top of the stairs after seeing a small blur of fur dash behind the tree in the front yard. With a little secret smile, she went inside.

* * *

Eve awoke when a large clash rang across the house. She leapt out of bed and, after digging through a drawer and obtaining a flashlight, headed into the hallway toward the source of the noise. She paused to listen. Her little sister, DJ, emerged from her room. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned.

“Eve? What’s going on?” she murmured sleepily.

“I’m not sure. Go ahead back to sleep. I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay,” the young Katragoon replied before retreating in her room.

Though it was extremely faint, a scuffling, shuffling, scraping sound emanated from the kitchen. Eve approached slowly and carefully, then threw the light switch. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden burst of light, she heard a screech and something shatter. A few blinks later, Eve’s eyes swept over the kitchen. The cookie jar, just refilled earlier that day, was on the floor in hundreds of sharp pieces, and no evidence of the cookies remained. One of the cupboards shut with a faint bump.

Eve stormed over to the cupboard and threw it open. Sure enough, inside, the little Sikeri from earlier crouched in a corner, desperately clutching a cookie.

“I just bought those cookies,” the Katragoon sighed. At the sound of her voice, surely softer than the Sikeri anticipated, he shoved the cookie in his mouth and attempted to dash past her, but she grabbed him. “Oh, no, you don’t!”

Eve took a step back, still holding the squirming Sikeri, and turned to assess the damage done to her kitchen by this tiny fiend while she slept. The cookie jar was still smashed all over the floor, and it looked like the Sik had tried getting into some of the cupboards, no doubt looking for more food. She shook her head at him as she placed him back on the ground. He immediately sprinted for the door. When he reached the archway leading from the kitchen to the hallway, she called out to him.

“You could have just asked, little shadow. I have more food, you know. Too many cookies will give you a stomach ache.” Eve hadn’t moved.

As soon as she’d begun speaking, the Sikeri stopped running. He hesitated in the doorway now, staring at the floor. Eve was surprised. Did he understand me? Do Sikeri understand languages? When he didn’t run away again, she opened a cupboard, slowly, so as not to frighten him. She pulled out a dry bag of rice.

“How about some stir fry?” Eve smiled. To her surprise, the Sikeri looked back at her, then ran out of the kitchen. She lowered the rice, her smile fading. I guess not, she thought. She turned back to the cupboard to put the rice away when movement in the corner of her eye made her turn back. The Sikeri had returned. A tiny baby Sikeri dangled from its mouth, clinging to a piece of cookie.

“Oh boy,” Eve sighed. Outside the kitchen window, clinging to the ledge, a figure disappeared.

* * *

After she’d finished making up some stir fry and had the two Sikeri comfortably settled and digging in, she decided to hop on the computer to do a little research. As the computer powered on, another Kat entered the room.

“Hey, did you make food? I smelled food,” her twin brother, Karma, said as he walked in. “The smell was so good it woke me up.”

“Really?” Eve replied as the other Kat wandered into the other room. “The smell woke you up? Not all the noise?”

“What noise?” Karma shouted from the kitchen as he scraped some of the remaining stir fry onto a plate. He walked back in, and the two Sikeri followed him, both staring at the plate. He dropped a few pieces of food and watched the two snatch them up.

“Karma, you have a Sikeri. What are they like? You take care of yours alone, so I haven’t really gotten a chance to find out.”

“They’re not too hard to take care of once you get to know them,” Karma replied, mouth full of rice. “It does help to know the kind you have.”

“These two don’t look like yours,” Eve said. Her hand went to her mouth and her brow furrowed as she tried to pinpoint all the differences between these two and her brother’s.

“Well, yeah. Mine’s an Aqua Sikeri. The big one there is an Imp, I’m guessing. They’re the only one who can have that many arms. The little one is probably an Aerial, judging by the extra skin bits on its arm.”

“Oh… do they behave differently?”

“I mean, it probably depends on the Sikeri itself. It’s like any animal; some of them are going to be friendlier, some shier, some more food-driven, you know?” He shrugged. “They’re all different. There are tons of posts online you could read about them.” He turned towards the kitchen again as he scraped the last of the food into his mouth. “Alright, I’m going back to bed! Night, sis.”

“Night,” Eve called back, though her focus was now on the computer screen. “So, let’s see what Sikeri are like.” She pulled up several articles and read until the two had licked their bowls clean.

“Looks like Karma was right. The big one is likely an Imp Sikeri,” Eve mumbled to herself as she scratched notes and some sketches of the now sleeping Sik. His arms, of which he had six, were tipped by claws, enormous compared to his body, and he was very skinny. “The little one is an Aerial, no doubt.” Eve sketched out the small one, whose arms bore leathery wings, marking his breed. By now, the two had fallen fast asleep curled up in the blanket she placed out for them.

Eve stretched and yawned. She squinted at the computer screen. 3 a.m. already? She stretched again and flopped down off her computer chair. The Sikeri didn’t stir. She gathered up the dirtied dishes and put them in the sink, though decided to clean them in the morning. She climbed back into bed and quickly drifted off to sleep, dreaming about Sikeri.

* * *

When Eve woke up, her little shadow was curled up in her bed beside her face. The baby was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s your little friend, little shadow?” Eve asked. The Sikeri turned to her when she said “shadow.” Hm, Eve thought.

“Eve!” DJ bounded into room and flung herself on the bed. “Look what I found!” She held her little hands out excitedly. In them, the little Aerial was grinning. It chirped loudly. “It looks just like me!”

“That’s nice. Wait, what did you say?” Eve sat up and stared at the baby Sikeri in shock. “He was white last night!” The Sikeri was now the same exact colors and pattern of DJ.

“I think,” DJ said with a giggle, “he colored himself in. I found all my markers on the floor when I got up, and he was sleeping next to me!”

Just then, Karma walked in, laughing hysterically at the little Sikeri and his messy self-made markings. “I think he likes you! What do you think, Eve?”

“I think,” Eve replied with a sigh, “I have more research to do…”