Jaki's World
                                                                         Chapter One: Inside Jaki's World
                                                                                                                                                                                by Naia Zifu

    Jaki's home was actually quite spacious for such a small fish. There was plenty of shiny gravel, through which grew several aquatic plants. The one he liked best was tall and had hundreds of tiny leaves that felt nice when he rubbed up against them. There were rocks of different shapes and sizes, one of which even had a hole in it big enough for him to swim through. The coolest thing in his tank, however, was his giant red and grey rocket ship! Unfortunately, it seemed to be broken, as it never took him anywhere except in his imagination, but how he loved to swim through the portholes in its fuselage! Sometimes he would even sleep inside, and dream about all the adventures on which his rocket might one day carry him.

Several times a day, the woman who gave him this lovely tank full of fun things to play with would also bring him food, usually in the form of small worms, larvae, or tiny shrimp. Though she was certainly no fish, the woman was still quite lovely, especially her showy display of what creatures like her called hair, of which hers was a shining gold and red that cascaded like ripples of water to the things those like her called their feet. She often spoke to him in her language, and he thought he was actually beginning to understand some of it. When she wasn't busy telling him what a beautiful fish he was and how much she cared for him, she told him stories about her life and the adventures she'd had all over the galaxy. He would've liked to be able to join her on any further travels, but she didn't seem interested in doing that anymore. She cared very much about her world now, and wanted to stay and take care of it.

Jaki took great care of his world, as well, by patrolling his tank morning, noon, and night to keep out intruders. If anyone or thing he didn't know even got close, he would flare his frilly fins to make himself appear as big and intimidating as possible.

The woman came by to drop a couple of little red worms into his tank. She was wearing a rather stained pair of those things she called pants and her long hair was pinned up. He knew by now when she looked like that, it meant she was going exploring or taking care of stuff outside. Jaki wasn't sure how he felt about that, as he couldn't keep an eye on her when she was out there, but it made her happy to do so, so he grudgingly let her. She was a big girl, after all, many times larger than he was, and from the stories she told it was obvious she could look after herself.

Besides which, he still had those worms to catch. . .


©2008 Naia Zifu ([email protected]), all rights reserved.
Galaxia is a SM character I don't own rights to.  Jaki is a black and gold halfmoon betta fish given to Galaxia by Neo Queen Serenity while she was guest-starring in a holiday special over on Court Intrigue.  As always, I'm not trying to make money off anyone else's ideas.
Jaki's World started out as a way to amuse myself while waiting for actual gaming to begin on This Chaotic Universe (http://chaoticuniverse.proboards105.com), and meant to take place during that version of reality.  I'll likely do some fic along a similar line, however, which these should just as easily fit into.