Information

Colfax has a minion!

the Zombie Kitten

Colfax
Legacy Name: Colfax

The

Custom Arid Ontra
Owner:

Faber

Age: 6 years, 1 month, 2 weeks

Born: March 1st, 2018

Adopted: 6 years, 1 month, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: March 1st, 2018

Pet Spotlight Winner
March 2nd, 2019

Statistics

Level: 1,368
Strength: 3,408
Defense: 3,407
Speed: 3,407
Health: 3,418
HP: 3,416/3,418
Intelligence: 2,211
Books Read: 1761
Food Eaten: 0
Job: Director of SAI

Job: SAI Agent
Age: 36
Likes: aliens, conspiracy theories, knickknacks
Dislikes: xenophobia, cruelty, too much red tape

From a young age, Colfax wanted to study the stars and the life that lived out there. Aliens, people called them, a word that used to mean "belonging to the other," suddenly took on a fearful and distrusting connotation. But Colfax had met an alien, and they weren't scary or mean at all.

Colfax was born and raised on a small farm. He and his sister always had a lot of chores to help out around the farm, which started before the crack of dawn every morning. Sometimes Colfax was jealous that while his other friends from school were still sleeping happily in their beds, he was out in the barn collecting eggs from the chickens and helping to milk the cows, but a part of him loved being up that early. It gave him time to think, and to dream, and the still quiet air was peaceful in a way that nothing else was.

Aside from their smattering of livestock, their family also had a large corn field which surrounded their house on all sides, parting only for the single dirt road that connected their property to the rest of civilization. By mid summer the corn would get over Colfax's head in height, and by late summer it was fully grown to nearly twice as tall as him. He liked to run through it, careful to avoid getting scratched by their rough leaves. You could just about get lost in it, the field seemed to stretch on forever in every direction.

One summer day when Colfax was running through the corn field like normal he came across an area where the corn has been laid over. It was a large, circular path, and it looked like the corn had been laid over in concentric circles, expanding out from a center point. Colfax walked carefully over the damage. He hadn't seen anything quite like it before. He was about to run and tell his parents when he saw something in the center of the innermost circle.

He crept closer to the center, as the thing he'd spied began to move. "Hey, are you okay?" he called out, not sure what he was even seeing.

The creature, the only name Colfax could think of for what he was seeing, was reddish purple and seemed to be giving off little red sparks like electricity. It turned and shrieked and Colfax stopped dead in his tracks. The creature trembled, and continued making noises that sounded fearful.

"I'm not going to hurt you!" Colfax said, holding his hands out to show he wasn't holding anything. "I live here, this is my family's farm."

The creature made a gurgle that seemed cautious but curious, and Colfax slowly crept closer. Eventually he was close enough to see the creature more closely. It was kind of goopy, but not wet, and where Colfax expected to see eyes and a nose there was instead a twisted sort of clock face staring back at him.

"My name is Colfax," he said, holding his hand out to the creature.

The creature reached out with its neck until the smooth surface of the clock touched the tips of Colfax's fingers. The sparks of red electricity that were still coming off the creature licked over his skin, and he thought it would burn or hurt, but it was pleasant and warm to the touch.

"You have a mouth, or at least I think that's a beak," Colfax said, "Can you talk?"

The creature leaned back and tilted its head like an owl. It was rather owl-like once you got past the outer worldness of it, Colfax thought.

"Well, that's okay if you can't. I think you're cool. How about you come with me? I have to tell my parents about the corn, but I don't have to tell them about you. I don't think they'd understand." Colfax held his hand out towards the creature. "I think I'm going to call you Hedwig. At least until you can tell me your real name. That's the name of this cool owl in a book I'm reading."

The newly dubbed Hedwig gave a trill that sounded pleased and put an appendage that looked rather wing-like into Colfax's proffered hand. Colfax led them both out of the corn circle and back towards the barn.

"You can stay here," Colfax explained when they got to the hayloft of the barn. My dad only comes up here once a year, so you won't be disturbed. And I can bring you food and stuff. You're probably hungry, right? I know I am."

Hedwig stared at him softly, like she was trying to understand what he was saying.

"Right," Colfax said, making up his mind. "It's snack time. I'll go get us a snack!"

Colfax left Hedwig in the barn and ran to the house. His mom had made cupcakes the day before for a birthday party for his little sister, and he knew there were extra in the cupboard. "Grabbing a snack!" he called to his mom to let her know why he was back in the house. Usually he would stay out from dawn to dusk, but exceptions were always made for snacks.

"Save some for your sister!" his mother responded from the other room.

Colfax found the container with the cupcakes. They had rainbow sprinkles all over them--his sister's favorite. He grabbed two, one for each hand, and headed back out to the barn. He climbed up to the hayloft, careful not to drop the cupcakes, and held one out to Hedwig. She stared at the cupcake curiously, like she wasn't sure what to do with it.

"It's food," said Colfax, "You eat it! See?" and he took a big bite out of the cupcake he'd grabbed for himself. He got frosting and sprinkles all over his face but he didn't mind. Sometimes that was the best part. "Now you try!" He held out the cupcake again.

Tentatively, Hedwig took the cupcake and then after a moment's contemplation, proceeded to smash the entire thing into her face, some in her mouth, and the rest everywhere else.

Colfax laughed and soon Hedwig joined in with her own kind of laughter, a hooting, clicking noise that was certainly joyous.

"This is the best day ever, you know that?" Colfax said, sitting beside her as they both began the process of wiping the excess frosting and sprinkles into their mouths. "We're going to be best friends forever, I just know it."

---

With Colfax's help, Hedwig learned her ABC's, and eventually she could read children's books, and write her name. She didn't like the name Hedwig, she decided, she wanted to be named after the things she loved most: Sprinkles. It was an unconventional name, but then again she was an unconventional creature, coming from space or another dimension or wherever it was she came from, so Colfax wasn't going to argue.

Eventually Colfax moved Sprinkles from the hayloft in the barn, to the storm cellar, and then to his own bedroom. His parents allowed him to get a lock on the door, expecting it was normal to afford a growing boy some privacy, and there the two stayed comfortably. Somehow, his parents and sister never suspected a thing. Colfax always shared his food and books and bed, and the two were inseparable.

When Colfax went to college, he got his own apartment and brought Sprinkles to live with him there. He taught her in secret. In mathematics she was advanced even beyond the college textbooks Colfax borrowed from other students at his university. In language, she still preferred simple picture books to Shakespeare, but that didn't stop Colfax from reading everything he himself enjoyed aloud to her to enjoy as well. She could write simple words and sentences, but they communicated best without speaking a single word. Living together for so long had given them an almost mind-reading ability to understand one another.

Colfax got a job with the SAI out of college. He quickly made a reputation for himself as the go-to guy for any case that involved the strange, or unexplained. His bosses tolerated it because he was very good at the job, and he threw himself at it with reckless eagerness. The long hours were hard on Sprinkles though, alone in their apartment as Colfax came home less and less.

One night when Colfax came home later than he'd said he would again, she had had enough. "Miss you." She wrote on a piece of paper in a messy scrawl. "You never here now." Colfax's heart sunk when he read the note. He was neglecting his best friend.

"I'm sorry," he told her, putting a hand on her wing. "You're right, I haven't been here. Let me figure something out, okay? I promise, whatever happens, we'll be together, okay?"

Sprinkles nodded. "Trust you friend," she wrote.

---

It took a few months, but eventually Colfax was able to convince the higher ups that he needed rooms for certain...creatures who he'd met and kind of adopted over his travels. By that point, his apartment was shared not just by Colfax and Sprinkles, but an alien dog named Andar, and alien snake named Cubo, and an escaped lab creation who simply called himself Lifeform. It was getting crowded and Colfax had long given up on the pipe dream of ever getting his security deposit back after Cubo moved in his chicken family and Andar accidentally destroyed things by materializing into them constantly.

The day Colfax was able to present Sprinkles with her very own room was the happiest day of his life. She was delighted. And living in the basement at the SAI headquarters meant she could be close to Colfax whenever he was working at his desk, and the rooms were often visited by SAI interns who would give the occupants candy in exchange for a chance to meet them and ask them questions about themselves. That wing of the basement developed a reputation for being both weird and wonderful, and with Colfax at its head, no lost alien or strange creature would ever be lonely or harmed again.

---fin