#tilleri

Thank you for taking the time to let me interview you. Let's start off with an easy question, who do you support for the Altador Cup and why?

I support my home team of Tyrannia of course!

What do you do for a career?

Uh, I wouldn't exactly call it a career yet. I just study architecture and stone masonry in Meridell. I know everyone thinks Brightvale is the place of learning, but they tend to hide their stone work and have uppity attitudes. If you actually want to learn something practical, Meridell is where you should go.

Although student loans are still a pain in both places, or where ever you go I suppose. I help pay my loans with scholarships, but I also take on modeling jobs on the side. I know it doesn't seem like my sort of thing, but shampoo companies will well for a long mane they use in commercials. Plus, I do not mind rolling around in the dirt for those "before" shot either! It can be a lot of fun actually!

Were you always a tyrannian peophin?

Basically yeah. It was where I grew up and where I always lived until now. But I guess when I was a kid I looked more like those blue peophins that you see in Neopia Central or Maraqua. You see, when you're a kid your scales and fur are brightly colored so your easy for parents to spot, but when you grow you start to match your environment to hide from predators. As I grew, the ocean blue turned to a river bank brown, and mane went front a bright orange to a dark red.

How did you meet your petpet?

Zarru is more than just my petpet! They're my right hand assistant! And my left hand assistant as well actually as I don't have hands. I can manage pretty well without them, but sometimes door knobs just don't work with hooves and I need a little help. And even though I complain about door knobs, I actually got them in Maraqua where door knobs aren't really a thing.

I actually got Zarru in Maraqua as a translator as petpets can understand intent more than what we're actually saying. Those in Maraqua didn't know Tyrannian, and I didn't know Maraquan or underwater Neopets Common. Another peophin got pretty frustrated as I was trying to ask for directions. So a nearby flotsam brought a suzzard over to help with translation, and Zarru has been with me ever since!

You mentioned earlier you came to Meridell for education as it had more focus on your interests than Brightvale. Were there other reasons you came to Meridell?

Kind of. My travels started out of curiosity. I grew up in Tyrannian and had a passing understanding of Neopets Common. Occasionally I would hear how my homeland was "lost to time", and that didn't make sense to me. Time as I understand is a concept and clearly our land wasn't lost if we have a steady stream of tourists. I mean, out-of-towners love the giant omelet, Tyrannia pretty well known for it, how can we be lost?

I came to interpret this to mean people didn't really appreciate our way of life, and so I wanted to travel to see what made other locations so great. I packed a bag full of supplies and started swimming. I had heard of an equally ancient underwater kingdom and thought that would be a good place to start. I had some trouble with language barriers as I previously mentioned, but I didn't see anything too impressive. It was just building of shells and ruins.

I left Maraqua and followed the current to Mystery Island. It was a nice tropical place but besides the different flora it was pretty similar to home. So I kept swimming and found Krawk Island. It was a more lively place to be sure, much more action! It was fun, but not somewhere I wanted to stay.

I followed the current to Lost Desert, which is a name that also doesn't make sense to me, as clearly it's not lost to the ones who live there, or to me. Also it was way too dry. While I could still slide around on the soft sand, it was not a place Zarru or I could stay or long. We both need to be around water after all, or at the very least mud.

After rehydrating from the "Lost" Desert, I found some more ruins. Apparently this was Faerieland, or still is? I didn't really get it. Everyone looked far too busy to stop to chat, always running around trying to complete various quests. So I decided to move on too, and that's when I found Brightvale.

Brightvale looked like an interesting place. That had stones lining the paths, a castle with towers at impossible angles, little sentient forms of the elements, and edible food everywhere. I wanted to learn more about it, but no one seemed to take myself or Zarru's translations seriously. It was kind of upsetting. And when I did manage to locate the school, it was all book learning! In a language I couldn't read!

So I left and that's when I found Meridell. It was similar to Brightvale, but the people were friendlier and they had more stonework! I saw that they had buildings of different sizes and shapes that were made of the same sized stones, which intrigued me. In Tyrannia, the size of the rock you have is all you get. I wanted to learn more about stone masonry and how the buildings here were built.

Interesting! How did you meet user/your sponsor?

It seems most people need a sponsor for travel or for resources, but I didn't need a sponsor for any of that. I knew how to look out for myself. I didn't meet my sponsor until Sharkhorn introduced us. She actually knew Tyrannian and was a huge help getting me enrolled at Meridell Masonry as an apprentice. Over time, with both Sharkhorn's and maf40's help I was able to read, write, and speak Neopets Common.

Are there any outfits or fun pictures you want to show off?

I'm not really one for fancy outfits. Although this photo was taken when Sharkhorn insisted I attended a ball as my sort of "introduction" to "high society".

Here is one last fun question to finish off the interview. If you had a title like the Heroes of Altador, what would it be?

Tilleri the Architect