Somewhat inspired by the ice-cream man at the bus stop opposite my school campus.
Miscellaneous OCs ahead.
Disclaimer: All related characters and elements are (c) Craig McCracken.
The Souls Within
Perhaps it was due the gradual rise in global temperature, and the upset system of the four seasons. But the winter was extremely cold that year, with temperatures plunging to well below freezing point. Snowflakes flooded the glass windows, and grey suburban snow settled on the sides of the roads.
At the base of the traffic light, an early sapling peered through the two slabs of concrete, its indigo petals glistening with wet snow. Its bell-like flower stared down at the space where the stem had just squeezed out of, enjoying the dim sunshine that sifted through the monochrome clouds.
A particular window survived the bitter frost, blanketed with only a thin film of tiny water droplets in the warmth of the coffeehouse. A tiny hand rubbed away a circle on the vapour, and light blue eyes stared out in awe at the white town.
"There's a bluebell growing outside, Professor," the petite girl said in wonderment.
The Professor's gaze shifted from the coffee to the speaker. "It's winter, Bubbles. Bluebells only grow in spring."
"But —"
"Let me see." Her black-haired sister nudged her way towards the window and stared outside, her green eyes darting around. "Where?"
"You're thinking too much, Bubbles," another girl at their table stated matter-of-factly, sipping her own mug of hot chocolate.
"Oh, keep quiet, Blossom. Where is it?" Buttercup muttered impatiently. "All I see is white, grey, black . . . and white, and black, and grey, and white, and —"
"Don't bother to look for it," Blossom suggested. "It's only January."
Bubbles fell silent. Her hands held her warm mug of chocolate tentatively. For a while no words were exchanged among the four of them at the table, and all that she could hear were the quiet conversations around them, and the distant clattering of kitchen utensils.
She watched, thoughtful, as the adults at the other tables spoke among themselves, small clouds of vapour escaping from between their lips, and vanishing into nothingness as more words were expressed.
She suddenly turned to the Professor. "Can I go outside for a moment, Professor?" she asked.
The icebreaker disrupted the man from his own world of thoughts, and he raised an eyebrow in half-distraction.
"I won't go far," she promised.
Buttercup stared at the contents of her mug as if it were the most intriguing thing in the world; Blossom stared at Bubbles readily, the words 'you dare to' written all over her face.
The Professor smiled tenderly. "Fine then," he said. "Be careful. And come back if it's too cold outside."
– – –
Bubbles herself was surprised at her own actions. What would people think when they see an unusually short girl with a blue mug half-full of hot chocolate, in the midst of this snow-covered city?
The wind chilled her face, whispering stinging nothings onto her bare skin, and she instinctively pulled at her azure knitted muffler more tightly. Slowly she moved towards the only other spot of colour in the concrete landscape — the disregarded, fragile green leaves of the tiny plant — and suddenly —
Whump.
An expensive leather handbag nudged against her head, and continued swinging as its ignorant owner went on her way. It was a young lady, and she was talking brashly into her mobile phone as her stiletto heels clicked on the frozen sidewalk.
Bubbles breathed a sigh of gratitude as she managed to save her warm drink from the collision, and temporarily forgot the fact that the lady had not shown any signs of apology.
She reached the small plant by the base of the traffic light, and bent down to look at it.
"Are you cold?" she asked.
The plant did not answer. Its bell-shaped flower still faced the ground, as though ashamed to be there, to be blooming at the wrong place and at the wrong time. That was what Bubbles assumed, and she giggled lightly at her own ideas.
"I could make some scarves for you," she suggested to the plant, "to keep you warm through the rest of winter . . . maybe I could take up knitting."
Then she head another voice, somewhere behind her.
"Are you cold?"
– – –
Bubbles whirled around. Her eyes fixed upon a pair that mirrored hers in deep, liquid blue, a little distance away.
She blinked.
It was the boy's hair that surprised her. His damp ice-blue locks swung randomly over his forehead, and hung to the nape of his neck. Beyond his bangs the lights in his eyes danced, flickering with suspicion and apprehension as he examined the trespasser that was Bubbles.
Bubbles's eyes trailed down to the boy's sparse clothes — a mere white cotton top, brown trousers, and a blue scarf that was greying from overuse. They looked a little too small for him, for he looked about ten years old, and therefore was growing fast.
The boy grew paranoid from her staring, and edged himself backwards with his small feet, towards the outside wall of the café.
"Who are you?" he asked, in a quivering voice — perhaps from cold, perhaps from fear. Yet Bubbles could hear his willpower in it, as if he was defending, or protecting, something.
Someone.
"No!" He shoved Bubbles away just as she moved forward, and scrambled even closer to the wall of the building, flagging out his lean arms. Some of the hot chocolate in her mug sloshed out, and a whimper came from behind the boy. "Don't come near me . . ."
"I . . ." Bubbles tried to explain, blinking helplessly. "I won't harm —"
The boy turned to the voice behind him. "Are you okay, Lirel?" he asked softly.
From beside the boy's shoulders, a small head peeked out. It was a little girl, and she had a curtain of wispy hair, and clear amethyst eyes.
Bubbles got more and more curious by the minute. "Is she your . . ." she started.
The boy fixed his gaze upon Bubbles, then turned back to the girl behind him. By then the latter had already shifted away from the safety of his shadow, and stood beside him, clinging on to his arm.
The girl's hair was pale, and tied with thin ribbons into two long plaits that shone in the yellowing sunlight. She was tucked in significantly warmer clothes than the boy — for over her small purple frock she had on a black woollen jacket.
The boy turned back to Bubbles, and fixed his blue eyes upon her own. "My sister," he said firmly.
Bubbles wasn't too surprised. But still she asked, in innocent concern, "Are you two lost?"
A flitting shadow flashed across the boy's eyes.
"No."
Bubbles paused in her questioning for a moment. "Then?"
It was a simple word, but it was enough to set the boy off in a frenzy. "No!" he cried, defiantly. "You can't — you can't separate us . . . you can't take Lirel away! Back off!"
The ice blue of his eyes was as if glazed over by a film of flames — then that was gone in a flash, and its original blue shone through with the same suspicion, fear and protectiveness.
"But —"
"I said back off!"
– – –
Bubbles remembered that tone. Her memories stirred, deep inside her, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, until a particular recollection burst through and spread itself out grandly, and flew right into vision.
It was a memory of one of the usual battles — of good against evil, of small against huge. She admitted that it had been a little too monotonous and tedious: it had been the same kind of enemies, and she and her sisters had always won eventually.
What an ego, Buttercup had spat, and at that moment the monster in question launched a surprise attack — it fired a jet of brown slime onto the top of her head, and then Buttercup was down. Without the toughest member of the group Bubbles was undoubtedly helpless. And Blossom — who had come down with a bad cold and was still recuperating — had come forward just then.
For the next few minutes it had been nothing but a showdown between Blossom and the monster — flaring lasers against catapulting muck, solid punches against toxic fumes, shrill screams against rumbling growls. While Blossom fought solo, Bubbles had distractedly tried to rescue Buttercup from the dense waste of slime — but just as she managed to pull out a choking and gasping Buttercup, there came a wispy trail of pink light that slammed hard into the street.
Blossom had been defeated.
The lumbering shadow of the monster had loomed over the other two girls then, and Blossom — despite being rather winded and defenceless herself — had scrambled forward in a bid to protect them.
"What the . . ." Buttercup had wiped the mud off her face while complaining, oblivious to what had just happened. "No kidding, but this really stinks. I want a bath —"
"Don't you dare lay a hand on them!" Blossom had screeched to the monster. "And go back to where you came from!"
The monster had simply given a shallow rumble, and effortlessly scooped Bubbles up with its slimy arms while she cried out in panic.
Far below, Blossom had tried to get up, and fly into the air to rescue Bubbles. Her energy had been nearly exhausted then — but with some help from Buttercup, she had managed to bring a giant ball of hardened sludge to the telephone lines. Pulling the ball back against the cables until they were stretched to their limit, the two girls finally released it.
The ball had sprung forward with terrifying speed, not unlike a bullet, and slammed hard into the monster's knee, which broke at the impact with a sickening crack. The creature had fallen backwards, its back smashing into the asphalt roads, and collapsed into itself in a torrent of muck that raged down to the lower plains and away from the town. Bubbles, released at the destruction of the beast, had landed safely on a nearby patch of grass.
Buttercup hadn't been able to get it. "I thought you were sick?" she had asked Blossom incredulously. "How can you still fight back?"
Blossom had gone over to them, her red ribbon crooked, her dress stained, but with her pink eyes twinkling. "I could do it . . ." she smiled, "because you're my sisters."
Bubbles had not said anything then, but deep inside she knew. The three of them finally gave one another a hug, muck and slime and all. It had been another day, with yet another monster defeated — but at least, it had changed Bubbles' perspective of certain things.
– – –
Bubbles smiled as she recalled.
The two siblings in front of her remained silent.
"Look," she reasoned, "I don't look any stronger than the two of you, right? So how can I possibly harm you?"
The boy held Lirel close to him, shaking his head. "You can't trick us . . ." he insisted. "And . . . and I heard someone say that looks can be deceiving."
Bubbles had to applaud him for saying the truth about her. But for then, she decided, she would just be an ordinary little girl, with a mug of hot chocolate, and standing at the pavement.
"What's your name?" she asked.
He eased visibly, and looked at his sister for a sign of consent; she merely trembled. Hesitantly he answered.
"Sabel Won."
Though Bubbles did not completely trust him on that, she continued asking. "And your sister?"
Pause. "Lirel Del."
So I was right. "Lirel?"
The girl's head snapped up. The evening sunlight danced in the fluid heliotrope of her eyes, which was fixed, with interest, to what was in Bubbles' hands.
"You look cold," Bubbles noted. It was only after she had said this that she realised she had sounded too superior, when the two girls were of about the same age. So she added, to Lirael, "Do you want my hot chocolate?"
At the last word Sabel's eyes grew wide, as if her offer was a luxury to him. It proved to be true.
But Sabel betrayed his curiosity and longing for warmth, and blurted, with a hint of bitterness in his voice, "You can't finish it, that's why you're giving it to us, right?"
"No." The simple sincerity in Bubbles's voice seemed to surprise Sabel, and he fell silent. His sister stared at the blue mug longingly, though its contents were quickly losing heat to the wintry air.
Bubbles handed the mug to Lirel in a slightly awkward manner, and the latter turned to her brother pleadingly. "Can I?" she asked her brother, in a soft voice. Her stomach rumbled in agreement.
Sabel glanced at the hot chocolate again with his clear blue eyes. By then the scent of cocoa was already wafting to his nose, beckoning him to let Lirel have it — and perhaps, perhaps, he could drink some of it too.
The temptation was too strong. And Lirel wanted it. She really wanted it. Chocolate didn't come to them daily. Or at least, from a stranger kind enough to offer it to them on the pathway.
Sabel smiled at Bubbles gratefully, and closed his small hands around the mug in relent. He handed it to Lirel, who took it gingerly, and sipped a little of its warm contents. For a long moment there was only silence among the three children, as Sabel watched his sister drinking her fill, and Bubbles watched the two of them. Subsequently, Lirel handed the mug — now quarter-full — to her brother, who finished the rest of the drink in one second.
Bubbles remained thoughtful for a moment. That was such a familiar scene, a familiar feeling, a familiar relationship. It was one of those simple yet complex concepts, personal yet universal themes. All that was needed was trust and care, and everyone would be thankful.
Although . . . not everything is as simple as that, she mused, recalling the leather handbag and sighing softly to herself.
By then the sun had already been reduced to a small quarter above the horizon, drawing away the brightness with it. A particular shaft of light sifted between two buildings from afar, and settled on the little plant by the traffic light like a miniature spotlight. Almost magically, the flower raised its bell from the ground, holding it up proudly like any extravagant sunflower or rose would do.
Sabel and Lirel both spotted the bluebell too, and they smiled again at Bubbles, this time with gratefulness.
With a wave to the two siblings, Bubbles made her way back to the café — empty blue mug in her hand — and the siblings waved back at her, too.
Goodbye . . . and good luck.
– – –
"What took you so long?" Blossom demanded, the moment Bubbles slid back onto her seat. "We thought you'd gotten lost or something."
"Yeah, she can be so zoned out sometimes . . . it's not impossible for her to lose her way, you know."
"Shut up, Buttercup."
Bubbles chuckled lightly at the conversation. "I'm still standing here in one piece, right?" she said, putting her mug back onto the table. "And I was just . . . watching the snow outside."
The Professor, who seemed to have been lost in his own thoughts all this while, merely cleared his throat just then. "Girls," he announced. "It's getting late. Let's go back home." Then, in a smaller voice to himself, "I'll learn how to make our own latte next time . . ."
– – –
They were gone.
Bubbles tried to look for them as discreetly as she could, lest she got the attention of her sisters. For a split moment she feared something had happened to them, then she turned her head to look into an alleyway.
Sabel and Lirel were both there, huddled under a small dusty blanket which someone had left there as junk. Sabel had an arm around his sister's shoulder, and she was fast asleep, with a small smile on her face.
For a small moment Bubbles imagined the two of them in a house, sitting next to each other and drinking warm soup before a fireplace, with the moon glowing and the snow falling beyond a glass window. In that illusion, Sabel would definitely be content, on seeing Lirel with food, and warmth, and shelter.
For the love of brother and sister, and their sacred souls within.
As Bubbles walked on, her vision was cut off by the wall, but she did not turn back. She could only hope that one day, that illusion of hers would become a reality. Exhaling gratefully, she hurried to catch up with the other three.
The Professor was observant enough to note Bubbles's pause in her steps before. "You seem really distracted today, Bubbles," he said, amused. "Is there something on your mind?"
She nodded.
"A penny for your thoughts, then."
He expected an abstract or philosophical question to leave her mouth, but surprisingly, what came out was something he could not answer, ever.
"Can you make us a brother, Professor?"
-fin-
On a contradictory note, I have two sisters (too), and they annoy me so much. So much for the wonderful relations between siblings. :D
Reviews are gladly welcome.