Twinkle, twinkle little Stardos
How horrid your life was
Until the moon's light shone
And now your journey has just begun
Dastardos laid on his couch with Luka curled up on his chest, the both of them rather bored and unable to get to sleep. "'ey Stardos?" Luka asked, "'ope you don't mind me askin' but, 'ow did you and MoonLily meet?" he turned his head to look up at Dastardos.
"Why do you want to know?" Dastardos asked back, trying not to strangle the bird and tell him to shut up and never ask him that question again. "Well when I 'atched the both of you were already close friends and you were staring at me as if I was some magical dragonache or something, 'eh, I thought the both of you were my parents at first!" Luka chuckled. Dastardos rolled his eyes and sighed, having nothing else to do, "Alright… get comfy… cause this is going to be a really, really long story." Dastardos thought back, way, WAY back until he found the perfect way to start.
(First person mode from here on out!)
It had been my fifth birthday about three days before and my mom gave me three awesome scarves that were, pft, I don't even know how long they were! Back then I was able to roll myself up in it and it was warmer than my own blanket. Anyway, I was out at the docks waving my mom goodbye as she went back to her work out at sea. I had to hold Leafos back to stop her from leaping into the water after mom. She was sobbing and I had to also calm her down before the waterfall got out of control. We walked back to Jardiniero's garden, which, mind you, took a bloody day and a half. He carried Leafos when she got tired and said he had to get back to the garden ASAP. "If you want to drag your feet and walk slower than a shellybean than that's fine with me but don't expect me to stop and wait for you!" Jardiniero said grumpily, not bothering to look down at me as he took huge, fast strides. I stuck my tongue out at him and shoved my hands into my pockets, glaring at him as he disappeared into the mist of the night. "I'm not slower than a shellybean…" I grumbled, "I might like taking my time but I could kick his ass in a race!" I walked along at my own pace, alone with my thoughts.
I came across a tiny garden as I was wondering. And when I say tiny I mean half the side of my 30, 000 pinometre garden. I stopped and watched the piñatas and the small family all gardening together. The father was tall, taller than my dad anyway, and he had a mask which sort of mimicked a mallowolf, actually, his entire get up mimicked a mallowolf. His half mask was in the shape of a mallowolf muzzle with matching markings, his shirt having similar markings as well as his long, baggy pants, heck, he even had a mallowolf tail swaying from the back of his belt, he didn't bother to weir shoes. The mother only came up to his shoulders in height and she had a mask which reminded me of a tiger lily, it was sort of in the shape of a flower with a tigermisu pattern across it in a rather awesome way actually, she wore an orange poncho with black outlining of the rims and collar of it, she had a frilly skirt that looked like a giant tiger lily that was simply turned upside-down and stuck to her waist, she had knee-high, orange and black, stripy socks but didn't have shoes either. Then there was that little girl. She looked about my age with long hair tied back in a frizzy bun. Her mask was soft pink on the left side with spikes curving upward, looking like half of a waterlily, while the other side was smooth and blue, which curved up to meet the top spike of the lily half of her mask, the middle of it was cool and strange at the same time, it had a sort of cat's-eye marble effect, the side closest to the pink was orange, while the other side was aqua, it reminded of toothpaste which was the strange thing. She didn't weir any shoes like her farther and had baggy pants like him too. They were purple with an aqua strip across them around her thighs, she wore a poncho like her mother and it was orange like hers too, but it had aqua rims and the collar of it was aqua as well.
The three of them worked in the garden together and it made me wish my family was like that, all working together in the garden, but ever since I was able to talk my dad instantly assumed that I was an idiot since I didn't say his name first, I rarely said his name, just called him 'he, him or that guy over there,' I'll never accept that asshole as my father.
The little girl looked up from fertilizing an orchid and looked at me. She smiled and waved at me shyly. I smiled and waved back at her before covering my mouth to yawn as I started to make my way back to my own garden. I sighed and glanced back at the family to see the girl right behind me, "AH!" I yelled and staggered backward, falling on my ass in surprise. The girl looked a bit scared as she knelt down to me, "Oh I am so sorry!" She said worryingly, "are you okay? I didn't mean to startle you!" I stood back up and dusted myself off, laughing a bit at myself.
"I'm fine, it's alright miss," I said, not knowing her name. She shyly looked at the ground and smiled, her mask animating her blush, she giggled at being called 'miss', "M-my name is, Mily," she said, drawing tiny circles in the dirt with her foot, she than looked up at me, "What's your name?" I smiled and held out my hand, "My name is Stardos. My garden's only a few pinometers away from here." She shook my hand.
"That's really co-"
"Mily sweetie who's this?" her mother asked her, walking over to us. Mily answered her and told her my name. "THE Stardos? As in, Jardiniero's son?" I shrugged and stuck my hands into my pockets, before nodding at her casually. "What are you doing out here on your own, Stardos?" Mily's father asked me as he stood and walked over as well. I told them about my mother leaving and how much my father was a complete jerk to me. Mily looked sad and worried at me, than got a bit angry, "Why did he be a jerk to you? That's not fair!" she said loudly, stomping her foot, "he sounds a lot meaner than what everyone else says he is!" I nodded at her.
"He always has been worse than what everyone has said that he is. He's just a big show-off and he's just so…" I clenched my fists tightly and ground my teeth, preventing myself from swearing in front of a young lady, mom always told me it was bad manners or something like that. "He sound like he's horrible to you…" the woman said as she knelt down and hugged me. That's when I realised my eyes were watering. I wiped the tears away only to get hugged by Mily as well, their father put his hand on my shoulder and I couldn't stop the tears any longer. I held my hands against my eyes and sobbed lightly.
I calmed down after a minute or so and the family let me stay with them the night. Yeah my home was only a couple hundred pinometres away but by that time it was 11 at night and I must have been extremely tired and hungry because they insisted that I'd stay at least the night. I couldn't blame them though. Letting a five-year-old wonder around on their own at such a late hour just isn't right. They gave me something to eat, blast it if I could remember what the bloody hell it was though… and they let me sleep inside their wooden log cabin for the night.
In the morning they gave me breakfast before I headed off for home. "You're welcome back here at any time you like, Stardos," Mily's father reassured me, I nodded at him.
"Can I please go with him mummy?" Mily asked her mother. She looked at me, unsure about letting her precious little girl go with me. I smiled, "I'll look after her Miss, don't worry." she sighed.
"I know sweetheart and it's not that I don't trust you it's just… I don't exactly… agree with letting such young children wonder about on their own…" she said worryingly. I nodded, understanding completely. I guess every mom is like that, I definitely love mom way more than Jardiniero but being unconsidered had its advantages. Mom wouldn't let me walk around on my own even when I was ten letter lone half of that. While Jardiniero, well, he couldn't care less of what I did as long as it didn't involve his perfect garden and his perfect life, so I could do as I liked without being told that it was too dangerous or too high up or too whatever.
I waved them all goodbye and headed home.
"So that's how I first met her," Dastardos said.
"Then what?" Luka asked, "Come on it can't 'ave stopped there you've gotta tell me more!" he cawed in annoyance.
Dastardos sighed.
Well… Mily always complimented my scarf every time I visited, which was extremely often, so when it eventually came around to her birthday I gave her one of my spare ones, I'm sure mom wouldn't mind. She hugged me so tightly I thought my spine would have snapped, but hey, it's the closest I was ever gonna get to a girl that was enjoyable to be around other than my mom. When I first wore my scarf it was a boring grey colour with white stripes, but the instant I wore it the colour changed to an awesome green with even darker green stripes. The same thing happened with her. Only it went from green and dark green to blue and yellow, it still looked really cool and it suited her perfectly. We were the only people the scarves changed for. When Leafos put one of, without asking of course to see if it would go well with one of her weird girly tops, it didn't change for her, or anyone else. Ever since then we always seemed to run into each other, down at the village when I was selling things for Jardiniero, when I was walking through the forest on my own, we would always find each other, which wasn't a bad thing at all. When I needed her most was when she would always show up. When Jerk-ass (aka Jardiniero) sold my hand hatched and trained mallowolf from right underneath me I was so pissed off at him. I was eight when it happened and I was taking my anger out on a tree in the middle of nowhere, I might or might not have been crying as well... I hate it how selfish and uncaring he is, I don't know how mom could ever have even liked him!
I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder. My head quickly turned toward the person behind me. "What did he do this time?" Mily asked, worried about me. I slumped down on a fallen log nearby and told her what happened. She sat down next to me and her eyes started to water, "Please tell me that it wasn't Fang…" I nodded sadly, she hugged me and sniffled, "he was one of your best piñatas I'm so sorry Stardos…" I sighed and hugged her back.
"When did I come in Stardos?" Luka asked, shifting a bit on Dastardos' chest.
"I'm getting there…"
One early morning, one year before the… incident… Jardiniero had become a master romancer of buzzenges and he romance one more saying that it was an accident-
"I AM NOT AN ACCIDENT!" Luka shouted, jumping off of Dastardos and ready to go rip Jardiniero's head off. Dastardos grabbed Luka before he took off and he floated back onto the couch. "Woah there tough-ass," he said, holding the squirming piñata, "as much as I want you to go and kick him into next week I can't risk losing you to Leafos, as dainty as she is she has a rather strong arm which could just about crack your skull if you make her angry enough… so can I get on with the story?"
Luka sighed and settled down in an angry ball of papery feathers, "fine," he grumbled.
Well, he sent me to go sell a few things and threw me the egg. I caught it and after I sold the other things I raced over to Mily's garden. Her father had gotten sick so she had to look after the garden while her parents went into the city to get to the hospital. I guess it was really bad if they had to go all the way into such a big city for better services than what he had back then. While they were away they got a close family friend to watch Mily while they were gone. That happened to be the local tinker, Barth-er-what's-his-name. Well… it was just easier to call him Bart. I ran to Mily to show her the egg.
"He was really going to sell it?!" she exclaimed, holding the egg in her hands as if it was a precious gemstone. "Well now you two," Bart said as he walked over, his arms crossed over his chest, "what's this that you've got?" we showed him the buzzenge egg and he inspected it, "yes… yes… very good, very good indeed," he stated, "there's something special about this egg I can see it in its molecular structure."
"It's what?" we both asked in unison, confused about what the fuck he just said.
He rolled his eyes, "It's a special egg, more-than-likely a wildcard, could possibly be twins but that is extremely rare…" he said plainly.
"Oooooh!"
"Oooooh!" Luka said with a smile, "so THAT'S what 'appened!"
Dastardos nodded, "is that all you wanted to know?" Luka shook his head and Dastardos sighed, "Well? What else?"
"Tell me everything Stardos!" he said, "what 'appened to 'er parents? What 'appened to 'er old garden? Come on Stardos you can do better than that!"
He sighed, "I honestly don't know…"
"WHAT?!"
"You heard me," Dastardos replied to the shocked piñata, "I don't know what happened to her parents, all I know is that they never came back… she just couldn't sustain the garden and when Bart got a full time job as a tinker he had to let her be when she was old enough to take care of herself, he helped her whenever he could but it was just too hard on her."
"So then 'ow did she go from 'er old garden to yours?" Luka asked.
"Well… that's another story…"
