It was a nice day out. Sun was shining, clouds were on the ground instead of the sky. Two artists, one human, one sorceress were visible in the highest peaks of Cloudy Park, working on seperate canvases.
Tip of her tongue sticking out, Adeleine carefully dabbed her brush in a splash of blue paint, adding another arching stroke to her canvas. Right now it looked like a mess, but a few highlights here and there would help it slowly take form. Clouds next, maybe.
Painting was a familiar, automatic experience, and her mind began to wander. It was beginning to warm up, so that meant summer was on the way. Another year was passing by, and a realisation came.
"Hey. It's my birthday soon, I think! 'Bout a month."
"Your… what?" asked Drawcia, slowly. She didn't turn from her canvas, like Adeleine, painting was a second instinct. Multi-tasking was easy.
"Yeah! I was looking at the calendar today, and it's coming up. November 27th."
"That's two months, not a month, but I still have no idea what you're talking about."
"-you don't know what a birthday is?"
"No," she replied irritably. "I don't. So wipe that look off your face and enlighten me, human."
Adeleine stopped painting, carefully set down her palette and brush, and sat cross-legged on a solid cloud nearby.
"It's kinda in the name. Birth-day. The day you were born. It's like a yearly celebration. Your friends come over and you get cake, presents, all that stuff. It's pretty cool. Last year me an' Kirby went to Jam Jungle, spent the day treasure hunting."
"Well, unlike you, I wasn't born, I was created. Not on a specific day, either. It took many years to bring me and my sister to life."
Knowing she could continue on like this for hours if not interrupted, Adeleine patiently waited until Drawcia stopped to draw breath.
"Surely you'd have some idea of like, the first time you were alive or however it works. Sentient, that's the word. Like a sentience-gaining-day?"
"That's absolutely ridiculous and not how it works. At all. Whatsoever. You wouldn't understand, it's deep magic. Anyway, how do you know your birthday? Thought your human parents died, or abandoned you, or whatever."
Adeleine frowned a little - that hurt, and Drawcia knew it.
"I don't, sure. But I found an old calendar on Shiver Star an' picked a date at random." she said, faint embarrassment in her voice. "Got Sir Meta to help translate it to the Popstar calendar and everything."
Drawcia nodded, and asked in a nicer tone, "How old are you turning?"
"Uh…."
"….you don't know how old you are?"
Adeleine was silent, fiddling with the hem of her smock. "Not exactly, no. Jus' a vague approxi… appro…. a vague guess."
"Oh, for- Approximation. Ah-prox-i-may-shun." Her voice was exasperated, though there was a teacherly tone in there.
"Right. That."
"Well, that's got to be the funniest thing I've heard. You celebrate your age, yet you don't know what it is?"
She pouted, and drew her knees up to her chin. "Drawci, your sense of humour sucks. Just. Forget I brought it up."
Picking up her brush, she slid off the cloud, avoiding eye contact with the taller being. Clouds, that's what her painting needed. The palette slipped a little in her trembling hands, trickling the white paint into the blue, but she payed it no attention. A bit of art magic would correct the error, though she tried not to use it for little things like this. Oh well.
The two were silent for a while until Drawcia rustled her cloak to get Adeleine's attention, her version of a polite cough.
"Huh?"
"Could I take a look at your human calendar later?"
"Oh! Sure, if you're really careful."