We interrupt this fanfic to bring to your attention the cover of this fic, made by CelticQuailKnight on her and deviantArt. It's titled "Christmas in Dreamland", so go check out its cuteness in its full glory!
And now, back to the fic.
There were quite a few nice things in your life if you were a worker at one of Dedede's several castles throughout Dream Land. Outside of the spare time, the labor being fairly simple, the absolute cleanliness and spotlessness of living with a tribe or two of Waddle Dees, the free electricity, and the endless snacks and food, the king of Dream Land also enjoyed decorating for events and holidays. While Dedede had always loved this, it seemed that there were more and more holidays as time went on, and as the king matured.
First, they'd celebrated Dedede's birthday. Then they celebrated the anniversary of his kingship. And the anniversary of Dream Land being properly founded. Next, he'd decided that he should throw a party to celebrate his workers. After that came a celebration to accompany the village harvest festivals. The Dees thought that surely, it would end there.
It didn't end there. The king was always looking for more parties, and one adventure was all it took to push the king to start celebrating holidays relevant to his friends, now that the lot of them had grown much closer. He celebrated Bandana Dee's birthday, and then he assigned Kirby and Meta Knight birthdays and forced the puffs to follow along with them and attend their parties. He celebrated the longest day of the year in the heat of summer, and the shortest day of the year at winter solstice. There were parties in the dead of summer, when there weren't any special occasions, just for the opportunity to throw a party and decorate stuff. He was even willing to celebrate Pi Day, solely for the sake of cooking desserts…though admittedly, he'd started to grow bored when Meta Knight insisted that they do some calculus and trigonometry to complete the day. Whatever the circumstances, there certainly seemed to be a lot of holidays that the king celebrated.
So of course, Christmas holidays were no exception, complete with the extended period of time that the decorations and food were to remain as 'normal'—well, as normal as one could get for Castle Dedede. The Christmas decorations went up exactly fifty days before the holiday, as opposed to the Candy Day decorations, which went up thirty-seven days before the event. It was quite fortunate that there were enough Waddle Dees to complete the decorating on the exact day necessary; they'd never missed a date.
Which was why their Great King was already in the kitchen, squabbling over cookies with his companions.
"Give me that frosting back, Kirby! Bandana, what are you doing, anyway? Meta, where are you?!" Something sapphire slipped off a slick countertop, falling onto the floor along with a puffball-sized container of milk. The king ran over to the disaster, lifting the humongous milk jug off the stunned puffball as the white liquid pooled around him. "Bandana, are you ready for the—STOP EATING MY FROSTING, KIRBY! Here's the milk, Bandana! Uh, thanks for bringing it to us, Meta."
Meta Knight had sat up at this point, but was still dazed. The puff had an unfortunate habit of any blow he took landing on his forehead, and he still had milk in his eyes. Regardless, ignoring his king would be rude. "I'll clean this up, your Majesty…"
Dedede grinned. "Hey, thanks! Anyway—" His attention snapped back to Kirby, who had pried the lid off a plastic frosting can and was currently peeling the foil wrap off the top. The penguin quickly swooped in and snatched the container away from the pink puffball. "Ohhh no you don't! Get out of there! Keep your pink, stubby paws off the ingredients!"
The king gathered Kirby under his armpit, marching back over to the counter and placing the frosting back where it belonged. Kirby didn't seem particularly upset over this; instead of the frosting, he started searching for something he could easily inhale when the king wasn't looking.
Oh wait. There was something he could inhale here, that would be helpful!
The pink puff waited until the king turned back in Meta Knight's direction, then opened his mouth and directed his focus toward the puddle of milk. Meta Knight quickly grabbed roll of paper towels he'd been about to use and held them to the side. When all was done, there was no trace of milk on the floor, the sideboards, or Meta Knight. Despite this, the sapphire puffball seemed disgusted. He looked Kirby right in the eyes, ignoring his king's shocked stare at the pink puff.
"Thank you. But honestly, Kirby…off the floor?" Meta Knight criticized. "You'd better not eat that. Your Majesty, if you'd hold him by the sink—"
"I got it; I got it, Meta. You don't need to tell me." Dedede strolled over to the sink and held his rival over it. Kirby spit out a bubble filled with milk, which instantly popped the moment it touched the sink. Milk splashed against the sink as Dedede released the pink puffball. "Thanks though, Kirby."
Kirby smiled. "I would've eaten it, but Meta's too much of a clean freak. But anyway, you're welcome, Dedede-Dedede-Dedede!"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh NO!" Dedede slammed his fist down on the counter. "We are NOT going there! How would you like it if I called you 'Kirby-Kirby-Kirby', huh?"
"Hey Dedede-Dedede-Dedede," Bandana Dee called, grabbing the king's attention. "Can you help me out here?"
The penguin and both puffballs wandered over to the king's best Dee. Dedede leaned over his advisor's bandana. "What're you doin'?"
Bandana Dee was trying his hardest to beat the eggs…which were already in a bowl with several of the other ingredients. "I got distracted by you guys screaming, and I forgot that most recipes have you beat the eggs separately before you dump them in the bowl. Now what should I do?"
Meta Knight raised his paw. "How about—"
"Beat them in this bowl anyway," Dedede suggested, reaching for the fork in Bandana Dee's hand. "Here, let me try it. I'll mix everything in this bowl up; just you wait."
Bandana Dee reluctantly released the edge of the bowl, watching it almost protectively. "Um, Great King, do you know anything about cooking yourself?"
The king shrugged his shoulders. "Nope. Not whatever you're baking. I don't know what you're doing in here; I'm just stirring it. I'm pretty awesome at cooking when I know what I'm making, though. What ARE you making, anyway? Where are the directions?"
"Here are the directions." The sapphire puffball offered the sheet of paper to his king. "As highly intelligent beings, you all did put the butter and sugar in one bowl apart from the others…correct?"
Dedede's eyes widened slightly, and he stepped back to stare at Kirby and Bandana Dee. The king's best Dee stared into the bowl, an expression of dismay creeping across his face.
"Great King…" the Dee began. "You, uh…do realize I'm more of a grill cook than a pastry chef, right? Eheh…heheheh…?"
"Who needs directions?" The pink puffball grabbed a large mixing spoon and swallowed it, gaining the Cook ability. "I can fix it with magic!"
"Oh, if only all of life's problems could be solved so easily," Meta Knight muttered under his breath, though he was sure that none of the others paid much attention to his comment.
"You have too many life problems, Meta," Dedede said, glancing over his shoulder from spectating Kirby's cooking wizardry. The sapphire puffball merely gave him a flat expression in return.
Meanwhile, Kirby had transformed his usual soup pot into a star-powered oven. Several bowls full of mixture, a few of which were bowls that the quartet had already been preparing, were being dumped and flung onto pans at a truly extraordinary rate of speed—likely because they were hovering in the air as they did so; Kirby's hands were full with mixing things up. The rest of the quartet could only watch in awe as several racks of pastries landed neatly on the countertops. Which, he might add here, that the countertops were somehow sparkling clean whenever the food landed on them. Truly, puffball magic.
…which meant that it was either Kirby using his chef's dishrag, or Meta Knight being a neat freak. A puffball cleaned it up either way.
Meta Knight stared at the food prepared with a rather flat expression. "Well. I thought we were supposed to collaborate on preparing them?"
Kirby paused for a moment, guilt flashing across his face. "Uh…" He reached for the trays. "Uh, I can eat them real fast, and we can cook them again!"
"NO." The other members of the quartet, despite having mixed feelings on the development, could all agree that 'no' was the only thing that needed to be said on the issue.
"If you're gonna eat 'em, why not share any with me?" Dedede asked, annoyed. The penguin king started examining the pastries, trying to identify which one was the largest. Unfortunately, magic had made them all equally proportioned, so he was having a rather hard time of things.
"Y-Yeah Kirby; just because we didn't get to help make them doesn't mean we don't want them!" Bandana Dee chimed in, investigating them himself.
Kirby gazed down upon his confections. "Hey Meta, do you want yours, or can I have them?"
The sapphire puffball appeared out of nowhere beside him. "Why would I turn down free pastries, Kirby? Not only that, it would be rude to deny your kindness."
"I think he just wants the sweets," Dedede commented, his mouth half-full of an éclair. Meta Knight merely gave him a flat stare.
"Believe whatever you want."
"Um…Dedede?"
The king stared down at the little pink puffball. "What?"
Kirby produced a rack of gingerbread shapes on a platter—plain gingerbread shapes. Undecorated gingerbread shapes.
"Did you REALLY think that you'd get out of here without cooking anything yourself? Well you got to help cook before I fixed the batches up, and now you guys can still help decorate these! C'mon guys, don't you still wanna have fuuuuun?~"
While Bandana Dee and Meta Knight perked up with interest, Dedede's face was one of jaw-dropping shock. "Wha…How did you save all those without us seeing them?!"
Kirby's cheerful, oblivious expression shifted instantly to one of hesitance. Dedede was quite confused. …until he saw the look Meta Knight was giving the pink puffball.
"Uhhh. Magic," Kirby answered, really hoping to blow the topic off before Meta Knight remembered what happened the last time he let pink puffballs borrow precious belongings of his. "Anyway, it's frosting time! Do you have the frosting, Dedede-Dedede-Dedede?"
"Huh? Uhhh…"
The king searched the countertops for the frosting. Then he checked his pockets. His final option was glaring at a pink puffball. "Kirby, what did you do with it?" he growled. "I had it until YOU started messing with it!"
"I don't have it." Kirby frowned, spreading out his paws to show that no, he wasn't hiding the frosting behind his back, or in his frying pan. This did nothing to appease his king, however.
Dedede lifted his traditional wooden hammer out of his robe. "I don't believe THAT, you little thief. You hand it over right now, pinky!"
Kirby dodged as the large hammer swung at him horizontally. He pulled out a frying pan and tossed it, hoping to land a hit on the king. Dedede dodged, letting the pan clatter to the floor before he stepped on it. Unfortunately, this had been one of the pans that Kirby had out during his 'cooking show', and it was still fairly hot. Kirby giggled as the penguin shouted in surprise, pulling out a spatula as his food rival drew closer. The cherry puffball spun across the clean countertops, twirling the spatula like a baton every time he managed to dodge a swing from the hammer.
"Nya! Try to catch me, fat penguin! Can't you—" Kirby had to leap particularly high to dodge the next attack. It almost connected with the pink puffball—and it almost connected with the fancy cabinets, too. "Can't you guess where I'm going to dodge by now? We—" The puff flattened himself to a thickness similar to a sheet of paper as the hammer sailed by above him, knocking off his hat. "We've been BEST FRIENDS for such a LONG TIME now, haven't we?!" Kirby slipped down to the floor as Dedede tried to grab him with his hands. "You LOVE me, Dedede-Dedede-Dedede! You LOVE ME! Kirby!"
Meta Knight and Bandana Dee held the missing cookie toppings unsuspiciously behind their backs, watching the two friends-slash-rivals battle it out over who was 'lying'. Technically, neither of them were.
"Should we tell them that we have them now?" Bandana Dee whispered to the sapphire puff. "I feel kinda guilty about this…"
Meta Knight's smile grew a little wider as Dedede's hammer collided with the floor, only for Kirby to dodge and jump into the king's robe. Dedede shook his robe around angrily, shouting profanity at the puffball as Cook Kirby generated several flaky pastry crusts inside his sleeves, which promptly crumbled into a massive amount of sticky crumbs.
"No. This is quality entertainment." Meta Knight popped the top off the frosting container and dipped his paw inside. "Would you like any? As a popcorn substitute?"
Bandana Dee's eyes widened at seeing the knight pull the container out in full view of their friends' heated debate over it. "Meta, no! What are you think—"
"I got iiiiiit!" Kirby shouted, spying the can and hopping toward it. "Dedede-Dedede-Dedede, let's go!"
The oversized penguin snatched up Kirby mere centimeters away from Meta Knight's frosting-covered paws. He pulled the pink puff under his arm to glare threateningly at his two top employees, towering over them. Meta Knight and Bandana Dee shrank back, uncertain of what would happen next—uncertain of what would happen to them. This was still on friendly terms, right? Right?
"Why you two little con artists…" the king hissed. "If you two hadn't been my buddies, I would've been really angry at you guys…Making me fight a battle in my kitchen when I didn't even need to? Making me smack around a pink fluffball with a hammer? Shame on you!"
It was clear that his tone had lightened up as he went along, so the duo on the floor did not say a word. This didn't stop Kirby from saying a word, however.
"But you never hit me," Kirby commented.
Dedede shoved his hand in the puff's mouth.
"Come on, you guys…" The penguin motioned toward a smaller, Dee-and-puffball-sized table with a king-sized space open near the end. There were plenty of supplies on the table, like frosting knives, candies, and gumdrops. Dedede used his free hand to lift one of the cookie trays and set it down on the tiny table. "Let's stop fighting and get to the eating—er, decorating, okay?"
At the thought of food, both puffballs instinctively drooled. Fortunately, no one noticed.
…No one noticed until Dedede felt something similar to puffball drool seeping through his glove, that is.
C/N: For being the first chapter of a holiday fic from Dedede's perspective, some parts felt an awful lot like just some quartet banter. It was also not supposed to be this long. I suppose nothing's perfect.
Audience: But Cos, weren't you supposed to spend your break replying to your exploding PM box and making that TV Tropes—
Cos: NO. …well, yes. But my writing future is looking uncertain in the near future of 'about next fall', and I always wanted to write a holiday fic of some level in my fic-writing 'career'. Seeing as this may be my last chance, I prepared half of this story between finals, so from today through Christmas, I'll upload a chapter daily.
Why choose Dedede's perspective for a holiday fic? Because he needs more accurate portrayal in this fandom. When I first got into the Kirby series, I was tossed up about how to characterize him. Despite him being a main character, I didn't have much to go on, as almost any anime-related fic tends to exclude him, and there aren't many gameverse fics in this archive. Even then, when he's included, most stories don't characterize him very well, or don't spend too much time on him. I don't think that's quite fair. So. Dedede gets my holiday fic. He got last year's attempted one, too…hmm…