Disclaimer: Kirby and all affiliated characters belongs to Nintendo.
It was unusually cloudy today, Adeleine thought.
The rainy season was already long gone, and yet the sky was dark and grey, with the sun nowhere to be found. Adeleine bit down her lip as she surveyed the low, gloomy clouds. She hadn't prepared anything in case of bad weather.
"Is it going to rain, Adeleine?" she heard someone say. Adeleine turned her gaze away from the sky, finding next to her one of the kids she was babysitting. The rest of the Cappy children had stopped playing as well. They gathered around Adeleine, and they looked expectantly at her as she put away her brush and colours.
Adeleine shivered despite her woolly painter's frock – she hadn't even noticed the wind rising. "It would seem so," Adeleine said. She squinted at the sky. "These clouds are pitch black... we might even have a storm coming."
"No fair!" another Cappy girl cried out. She held the soccer ball with which they had been playing not a moment prior. "How are we supposed to finish our game then?"
The kids started to speak all at once and swarmed at her. Adeline had to put up her hands to make them calm down.
"Guys, guys!" she said, "I have an idea!" She was relieved to see them clam up. "What about an expedition? A bit of exploring is always fun, right?"
"Exploring?" one of the boys said. "Where? It's not like there's any place in the village we've never been to." The other children nodded, and for a bit Adeleine was afraid they would all start to complain again.
"Actually, there is," Adeleine said, managing to interrupt their chatter before it could truly even start. She couldn't help but smile at their puzzled faces. "You've never gone inside the castle, have you?" She pointed to the great yellow structure looming over them from the high hill that overlooked the village.
The kids whirled to face her.
"T-the castle?!" they cried out in almost perfect synchronicity.
"They say that the man who lives there hates children!" the Cappy girl with the ball added.
A timid bespectacled Cappy boy ran up to Adeleine, lower lip wobbling. "I don't wanna go! He might eat us for dinner!" Adeleine patted his head with a bewildered smile. Just what kind of sordid stories had the villagers invented?
"Of course he wouldn't! He's my great-grandpa, remember?" Adeleine said. "My mom and my grandma were raised at the castle!" Adeleine felt a distant pang in her chest at the thought of her dear grandma, who had died only two years ago, but she shooed it away. "Well, it's true he's not that fond of children," she admitted, "but..."
"But?" the Cappy boy with the glasses prompted her. All of the others seemed to be waiting eagerly for her response as well.
"He likes me well enough," Adeleine said. "And I haven't seen him for a while. He must be so lonely, up there with only the Dees to keep him company." She missed him too, although she did not want to admit that out loud. "Beside, the castle is so big... he might never notice we're there in the first place. If we sneak in, we can find somewhere to play without him ever finding out!"
"Sneak in?" The girl with the ball had a mischevious glint in her eyes. "That wouldn't be half so bad, actually!"
"But, but..." the boy with the glasses stuttered. His shoulders slumped forward when he noticed the grins that were breaking out on his friends' faces.
"It's settled, then?" Adeleine said as she waited for their approval. Finally, they all gave their assent – some more enthusiastically than others, she was amused to find. "Alright! Let's go!"
Adeleine thanked all the gods that might exist that she managed to get all of the kids up the hill leading to the castle without any of them making a fuss. The Waddle Dees patrolling the castle walls stopped to look down at her; she gave them a holler, and couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as they began to lower the drawbridge. She'd half expected to be chasen out at spearpoint.
Adeleine adjusted the red beret on her head, still feeling a bit apprehensive. The guards and servants gave her curious looks as she strolled through the castle courtyard, the group of Cappy kids not far behind her. Unlike the Dees of Pupu Village, the Waddle Dees of Castle Dedede were reclusive by nature, much like their master. Adeleine wasn't even sure they could speak the tongue commonly used through Dreamland.
The children were strangely quiet. Adeleine tried to think of something to say to reassure them, but before she could speak, one of the girls grabbed Adeleine's hand – a bit too tightly for comfort – and asked her in a tiny voice.
"What do we do if your grandpa finds us?"
"He won't do anything, really," Adeleine said. She smiled fondly. "He's all bark but no bite."
Her great-grandfather had always been the grouchy sort, although Adeleine had noticed he had gotten progressively worse since Grandma had died. She had also been told he used to be much livelier when her great-granddad, whom she never met, was still alive. She could never bring herself to dislike Grandpa because of this; perhaps he was grumpy because he simply missed his best friend.
The thought made her sad, and the huge, empty spaces of the castle weren't helping. They wandered through what seemed like hundreds of deserted corridors before they finally found the place Adeleine had been looking for: a big and seemingly unused storage room. It had been Adeleine's very own unofficial playroom whenever she had visited the castle growing up.
"There!" she said. "I don't think he'll find us here."
The kids looked at each other, apprehension written all over their faces, and took small, baby steps into the storage room.
Before long, they had all but forgotten their fears of the elusive master of the castle. The pitter-patter of their feet and the sounds of their laughter soon filled the air, to Adeleine's great relief. After a while, they tired themselves out and formed a circle around her; she took out of her bag her favourite book, a thick red tome written and illustrated by her grandma. It was called Star Warriors Chronicles and it was a collection of tales about courageous warriors of old and the nightmarish creatures they had fought and defeated. Adeleine began by her favourite, the story of a young Star Warrior named Popopo.
It was at this particular moment that Adeleine's great-grandpa opened the door.
Everyone froze instantly. Adeleine was left hanging in the middle of a sentence, looking much like the kid with one hand in the cookie jar, while the children seemed about to scream and scatter. Grandpa stared at them dumbly, a crease deepening between his eyes. A muscle started to twitch above the arch of his brow.
Grandpa's dark blue gaze slowly went down to Adeleine. She swallowed nervously. They looked nothing alike, he, the tallest and largest person in all Dreamland and she, a delicate girl with short black hair and grey-green eyes. Before Grandpa could say anything, Adeleine began to speak.
"Hi, Grandpa!" she said. She hoped he wouldn't notice how forced her smile was. "The-weather's-really-bad-outside, so-I-thought-to-bring-the-kids-I-babysit-here-to-play." She paused to regain her breath and watch his reaction. He opened his mouth, his frown deepening. She cut him off before he could place a word. "We won't mess up the place, really, we won't bother you at all!" Despite all of Adeleine's efforts, her voice had risen up a pitch. Grandpa's eyes narrowed to mere slits. Adeleine grimaced, feeling a bit of irritation creeping up on her. Why did he always have to make things so difficult?
"Of all places you could bring those little friends of yours, you bring them here?" Grandpa said. "Why would I want some kids running around my castle?!" He jabbed his index finger at her, as he was prone to whenever he was angry.
"Gran told me I could come here anytime I wanted!" Adeleine retorted. "Maybe if you acted a bit nicer, people would come to see you more often!"
Grandpa winced. What she said had obviously stung.
Adeleine immediately felt horribly guilty, but she couldn't let up, not now. "Now, Grandpa," she said, "we won't run around the place and we won't make a sound. Promise. But in return, you have to let us borrow this room. Just this one room. Please, Grandpa?"
Grandpa was tapping his foot against the ground; one of his eyes was twitching. Finally, he gave a huff.
"Alright then, I'll let you stay in my castle," he said. "But if any of you commoners leave a speck of dirt on the floor, I'll swear I'll..." He let his threat hovering in the air as his eyes growed huge and menacing. The children cowered under his glare. Adeleine met his gaze head on, silently asking him to leave. He gave another scowl and turned away without a single word.
Adeleine gave a sigh. Oh, what a day... "Now, where was I?" she muttered half to herself.
"You were about to tell us the story of Popopo and the Rainbow Drops!" a Cappy boy said. The other kids nodded, their enthusiasm slowly returning.
"Right," she said. "Now, remember, here in Dreamland, we've got not just one, but two Star Warriors living with us." The kids' grins spanned ear to ear; they seemed barely able to contain their excitement. The fact that the last two Star Warriors in the galaxy – no, in the entire universe – had chosen their otherwise uninteresting country as their place of choice to live was a source of pride for all Dreamlanders.
"So, it all starts when— uh, what it is, Isi?" Adeleine stopped when a girl tugged at her sleeve. The Cappy pointed to the other end of their little circle.
There, sitting conspicuously, was Adeleine's great-grandpa.
Grandpa's giddy, childlike expression disappeared when Adeleine met his eyes, her mouth hanging open. How on Popstar had he managed to creep in without her noticing? He was big as three Cappies, at the very least!
"What? I like being told stories," Grandpa said. A Cappy boy next to him whimpered and scooted away, while a little girl beside Adeleine broke into sudden, hysteric tears. "Hrmf!" Grandpa pouted as Adeleine gathered the girl in her arms, giving him a bewildered look.
"Beside," Grandpa continued huffily, "that story's really overrated! That little Star Warrior is a lame hero!" The kids gave each other disbelieving stares. "He is! He would have failed if it wasn't for me!" He accentuated the last word dramatically.
The kids seemed part puzzled, part outraged. Adeleine only continued to stroke the sobbing Cappy girl's hair, too baffled to be able to form a word.
"What d'you mean?" one of the older kids said with a snort. "Why are you talking like you were in the story? It didn't even happen!"
"But it did happen!"
The children looked at Grandpa like he had grown a second head.
"What do you mean?" Adeleine asked. She had always entertained the idea that the stories in the book were based on real events, but she had never summoned the courage to just ask her grandmother. And now, it's too late...
"It means what it means!" Grandpa said. "It really happened and I was there! That Star Warrior brat wouldn't even be around now if it wasn't for me!" He puffed out his chest in apparent pride.
Now, Adeleine was truly curious. She closed her book, her eyes growing huge. "Really? How did it goes?"
Grandpa went to his feet, and (to Adeleine's great embarrassment) struck a dramatic pose. "Since, I'm such in a good mood, I'm gonna tell you." The kids just stared at him with dubious gazes, clearly unimpressed. "Now open up your precious lil' ears, 'cause all of this happen a loooong time ago..."
Author's note: Eeep, I've wanted to do a Kirby fic for a pretty long time, but I was always a bit apprehensive, heheh ^^'. If you have some constructive criticism, or ideas or anything to tell me, be free to! I have loved the Kirby games for so long and I know many feel the same, so I would be pretty sad to mess it up too much! I hope you guys will like my foray into such a beloved universe!
