Disclaimer: Any resemblance this fanfic has to anyone else's is pure coincidence. I've only read a few fics that pertained to what I'm writing about, and none of them portrayed things in the way I've been wanting to. Also, I apologize for the errors you will inevitably find, it's been a while since I wrote anything.
A Small Gift 2
Chapter 1
On the planet Popstar, out where rolling green plains met with dusty sand dunes, a magnificent ship of silvery metals and pulsing energy was resting cozily on a grassy hill. Its oars were set to keep the ship in balance on the rounded ground, its sail breathed with the life of the winds, and its sheen glistened in the cheerful sunlight. Such a peaceful, happy place to be, but the ship kept itself on these outskirts where the grass faded into dirt, and then dirt faded into hot, blistering sands. A certain someone didn't want to be out in the open—not before he was ready, anyway.
Inside the ship, the oval little alien Magolor had his gloved hands resting on top of a rectangular machine, tapping it rhythmically while watching a thin slot on its front with anxious intensity. Blinking lights rotated in their colorful glow, and soon, the machine spat out papers full of blueprints into Magolor's waiting hands. When each paper was accounted for, he took them over to a nearby metal desk, setting them down upon it and flattening them with a few pats of his palms. Plucking a pencil out of a likewise metal cup, those detached hands began to flourish over the papers, using the lead to mark thick lines over ones already present in the diagrams, and then marking more lines where there were none.
"Can't have this one be the same," he considered aloud. "I'll need to make changes here—maybe a new pathway, or some score coins...this part is too easy, so I'll put obstacles there..."
After some time spent mulling over the layout of the prints, Magolor rolled the papers up in his hands, hovering out of the room, through an automatic door, and further down a narrow, sleek hallway. He entered the area of his ship that was dedicated to some very special rooms, obstacle courses, or as he liked to call them, challenge stages. A door with a sword emblem engraved in its circular shape slid open as Magolor headed straight inside.
The interior of this room was completely unlike that of the rest of the ship. It appeared to be made up of wooden play blocks, some painted in vibrant colors, some plain with their wood-grain in ripples showing across, some with simple shapes carved and colored into them. There was also the occasional rotating circular blocks with pegs sticking out, which in turn rotated other circular, peg-lined blocks, which Magolor included because they reminded him of gears. Although, now that he stood there and really took his creation in, he slowly realized just how condescending it all was. He hadn't given Kirby consideration enough to think of him as anything more than an adaptable child, and subconsciously tailored these challenge stages to reflect that.
Then again...Kirby never seemed to take issue with it, and did express child-like unbridled joy at times.
Magolor shrugged to himself, and turned to face a small bin that was right next to the entrance. Inside, a toy sword sat, looking quite lonely. After stuffing the all but one of the blueprints somewhere up his cape, Magolor reached over to take the toy sword by the hilt, wielding it in one gloved hand while the other unfurled the remaining print. Using the sword like a pointer, he traced around in the design until he came to a stop at his present location. Looking back up, sword raised again, he floated forward, and made a slash at imaginary foes.
"Fifty points!" he exclaimed like an announcer commentating over a sports game.
Magolor swept through the entire stage. Once he reached the door at the end, he came back out into the Lor's lustrous, sky blue interior, but immediately went right back into the stage. He ran himself through it, over and over, changing things around each time he did. He made further notes on his blueprints, drawing new lines, marking placements for foes and obstacles. He pushed the building blocks around to make the changes he desired, be it new paths or slight changes to ones already there. He had the ship materialize new blocks for him to use, some being real wooden gears, which he again pushed or pulled into place. He calculated the numbers, tallied the points, placed the coins, determined the bonuses, and finalized the amounts needed for the bronze, silver, gold, and platinum medals.
When he was finished, Magolor wiped the back of his hand across his hooded brow, removing some excess of perspiration that had gathered as he looked proudly upon his revamped challenge stage.
"Perfect," he said to himself, greatly pleased with his handiwork. "Now for the next one!"
Magolor's goal was to painstakingly repeat this process for every challenge stage in his ship. It wasn't enough to simply make the stages better, he wanted them to be fun and legitimately challenging for Kirby. He had initially created them in a hurry, as something to motivate the pink hero into being diligent in retrieving the Lor's energy spheres. As long as it worked and functioned, that was all Magolor had cared about at the time. But now, he had a real reason to make sure that Kirby would get the most out of these stages...he wanted Kirby to be happy.
As Magolor proceeded into the whip challenge stage armed with its blueprints and a long piece of rope as a makeshift whip, he silently considered his feelings. Funnily enough, he was deriving a lot of enjoyment out of all this. His previous goal of obtaining the Master Crown was one wrought with tension and impatience. The closer they got to repairing the Starcutter, the more anxious and pushy he became, to the point where he let his eagerness for the crown slip out a few times. Magolor tended to bite his tongue when he'd realized he may have said too much, but Kirby was so trusting of him, it was soon clear that it wasn't going to be a problem. There was so much deception and selfishness...
But here, now, Magolor was creating something for someone other than himself. He was able to look forward to making a good surprise, and with all the analyzing and crafting involved, flexing his natural skills and talents, the time felt to pass by much too quickly instead of dragging on. He was taking in a humble joy he'd never really experienced before. Doing something pleasant for a friend? He never had friends. Though, he was getting ahead of himself—he couldn't really call himself a friend if Kirby didn't feel the same way.
Magolor momentarily ceased pushing a massive wooden gear across a platform as a sullen thought triggered a fearful heartbeat in his chest. What if Kirby didn't want to be friends, even with these new challenge stages? What if, even after presenting these things to him, Kirby would still reject him? Run him right out of Dream Land and off of Popstar?
These thoughts caused Magolor to stare upwards, hands hanging at his sides, completely unaware of the giant gear slowly turning on its cogs in his direction, as there was just enough of a tilt to give it some momentum. It moved faster quickly, giving the little alien only a split second to react when he suddenly realized something was coming at him.
WHAM!
The sanded edges of the cogs bit into the nearby wall with the force of a truck, rattling the building blocks, splinters from the cracks pushing up as if to leap out of the wood. On the opposite side, Magolor floated like a winded balloon, both safe and stunned. He wasn't even sure what he managed to do to get out of the way, but there he was. A hand automatically reached up to scratch the side of his hooded head as he tried to think about it very carefully, picking apart the seconds of the memory experienced from that moment.
The gear was coming towards him, big, heavy, and casting its shadow over him. He very much wanted to get out of its way. There wasn't time to even think about moving, but instinct told him to move. He cringed in fear, but he also moved. He...rotated? And then he was on the other side as the gear rolled through.
Magolor backtracked in the stage with the haphazard grace of a leaf on a breeze, until he reached one of the blue, dome-shaped switches used to reveal hidden areas. The area was blocked off with a simple wall, but with a push of the button, he could open it up. He didn't want to do this, though. Those yellow eyes were on that wall with intensity enough to see straight through it as his hands slowly curled up, raising over his chest, and his mind going into a deep concentration.
For a few moments, the only sound he could hear was the gentle, but tense beats of his heart. There was a quiver dancing along his oval form, so subtle it was like a whisper of motion. This quivering persisted as Magolor tried to will his body into an action he didn't know how to make. His eyes closed into thin horizontal slits, the quivering becoming less subtle and more apparent. In a sudden sweep, he threw himself into a spin at the wall.
Thud!
It didn't go as planned.
Magolor later entered a small room he referred to as his private quarters of the Lor Starcutter, attempting to sooth the newly acquired lump on his head with a delicately balanced icepack. He decided to try again another time—he needed to finish the challenge stages before anyone discovered his ship, and now seemed like a good time to get some rest after a day of hard work and productivity.
The gloved hands reached up towards the ceiling as he gave himself a good stretch in front of his tiny, homely bed. He gave the pillow a couple of hearty slaps to fluff it up, pulled the cobalt blue sheets open, and hopped right into the bed while fully clothed. Magolor pulled the sheets back up until his scarf was covered, and nuzzled his spherical back and rear into the mattress. His head plopped against the pillow with a sleepy pat. One of his hands came back out to adjust the icepack over his hood, and then with a sigh, his eyes closed, he quickly slipped into a much needed rest for his tired little body.
The Lor Starcutter stood on its grassy hill while the dark sky shimmered above with the chaotic pattern of stars and galaxies like a great tapestry in motion. Somewhere in the distance, a pair of eyes watched the ship, before vanishing in a blur of night blue.