After the short walk home, I flopped down onto my bed, defeated. "I can't believe it! We just stood there and stared at each other! I should have said something!" I yelled at myself out loud. I needed to clear my head. "Breathe in, breathe out. Slowly," I told myself, but couldn't do it. Not even thinking, I got up and looked around the circular room. It was dark, and refreshingly cool on the hot day. I got up and walked out the door, not even sure where I was going. I just needed to get out. I was going crazy, thinking too many things at once. Feeling so many things was making my head hurt. I was confused about why Meta Knight would seek me out, sad that I would probably never see him again, angry that I didn't say a word, and happy for I don't even know why. I knew that I turned right from my house, but yet I didn't know exactly where I was considering that I was staring at the ground. My feet were making little impressions in the dirt, and I was so absorbed in them that I didn't even notice the squeal of a girl riding a bike coming straight at me. As I looked up I saw her turn quickly, only to crash on the side of the road. The basket full of food from the nearby grocery store spilled out everywhere. "I'm so sorry!" I yelled automatically and dove down to help pick up. She did the same, bumping heads with me.

"Ouch!" she whispered. We both looked up. When I saw her, I blinked to make sure it wasn't in my head. She was a light blue Waddle Dee. I saw her blink as well. "You…you're like me!"

"Name's Shadow," I actually smiled, "what's yours?" I knew from the start that she would be my friend. She could actually relate to me.

"I'm Sky. I…I like your color." I could tell that it was a difficult subject for her too.

"Thanks." By that time, we had picked up all the food and put it back in the bike's basket. "Do you want to come to my house?" It was a big offer. I never had anyone over in my dirty little house. Not that anyone would want to be around me anyway. Different colored Waddle Dees were untouchable.

"Of course! No one's ever been so nice to me before." So Sky was like me. Rejected from society. Together, we walked back to my house. I threw open the door with the peeling white paint and stepped inside, letting her follow. She left her bike outside.

"Here it is. Not much to show, but it's home." Sky peered around the dusty room as we both sat down on the floor. It was the middle of the day, but the house was reasonably dark since the filthy window didn't allow much light to pass through. "So, tell me about yourself."

"Well, I was born blue, live two streets from here, and mostly hang out with myself."

"Me too. Don't you hate it?" I wanted to go deeper; I needed to find someone who felt like me.

"No, actually. The way I see it, everyone else is just missing out by not talking to me. They'll never find out what kind of a person I really am."

"But, don't you just want to be normal sometimes?"

"Not at all! I love myself, color and all. Do you have a mirror?" A mirror? It hit me then that I hadn't looked in a mirror for a long, long time. The thought was disgusting. I would just have to look at my awful color, the very thing that everyone saw when they turned away from me. They saw the color. They had no idea who I really was. I was no different from them. But, I wanted to make Sky happy, so I crawled across the floor to a large cardboard box in the corner. It was filled with things that I hadn't touched in forever, mainly things that I never wished to see again. Just as I had thought, when I opened the box and the resulting puff of dust cleared from the air, I saw the mirror face down on the top. Using great care, I lifted the simple piece of glass and carried it back to my original place. Sky immediately took it and flipped it over. The way she used her arm to wipe the dust away and stared at her reflection so peacefully made me really and truly believe in the words she said next. "Every day in the morning, right as I get out of bed, I take a good, hard look in my mirror. I take a look and every single time, no matter what I feel like, and no matter what people have said in the past, I let it all go and say to myself, "I am beautiful."" Her softly sweet voice shook as she said it, like she was telling some kind of sad but powerful story. But it was all so true! I stared down at the mirror next to me and looked at myself next to Sky. Her light blue body and white face seemed to glow next to my pure black body and grey face. But even so, I couldn't help but think to myself, "I am beautiful."