A/N: Hey all! I'm so sorry for the lack of updates - it's been a bit crazy! Things are slowing down a bit, though, and I've got quite a few chapters ready! I just want to also say thank you to all the readers and reviewers for this story - just, THANK YOU!
DISCLAIMER: Don't own Kirby series! Yeah!
And now...
Amongst Other Things... - 9 - The Color Ninja
As the sun shone through the windows of Kirby's mansion, lively music boomed from inside.
The downstairs and main foyer were relatively quiet (relatively, as there was a certain jester humming and singing along with his iPod as he went about his sketchy business) however, the upstairs buzzed with excitement, pulsing with the swinging beat of the radio boom box that was playing.
Down the hallway, Kirby and Adeleine were laughing, listening and dancing to the radio as they painted Walky's room.
The room had completely changed. All of the old sound equipment had been removed and was now sitting in the hallway, cluttered and jammed next to one another, and a layer of thick plastic (likely saved from furniture purchases) covered the carpet, protecting it from the dripping paint. Even the orange wall was slowly being defeated, covered under a layer of cool gray.
Adeleine bopped and du-bopped to the swinging music as she painted with a paint roller. It must have had a wood handle at one time, but now it was so caked on with different paint that it was hard to tell. Kirby painted next to her with his own paint roller, sweeping up and down the walls.
Or, in Kirby's case: normal height, tippy toes, normal height, tippy toes.
He had bright smile on his face as he talked, complexion a healthy pink and expression sunny like the weather outside. He danced a little as he dipped the roller and pushed it back and forth, drenching the roller. Adeleine laughed and threw in a couple of dance moves herself.
From the hallway, Marx walked by and snorted at them. "Amateurs..." He turned his own music up via his iPod, tucked safely in his jeans pocket and danced as he walked. In his arms, he carried…
"HEY! NO PEEKING!" Marx shouted.
….something. He covered it rather suspiciously before the narrator could see exactly what it was, but the narrator smelled a plot device. He would find out eventually…
Marx snorted again and left.
Back in Walky's room, Kirby stroked some pink hair out of his eyes and grinned at the progress they were making - he stopped and got an expression like he just stepped in something. He ran his fingers through his hair again.
Adeleine snorted and burst out laughing at his expression as Kirby looked at his hand with - you guessed it - some paint on it.
"How the heck…" he said. "I didn't even touch my hair before!"
"Paint gods," Adeleine remarked.
Kirby rose a brow, but smiled as he wiped his hand on his jeans, adding a new swash of color to his jeans that might as well have been a canvas at this point. "Paint gods?" he repeated. "Are those real?"
"As real as the paint in your hair," Adeleine laughed. She got an odd expression, flicking her eyes around suspiciously. "I swear, anytime I paint, I always get paint somewhere I don't expect - or somewhere that doesn't even seem possible! So, I decided - Paint Gods."
Kirby laughed. "I like it."
Adeleine smiled. "Thanks." She looked at Kirby's hair, flipped up like a gray and pink tidal wave. She laughed again. "Though, it probably won't come out anytime soon - apparently the Gods like their blessings to last forever...Well, maybe not that long, but pretty close."
"I believe that," he said. "Did you get paint in your hair, too?"
Adeleine whipped off her old red beret (which was slightly paint covered as well - granted, this probably made Adeleine like it even more) in response and tousled her dark hair a bit. She finally pulled out a strand and showed it to Kirby. Just at the tip, was a splash of bright red paint like the tinged point of a feather. "Year and half," Adeleine claimed, as if showing off a battle scar.
Kirby's eyes widened. "What? No way…"
Adeleine returned her hair to its usual, messy but wonderful look and put her beret back on her head carefully. "Yeah way. Happened when I was doing a painting for my brother."
"That's crazy," Kirby said in disbelief, shaking his head. "Wait, I didn't know you had a brother."
Adeleine nodded and returned her focus to the wall. There was a small smile on her lips but her eyes looked far away as if reminiscing about something. "Yup," she breathed. "I…haven't really seen him for a while." She sighed wistfully and Kirby felt a little bad about mentioning it. However, before he could say anything, she added nervously, "Sorry, I guess I just miss him a bit."
Kirby nodded. "Where...where is he?"
Adeleine shrugged. "I don't know."
The youth almost dropped his paint brush. "You don't know?" His brows furrowed, growing closer together. "Is he..." He stopped. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me."
"No, it's alright," Adeleine assured him. "He just travels a lot. He's kinda a nomad that way." She gave a small laugh. "Actually, my family calls his Paint Roller 'cause of that."
"Does he paint too?" Kirby asked. "Wait - stupid question, sorry."
"Stop saying that! You're fine!" Adeleine poked his cheek with some paint and it coaxed a smile from the youth. "Yeah, he does. He's...he's really good. He's more into graffiti art and some of the stuff he does..." She looked up for a moment and then smiled. "I'll have to show you some time."
"That'd be awesome. Thanks!"
They continued painting and listening to music when Kirby tried to brush some hair out of eyes. Try being the operative word.
Adeleine rose an eyebrow. "...what are you doing?"
Every time he tried to brush a stupid strand away, it flipped right back. He growled. "I think it's hardening." He batted at it a few more times only to get the same result. Adeleine laughed and Kirby shot her a look. She raised her hand in defense.
Kirby frowned, but aware that he probably looked like a porcupine who had gotten trapped in a bubble-gum factory for a while, he conceded. "Well, I guess if this is going to stay, I could always dye my hair again," he muttered irritably.
"You had blonde hair before, right?" she asked and he bobbed his head. She hadn't been there when it had happened - she had only begun hanging out with Kirby and the crew recently - but she remembered Meta Knight telling her about it.
"Blonde to pink," the Knight had muttered. "Whoever dyes their hair that pink…" he didn't finish the thought, but his expression finished it for him: Whoever dyes their hair that pink is nuts.
Yeah, well, guess who you're still hanging out with Meta Knight? Adeleine asked in her head. She could just see his glare and it caused her to smile inwardly.
"Eh, I don't think I could go blonde again," Kirby said.
"Then why not dye it gray?" Adeleine joked, bringing herself back to the present.
Kirby nearly choked. He looked at her with wide eyes as if she had just asked him to eat a squirrel. Marx suddenly got very interested into where this narrative was going and he peeked his head in the doorway.
In case anyone was wondering, yes, he was still being sketchy.
"Gray?" He stuck out his tongue. "No way! I need color, thank you."
"Gray's a color," Adeleine pointed out.
"Well, not really…" Kirby pouted. "It's not a colorful color, anyways."
The painter rolled her eyes and she gestured broadly to the wall. "Sure it is! And it's even got it's own set of colors! Cold blue-grays, warm red-grays - acidic green-grays!"
Kirby made a face.
Adeleine frowned. "Okay - bad examples, but point is that they might not be like pink or yellow, but they're still colors. And some of the more subtle ones, I think." She looked over to the wall. "Look at this one. I'd say it's..." She paused. "More on a the cool blue side of gray - not very dark, though. I think the tinge of orange is helping that."
"Orange?" Kirby looked at the wall as if trying to decipher a map in Latin. He didn't see it. "Where in the world do you see orange? Did we miss some of it?"
"No! And the orange...I hope not. Seriously, that stuff should be illegal." She walked over to Kirby and leaned casually on his shoulder. "In color composition you have warm and cool tones," she began.
"Like red, orange, yellow - that kind of warm?"
Adeleine nodded. "Exactly! But, you can also get the same effect by having hints of those colors in others - like gray. All colors have some ratio of the three primary colors, which is how you get...like purples that are more blue compared to purples that are more red, right? By adding gray to any color, you get a tone. Now, to tell the different colors that are hidden in a color like gray...it's kind of a feeling. The way you feel when you look at it." Kirby nodded, but he still looked a little puppy-lost. "Here, look at the wall."
Kirby did.
"The blue in the gray gives it's hue, but do you notice how the color still looks light? A bit warmer? Not cold, like steel?"
The youth looked hard with his sky blue eyes, trying to pick it out.
Then, suddenly, he stopped. The wall did seem warm - even though it was being painted a relatively dark color. He looked at it in amazement and then turned to Adeleine.
"Woah…" he breathed. His eyes sparkled. "Where in the world did you learn that? Or do you just know it?"
Adeleine laughed and walked back to where she was. "A little of both? I did take a Color Theory course the other year, though."
"Color Theory? There's classes like that?" he asked incredulously. She nodded. "Adeleine...you're a Color Ninja!"
"What?"
"You know, you're really good with colors...like a ninja!" Kirby made a pose that he hoped was ninja-like. "And, well...ninjas make everything better."
Adeleine laughed. "You know, I like that. Maybe it can be my superhero name - or, at the very least, a pen name." Kirby grinned.
They continued painting, chatting as they did so and finished up the wall that they were on.
Two down, two - well, one and a half to go, Adeleine thought, looking around Walky's room. The 'half' was the wall with the window which was large enough that it took up a majority of the wall. She was definitely glad that they had started early this morning, or else they wouldn't have been able to finish today.
Well, just gotta keep working, Adeleine thought as she refilled the paint reservoirs. "Ready to get this done?" she asked Kirby.
The youth was caught in the middle of a yawn, but he nodded with a determined face. He rolled his shoulders like he was about to arm wrestle someone. "Yup. Bring it."
Yay painting! Special THANK YOU to my Beta Reader for her help with some of the Color Theory and painting stuff! Thank you!
Hm...what could Marx be doing? ;)
Happy Memorial Day everyone! See you all Tues/Wed!
~Pyro-Link