Brudo stands over what was once his former house after being evicted along with his wife from the original Castle Avarius. The surrounding area for ground zero of Castle Avarius II is now finally free of debris. Brudo leans over the site before him, dazed in the heat, looking at the ground as the sweat runs down his face to the tip of his beak. He is so tired from all the rubble removing.

Spikeballs: Lord Brudo, sir?

Brudo wakes from his daze.

Brudo: What?

Spikeballs: Look what I found in the burnt wreckage. It's your crown!

Brudo: I don't want anything from this old house, thank you. And guys, call me Brudo. Enough of this "Lord" nonsense. I'm no "Lord" anymore.

Spikeballs: You can't be serious.

Spikeballs breathes on the crown and spits on it, using his elbow to rub the soot off the crown, doing a lazy job. He then gently, using his spike balls, places the crooked, dented, and still dirty crown on Brudo's head. Brudo looks at him with a droll look on his face.

Spikeballs; Dun du-DUNH! Lord Brudo, back in all his glory!

Brudo angrily takes the destroyed crown off of his head and tosses it as far as he can into the distance as he possibly can. All of the monsters look at him like he's finally cracked.

Brudo: You guys should go. You've helped me wrangle all this stuff together and clean up the area so lets call it a day. As promised, you are all paid. You will say nothing to Lady Avarius, not one, single word. You will not speak to my son, or any of my children about what you did for me. As far as you know, I'm still in the void, understand?

The gang all looks at him in confusion, but nods in acceptance.

Brudo: I don't deserve to be Lord.

Brudo gets to work hiring various people to work on his new "project". He targets the most qualified individual professionals around to get the job done and begins contractual work. Brudo comes up with a contract that includes a clause that none of the monsters are to mention Brudo's project to any member of his family. Brudo wishes to work completely anonymously. Meanwhile, back at the recently completed New Castle Avarius, there's a knock at the door.

Ludo: What?!

Ludo goes to answer it. Behind the door is someone struggling with a large, cumbersome box. All Ludo can see is his legs underneath the box.

Ludo: Why is there a living package standing at my door?

Marco: It's me. I brought you something.

Ludo: A gift, for me? Goodie!

Marco: It's... um, okay so my mom wanted me to do something with this, and I honestly had no idea what to do with these, and then I figured, you! You're perfect!

Ludo: Look, Marco, we can stand here stating the obvious all day that but what's your point?

Marco: This is a box full of clothes I don't need anymore.

Ludo looks at the box.

Ludo: Who is Marco Jr.? Gasp! Are you and Star... ya know... a mommy and daddy?

Marco: What? No! Marco Jr. is, or, well, was... it's a long story, and anyway, my parents like to jump the gun and do things without thinking. Yeah, they do that a lot.

Ludo just stares at him.

Marco: They're baby clothes.

Ludo: What in the world am I supposed to do with baby clothes?

Marco:... Wear them?

Ludo: You want me to WHAT?

Marco: Look, these clothes aren't even worn, and they're really nice. See?

Marco puts the box on the ground, takes his dimensional scissors out and cuts the tape open on the box.

Ludo pulls out a toddler's baseball t-shirt with Marco Jr. written on the front, looks at it curiously, and puts it back within the box. Then digs deeper and is really shocked.

Ludo: What in the world is this?

Ludo pulls out a really dopey dinosaur costume for a little kid.

Marco: They even got Halloween outfits.

Ludo: Why don't your parents need these anymore?

Because Marco Jr. isn't "Marco Jr." anymore. I'm having a baby SISTER.

Ludo: We'll that's embarrassing.

Marco: Please tell me you'll take this stuff! I don't know anyone else this stuff will fit!

Ludo takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the presumption that Marco basically called him a baby, for desperation to stay in he and Star's good graces.

Ludo: Sigh... Marco, I accept your generous gift of baby clothes.

Marco: That's great. Here I'll just_

Ludo stops him.

Ludo: Marco, I got this.

Marco: I was gonna just take this indoors for you, where do you_

Ludo: Tut tut, Marco. I am a strong lad. I got this.

Marco: It's really heavy, I don't want you to_

Ludo: Marco!

Marco: Okay, okay, if you insist, here. Don't go getting a herniated disk.

Ludo: I don't see what discs have to do with any of this.

Marco shrugs, cuts open a portal and leaves.

Ludo: Okay box, lets get you inside. OOF!... Hm.

Ludo can't make the box budge an inch. He steps back and runs face-first into it, gathering momentum and struggling. After some trial and error, Ludo manages to very slowly scrape the box along the ground. He grunts and grinds his teeth as he makes the box go slowly towards the stairs. Dennis comes up to Ludo, drinking a shake.

Dennis: Need help with that?

Ludo: No Dennis! Why does everyone always think I need help with things?

Dennis: Whatever.

He walks away. With great futility, Ludo struggles obsessively to get the massive box up the stairs on his own. Ludo shoos away anyone that approaches him offering to help. It takes Ludo nearly a half an hour, stair after stair feeling like a mountain until he reaches the top. He gets up there and collapses at the foot of the stairs, gasping for breath and sweating profusely.

Ludo: Dear sweet Lord, why do we have so many stairs in this blasted castle?

Ludo gathers the last of his energy and angrily pushes the box into his room, kicking it finally into its final resting position. He lays there, panting and sweating.

Lady Avarius: I heard all this ruckus going on in the hallway. Is everything okay?

Ludo: Yeah mom, everything's fine.

Lady Avarius: Ooh, what's this?

Ludo: A gift from Marco.

Lady Avarius: Can I see?

Ludo: It's a box of clothes.

Lady Avarius lifts a small t-shirt out of the box.

Lady Avarius: Who's Marco Jr.?

Ludo: Don't ask.

Lady Avarius: Well, that was a nice thing he did. I hope you thanked him.

Ludo: Yeah. Anyway, I'm heading out.

Lady Avarius: Hey wait! You mind helping me with something?

Ludo: I can't.

Ludo just wants to get out of the house and can't really think of any reasons to want to stay.

Lady Avarius: Oh. Well, have fun then.

Ludo senses disappointment in his mother's response.

Ludo: What's wrong?

Lady Avarius: You've just been so distant lately.

Ludo: I've always been that way, mom.

Lady Avarius: I know, but I thought we were, you know, growing closer as a family.

Ludo: I've just had a little too much family lately.

Lady Avarius: Is something wrong? Would you like to talk it over?

Ludo: I don't want to talk about it.

Lady Avarius sits on Ludo's bed.

Lady Avarius: Ludo, you know that you can talk to me about anything.

Ludo: Anything?

Lady Avarius: Yes.

Ludo thinks for a second and looks up at her.

Ludo: Your eye. What happened to your eye? You used to keep it closed all the time and now you have it open all the time and I noticed how weird looking it is. It makes me uncomfortable.

Lady Avarius: Oh. Well, If you must know. I'm blind in this eye. It happened a long time ago. When I first started dating your father, which I guess we were about your age, we did something really stupid.

Ludo: What?

Lady Avarius: This might come as a surprise to you, but you're not the first Avarius to take the Butterfly family wand.

Ludo: You and dad tried to take it?

Lady Avarius: Well, yes and no. It was a prank. Your father and I were good friends with Lady Avarius and we wanted to take the wand and see what the big deal was with it. We'd use it for a bit of fun, then put it back. Nobody would ever know.

Ludo: Did you succeed?

Lady Avarius: Unfortunately, yes. One day, in the castle, there was a party. Everyone that was anyone was at the castle for delicacies and all sorts of lavish indulgences. Brudo and I, we snuck away from the party and went upstairs, trying to stay quiet but giggling the whole time. We snuck into her room and right on the dresser was the wand. It was as easy as that. Queen Comet was quite distracted by the party and had no idea we had left. We grabbed the wand and ran outside in excitement. We couldn't believe we did it! We couldn't believe it was that easy!

Ludo felt a bit offended that his mom just called the deed he had the most difficult time with "easy".

Lady Avarius: We go outside and we start contemplating what to do with it. But, we felt different than before. The wand, it changes you, makes you feel... different. I didn't like the feeling, but Brudo did. He started talking, crazy talking, about how he was gonna overthrow the kingdom, and how he would start a war... things I never once thought of him capable of doing. He scared me. I noticed later on that at times I would start to have those same strange feelings of rebellion, and then they'd disappear. I didn't like it, not one bit, so I told him to give me the wand. He refused. We struggled for it, and suddenly, a flash sparks from the wand, a spell. It hit me right in the eye. We both fall back. Brudo drops the wand and instantly comes to his senses.

He runs over to me, apologizing. "I'm so sorry so sorry!" He said it over and over again like he was really scared. Picking up the wand in a hand-cloth, he takes it and throws it right back into Comet's room window where I suppose it wound up on the floor. He took me home to my parents' castle and rushed me up to my room. From that day forward, I was blinded. It scared me for the longest time, and I was ashamed at what had happened. So I kept my eye closed. People must look at Brudo and I and think we had some sort of really abusive relationship, but, no... it wasn't like that. Not til much later did our relationship start to sour to the point where we really only stayed together for the sake of you kids.

Ludo: I miss dad.

Lady Avarius: I only miss the man he used to be, before we had kids. Back when he had spirit left. I miss his handsome face, his athleticism, his social awkwardness.

She laughs.

Lady Avarius: Did you know that your goofy father used to put shoe polish in his hair?

Ludo: No way!

Lady Avarius: Yes, He used to take a whole bottle, run it through his hair and slick it all the way back into a ponytail. He thought it looked so cool. The day you were born, it was raining heavily, and he was out and about when a servant of the castle notified him that I was going into labor. He sprinted home, in the rain, and he burst through the castle doors, marathon sprinting all the way up the castle stairs. He comes in, has all this shoe polish running all down his face and all over his clothes and the floor and he's panicking. He was an absolute mess. But we went through it together, we had all of you wonderful kids. You were the tiniest, cutest little egg of the whole bunch. He looked at all of you with this big smile on his face, soaked to the bone and covered in black ink. That's the man I miss. But, as we all know, that person is gone.

Ludo: I think he's still in there, mom.

Lady Avarius: I want to believe it, but I just don't, not after all these years and all the pain and grief he's caused us.

Brudo had wanted to be things, and to live up to his father's expectations. Lady Avarius, at one point, wanted freedom from her own life in her castle. She fell in love with the caged bird yearning for freedom. She set him free. But as the birds experienced freedom, something unexpected happened. Lady avarius grew up. Her motives changed. She wanted a family. Brudo still wanted to be a free bird, but he loved his wife. He could have continued to do things. He could have been a great leader and solved many crises. Instead, he sold his freedom for her happiness and company. They settled down, had children, and tried to raise them. As he experienced frustration in his situation, he bred his children towards independence.

He gave up trying to be free and instead focused on making his children strong and equipped for the free world. Taking care of the weakest ones had taken its toll. He wanted them to be strong, and, as Ludo proved to be the toughest to breed into independence, he would prove to be Brudo's greatest challenge. Brudo didn't hate his son, but expressed disappointment in the results of Ludo's upbringing. He had become a selfish man. He had chosen to see his children's failures as his own as a parent, and because of this, saw Ludo himself as his own greatest failure. With this, Brudo bred an unintentional and unhealthy disdain towards his son without even realizing it, and that disdain had grown a head when Ludo had made his move for ultimate independence as he removed his family and pursued the wand. This had ultimately scarred Brudo's relationship with his children. It wasn't until Brudo was stripped of his family, and his wife that he would come to see what kind of person he was becoming.

Brudo has finally gotten what he wanted after all these years. He now has his own self-reliance and independence, but he did not foresee what would come of him once he did. Brudo thought he would be happy. He thought freedom from his wife and kids would claim him to be a free bird. Now he's a free bird, a tired, lonely, middle-aged, but free bird. He's a free bird with no destination, a lost bird. Brudo had gained independence, but lost purpose. He isn't young and fit enough to be a warrior anymore. He isn't skilled in any sort of way, or equipped for anything but parenthood, so now he's just a dad without kids and a husband without a wife by his side.

Gone are the days of wonder and whimsy, as well as the days where he could have that free time and have the energy to do everything. And yet, despite his failure, Brudo perseveres as he musters all the energy he can, using his father's will to build a better future for his family. This is what he's decided to use his freedom to do. Brudo has begun erecting a new home for his family. He meets with all sorts of people behind the scenes to get things done. Because of this, he's very busy. Brudo has finally gotten his freedom now he's using it. It is with this freedom and a new look on life that Brudo finally realizes he has something he hadn't before, and that's a purpose.

Lady Avarius, after spending some quality time with Ludo to satiate her desire to spend time with her emotionally distant son, decides to dismiss Ludo so that he can go do the very thing he wanted to originally do.

Lady Avarius: So, you wanted to go do your thing right?

Ludo: I thought you wanted me to stick around and do something.

Lady Avarius: No. The last thing I'd want is to keep someone against their will when they have other priorities.

Ludo: Mom?

Lady Avarius: You're a man, Ludo. I've treated you like a baby all this time and, while you'll always be my baby, you're an adult. You can come and go as you please. Go do your thing. You've had no trouble doing it before. Just be safe, and come home in one peace, okay? be careful out there.

Ludo climbs on the bed and kisses his mother on the cheek before running out. Lady Avarius merely smiles. As he leaves. She thinks about her own words, and thinks about her husband. Today was the first time she thought about him in months. She then looks at the bouquet of red man-eater plants.

Lady Avarius: Red man-eaters? Secret admirer? Looks like my husband isn't the only one to get the essentials right but the details wrong. Would've preferred the white ones, but hey, its the thought that counts.